Barbara Hannay - The Man Behind The Mask

“Did you put antiseptic on it?”

“Who’s looking after who?”

He was gazing at her keenly. She had sounded way too much like she cared. He was a tyrant, obviously. He’d waltzed in here and completely taken over. She couldn’t just let him!

“I don’t want to get sued. After infection sets in and your finger falls off. Then you sue me, and at your recommendation, I’ve lose the funding from the Hansen Community Betterment Committee.”

“I haven’t decided about a recommendation to the HCBC. Yet.”

“And please don’t alienate all my volunteers.”

“I couldn’t alienate your volunteers if I tried, and believe me, I did. But oh, no, they came around the barn after me, promising me cookies, brownies and roast beef dinner. And talking about what a nice girl you are. And available. ‘What a shame. No boyfriend. And so pretty, too.’”

“I don’t have a boyfriend because I don’t want one,” Nora told him, and felt a crimson blush go up her cheeks.

“Some jerk broke your heart,” Brendan said, and his tone was light, but his eyes were not. They darkened with a menace that made her gasp.

He was seeing way too much, and it had to stop!

“Get out of my room. I need to shower and get dressed.”

He sighed theatrically. “It’s as hard to pry information out of you as it is out of your nephew. Do you need help?”

Her mouth fell open. She gasped like a fish on a bank.

He laughed, backed into the hall, his hands in cowboy surrender, and shut the door. But he had to get in the last word.

“If you’re dizzy or feel like you’re going to vomit, call me. Even if you’re naked.”

NORA WAS GLAD Brendan Grant was on the other side of that door and couldn’t see her face. Even if she was naked?

He was trying to shock her, and she was not going to give him the satisfaction of responding.

“Especially if you’re naked,” he called through the door.

So much for not giving him satisfaction. Nora picked up her shoe from where he had pulled it off her foot last night. She hurled it at the door and heard his hoot of pleasure that he had gotten to her.

She looked around her bedroom. Her world felt like a big mess, with chaos everywhere! Even her beautiful Egyptian cotton sheets, one of the things she had treated herself to before she became guardian to a very expensive fifteen-year-old, were dirty. Her sense of messiness increased when she went into the en suite bathroom and saw herself in the mirror.

Her hair, face and clothes were smudged with mud. She looked like a terrible cross between a cast member of Oliver and, with the lump rising over her eye, Quasimodo. Luckily, she told herself, she was not in the market for a man, and especially not a man like the one who had totally invaded her world.

Still, it did not feel lucky at all that that man was intent on invading her world when she looked like this! Somehow around a guy like that, a woman—any woman, even one newly sworn to fierce independence—wanted to look her best.

She desperately needed these moments to collect herself. The water of the shower was an absolute balm. She told herself it wasn’t weakness that made her apply the subtlest hint of makeup. It was an effort to regain some confidence. And hide her bruises. And erase first impressions!

After showering and applying makeup, with far more care than she would have wanted to admit, Nora chose a flattering shirt, short-sleeved and summery as a nod to the sun finally making an appearance, and designer jeans, remnants of her old life when she’d bought designer things for herself and never worried about money.

She convinced herself the makeover worked. She convinced herself she felt like a new woman.

She felt ready to battle for her independence! Ready to fight any inclination to lean on another!

Brendan was alone in her kitchen. She paused in the darkness of the hallway before he knew she was there.

Despite her vow to be unaffected by him, it was hard not to take advantage of that moment to study him.

There was no doubt about it. Brendan Grant was a devastatingly attractive man with that dark hair and matching eyes, the slashing brows and straight nose and strong chin. He radiated a subtle masculine strength, a confidence in himself that was not in any way changed by the fact he was in a wrinkled shirt or his hair was roughed or the planed hollows of his cheeks were darkening with whiskers.

The annoying fact was her kitchen was improved by a man standing at the counter, supremely comfortable in his own skin, eating cookies.

“Sorry,” he said, when he saw her. “I helped myself.”

“No, that’s good. I should have told you to make yourself at home.”

But she was stunned by the longing that statement awakened in her. A man like this making himself at home? The image somehow deepened her definition of home, made it richer and more complex, and filled her with yearning.

She recouped quickly. “Speaking of which, you need to go home. You must be exhausted. And want a shower. And a change of clothes. And don’t you need to check on your grandmother?”

“But who is going to make sure you don’t do anything you’re not supposed to do?”

“Luke will. Where is Luke?”

Brendan nodded toward the living room, and she went and peeked. Luke was sitting on the sofa, feet on the coffee table, head nodding against his chest. Charlie was sprawled out across his belly, kneading, the way contented cats do. The kitten was perched on his shoulder, batting at a strand of his hair, and Luke swatted it as if a fly was bothering him in his sleep.

“If only such cuteness could last,” she said ruefully.

Brendan came and stood beside her. She could feel his presence, even though he didn’t touch her, energy tingling off him.

“Ditto for Charlie,” he said. “It’s not as if he’s a nice cat. He’s waited under Deedee’s sofa and attacked my ankles. You think that doesn’t make you nervous?”

Brendan chuckled. And so did Nora. It was a small thing. A shared moment of amusement. It made her need to get rid of him even more urgent.

As if he sensed the danger of the moment as acutely as she had, he frowned. “Charlie seems way better than he was last night. Are you, er, doing something?”

“No. There’s nothing to do, I’m afraid. How old is he?”

“Seventeen, I think.”

“That’s pretty old for a cat,” she said carefully.

“I think so, too. Unfortunately, Deedee has a friend whose cat made it to twenty-three.”

“I wouldn’t tell her Charlie is feeling better,” Nora suggested.

She knew it was an opportunity for him to make a crack about her missing an opportunity to get some more money out of Deedee, but he didn’t take it.

“Okay, I won’t tell her. Though it is obvious, even to me, a tried-and-true cynic, that he is feeling better.” He added, “I’m going. Do not do a single thing today. Do you hear me?”

“Are you always so masterful?” she said, raising an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“Why?” he asked softly. “Do you like masterful?”

“No!” She’d better be careful. She didn’t have a shoe handy to throw. Instead, she quickly changed tack. “I’ll catch up on some of my inside things.”

She was giving in just a little, to make him go.

“You’re not even supposed to read. Except your symptom sheet, which tells you not to read. And don’t use the computer. No answering Ask Rover.”

She stiffened. “What do you know about Ask Rover?”

“There were some letters beside your bed.”

“You read my mail!”

“It was lying out. I had to think of a way to stay awake. Sorry.” He didn’t sound contrite.