might have a point,” he agreed. “Just remember,” he told her, becoming serious, “I have your back, little girl.”
His phrasing amused her, as did the nickname he had for her. Rather than bristle or take offense, thinking it played upon her helplessness, she found it endearing. “And any other part of me that needs protecting?” she wanted to know.
Mac nodded. “Absolutely.”
“Good to know.”
He looked a little closer at her. “You certainly are in a good mood,” Mac observed. “Did you run into some old friends?”
She sincerely doubted that anyone in town thought of themselves as belonging to that small, intimate group. To be completely honest, Leonor wasn’t so sure that any of the town’s locals thought of anyone in her family as a friend.
“That would be pretty hard to do,” she told Mac, “given the circumstances. But I did meet this man at that new restaurant across from the bed-and-breakfast...”
Mac was instantly alert. “Oh?”
She smiled. Mac was getting protective. She could tell. She knew the signs. She supposed old habits were hard to break.
Considering everything that had happened in the last few months, it was nice having someone looking out for her, Leonor thought. She could have used Mac when David was hovering around, making her completely stupid and blind until it was too late to undo the damage, she thought ruefully.
“Nothing to get excited about,” she warned Mac. “From what I could tell, the man’s just passing through. We shared a table at a restaurant.”
“The restaurant is that crowded?” Mac asked in amazement. He was always interested in how the other businesses in and around Shadow Creek were doing because, eventually, whatever happened to them had an effect on his own ranch. They were all interdependent in one way or another.
“No,” Leonor said, negating that and any other theory that Mac might come up with. “He just didn’t want to eat alone and asked if he could join me.”
“And you agreed?”
She saw that Mac was watching her carefully. What did he expect to see? “Well, I don’t exactly have leprosy.”
“No,” he readily agreed. “But what happened to being leery?” He would have thought after what she’d been through with this David character, she’d be highly suspicious of any man she hadn’t known for years. There was no arguing that Leonor was a very attractive young woman, but she was also a Colton and certain precautions always needed to be in place.
“He’s an art collector,” Leonor told him, as if that single attribute was capable of negating an entire host of sins.
Mac crossed his arms before his chest, looking exceedingly formidable. “And you know this how?” he asked patiently.
She knew how Mac was liable to take this, but all she had was the truth. “He told me.”
“And you believed him? Seriously?” Mac questioned. He frowned. He trusted her judgment, but this didn’t sound good. “I thought you were the suspicious one.”
She made no comment about that. Instead, she explained what had won her over. “He showed me photographs of some of his paintings. He’s looking for somewhere to display them.”
“So naturally he thought of Shadow Creek?” The dubious look on Mac’s face grew more pronounced.
“No, the Austin Art Museum,” she answered a bit too sharply.
This wasn’t sounding as good to him as it apparently did to her, Mac thought. “In other words, he’s stalking you?”
“No,” she insisted. “We just kind of ran into one another.”
He highly doubted that, but Leonor was a grown woman, capable of taking care of herself—he supposed. If he suggested otherwise, he knew that was liable to blow up on him.
“Uh-huh. Well, as long as you stay alert, I can’t see the harm in that,” he said agreeably. His expression softened as he looked at her again. “And I’ve got to say, it’s really great seeing you smile again. For a few days there, I didn’t think you were ever going to look anything but devastated again. I don’t mind saying that it hurt to see you that way,”
She was surprised to hear him say that. “I thought I was doing a good job hiding my feelings.”
Mac laughed, shaking his head. “Hate to tell you this, but you weren’t.” Since she was in such a good mood, he thought she’d be amenable to doing something else. “Listen, I was just thinking. What if we—?”
But Mac never got the opportunity to finish his sentence because at that moment, the front door flew open, hitting the opposite wall with a bang. Leonor’s half brother Thorne Colton came in, scowling and for all the world looking like a storm that was about to roll over the plains.
Without Thorne saying a word to his father, his deep brown eyes immediately homed in on Leonor. “It was you, wasn’t it?” he accused. Not waiting for her to answer one way or another—he wouldn’t have believed her if she’d said no—Thorne continued his rant. “Never really thought of you as being this selfish, but then, I guess I couldn’t really have expected anything else, could I? Given who your mother is,” he concluded nastily.
Mac was up on his feet, his usual easygoing expression gone. “Watch your tongue. And don’t forget, Livia’s your mother, too.”
Thorne blew out an angry breath. “And how many times have I wished that wasn’t true?” Livia’s fourth born snapped. The focus of his anger widened, taking in his father as well as his half sister. “What the hell were you thinking, anyway,” he demanded, glaring at at Mac, “letting Livia lead you to her bed?”
“That is none of your business,” Mac informed him, his voice only growing deeper as he warned his son off, “and whatever else you might think about that part of my life, you wound up being the result of that brief interlude—and no matter what else might have gone down, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Mac’s frown deepened as he looked at his son. “Except, maybe, for when you come rolling through here like a clap of thunder. I want you to keep a civil tongue in your head when you talk to your sister,” his father warned.
But Thorne was as stubborn in his own way as his father was. The only difference was their chosen decibel range.
“Why should I when she went running off at the mouth, spilling family secrets to some jerk with a laptop and an internet byline?” Thorne demanded. His eyes narrowed into dark brown slits as he glared at Leonor. “I’m right, aren’t I? It was you who sold us all out and told whoever the hell is behind Everything’s Blogger everything about us.” He didn’t wait for her to confirm his supposition. “How much did they pay you?” he wanted to know.
The last question stabbed her right through the heart. “It wasn’t like that,” Leonor cried.
Thorne pretended to look aghast. “They didn’t pay you?” he asked sarcastically.
“Enough!” Mac declared. “She doesn’t owe you an explanation,” he told his son.
“For splattering the so-called low points of my life all over the internet, thanks to some lurid blogger?” he cried, outraged. How could his father be taking her side? That angered Thorne almost as much as what he’d just accused Leonor of. “The hell she doesn’t.”
“Thorne!” Mac shouted. The warning note in the rancher’s voice was clear.
Unable to take Mac fighting with his son over something that she ultimately was responsible for, Leonor raised her voice to be heard above the two men.
“Stop!” she pleaded. When both men looked at her, she began by answering Thorne’s question, really hoping she wouldn’t break down in the middle