The Man Behind The Mask
Without being asked, without checking in, Brendan headed for the barn, and every morning after he left, Nora went out to see all the bales moved, the horse pen cleaned, the large bags of dog food organized, the aisle swept.
He didn’t come to the house.
And she didn’t go out. In fact, knowing now what time he came, she would sometimes scurry for cover just as he was pulling into the driveway.
Though it felt as if she was fighting her inner demons. That spontaneous dance haunted her. As did the laughter. And his lips on hers. He was out there right now. She could just go down…
She heard the front door open, flicked her curtain back. She saw Deedee making her slow way back to the car, Luke holding her arm and helping her in. Brendan was nowhere in sight, but if she waited just a minute, Nora knew that he would be.
Then Luke came back in the house, and she heard him taking the stairs two at a time. She quickly flicked the curtain down and stared at her computer screen.
He stopped off in his room, and when he came up behind her a minute later, Charlie was drooping over Luke’s crossed arms as if doing an impression of a leopard in a tree.
“Do the animals ever talk to you?” her nephew asked in a troubled voice, scratching Charlie’s ears. “I mean, not in words, but you get, like, a feeling from them and know exactly what they’re thinking?”
“Give me an example.”
He took a deep breath. “Charlie is ready to go. He’s tired. And he hurts. And he’s a cat. Cats are clean. He doesn’t want to be losing control of himself, if you know what I mean. You know why he’s staying?”
She shook her head.
“Because he loves her. Deedee. And she’s not ready to let him go.”
In the past few days it was becoming apparent to Nora that Luke shared her gift, only his was a more intense version. Were animals really talking to him? Or was it just one more example of how her crazy decisions were affecting him?
Karen would not have approved of Luke being certain he knew what animals were thinking! She had certainly never approved of Nora’s abilities.
“Remember Mr. Grant said I had to make a mend?”
Nora nodded, not correcting him that it was “amends.”
“That’s how I’m going to do it. By getting her ready.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I don’t know. But she thinks it’s by mowing her lawn. I’m going to bring Ranger with me.”
Nora gazed at her nephew, and he had a look of resolve on his face. Not like a boy, but a man.
For the first time in a long, long time, Nora didn’t feel worried, even though to someone looking in it might seem as if she should.
Luke was communicating with animals! Or thought he was. That probably needed a psychiatrist, not what she was feeling.
He was taking on the gargantuan task of getting Deedee ready to lose her pet. It was a failure getting ready to happen.
Protect him.
But this was probably why her sister had wanted her and Vance as Luke’s guardians. Because Nora felt proud of him for taking on the impossible. And as if there was a slim hope, after all, that her nephew was going to leave the world better than he found it.
Somehow the changes in Luke and her own feeling of optimism seemed linked, not to the wonderful summer weather they were suddenly enjoying, but to this man who was in her life while not being in it.
It was all beginning to feel like the scariest thing that had ever happened to her. In that nice scary way like anticipating someone jumping out from behind a bush at you on Halloween, or riding the biggest roller coaster at the amusement park.
Luke went to the window. “Brendan’s coming up from the barn now. I’ll catch a ride with him into town and mow Deedee’s grass.”
Nora wanted to scream no, the very same way she wanted to scream no as the roller coaster was inching up that final climb. But just like then, it felt as if it was already too late. She could see all their lives getting more and more tangled together.
Besides, when she looked at the simple bravery revealed in her nephew’s face, Nora knew she had to be as brave as he was.
She joined him at the window and saw Brendan striding across her yard.
“He must change for work later,” she said out loud, admiring the way faded jeans clung to his legs, to the leanness of his hips. A plaid shirt was tucked into his belt, but open at the throat. Her eyes skittered to the firm line of Brendan’s lips.
She had to be brave. Whether she wanted to be or not.
“It’s Saturday,” Luke chided her.
“Oh. Now that you’re on summer holidays, I forget sometimes.”
