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

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.

She hated that he knew.

And then she didn’t.

Because he said, “I liked the first response better. the dog knew the guy was a jerk.” And Brendan smiled at her, as if he actually liked it that she was Ask Rover. “Is that the one you’ll use? About biting him where it counts?”

Nora could feel her face getting very red. That had not been meant for anyone to see.

“No,” she said, “it won’t be.”

“That’s a shame.”

And it sounded as if he meant it!

“I’ll be back,” he said.

“No!”

That sounded way too vehement.

“You’ve done enough,” she amended hastily. “I’m very appreciative. Really. But I can take it from here.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, without an ounce of conviction. He gave her one long look, and then patted her shoulder and was gone.

And suddenly she was alone, in a house that was changed in some subtle and irrevocable way because he had spent the night in her bedroom and eaten cookies at her kitchen counter.

And just as she had a secret side that answered letters to Ask Rover exactly the way she wanted to, she had a secret side that listened to his car start up and said, Usually when a man spends the night something a little more exciting happens! Maybe next time.

“There isn’t going to be a next time,” she informed her secret side.

But, of course, there was. Because he had said he was coming back, and he did. One of the volunteers must have told him when they did evening chores and feeding, because he was there promptly at seven. Nora peered out the living room window at him getting out of his car.

He was dressed more appropriately, in a plaid jacket, and jeans tucked into rubber boots. Really, the readyto-grub-out-pens outfit should have made Brendan less attractive. And didn’t. At all.

Nora breathed a sigh of relief when he made no move toward the house. Luke, bless his heart, was already at the barns. She was glad to be rid of him, too. He had absolutely hovered all day, Charlie in his arms and Ranger on his heels.

She knew, somehow, she should have insisted he take the cats with him when he went to do chores, and leave them in the barn, but she hadn’t.

Charlie didn’t like her, and had retreated under the sofa as soon as Luke left, then slunk off up the stairs, probably to Luke’s room. It didn’t matter. She didn’t have to lay her hands on him to know his life force was leeching out of him. The antics of the kitten entertained her, but didn’t occupy her enough for her to outrun her own thoughts.

Which let her know her relief that Brendan had headed for the barns instead of the house was pretended relief. Part of her wanted him to come up here. Which probably explained why she was still in the designer jeans and top, and not her pj’s despite a full day of doing nothing.

Unless you counted catching up on movies. She scowled at the TV. Since he’d arrived—since she knew he was out there—she had no idea what was going on in the movie.

Then she heard them coming. She felt like a high school girl waiting for her prom date. She checked her buttons. Ran a hand through her hair. Tried to pull her bangs over the bump on her forehead. She tried to decide how to sit so that it looked as if she was completely surprised and a little bored by the fact Brendan was coming to her house.

Luke let him in, so he didn’t knock.

And then he was standing there, filling her space, gazing at her, and her silly heart was beating way too hard.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

If she told him the truth about her racing pulse, she’d probably be whisked off to the hospital, just as Deedee had been. “Bored.”

He looked past her to the TV. “What movie?”

Why hadn’t she thought of that when she was preparing to see him again?

She snapped it off. “Something silly. I just turned it on to keep from going crazy.”

“Uh-huh.”

“It’s that pirate one,” Luke said, coming back with Charlie. “It’s for babies, but she’s seen it three times. Because of Johnny Jose.” He rolled his eyes disparagingly.

Brendan’s lips were twitching as if her crush on Johnny Jose was amusing. “So you’re feeling all right? No signs of dizziness? Not feeling sick?”

“I’m fine.” If he said uh-huh she was going to scream. Instead he stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels and studied her. She tilted her chin defiantly.

“This is cool, Auntie Nora. Brendan gave the old lady a tablet so she can see some video of Charlie while she’s in the hospital.”

How, exactly, could you steel yourself against something like that?

Or what followed. Luke put down Charlie, got out a piece of string and tied a lump of hay to it. “This is a mouse,” he narrated. Then he pulled it across the floor.

The black-and-white kitten exploded across the room after the hay. Luke shouted with laughter. It was the most animated she had seen her nephew in a long, long time. And then he went and dangled the string in front of the couch, where Charlie had retreated.

A ginger paw came out and swatted. Then swatted again. Then both paws shot out, and Charlie grabbed the “mouse” with such strength he pulled it from Luke’s hand, yanking it under the couch with him.

Brendan lowered the phone that he had been recording the scene with, and stared at the place where Charlie had disappeared. “That is like the old Charlie,” he said uneasily, “the one who likes to attack ankles.”

“Did you get it?” Luke asked, then sighed. “Not that Mrs. Ashton will be able to figure out how to open it. Auntie Nora wouldn’t be able to.”

