If You Ever Tell (15 page)

“Uh… she’s fine. Working on a new recipe. It’s top secret, so don’t ask me for the ingredients,” Mac joked while feeling puzzled by Teri’s obvious discomfort. He wondered if it had been caused by his presence, then mentally told himself he was an egotistical idiot. “It’s a muffin recipe,” he blurted.

“Well, she won’t have to worry about me trying to steal it,” Teri said mournfully. “As you can tell by that tiny piece of chocolate-chip cookie you choked down, I’m the worst cook in the world.”

“The cookies are delicious.” Mac stuffed the rest of his cookie into his mouth and began chewing furiously. “Delicious,” he sputtered.

Teri burst into laughter. “Geez, Mac, you didn’t have to gobble down the whole thing in one bite just to reassure me! You and Sierra have the same table manners!”

He laughed, too, and choked. He ended up coughing loudly while Teri pounded him on the back. “Oh,
please
don’t die here,” she wailed. “My reputation in this town is bad enough without you dropping dead from eating a cookie I baked!”

Mac started laughing again, threw himself into another coughing fit, grabbed his lemonade, and drained the glass. When he’d gotten himself somewhat under control, he looked up at her with a red face and teary eyes. “I was just trying to show you I liked the cookies.”

“That was very kind of you.” Teresa’s mouth quirked. “And quite brave.”

“Gosh, Teri, I’d do anything for you.”

Teresa knew he was kidding, but she suddenly felt her face growing uncomfortably warm. She wished Mac would stop smiling and looking into her eyes. Better yet, she wished he would leave. She hadn’t been around him for four years, but both last night and today she had noticed how jumpy she felt in his presence, almost as badly as she had as a teenager. She returned to her chair and said with false lightness, “No more cookies for you. You can’t handle them.”

“Okay. Whatever you say.” They exchanged strained smiles again before Mac cleared his throat and began talking, his tone turning serious again. “I came to see you because when I visited Mom earlier, she told me something I’d never heard before. Something about your mother.”

Teresa immediately felt her expression grow stony. She didn’t like to talk about her mother, not even with Kent and Carmen. She certainly didn’t want to talk about Marielle with Mac MacKenzie.

Teri knew Mac was well aware of her reluctance to discuss her mother, which accounted for his rushing on before she could stop him. “Mom described the day your father fired her. You always told me that Wendy had been gunning for my mother for months and when Mom dropped a crystal bowl, Wendy took advantage of the situation to have Hugh fire Mom. But that’s not what happened. At least it’s not
all
that happened.”

Mac paused. “Marielle came to the house that day. She was under court order not to come near you unsupervised, but she did anyway and Mom arranged for you two to meet at the side of the house, where she thought Wendy couldn’t see you. But Wendy had seen Mom talking to Marielle at the door. Wendy watched you meet with your mother.”

“Wendy didn’t miss much of anything,” Teresa said stiffly. “She seemed to have eyes in the back of her head.”

“It’s not Wendy seeing you that has me so dumbfounded. It’s the fact that you
never
told me you saw your mother the day of the murders. You withheld the truth from me. Why?”

By this time, Teresa had grown rigid with a mixture of agitation and anger. “I didn’t realize I was under an obligation to tell you the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” she snapped.

Mac closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked so deeply into hers she felt as if he could see to her very soul. “Teri, I know you were only seventeen, but I thought we were in love.
Real
love, not puppy love, not infatuation. People in love tell each other important things. I consider it fairly important that your mother actually came alone to the Farr home the day they were killed, something
you’d
consider important enough to tell me.” Teri remained stubbornly silent. “You knew Beulah wasn’t watching your mother’s every move, didn’t you?” Mac asked.

Teri looked at him defiantly, lifting her chin a bit. “Beulah could have done a better job, but it’s not as if my mother was gadding around the state without supervision.”

“But she wasn’t supposed to go
anywhere
without supervision, especially not the home of her ex-husband and his pregnant new wife.”

“All right!” Teri blazed at him. “My mother came to the house the day of the murders. So what?”

