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

He disappeared and came back, with no kitten, but a flashlight.

“Shine it right in your aunt’s eyes. Do you see what it does to her pupils? That’s called dilation. It’s very important that both her pupils are dilating in the same way. I need you to try it.”

The boy grasped the flashlight without any hesitation. Brendan was going to take it as a good sign that Luke was not nearly as rebellious as his aunt was.

“Yes, her eyes are doing the same thing. The black part is getting smaller when I hold the light up.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here!”

“Good. That’s exactly what you are looking for. You need to wake her up every hour after I leave and check her eyes. If you see a change you need to call 9-1-1.”

“There’s no need to frighten him!” Nora protested.

“I’m not frightening him. I’m asking him to step up to the plate. I’m treating him like a man.”

Luke puffed up a bit at that.

“Well, he’s not a man.”

And then deflated.

“He’s not a child, either.”

The boy puffed up again.

“Either he checks you or I stay for the night.”

She blanched at that, then folded her arms over her chest with ill grace and glared at him. That settled, Brendan conducted some very simple tests on his unwilling patient while Luke watched.

“The doctor already did this.”

“Luke needs to see what to do.”

Finally, Brendan was satisfied. “Do you need anything? A drink of warm milk, maybe?”

“Oh.”

There was something kind of sweet and kind of sad about her surprise that anyone would look after her.

“That would be nice,” she said shyly.

“Luke, can you go warm some milk?”

Luke left and Brendan leaned over and pulled off her shoes. Gently, he tugged the jacket off her.

“I can do it!”

“It’s not as if you’re in a see-through negligee.”

She scowled at him, but let him free each of her limbs from the jacket.

He pretended not to notice her pajama top at all, but it was adorable. How was it a pink pajama top with kittens on it that said Purrfectly Purrfect Me could be more sexy than a negligee?

“Stand up for a minute,” he ordered. She did, and he deftly pulled back the white quilt. Surprise, surprise, pure white sheets.

He guided her under the covers. She sank into her bed, then struggled to sit up. “Set the alarm. I have to be up. I have to feed the animals in two hours.”

The clock was holding down some papers on a bedside table. He could tell now wouldn’t be the best time to relate what the doctor had told him. She had to rest. Completely. For at least twenty-four hours. She wasn’t even supposed to look at a computer screen or read. So he pretended to set the clock.

He looked back at the bed, and her eyes were already closed, her breath coming out in soft puffs.

So much for the warm milk.

He went and looked at her. He felt the oddest desire to kiss her, not passionately, but a good-night kiss, like a father might give a child. Protective. Happy she was safe.

Happy he had managed to keep at least one person safe from the perils of life.

Brendan went down the steps. The kitchen was empty; no milk was out or on the stove. Luke was stretched out on the living room couch.

The empty carrier was beside him, and Charlie, a cat who hated both animal and man equally, was stretched out over the boy’s chest. The black-and-white kitten, Ranger, was curled into Charlie’s belly. They were all fast asleep.

Brendan moved closer. Charlie didn’t even look like the same cat. He certainly didn’t sound like it. The death rattle Brendan had heard earlier was gone.

Maybe he had died. Brendan reached out uneasily and touched him. The cat’s fur was warm beneath his fingertips and the animal sighed.

He yanked his hand back. There was no such thing as a healer, he told himself, annoyed. Nora had barely glanced at the cat, anyway.

The boy’s cell phone was on the coffee table, and Brendan picked it up and checked. Sure enough, Luke had set the alarm to go off every hour on the hour. But the boy couldn’t be trusted to cook milk. Besides, he looked exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes, his face pale and taut, even in sleep.

Brendan suddenly knew he couldn’t leave them alone with this.

He could feel it. Around the boy. And around her. They’d both been carrying it for too long.

Brendan flicked through the settings on the phone, turned off the alarm and slowly climbed back up the stairs to Nora’s room.

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_90ea49e5-2c9e-5e9a-932f-6e058b931b47)

OUTSIDE THE DOOR of that terrifyingly bridal bedroom, Brendan flicked open his own cell phone.

Logically, he knew he could not take this on right now. He had a deadline coming up. Village on the Lake was an amazing opportunity, and he knew the condo project would be the most prestigious of his career to date.

But once before he had chosen work when there was another choice to be made. He had been driven by his need to succeed, driven to outrun the ghosts of his own childhood, driven to be worthy of a wife who came from far different circumstances than he had.

He had needed to be something, or prove something, to have something he didn’t have, and he had made a choice that had left him with nothing at all.

That choice had left his heart trapped behind a wall, in a yawning cavern of emptiness.

Could you come to the same fork in the road again? And make a different choice? Not one that would change what had been, nor could alter what had already transpired, but one that changed who you could be?