Why don’t you just tell him all my secrets? Crush on Johnny Jose. Computer illiterate. Ask Rover. He’s going to know me better than I know myself if this keeps up.

Brendan still looked faintly dazed. “I’ll go see Deedee and make sure she got it. I can show her on my phone if she didn’t figure it out. I’ll be back first thing tomorrow for chores.”

Nora opened her mouth to protest. First, she didn’t think it was a good idea for him to show that footage to Deedee. Second, she didn’t think he should come back here.

But she saw Luke’s quick look of pleasure before he masked it by snaring the mouse from under the couch and getting Ranger going again.

He liked Brendan. He wanted to believe the cat was getting better. Couldn’t she just let life ride, for once?

“Good job with the horses,” Brendan said to Luke. “Remember not to let your aunt anywhere near them. And be sure and check her one more night. Can you do that?”

“You had me at the deadly part,” Luke said, glancing up from the kitten, and he and Brendan exchanged a grin.

Three days later, Brendan was still showing up to do chores. Nora had started to do a pretty good job of hiding out, which was necessary because chores always finished with Brendan and Luke coming to the house to produce a new video of Charlie. Not only was the aging cat alive and well, but he seemed to be improving.

Deedee was home from the hospital, but confined to bed. She was so impressed with the changes in Charlie she hoped to leave him at Nora’s Ark a bit longer.

But enough was enough! Nora was completely recovered. Really, there had been nothing to recover from.

A whole lot of fuss about nothing.

And she’d had enough of hiding out in her own home. It was time to tell Brendan Grant, nicely, that he had to exit her life. Goodbye. Nice meeting you. Get lost. Could he take Deedee’s cat home to her at the same time?

Charlie was in the house. Luke was getting way too attached to him—he seemed to like him even more than the kitten—and Nora seemed to be the only one determined to remember that there was going to be no happy ending for the old cat.

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.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

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.”

“You told her to send money,” Brendan said flatly, not willing to allow Luke to sugarcoat it.

“Okay. I did.”

“But why? You have money,” Nora asked plaintively.

“I didn’t have enough.”

She felt herself pale. Enough for what? Why did a fifteen-year-old boy need fifty dollars that he couldn’t ask her for?

Cigarettes? Alcohol? Drugs?

Karen, I have failed. Colossally. Why did you leave me with this?

Given the road she was going down, at first she thought Luke’s answer was a relief.

“The police were hassling me about the bike. The guy I borrowed it from, Gerald Jack-in-the-Box—”

“Jackinox,” she corrected automatically, thinking, It’s about the bike. Not drugs.

“Whatever. He said he’d make it go away if I gave him fifty bucks.”

Her sense of relief evaporated. “That’s blackmail! Tell me you didn’t ask Mrs. Ashton for fifty dollars to give to him! Oh, Luke, why didn’t you come to me?”

He at least had the grace to look a little shamefaced. “I asked her for fifty bucks. Cash. In the mail. When the money actually came, I was shocked. And I felt guilty. So I sat down and thought I’d send her stupid cat—I didn’t know him then—some energy.”

“What do you mean by that?” Brendan asked, his voice stern.

“Well, just the way my aunt does it.”

“And what way is that? That your aunt does it?”

“That’s not important!” Nora said. Her way with animals had always made her a bit of a novelty—and not always in a good way—to those who knew about it. Brendan Grant already knew way too much about her. He’d guessed she’d been betrayed. He knew she had a secret crush on Johnny Jose. He’d read Ask Rover and knew she wrote it. Enough was enough!

But annoyingly, Brendan trumped her with Luke. By a country mile.

“She puts her hands on the animal and then closes her eyes and goes all quiet. So that’s what I did. Only I had to pretend the cat was there. I sort of imagined light going around him. It was dumb, because I didn’t have a clue what the cat looked like. I didn’t picture him being so ugly. I mean, not that he’s ugly once you get to know him.”

“That’s the same with all things, and people, too, Luke,” Nora said, not wanting to miss an opportunity to help him see things in a way that would make him a better person.

Luke and Brendan both rolled their eyes.

“Right,” Luke muttered. “Anyway, it freaked me out because I got all warm, like the sun came out, and it was pouring rain that day. It freaked me out even more when Mrs. Ashton wrote that it worked, so I just threw out her letter. And erased her messages. Geez, she called about a dozen times a day. I was a wreck trying to get to the answering machine before my aunt.”

Nora cast Brendan a glance. He didn’t look at all sympathetic to Luke feeling like a wreck trying to keep his treachery hidden.

“Why,” Brendan asked carefully, “did it freak you out when you thought it worked? You could have been into some real cash.”

“I didn’t like the way it felt.”

Nora’s sweet sensation of relief was tempered somewhat when Luke shrugged and sent her a look. “Who wants to be like her?”