“So what?” Mac said incredulously. “So her coming caused a huge fight, that’s so what. It caused Wendy to tattle to Hugh and Hugh to come home and start screaming at my mother. When he looked like he was going to get physical with her, you intervened. That day he smacked the hell out of you, not once but twice! No wonder you wouldn’t see me that evening or the next day. You had a split lip you couldn’t hide!”

“Yes, I did. I went for a very long walk by myself that night. No one believed I wasn’t with you—no one except you—but I was alone. I didn’t want anyone to see me. I didn’t want anyone even to guess what my father had done to me. It was so disgraceful. Besides…”

“Besides what?”

“Besides, I didn’t want people to know what had made him so mad at me. It wasn’t just that I interrupted the tirade he was directing at
your
poor mother; it was also that
my
mother had come to the house. He was going to report her to the police. Wendy managed to keep him in check that day by telling him negative publicity about Mom would overshadow her party announcing the fact that she was pregnant. But I knew Dad would do it the next day—he couldn’t control himself for long, even to please Wendy. He said he was going to report my mother for breaking her ‘probation.’” She paused. “He also said he was going to report that you attacked me. He told me he’d claim
you
had given me that split lip, not him, and he said the police would take his word against yours any day, especially with Wendy backing up his story, which he knew she would.”

Teresa took a long, shuddering breath. “But he didn’t get a chance to report my mother’s visit
or
make his accusation against you because he was murdered that night.” She gave Mac a long look that both pleaded for his understanding and hinted at fury if he refused to give it. “Mac, don’t you see why I couldn’t tell anyone about Mom’s visit? I also lied to the police about my lip—I said I tripped and fell, hitting it on the corner of my dresser. I didn’t want them to know Dad had struck me. They would have thought his striking me gave me even more motive to kill him. Finally, I didn’t want them to know about his threat against you. Any of those things could have given both me, my mother,
and
you even stronger motives for murdering him and Wendy right at that time. I was trying to protect all of us.”

“You were also trying to protect someone else.” Teresa’s eyes flashed at him. “Teri, my mother was terribly upset over what happened that day.” He fell silent and Teri sensed he was thinking about something his mother had said today—something he didn’t intend to tell even Teresa. “Teri, did you ever see Mom between the time your father fired her and the time of the murders?”

“See her?” Teri asked in surprise. “No. She was a wreck. I’m sure she went straight home and wouldn’t have dared come back. A few days after the murders, she came to Carmen’s, where I was staying, but I had Carmen send her away.”

“You had her sent away? God, you sound like Wendy.”

“Don’t you ever compare me to Wendy again!” Teresa flared, then, seeing the anger in his eyes, realized how haughty she’d sounded, especially to a man who’d had a lifetime of being sent away because he wasn’t considered good enough to socialize with the town’s “upper class.” “I asked Carmen to send your mother away because I didn’t think she should be associated with me at that time,” Teri said softly. “Emma wasn’t in good health and
I
was the prime suspect in a murder case. I didn’t want to do anything that might draw her deeper into that horrible mess.”

Mac’s gaze softened; he sighed and finally leaned back in his chair as he slowly shook his head. “Poor little Teri,” he said with what sounded like genuine compassion. “I knew you were suffering during that time, but I didn’t realize how much. Good Lord, you weren’t just protecting Marielle and yourself; you were also protecting Mom and especially me.” He paused and said in a soft, warm voice, “You were quite a girl, Teresa Farr. You still are.”

Teresa glanced down, unwilling to meet Mac’s eyes, which had grown kind, grateful, admiring, even a bit intimate. She didn’t want him to feel indebted to her. She didn’t want him to think he could use compliments, warm gazes, and a deep, sonorous voice to win her back for what would just be another fling for him but much more for her. So much more for her. She could already feel the wall of ice she’d so arduously erected toward him melting within her. At this moment, Teresa wanted little more than to open her arms, to pull Mac close to her, to feel his skin against hers, his lips pressing upon her own—

Teresa jerked almost as if she’d been struck. What was she thinking? Was she about to let Mac insinuate himself into her life with a few kind words, a smoldering gaze, a nearly irresistible smile? Did Mac think that in spite of their past, she was so weak at this moment she couldn’t stand up against his well-practiced charm? He once knew that for her he was like a flame is to a moth. But that was in the past. Now he was in for a surprise, she thought with almost frightening vehemence. She would
not
let Mac MacKenzie devastate her world again. She wouldn’t even give him the slightest
hope
that he still meant anything to her, even if she had to be cruel.

