The Man from Nowhere. Rachel Lee

minutes, had spent time last night trying to reassure her in some way, and there was nothing left to do except regain her own sense of proportion and rationality.

      Sitting here at the computer working the “Grant problem” as if she had nothing better to do with her time was out of character.

      Wasn’t it?

      She sighed again and rubbed her eyes. “What is going on?” she asked the room. The room, of course, didn’t answer.

      But some little voice in her head finally did.

       It’s not about this guy, it’s about another guy. A guy who lied to you.

      Was she really in some subconscious way trying to make Grant a stand-in for Jackson?

       Oh, yeah. Now you’ve got it.

      At once she leaned forward and pressed the button to hibernate her computer. Then she shoved back from her desk, realizing only as she stood that she had grown stiff from not moving for so long.

      “Idiot,” she said to herself.

      In the kitchen she made a fresh pot of coffee and a turkey sandwich.

      Yeah, she was an idiot, she decided, but only because, however indirectly, she had opened that damn Pandora’s box again, the box named Jackson Harris.

      That box containing a torrid fairy tale, an all-consuming eight-month romance that had ended in the heartstopping, earth-shaking discovery that he was a married man. That he had lied to her all along, claiming he was divorced. An instant of discovery and shock that had seemed to kill everything inside her in one icy blow.

      Until the pain started. To this day she couldn’t say what hurt worse: losing love, being used or being betrayed so callously. It had certainly hurt to leave her job in Boston because she couldn’t face the constant reminders.

      But at least she had managed to find her way home. Maybe she had thought it would all get better here. Instead, just as Grant had remarked last night, she’d brought her baggage with her. You can’t run from yourself. Probably one of the oldest clichés in the world. And so, so true, as Grant had pointed out.

      She sat at her kitchen table and bit into her sandwich, thinking about the tangled mess of her mind. A mind that she always preferred to believe was relatively neat and orderly…yet as of this moment seemed anything but.

      What was the psychological term? Transference? No, more like projection? Whatever, it disturbed her to think that she might be reacting to Grant in a way dictated by her experience with Jackson. After all, what had Grant done except sit on a park bench in the middle of the night? So maybe her suspicions resided less with his actions and the timing of them than they did with the horrendous betrayal she had suffered at Jackson’s hands. Maybe she felt uneasy and threatened for no other reason.

      Probably a good time to have a heart-to-heart with one of her girlfriends, but a glance at the clock told her that they were all still involved in the middle of their workdays. Not the time for a conversation like this.

      She took another bite of her sandwich just as her cell rang. With a muffled groan as she tried to chew and swallow fast, she pulled the phone from her pocket as the ring tone played the same bars of “Carmina Burana” for the second time.

      “Hello?”

      “Hi, Trish, it’s Gage.”

      “Oh, hi, Gage. Thanks for calling. I’m sitting here concluding yet again that I’m overreacting to that guy.”

      “Conclude away. I did the ‘stop and identify’ I promised you I would last night.”

      “I saw you. You’re going to think I’m nuts.”

      A quiet laugh escaped him. “Not a chance. Why?”

      “Because after you left I went out and talked to him. And then I met him at the truck stop and we talked longer.”

      “Well, I’ll give you credit for guts and curiosity, but I’m not going to tell you that was a wise thing to do with a total stranger.”

      “Well, since I’m getting concerned about the state of my own mind right now, I have to agree. I bounced from he’s not really a threat to feeling stalked, and now I’m on my way back again.”

      At that Gage really laughed. “It’s hard to reach a conclusion in the absence of facts. But I have some facts for you. Interested?”

      “In anything that might help me get my balance back. When I have to stand back and look at my own mental workings, something’s not right.”

      She could hear the smile in his response. “Smart people do that all the time. It’s the idiots who never selfexamine. Anyway, I do have some info for you.”

      “I’m listening.”

      “I couldn’t find anything on him yesterday because he used a fake name on the motel register.”

      “Not good.”

      “Not a crime. When I stopped last night and talked to him, I got his driver’s license. No wants, no warrants, great credit rating and he owns property in California.”

      “That’s a long way away. Anything else?”

      “Actually, yeah. But nothing that raises a red flag.” Gage fell silent a moment. “Did he give you his full name?”

      “No, just Grant.”

      “Well, until the guy does something wrong, I don’t feel I have the right to share any more. Sorry, but there are limits. Just ask him his full name. Then you can find out what’s in the public record just as I did. But I don’t have the right, legally or ethically, to go beyond what I just told you.”

      She almost sighed, but knew he was right. How much would she want Gage to invade her own privacy just because she made someone feel uneasy?

      “Thanks, Gage. I appreciate your help.”

      “You’re more than welcome. If he does anything else to concern you, let me know immediately, okay?”

      “Sure thing.”

      She closed her phone, slipped it back into her pocket and felt an urge to laugh at herself. Oh, it was so shocking! Yep, really shocking. Some guy sits on a public park bench, legal even at one in the morning, and nobody could do anything about it.

      For some reason, her grandmother’s voice floated into her mind, the woman’s plainspoken way of telling someone to think about what they were doing: Are you tetched in the head? Always delivered in a kind voice, but always in its own way like a jerk back to a calmer state of mind.

      “Are you tetched in the head, girl?” she asked out loud.

      Yeah, maybe she was. And maybe tonight she’d go out and ask Grant for his full name. Or maybe not. Just because Jackson was a lying scoundrel didn’t mean every other man on the planet was.

      She finished her sandwich in a calmer frame of mind. Then she grabbed a heavy flannel shirt and her book and went out back. Ten minutes later she had a small fire burning, and she curled up on a chaise with her coffee to read.

      Clouds might be moving in, but that didn’t mean winter had arrived.

      Yet.

      The deepening night chill, which had begun its arrival with rain in the late afternoon, bit at Grant’s exposed skin as he limped his designated path from the motel to Mahoney’s, where he spent fifteen minutes sipping an excellent rye, and then again as he limped his way toward the park to sit in front of Trish Devlin’s house. He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, but the night managed to bite even through his jeans, and his hood couldn’t cover his cheeks. If he was here much longer he might have to upgrade his clothing.

      But he had no choice yet. His path was ordained, by what he couldn’t really say. All he knew was that he’d ignored something like this before