Copper Lake Confidential - By Marilyn Pappano Page 0,55

this one, Macy. He’s so much better for you than Mark.”

Macy totally agreed, but something perverse—a sense of fairness?—forced her to point out, “You didn’t even know Mark.”

“Hello? Serial killer? Suicide? Scandal? Months at the resort?” That was how Anne always referred to the hospital. It sounded so much better, she said, especially when telling people where her sister was. Her voice lowered even more. “The baby. That bastard cost you so much, Macy. He wasn’t worth any of it.”

Macy’s heart twinged at the mention of the baby, but she breathed it away and said, “He was worth Clary.”

Anne watched Clary skip up the steps and open the guesthouse door for Stephen, and she nodded. “He was definitely worth Clary. But the cute little nerd vet is so much better in every other way. And think of the cute little nerd kids he can give you.”

Cute little nerd. Not at all the way Macy would describe Stephen. Oh, he was certainly cute, if “cute” also meant “gorgeous.” Little, nah. He was tall enough and broad enough of shoulder to make any woman feel secure. Nerd? Well, maybe. Those glasses, the perennially uncombed hair and the limited wardrobe did tend to push him toward that classification.

But he was so much more. Sweet. Sincere. Real. There were no horrifying secrets hiding in his past.

Inside Brent scooped ice cream into dishes while Anne set up a topping bar. Declining the extra calories, Macy made herself comfortable on one of the couches, kicking off her shoes and tucking her feet beneath her. Clary had climbed onto a chair dragged to the counter and was giving Stephen directions for the perfect hot fudge sundae covered with whipped cream.

For only the second time all day, Macy was relaxed. She could breathe without struggle. The common denominator: Stephen. She was falling hard for him, and it wasn’t fair. While he might not have any nasty secrets in his past, she had plenty in hers. He was fine with having a fling with the needy widow down the street, but didn’t he deserve to know before he had one with a serial killer’s widow? A woman who’d spent months in a loony bin? A woman who’d been so mentally fragile over her husband’s crimes and the loss of her baby that she couldn’t even deal with her baby who still lived?

Didn’t he have a right to decide whether to commit, even for one night, to a woman who might not be sane?

So much for relaxation and struggle-free breathing.

Stephen settled on the sofa next to her and placed Clary’s bowl on the coffee table. When he leaned back, he offered Macy his bowl. “Sure I can’t tempt you?”

She glanced at the chocolate chip ice cream nearly covered by caramel sauce and pecans and shook her head. “Not with that, you can’t.” In the past few minutes, her stomach had knotted enough that nothing more substantial than water could possibly get through.

Kiki Isaacs came up in the conversation, with Brent agreeing that she was stalker-crazy. Anne delicately licked a dollop of hot fudge from her spoon, then gestured with it. “Of course you can refuse to accept a breakup. It happens all the time. People fight, one of them says it’s over, the other one goes on with life as usual and before long it’s all forgotten. If this man keeps getting back together with her after he breaks up with her, what is she supposed to think? You know, it’s like the boy who cried wolf. Sooner or later, she stops believing he means what he says.”

“The boy who cried wolf was fibbing, and then there was a real wolf,” Clary announced. “That’s why I don’t fib. I don’t like wolves.”

Macy brushed her hand across Clary’s baby-soft hair.

“Maybe the guy’s afraid of her,” Brent said. “She’s nuts, and she carries a gun.”

“So does he,” Anne pointed out.

“Yeah, but being sane, he doesn’t want to use it against his wacko girlfriend.”

Macy’s nerves tightened before she realized that thought of her was nowhere in Brent’s mind. He wasn’t censoring himself or stumbling around trying to avoid words like nuts and wacko because he didn’t think of her that way. Affection flooded through her, then immediately dissipated. How quickly would his opinion change if he knew about the incidents this past week?

“Maybe she does come on a little strong,” Anne conceded, then she smiled a slow, warm, teasing smile. “Just for the record, sweetheart, I don’t accept breakups, either. When I said