“That’s my flaky aunt. Who doesn’t know what day it is?” But he said it with gruff affection, then added, “Gotta go. I’ll call you later.”
Luke put his hand on her shoulder, dropped a casual kiss on her cheek. He squinted at the computer screen.
“It’s not because we’re giving him the wrong diet. Iggy ate something,” he said.
“Iggy? Luke, we try not to name the animals.”
“It’s not really a name, just short for iguana. Dr. Bentley’s going to have to x-ray him. How could an iguana swallow a house?”
And on that note, her nephew was gone, Ranger peeking out his hoodie pocket. He went back outside, and moments later, she heard him calling, “Brendan? I’ll come with you. I’m going to mow Deedee’s lawn. That’s if Deedee can look after my kitten.”
Nora twitched back the curtain just in time to see Luke hand Ranger to Deedee.
The old woman stared at the kitten. For a moment, she looked mad, as if she might give it back. But then her face softened, and she tucked Ranger into her breast and got into the car.
Brendan looked up at her, as if he’d known she was watching all along. He gave her a small smile and a thumbs-up. As if they were raising this boy together. She let the curtain fall back into place.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MIDAFTERNOON, NORA WAS thinking of Luke’s words while she stood in Dr. Bentley’s office looking at the X-ray of Iggy’s digestive tract, and not his words about mowing the lawn, either. About how an iguana could swallow a house. The X-ray clearly showed a little toy house lodged in the reptile’s digestive system.
“An iguana will eat anything,” Dr. Bentley said.
The vet donated many of his services to the animal shelter, but was not volunteering an operation on an iguana, and she couldn’t ask. Now what? They had a reserve fund, but to use it for an expensive procedure for an animal she had no hope of finding a home for?
She remembered being thankful, just days ago, that she had never had to face this situation.
Maybe you should have a plan. She hated it that Brendan Grant had been right. He had that look of a man who was always right. Who was logical and thought things through and never did anything impulsive or irrevocable.
We would be a well-balanced team, she thought, before she could stop herself.
“I need a minute to think,” she said.
“Take your time.”
She wrestled Iggy back into his cage and lugged him out to the waiting room. She had three choices. She could bring him home to die. She could have the vet speed up the process, which would be more humane. Or she could find the money for the procedure.
Her cell phone rang and she looked at the number coming in.
“Hey, Luke,” she said, trying to strip the conflict she was feeling from her voice.
“It’s not Luke. I borrowed his phone.”
“Why?” It was him, the one who was always right. Maybe she’d call him that. Mr. Right. Then again, maybe not. She did not want to be thinking of Brendan Grant as Mr. Right in any context.
There was no Mr. Right! It was a fairy tale to keep females from empowering themselves! Ditto for thinking she was falling in love with him. Just another fairy tale.
“Because we’re standing out in Deedee’s yard and he handed it to me.” A pause, and his voice lowered. “And because I wasn’t sure if you would answer if you saw it was me.”
“What would make you say that?” she said cautiously.
“I thought you were avoiding me.”
Was she that obvious? It was embarrassing, really.
“Why would I be avoiding you?” she asked.
Silence. She thought of the boldness of taking his lips with her own, and shivered. She thought of the word love coming unbidden to her after she had kissed him.
He moved on without answering the question. They both knew exactly why she was avoiding him.
“I told Luke I’d take him for a milkshake. He did Deedee’s lawn and then started on her shrub beds. They’re pretty overgrown. He’s worked really hard. I can’t believe you’ve lived here six months and not been to the Moo Factory. His exact words were ‘we never do anything fun.’”
“We do fun things,” she protested.
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
We played a few hands of poker, once.
She knew it said something simply awful about her life with her nephew that, aside from that, nothing came to mind.
“We rented Star Wars last week.”
“Really? That sounds like fun redefined.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“It comes naturally to me, like breathing.”
“We play Scrabble,” she said triumphantly. “When I can get him away from the computer.” Too late, she remembered they had invited Brendan to play Scrabble. He’d been unimpressed.
