Melissa McClone - The Man Behind The Mask - How to Melt a Frozen Heart / The Man Behind the Pinstripes / Falling for Mr Mysterious

It was way too obvious to her that there were no happy endings, period, and it was a crazy thing to hope for.

She wasn’t hiding out today. She was waiting in the living room, her plan firmly in place. She was getting rid of them—the cat and Brendan Grant. And at the same time, she was getting rid of this part of her that wanted so desperately to attach itself to the possibility of happy endings.

She rehearsed from the moment she heard his car. Thanks so much. Quite capable. Very independent. Lots of volunteers. No room for the cat. Vamoose, both of you .

And then the door opened, and Luke and Brendan didn’t come into her space so much as they spilled into it, like sunshine piercing the dark. Brendan’s head was cocked to Luke. She heard his low laugh at something her nephew said.

Her plan faltered.

Brendan Grant was here to help. She wasn’t sure if he had intended to help her nephew, but it was certainly a possibility. Look how good he was with his grandmother. Still, whether it had been his intention or not, she saw subtle changes in Luke with this positive daily male influence.

When, she wondered, had she become this woman? So interested in protecting herself that she thought she didn’t have to show one speck of gratitude to someone who was helping her. And helping that tiny two-person unit that was her family.

She was Luke’s main role model. She had a responsibility. Was that what she wanted to teach him about life? Protect yourself at all costs?

So what if she found Brendan attractive? Surely she could control herself! It would be akin to meeting Johnny. You wouldn’t be helpless. You wouldn’t throw yourself at him. You wouldn’t embarrass yourself or him.

You would act as though your heart was not beating a mile a minute. As though you were a mature woman capable of great grace and confidence.

You would step up to him and look him in the eye. And smile.

“Hi, Brendan,” she heard herself say, calm and mature, a woman she could be proud of. “Thanks so much for all your help around here. I really appreciate it.”

That would have been good enough. More than good enough.

So why did she have to add, “I made lasagna tonight. There’s extra. Do you want some?”

“Aunt Nora makes the best lasagna. Lots of cheese,” Luke said, and his hope that Brendan would stay was somehow heartbreaking.

Too late, Nora wondered what she was letting them in for.

Particularly when Brendan said, “It would take a better man than me to turn down homemade lasagna. Especially the kind with lots of cheese.”

WHAT THE HELL was he doing? Brendan asked himself as he sat at Nora’s table for the second night in a row. Lasagna last night. Meat loaf tonight.

“You wanna stay and play Scrabble?” Luke asked, oh so casually, as if he didn’t care what Brendan’s answer was.

And out of the corner of his eye he watched Nora, as he always watched Nora, and saw her tensing, caught just as he was between wanting him to go and wanting him to stay.

“Scrabble?” he said. “I’m not staying to play Scrabble.”

Luke tried to hide how crestfallen he was. Nora got a pinched look about her mouth and eyes.

It should have confirmed he could not stay here to play Scrabble. Instead he heard himself saying, “Don’t you know how to play poker?”

And when they both shook their heads, he said, “I guess it’s about time you learned.”

An hour later Luke was rolling on the floor laughing. Brendan’s own stomach hurt from laughing so hard. The rock had been rolled away and light was penetrating into every corner of that cave.

He needed to stop. He needed to ponder hard questions. He needed to slow down, roll the rock back in place, regroup, retreat, rethink.

Why was he doing this? The truth? Something in him was watching that damned cat getting better and better. Something in him was surrendering, resisting his efforts to be logical, telling him that if that cat could be healed, maybe he could, too.

Healed from what? he asked himself. Until he had passed under that Nora’s Ark sign, hadn’t he been blissfully unaware of his afflictions?

No, that wasn’t true. There hadn’t been one blissful thing about his life. It had been cold and dark and dank and gray. Certainly there had been no moments of laughter like this.

He had managed to avoid his demons—guilt, dark despair, crippling loneliness—by filling the confines of the space he had chosen with ceaseless work, by never stopping.

He had thought if he stopped he would find his afflictions had run along with him, silent, waiting.

He thought if he ever stopped, those tears that had never been cried would begin to flow, and would flow and flow and flow until he was drowning in them and in his own weakness.

His hardened heart behind its wall, a life that yawned with emotional emptiness, that had protected him.

And now Nora’s laughter was lapping against it, like water against a refuge built of mud, lapping away, steadily eroding the defenses.

How could you defend against moments like these?

“You are,” he told her, “without a doubt the worst card player I have ever seen. Give that deck to Luke before you mark it so badly I’ll own your house.”

“What do you mean, mark it?”

Luke took the cards from her. “See this bend you made here? Now everyone knows that’s the ace of spades.”

“Oh,” she said, the only one who didn’t know.

And she simply didn’t have the face for poker! She frowned at bad hands. She chewed her lip if they were really bad. Her eyes did a glow-in-the-dark thing if it was a good hand.

“Your aunt is a wash-out at this game. You have some promise, though. You have to have some ability to lie to be a good poker player.”

Luke flinched as if he’d been struck. He ducked his head. He dealt them each a hand and glared at his. And then he set them down, face up. He cleared his throat and looked Brendan right in the eye.

“I did it,” he blurted out. “I opened the mail. I sent Deedee the letter. I took the money.”

Honestly, Brendan did not want to like this kid.

But coupled with the defense of his aunt with the coat rack, and how hard he worked out there in the barn every day, how good he was with that cat and all the animals, the confession meant there was some hope for the boy.

If Nora didn’t manage to kill him with kindness first.

Because his aunt put down her cards—a royal flush, not that she would recognize it—and glared at Luke, ready to fight for him, ready to believe in him. “Luke! No, you didn’t!”

“Let him do the right thing,” Brendan said quietly.

The words made Nora want to weep. It confirmed what she already guiltily believed. She was making the wrong choices for Luke over and over again.

Nora hated that Brendan was right. And she hated that he had come into her house and her life and had taken control as naturally as he breathed.

But most of all, she hated the sense of relief she felt that she didn’t have to figure out how to fix it. She hated what it said about her that she had been prepared to lie to protect her nephew. And she hated, too, that she felt the same way she had felt in Brendan’s arms. Not so alone. Carried.

“Why don’t you tell us what happened?” Brendan suggested.

Nora appreciated his tone. Mild but stern. Not about to take any nonsense.

Luke glanced at her, and she nodded, not missing the look of relief on his face. He’d been carrying the guilt for too long.

“I was opening the mail for Nora’s Ark and found Deedee’s letter. She didn’t say Charlie was dying. She just said he wasn’t feeling well. I decided to play along. So I wrote her and said sure I’d send some energy. But that she should make, er, a donation.”