The Man Behind The Mask. Barbara Hannay
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What had Luke done now? She was acutely aware of having failed in her responsibility to her nephew by going into the corral by herself tonight. Now every protective instinct rose in her.
“Nobody swindled me,” Deedee said plaintively. “She sent me energy for Charlie.”
“For a price,” Brendan added softly.
Nora knew she had not sent anyone any energy. And certainly not for a price! But Luke was squirming so uncomfortably she wanted to hit him with her elbow to make him stop drawing attention to himself.
Because no matter what he had done, Luke was no match for Brendan Grant. Not in any way. Not physically, nor could her poor orphaned nephew bear up under the anger that sparked in the man’s eyes.
Taking a deep breath, she said brightly. “Oh, I remember now. Charlie.”
Luke cast her a glance loaded with gratitude and relief, and she might have allowed herself to relish that, especially coupled with the fact he had taken up a coat rack in her defense. Moments when her nephew actually seemed to like her were rare, after all.
But Brendan Grant looked hard and skeptical, and she needed to stay focused on the immediate threat of that.
She put together the few clues she had. One of her gifts was an acute ability to focus on detail. Brendan and Deedee had arrived in the middle of the night. From what she could see of the cat, he was ill, the lateness of the hour suggested desperately so.
“Charlie’s been sick, right?” she said.
“That’s right!” Deedee said eagerly.
Brendan’s expression just became more grim.
“You said you’d send him energy,” Deedee reminded her. “You said to send money. I sent fifty dollars.”
“Fifty dollars?” Brendan snapped. “Deedee! You said you sent a little money.”
“In terms of what my cat is worth to me, that is a small amount.” The woman gave him a look that was equal parts sulk and steel.
“So there you have it,” Brendan said to Nora, exasperated. “If you play your cards right, she’ll sign over her house to you. You won’t need the support of the Hansen Community Betterment Committee. Is that how this operation of yours works?”
“Of course not!” Nora said, feeling the heat rising in her cheeks. “I’m sure it was just a mistake. I must have thought the money was a donation.”
She tried to keep her voice steady, but was not sure she succeeded.
“Uh-huh.” He sounded cynical, and rightfully so.
Nora wanted to whirl on Luke and shake him. She had never even raised her voice to him, but their whole future was at stake here. And worse, if he had sent that letter, and taken that money—and who else could it possibly be?—he had stolen from a vulnerable old woman. How could he? Who was he becoming? And why couldn’t she stop it?
Again she felt the weight of responsibility for her choices. Karen would have never entrusted her to raise her nephew alone. She would have been able to predict this catastrophe coming.
With great care, Nora kept herself from looking askance at her nephew.
“Let’s get in out of the rain,” she suggested, trying to keep her voice steady. Because he had given her his jacket, the rain had soaked through Brendan’s shirt, which was now practically transparent.
She was aware she didn’t really want Brendan Grant, with his bristling masculine energy and wet, clinging shirt, invading her house. She’d been here only a little while, but it had quickly become a sanctuary to her. On the other hand, she desperately needed to buy some time, to take Luke aside and figure out what he had done.
And fix it.
Yet again.
But a glance at the unyielding features of the man who had made her feel momentarily so safe told her this might not be so easy to fix.
The house was not what Brendan expected of a charlatan’s house. There were no crystals dangling in the door wells and no clusters of herbs hanging upside down from their stems. There was no cloying scent of incense.
“Lovely,” Deedee breathed with approval, standing in the doorway, taking it in.
“Disappointing,” Brendan said.
In fact, he found the house was cozy and clean. An uneasiness crawled along his neck as they passed through a living room where a pair of love seats the color of melted butter faced each other across a coffee table where some of those yellow roses from the yard floated in a clear glass bowl.
“Disappointing?” Nora asked.
“No black cat. No cauldron on the hearth.”
Nora shot him a look. She really was the cutest little thing. Again he had that feeling of coming awake. He didn’t want to notice her, but how could he not? Her hair was a mess, standing straight up, strawberry-blonde dandelion fluff. Her eyes were huge in a dainty mudstreaked face. She looked more frightened now than when he had first found her.
The scam revealed. But her shock seemed genuine, and so did her distress.
“Look,” Nora said in a defensive undertone, “I take in sick and abandoned animals. I don’t claim to be a healer.”
Her nephew snorted at that, and she shot him a glare that he was completely oblivious to.
Deedee, deaf anyway, hadn’t even heard.
“As for black cats and cauldrons, I certainly don’t do witchcraft!”
Her muddy, soaked clothes, and his jacket, swam around her, and he guessed she would be determined not to remove her coat and reveal the pajamas underneath.
He wasn’t sure why. The pajama bottoms, which he could see, were filthy, but underneath the mud they were plaid. Utilitarian rather than sexy.
They came to the kitchen, and Nora turned on a light to reveal old cabinets painted that same cheerful shade of yellow as her sofas and roses. The floor was old hardwood planking that gleamed with patina. He smelled fresh bread.
There was a jar full of cookies on the counter, and notes and pictures were held by magnets to the front of a vintage fridge. There was a wood-burning stove in one corner, and an old, scarred oak table covered with schoolbooks.
The uneasiness returned. He thought of those wonders of granite and steel that people wanted for their kitchens these days, that he designed, and suddenly he knew what the uneasiness was. They somehow had all missed the mark.
For all the awards that decorated the walls of his office, he had never achieved this. A feeling.
He shook it off, looked back at Nora. The caption under her high school yearbook picture had probably read “Least likely to bamboozle an old woman out of her money.”
But somebody had. The nephew? The kid practically had a neon sign over his head that flashed Guilty, but on the other hand, didn’t all kids that age look like that? Slinky and defensive and as if they had just finished committing a crime?
What surprised Brendan was that he was interested at all in who did it. And if it was her nephew, to what lengths she would go to protect him.
But that’s what happened when you came alive. Life, the interactions of people, their relationships and motivations interested you.
It was a wound waiting to happen, he warned himself.
“Put the cat there.” Nora pointed to a kitchen island, a marble top fastened to solid wooden legs, and he set the cat carrier down, surreptitiously checking the bottom for any dampness that might have transferred to the seat of his new car.
He knew it said something about the kind of person he was that he was relieved to find none.
“He’s