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

He shrugged. “I don’t know what to believe, Nora. The thing is, I’m getting better. And I never believed that would happen.”

“What do you mean, better?” she whispered.

He rolled his shoulders. “I’ve been in total darkness. I can feel the light trying to get through. There are cracks in the wall and light is seeping in, and every time I patch one crack, another one appears.”

It felt as if she couldn’t breathe. As if she was going to cry. It felt as if she could run to him and put her arms around him and whisper him home.

To her.

“But the walls have become who I am, so when they crumble, will I crumble, too?”

“No,” she whispered. “You won’t.”

“Uh-huh.”

The feelings were too strong. To hide how totally vulnerable she felt, Nora got down on her hands and knees and looked under a set of cages. Valentine stared back at her.

And then Brendan was on the floor beside her. His scent, clean and masculine, overrode every other smell in the building. It was not lightening the mood, having him so near, though he, too, seemed to want to back off from the intensity of the previous moment.

“I think he stuck his tongue out at me,” he said.

“Like life,” she said. “When you most want control, it will stick its tongue out at you.”

“Oh boy,” Brendan muttered, “I can see it coming now. Ask Valentine.”

She laughed and he smiled.

“There he is.” He reached under the row of cages; his shoulder brushed hers; Valentine hopped away.

Nora shot back before she did something really dumb, something she would regret forever, and crawled along the floor. “Valentine,” she crooned, “come here.”

“I dropped Deedee off at the house. Luke said you were down here.”

Did that mean Brendan wanted to see her? She glanced sideways at him, just as he shoved himself under the bank of cages.

“You’re ruining your clothes,” she said.

He ignored her. “I’m being outsmarted by a rabbit.”

Valentine hopped from underneath and took off down the row.

Brendan crawled out, dusted himself off, stood up. “Can’t you call him back with your energy?”

She glanced at him, annoyed at the barb, and then saw the little smile playing across his face. He was teasing her. Something dangerous rippled down her spine.

The awareness of him shivered more intensely around her. It was nice to be teased by him.

For a moment, she was going to fight it. The intensity, the subtle invitation to bring him into the light.

And then she found she couldn’t. By his own admission he had been in darkness. By his own admission he had come here to her.

With an inner sigh of surrender, Nora decided to play. To be the one thing she never was. Totally herself. She had been so serious for so long. She could not resist the temptations of this moment.

NORA PLACED HER fingers on her temples, squinched her eyes shut tightly and hummed. “Uzzy, wuzzy, fuzzy bunny, let this poem call you home.”

She opened one eye when she heard Brendan snicker. “Is it working?”

“That is the worst spell I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh,” she said, widening her eyes innocently. “Have you heard many?”

“Thankfully, no.”

“Why don’t you try?”

He seemed to debate for a moment. Why did her heart begin to beat faster when he gave in to it, too? To the invitation of life not being so serious. A smile tugged at the corners of that sinful mouth.

“How about a carrot instead of an incantation?” he suggested.

“If he was starving, we might have a hope. As you know, since you’ve been doing it, he’s quite well fed. Still…” she went to the fridge at the end of the aisle, removed a bag and handed Brendan a carrot “…we can try. If it doesn’t work today, it might work by midweek.”

They went back down the aisle, her on one side, him on the other, peering under cages.

“Now that Deedee’s feeling better, is she going to make a decision? Is she going to take Charlie home? Or to the vet?” Nora asked.

“She has her own ideas, as always, none of which involve relieving you of Charlie. She seems to have come for a visit. Luke and she were in deep conversation when I left.”

“Luke and Deedee? Seriously?”

“Seriously. Hey! Here he is! Here bunny, bunny, bunny.” Brendan was down on his knees again, peering under a sink. As she watched, reluctantly enchanted by a man willing to wreck a thousand-dollar suit for a rabbit, he held out the carrot in the palm of his hand. Valentine edged toward him, he made a move to grab him and the bunny leaped sideways and hopped away.

“He’s waving his tail at me. Like a middle finger. Wow. Even I can read his energy.”

Nora giggled. Brendan turned and glared at her, but a smile lurked in his eyes. “Let’s see if he’ll fall for the bait again.”

Really, she knew if they left the rabbit alone, he’d eventually get hungry and come out. But it was too fun trying to catch him with Brendan.

Together they chased that bunny all over the barn, acting silly, making faces, doing voices, crawling under cages, and in and out and over obstacles. They called suggestions to each other, and whispered plans, as if he could overhear them, and they laughed at Valentine’s impudence.

Finally, they had him.

“Companies pay money for this,” Brendan said. “It’s called team building.”

It occurred to her they had been a team. And it had felt good. Why was it every time She was with him something happened that made her feel the delicious if guilty pleasure of not being alone?

Now she focused on him and the bunny. She could tell a lot about a person from how he handled an animal.

For a moment Brendan looked as if he intended to hand Valentine to her.

But then his expression softened, and he held the bunny firmly in the palm of his hand, his fingers tapered over the rib cage. He pulled him in close to his chest, stroking Valentine’s snubby little nose with one gentle fingertip.

There was something about watching a strong man with a fuzzy bunny that could melt a person’s heart. Nora felt some terrible weakness unfurl in her at his tenderness with Valentine, in his decision to come into the light. She was annoyed with herself for feeling as if she had unintentionally given Brendan a test, and she was just as annoyed that he had passed.

“Okay, I think I remember where the little monster lives.” He put Valentine back in the cage, closed the door and turned to her.

“Deedee’s not going to take him home. I figured it out. She can’t bear the thought of being with Charlie when he dies. Though I guess we’re all wondering if he’s going to die at all. He keeps improving.”

“It’s temporary.”

“You sound certain of that.”

“I am. I wish Luke wouldn’t have taken it on. He’s setting himself up for heartbreak.”

“And he’s had enough,” Brendan guessed softly. “And so have you.”

The look in his eyes was the one she had seen that rainy night when she had come to in the horse pen, when she had reached up and touched his cheek in welcome.

A person could drown in a look like that, throw herself willingly into those deep pools of understanding.

Instead, she congratulated herself for trying to back off.

“When you work with animals that are unwell, you expect a certain amount of grief. I’ve developed strategies for not getting attached. I don’t name any of the animals.”

“You named Lafayette.”

She could say he had come named, but he hadn’t. “Who would get attached to him?” she said, a bit defensively.

“How about Valentine?”

“Okay, so the odd one slips by my guard. But now that I have this beautiful facility, I don’t ever let animals in the house. To prevent attachment, and also, where would you draw the line?”