The Man Behind The Mask. Barbara Hannay

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