“Fun intensified.”
She remembered his face that evening Luke had suggested Scrabble. But she was on a mission now to prove they had fun.
“And Luke showed me how to play virtual bowling!”
“Wow!”
It let her know how wise her avoidance strategy was. He was sarcastic. It was hard to hold that fault in the forefront, though, in light of his good deed. He was taking her nephew for ice cream.
“I bet you threw the bowling ball backward.”
“How could you know that?”
“Psychic. That should help me fit right in on the farm.”
“Oh!”
“I warned you. Sarcastic.”
“How did you really know? About the bowling ball?”
“I’ve played that game.”
“Oh, so you threw the ball backward?”
“No.” Suddenly he seemed impatient with the conversation. “Anyway, I thought I should ask your permission before I took Luke for ice cream.”
It was so respectful it could make a woman forgive sarcasm. Or at least one who did not have her guard way up.
“That wasn’t necessary. Of course you can take him.” Ridiculous to somehow feel deflated that she wasn’t being invited.
Then Brendan said, “Luke would like you to come with us.”
Not him. Luke.
She looked at the sick iguana. And suddenly was overcome by weakness, not wanting to have to make this decision herself.
“I’m at the vet’s office with Iggy, an iguana who has eaten something.”
“Iggy,” Brendan repeated slowly. “I thought you told me you didn’t name them?”
“Who would get attached to an iguana?” she said, but the truth was maybe she already was. She didn’t want to bring him home to die. Or put him to sleep.
She told Brendan what was going on. It was his chance to say I told you so, but he didn’t, and she felt it was another test he’d passed.
Another one that she hadn’t meant to give him.
“You have a contingency fund?” he asked.
“Yes, but Brendan, that money would be so much better used educating people not to buy iguanas as pets. And the contingency fund isn’t huge. What if I spend it on him, and then have an emergency next week?”
“On something with a little more of a cute factor than an iguana?”
She didn’t mean to, but she started to cry. And she wasn’t sure if it was because of the damned iguana that she’d been foolish enough to accept a name for, or because Brendan had gone virtual bowling with someone else who had thrown the ball the wrong way.
Or because it wasn’t his idea to ask her out for ice cream.
It was Becky he’d played that silly game with. At a Christmas function? Everyone having hysterics at her lack of coordination.
He realized, holding the phone, that this was the first time he’d had a memory of Becky that made him feel anything. It was as if, after she died, he had started focusing on his failure to protect her, and that had erased all the good things from his mind.
But somewhere, had he also thought that thinking of the good would be that thing? That thing that would break him wide-open?
His contemplation of his treacherous inner landscape was cut blessedly short when Brendan heard a soft snuffling noise on the other end of the phone line. He tried to dismiss it as static, but the hair on the back of his neck prickled.
Maybe he was psychic. “Are you crying?”
The truth was his inner landscape seemed less treacherous than that.
The truth was he knew Nora Anderson had been avoiding him. And the truth was, he knew it had been a good thing. For them to avoid each other. Look at how quickly his intention to be a Good Samaritan by making her laugh had become complicated. By her hips under his hands. And then by her lips. On his.
“N-n-no.”
But she was. Crying. Was it over an iguana? He was pretty sure she had said she was used to dealing with tragedy with animals. She had strategies for not getting attached.
Not that she seemed to stick to any of them!
An awful possibility occurred to him. Maybe it was because he had just thought of his wife that he was suddenly aware how quickly things could go sideways.
“Have you been having outbursts since you hit your head?” he asked.
“I am not having an outburst!” Now Nora was insulted.
Brendan was astounded that he felt guilty. When he’d been dancing her down the aisle of the animal shelter, he really should have been asking her concussion-related questions. And instead of doing the easy thing, and avoiding her and all the complications that her lips had caused in his uncomplicated life over the last few days, he should have been evaluating her medical condition.
“Have you been to see a doctor?” he asked.
