Copper Lake Confidential - By Marilyn Pappano Page 0,39

on the table, creasing it with one finger. “No. It was a tough time. I didn’t have the energy to spare for keeping up with anyone but my family.”

She didn’t seem to have much energy tonight, either. It was funny how emotions could smack you down harder than the toughest physical labor ever could. Packing up the house, closing out a part of her life that had started so well and ended so badly, along with the uncertainty of the future, had drained a lot out of her.

Stephen watched her worry the napkin a moment before tugging it from her grasp and laying it aside. She looked startled, as if she hadn’t realized what she was doing, then linked her fingers loosely.

“Can I ask you...”

She tensed, and he almost switched to something unimportant. But he really wanted to know more—about her, about the important things in her life—and she could always refuse to answer.

“How did Mark die?” He’d been a young man—late twenties, early thirties. Had it been a car wreck, cancer, a heart attack? A jealous husband, random bad luck, a simple case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Abruptly she pushed back her chair and stood, gathering dishes. When she reached for his plate, he caught her hands, small and soft, the muscles clenched. “You can always say ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’”

She stared at their hands, stress radiating off her strongly enough to compete against the humidity in the night air. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. He’d bet his next publishing contract that she was trying to sound normal, but anxiety overlaid the casual effort.

Then her fingers went limp in his, and a sigh shuddered through her. “Can we—” Her gesture took in the entire yard, an invitation to move.

He slid back his chair with a scrape of wood on stone, and she used the opportunity to tug her hands free. She moved onto the path then hesitated before turning toward the pool. Scooter, his yen for swimming fulfilled and his belly just plain full, decided to let them wander, settling instead into the plush cushions of a chaise on the patio.

Macy stopped beside the pool. The water was a glossy surface, lit from below, undisturbed by wind or creature. Peaceful and calm, it seemed to be what she needed at the moment. Stephen thought he would have preferred the bubbles and splashes of the fountain.

Hugging her arms across her middle, she stared at the water a moment before meeting his gaze head-on. “He killed himself.”

That was an option that hadn’t occurred to Stephen. It stunned him into glancing at the elegant house, the lush gardens, the guesthouse, then Macy again. Mark Howard had had a beautiful family, all this, more money than most people even dreamed of. What could possibly have been so bad in his life that ending it was the best solution?

“God, Macy, I’m sorry.” Then, before he could control his tongue... “Why?”

* * *

The more times you tell it, the easier it is to tell.

So claimed Macy’s psychiatrists during her inpatient stay. She wasn’t convinced they were right. In fact, she was pretty sure they weren’t. She was totally sure she would rather never discuss Mark’s death with anyone ever again in her life.

Though someday Clary would have to know.

Please, God, not for another twenty-five or thirty years.

You can always say, “I don’t want to talk about it.” Those eleven words meant a lot to her. The doctors had always made her talk about it eventually. Her parents and Brent put less pressure on her, but they’d needed to discuss it, too.

But she could tell Stephen and he would drop the subject. He very well might go home and search the internet or ask someone at his clinic tomorrow, but he wouldn’t make her give the details.

And she wasn’t yet able to give the important ones. The real why. Mark and his grandfather’s ugly secret.

But she wanted to tell Stephen something. Amazing, since she’d never thought she would want to tell anyone anything.

“He had some...issues. I didn’t know until...” Backing a few feet away from the water, she sank into one of the lounge chairs. “Did you know it’s possible for love to vanish instantly? To just go away?”

The cushions in the next chair gave a soft whoosh as he sat, too. “Yeah, I’ve heard.”

Her hair swung against her cheek as she grimly shook her head. “I didn’t know. I thought people fell out