Determination built of her old and new fear allowed Teresa to raise her gaze to meet Mac’s and to let her own ebony eyes grow narrow, their expression harder. She leaned closer to him, her face grim, and said in a slow, definite voice, “I didn’t lie just to protect you, Mac. I lied mostly because about an hour after the fight, your mother called me and
begged
me not to tell you what had happened. She was terrified of your reaction to her being mistreated by Dad and of him threatening to go to the police and accuse you of attacking me. She said she was terribly afraid of what you might do if you knew the whole truth about everything that had happened that day.

“I can tell by your expression that she left out that part of her confession today. But it’s true and you should know I didn’t keep quiet just for you. I kept quiet mainly for Emma, because I loved her.” Teresa leaned even closer to Mac and said with soft malevolence, “But I realized with a shock, Mac, that even your own mother thought you were capable of violence.”

Mac stared at Teresa for almost a full minute after she’d told him about his mother’s call to her the night of the murders. Then he stood up, said, “Thank you for the lemonade,” and slammed out the front door. In a moment, she heard his car roar to life and speed down the road from her house to the highway.

“There’s no way people can say we don’t know how to treat guests well,” Teri said cheerfully to Sierra, who had leaped up and barked when Mac slammed the front door. “Don’t worry about him, girl. I don’t think he’ll be coming back for a visit, and dear God, am I glad.”

Sierra sat on the floor, tilting her head and looking at Teri intently. She smiled at the dog again, started to say something else silly and jovial, and immediately burst into tears. Within a minute, she was sitting on the floor sobbing as Sierra clambered all over her, whining and burying her face against Teri’s neck.

The hours after Mac left seemed interminable to Teresa. She was glad she’d sent him on his way. She hated herself for her brutal dismissal of him. She was glad he was gone, hopefully forever. She was bereft that he was gone and she might never see him again.

At last, exhausted by trying to analyze her feelings, Teri had decided to let the matter drop and busy her mind with something besides Mac MacKenzie. She tried to read but couldn’t concentrate. She tried to watch television but kept finding channels running the Byrnes story. She couldn’t think of one thing that sounded good for dinner, so she decided to skip it, although the rough day had not affected Sierra’s appetite in the least. Finally, Teresa poured a glass of Chablis, put an Ivy CD on the stereo, and sat in near darkness, floating along with the music until nearly ten o’clock. Half-asleep and on her second glass of wine, she jumped when the phone rang. Teri reached for the handset on the end table beside her chair. “Hello?” she mumbled cautiously, expecting a prank call.

“I hear that old rascal Roscoe Lee Byrnes is back in the news.”

Carmen. Teresa let out her breath, until that moment unaware she’d been holding it. “I wondered why I hadn’t heard from you today.”

“I’ve been running all over town spreading the word that Roscoe didn’t really kill Wendy and Hugh. This seems like a small town until you’ve visited every house in the area.”

“Carmen, this is not a joking matter,” Teresa said sternly, although she couldn’t stop the smile creeping to her lips. Maybe Sharon and Kent didn’t appreciate Carmen’s offbeat humor, but the woman usually managed to get a grin out of Teri by not acting like life was a minefield full of danger or, even worse, social disaster.

“Look, kiddo, I know this must seem like the end of the world to you, but it isn’t.” Carmen’s voice was smooth and calm, as if she were discussing any everyday matter. “Roscoe has decided to make himself a star and he will get a couple of days of publicity, but that’s it. I’ve seen the videotape of his heartrending confession that he didn’t kill Wendy and Hugh. Believe me, he lacks the charisma of Ted Bundy. He looks like a murderer. He
sounds
like a murderer, and a dumb one at that. Nobody is going to believe him.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Carmen.”

“Well, I do. People aren’t buying it, Teri.”

Teresa sat up straighter. “Carmen Norris, did you
really
spend the whole day running around discussing Roscoe Lee Byrnes with anyone you could find?”