“I don’t need a doctor!”
“Look, outbursts can be a sign of concussion—”
“I am not having an outburst!” Each word was enunciated with extreme control, and then the phone went dead in his hands. Nora Anderson had hung up on him!
It seemed to Brendan that hanging up on someone could be evidence of an outburst.
Luke, flushed from heat, his hair flattened by sweat, came out of the flower bed, a tangle of bramble in his gloved hand. “Is Aunt Nora coming with us? For ice cream.”
“I’m not sure what your aunt is doing.” Except he was sure she was crying over an iguana. “Has she, er, been having outbursts?”
“What does that mean?”
“Crying. Snapping.”
“Oh. You mean PMS.”
Brendan wasn’t sure if he should reprimand Luke or not, but a look of such deep masculine sympathy passed between them that he just couldn’t.
Luke seemed to contemplate the fact his aunt might be a little off today. “Maybe just bring me back a milkshake,” he muttered, and disappeared into the garden again.
Then he peeked back out. “Can you get something for Deedee, too? And just a little dish of vanilla for Ranger. I’ll pay for it.” He glanced toward the house. “She’s trying not to. But she likes him. Ranger.”
There seemed to be a bit of that going around. People trying not to like each other, and liking each other anyway.
Luke was a prime example. It was damn hard not to like this kid.
And that went ditto for his aggravating aunt.
Knowing she wasn’t going to appreciate it one little bit, Brendan made his way to the vet’s office.
Nora was sitting in the waiting room, doing her best to look like a woman who would not cry over an iguana. The iguana was in a cage at her feet. It had a ribbon around its neck. Who tied a ribbon around the neck of an iguana they planned not to get attached to?
When she saw him, she folded her hands over her chest.
“I. Can. Handle. It. Myself.”
“Uh-huh.” It was the first time he’d seen her in a dress. Or in clothes that fit, for that matter. It was a denim jumper. She had amazing legs. It was kind of like Ranger, hard not to like something so adorable.
He ignored her glare and took the seat next to her. “Have you decided what to do then?”
He slid her a look. She gnawed her lip. He knew darn well that meant she hadn’t. He remembered how her lip tasted.
What was he doing here?
Trying to do the right thing, he reminded himself sternly. Brendan took one more quick look at her, and then got up and sauntered past the receptionist and into the back to talk to Herb Bentley.
“Okay,” Brendan said, coming back into the waiting room. Nora was fishing through her handbag, looking for tissues. “Let’s go for milkshakes.”
While she was sipping her shake, he could grill her about concussion symptoms. He would look up a complete list of them on his iPad while waiting in line. There was always a line at the Moo Factory on Saturday.
She looked stubborn. “In case you’ve forgotten, I have to make a decision about the iguana.”
“I’ve already made it,” he said. He picked up the cage and put it on the receptionist’s desk.
Nora bristled, balled up a tissue in her fist. “You made the decision? But you can’t!”
It wasn’t exactly an outburst, but it certainly seemed as if she might be on the edge of one.
Patiently, Brendan told her, “I told Doc I’d pay for the operation. Let’s go have ice cream.”
“I didn’t tell you about Iggy because I needed you to fix it!” she said.
“Whatever.”
“No! It’s not whatever! I told you because I needed a little tiny bit of feedback. I needed to not feel so alone. I trusted you. I didn’t tell you because I needed the decision made for me.”
She looked as if she wanted to stick her fist in her mouth after she admitted that. About not wanting to make the decision by herself. She had let it slip how alone she felt in the world.
He looked at her lips.
Well, that shouldn’t last long. Her being alone. At the moment, she was the best kept secret in Hansen. When word got out, every unattached guy for a hundred miles would be beating a path to her doorstep. Brendan didn’t even want to question the hollow feeling that realization caused in the pit of his stomach.
But only, he told himself, because he knew she’d made a bad choice once. Only because he knew it would destroy that kid up there slaving away in his grandmother’s garden if Nora did it again.
