“Seriously?”
“Damn serious. He says you don’t get tomatoes that look like hers without some incredible fertilizer.”
“Dead bodies make good fertilizer?” Bruiser rubbed his stomach. He felt a little queasy, and he wasn’t a squeamish type of guy.
“The best, and to think I’ve eaten her tomatoes back when we were still speaking, asked her how she managed to have such a great crop, what her secret was. She just laughed.”
“Oh, God.”
“Yeah, no kidding.” Mac leaned against the counter, looking a little green herself.
Bruiser stood up and walked to the window. He could just make out the garden in the distance. “Good place to hide a body.”
“Especially considering when Will went missing, she’d just started digging it up to plant it. The police never had enough evidence for a search warrant.”
Bruiser swallowed and wondered how Mac could live in this house knowing what might have happened next door. “I guess we should get your dad.”
Mac nodded and Bruiser took her hand as they walked out the door as if they were a real couple.
And perhaps they were.
* * * * *
A few hours later, they were on their way back to Mac’s house. Her dad had been bailed out of jail and was home in his bed. Gone was the obsessive gleam in his eyes, replaced by defeat and absolute sorrow. Mac wasn’t sure which was worse. She’d never thought she’d be thinking this, but she liked him better when he was fighting. At least it gave him something to live for.
Up until an hour ago, she’d been prepared to tell her father that he couldn’t drag her into his schemes again or his endless searches for information. But after seeing the look on his face when they’d picked him up, she didn’t know what to do.
Bruiser walked Mac to her front door. She hesitated with her hand on the doorknob, debating on the wisdom of inviting him in. But wisdom was highly overrated.
“Do you want to come in?”
“Always.” His smile settled in her heart, while his sexy blue-gray eyes wrote a love story in her dreams.
Love? The for-better-or-for-worse kind? Was she ready to try for that? Was Bruiser? Elliot had already declared his intentions and made it sound so simple. If only it could be. She was far from sure, yet part of her screamed, Go for the Hail Mary and take the risk. Risk was what made life worth living, and she hadn’t lived her life in at least three years. She’d been hunting for her brother, who’d be the last person on earth to want this life for her.
Could she take that leap of faith with Bruiser? Was he the right choice?
“What are you thinking?” He put a finger under her chin and lifted her head. His gaze slid over her face, as if memorizing every curve.
“I’m thinking I’d like you to come in the house and finish that beer.”
Mac grabbed a beer for each of them and steered Bruiser to the patio. It was a warm, late-summer night, too good to waste by staying inside. They sat together on the love seat.
She lit a few candles on the patio table, strictly to drive away mosquitoes, of course.
“Elliot came over last night.” Mac watched Bruiser’s reaction in the flickering candlelight.
“Mac, thanks for spending some time with him.”
“I didn’t exactly invite him. He ran away, but I took him back.” Mac repeated the entire conversation with Elliot, leaving out the marriage part.
Bruiser lifted his troubled eyes to her. “What do you think that means about the uncle looking at him funny?”
“Could mean a lot of things besides the worst-case scenario.” Mac hated the thought of brave Elliot living with some kind of child molester.
“I need to get him out of that house,” Bruiser said with renewed determination and took her hand. “What are we going to do?”
“Elliot wants us to get married. Did you put him up to that?”
Bruiser chuckled. “Nope, but he’s a smart kid. What do you say? Wanna give it a shot?”
Wanna give it a shot? What kind of marriage proposal was that? It sounded like the kind a man gives to a woman he isn’t marrying for love.
Bruiser rushed on, as if he had his foot in the door and was going to bully his way inside. “I think we could make it work if you made our family your priority.”
“And give up the search for my brother?”
“At least scale it back for your own good and your father’s.”
“I don’t know if I could do that to him. You saw him tonight. But what about you? Are you going to give up being someone you aren’t? Bruce Mackey wasn’t the one who died all those years ago. He deserves a life.”
“So do you.” Bruiser spoke so quietly she barely heard his words.
“I know.” She met his gaze and let her guard drop, squeezed his hand, and took the risk. “Tell me about the accident.” She needed to know that he trusted her. She could work with that, build on it.
For a long time, Bruiser stared at the candle flame as if hypnotized, but he didn’t let go of her hand. Mac waited, holding her breath.
Without lifting his head, he began to talk in a quiet, unemotional voice. “We were goofing around. Brice was always the charming daredevil, the attention slut, everybody’s favorite. I was the quiet one, the thinker, the one who lived in Brice’s shadow. So I swiped some of Mom’s cigarettes and a lighter. I was showing off with them, letting Brice know I could be a daredevil too. Brice wouldn’t be outdone. He grabbed the cigarettes, stuffed one in his mouth, and lit it. I chased him, and he ran behind the gas barbecue and tipped it over, cracking the gas line. There was a huge explosion. It knocked Brice all the way across the patio. His clothes burst into flames. I ran to him and tried to put the fire out with my sweatshirt. A neighbor heard the