Why was he worried about her? She claimed not to like attachments. On the other hand, she was already attached to the iguana, and God knew there were lots of lizards around.
“My paying for the procedure is no big deal,” he explained patiently. “You could be having cognitive difficulties, postconcussion, that were making it hard for you to make a decision.”
“I don’t like iguanas. But that doesn’t mean I want to have the decision whether he lives or dies in my hands.”
“Well, now it’s not. There. Solved.”
“Oh!”
“Irritability,” he said sagely. He knew it would be wiser to keep that observation to himself, but he was surprised to find a part of him was actually enjoying this little interchange.
“I am not having cognitive difficulties! And I’m not irritable.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“It’s justified irritability, not knocked-over-the-head irritability!”
“It just seems a teensy bit out of proportion. I mean, I thought you’d be—” he considered saying grateful, and then said “—happy. I just don’t see that it’s a big deal.”
“You paying is a big deal. I’ll pay you back,” she said stubbornly.
“Consider it a donation.”
“No.”
“You really need a board of directors to answer to.”
“And it’s you making the decision that’s a big deal.”
“Wouldn’t it be forgivable if I made the decision based on the presumption you might be having cognitive difficulties? Even if you weren’t?”
He blinked at her. He happened to know he had eyelashes women found irresistible. He wasn’t opposed to using them as a weapon when backed into a corner.
She stared at him. Blinked herself. Looked away.
“Talk about cognitive difficulties,” she muttered. He was pleased that she suddenly lost her desire to argue with him. Still, she couldn’t just give in! Let him have the last word!
“I will pay you back.”
“Fine. I’ll take it out in milkshakes. A lifetime supply. I like licorice.”
“A lifetime supply? How much is the procedure going to cost?”
Seeing the worry creasing her brow, he cut the amount in half and was rewarded for his little lie when she looked relieved.
“There is no such thing as a licorice milkshake,” she said.
“That just shows you’ve never been to the Moo Factory.”
“Besides, if you think other people making decisions for you is no big deal, I’ll pick the flavor of your lifetime supply.”
It was all turning lighter. He could tell it was against her will. Maybe she was experiencing cognitive impairment!
“Have at it,” he said drily. “I’ve never met a flavor of ice cream I didn’t like.”
“Apparently,” she muttered. “Licorice? Yuck!”
He held open the clinic door for her and she went outside to the parking lot, eyed his vehicle suspiciously. “Where’s Luke?”
“At the last minute, he said he didn’t want to come. He asked us to bring something back for him so he could keep working. And he asked me to bring something back for Deedee, too. And Ranger. He said he’d pay for theirs.”
“My nephew, Luke Caviletti, said he’d pay?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure? He’s the kind of gangly kid with red hair.”
But her attempt at humor was meant to cover something else and it failed. Her face crinkled up. She did a funny thing with her nose and squinched her eyes hard.
The facial contortions didn’t help her gain control. He could tell she was making a valiant, valiant effort not to cry again. The tears squeezed out anyway.
He wanted to just shove his hands in his pockets and wait it out. But he was helpless against what he did next.
“Maybe…I…am…having…just…a…little…bit…of…cognitive…impairment.” She was scrubbing at her eyes with that balled up tissue.
He went to her and pulled her against him, wrapped his arms around the small of her back and held on tight.
He could feel the wetness soaking into his shirt. And the warmth oozing out of her body.
And her heart beating below his.
Now, for his own protection and for hers, would be a great time to confirm that emotional changeability was definitely a sign of concussion.
But somehow those words about the proven correlation between concussion and emotions got trapped in his throat and never made it to his mouth.
Somehow his one hand left the small of her back, went to her hair and smoothed it soothingly.
That feeling was back.
Of being alive.
Only standing there in the vet’s office parking lot, with sunshine that felt warmer after the months of rain, with her body pressed into his, Brendan was aware he didn’t feel resentful of waking up, of being alive. Not this time.
Not at all.
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