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

She could not quite keep the shaking from her voice. “My sister died.”

“And his dad?”

“He went before Karen. Luke’s never said anything to you? you guys have been doing chores together for days.”

“Yeah, well, you know guys.”

But she didn’t. She didn’t know guys at all. That was probably part of the problem with Luke.

Brendan sighed. “We don’t talk about deep things. Discussion runs to who is the best hockey player in the world. Last night’s baseball scores. Who can clean a cat cage the fastest and with the least gagging.”

Nora really didn’t want to confide one more thing to this man. But she heard herself saying, “I’m not sure that Karen would have trusted me by myself with this. She saw my fiancé, Vance, as the stable one, a vet with a well-established practice. I’m afraid I’ve always been seen as the family black sheep.”

“It seems to me your sister would think you were doing well at making a home for your nephew.”

“So, now you know! I’m an orphan,” Luke exclaimed from the doorway. “Doesn’t that just suck? Who even knew there was such a thing anymore?”

Nora hadn’t seen him reappear, but there he was, bristling defensively.

“And you think that isn’t bad enough?” Luke continued, jerking his head toward her. “She was going to get married. And then Vance wouldn’t marry her. Because of me.”

CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_b5f704d1-8557-5a76-9b4d-a7a8548cb017)

NORA’S MOUTH FELL open. Her eyes clouded with tears. She’d had no idea Luke knew about that awful conversation between her and Vance.

“Just because I glued his stupid golf clubs to his golf bag.”

“Why’d you do that?” Brendan asked mildly.

“He didn’t want Auntie Nora to get me a skateboard, because I’d been suspended from school. So she didn’t. So I glued his golf clubs to his bag. Super Duper Gobby Glue works just the way it says in the commercial.”

“I’ll remember that,” Brendan promised.

“‘It’s him or it’s me,’” Luke quoted. His mimicry of Vance might have been hilariously accurate, if it wasn’t for the context. “She picked me. Dumb, huh?”

And then Brendan said, his voice steady as a rock, “I don’t think it’s so dumb.”

Despite the fact Nora could have done without her whole life story being exposed, she could have kissed Brendan, she felt so grateful.

Unfortunately, that made her look at his lips.

The thought of kissing Brendan Grant made her dizzier than the bump on her head.

“You don’t think it was dumb that she picked me?” Luke said, and the hopeful look in his eyes tugged at her heartstrings. He quickly covered it. “Sure. I just took money from your grandmother.”

“You know everybody makes mistakes. Your aunt Nora when she got engaged to a jerk.”

Her heart filled with the most unreasonable gratitude that someone saw Vance’s defection as a statement about him, not about her.

“He was a jerk,” Luke said. “A sanctimonious, knowit-all, stuck-up jerk.”

Nora’s mouth fell open. First of all, she’d had no idea Luke’s dislike of Vance had run so deep. Second, she had no idea that he could use a word like sanctimonious correctly.

“She should have asked Rover,” Brendan deadpanned, and then he and Luke cracked up. Brendan must have caught her disapproving expression, because he sobered.

“So, everybody makes mistakes,” he said. “When you took that money from Deedee, it was a mistake. What matters is whether you choose to grow from them or not.”

“What kind of mistakes have you ever made?” Luke challenged, not laughing anymore. Nora could tell he wanted to believe there was hope that a mistake could turn out okay, and was afraid to believe at the very same time.

Which she understood perfectly, of course.

Brendan hesitated. He tossed his cards down on the table. For a moment, it looked as if he wasn’t going to say anything at all.

Then, his voice so soft she felt herself straining to hear it, he said, “My wife died because of a terrible mistake I made. She was carrying our baby.”

Nora laid her hand on his, almost unbearably grateful that Brendan had seen how great Luke’s need was. And possibly hers. that he had overcome so tremendous an inner obstacle and given something of himself to both of them confirmed that her instincts had been right, after all.

There was a common place between them.

But it seemed to her that common place was the most frightening thing of all. It asked her to put aside her past injuries and her petty fears. It asked her to think less about protecting herself and more about reaching out to another human being.

Reaching out to animals was easy. Human beings were far more complicated.

She wasn’t ready. She ordered herself to withdraw her hand.

And yet her hand, as if separate from her mind and linked to her soul, stayed right where it was.

Brendan could not believe he had said that to Nora and Luke. What if these were the words that broke open that dam of emotion within him?

But no, the dam was safe. He had not cried then, and he would not cry now. Still, there was nothing he hated more than sympathy. He waited for her to say something that would make him regret confiding in them even more than he already did.

But Nora said nothing at all. Instead, with a tenderness so exquisite if felt as if the dam of emotion was newly threatened, she laid her hand on top of his.

For a moment he felt only the connection, her small hand covering part of his larger one, the softness of her palm against his toughened skin.

But then he was stunned by the warmth that began to pour from her hand, some energy vibrating up his wrist into his arm. It felt as if his whole body was beginning to tingle.

And suddenly, the world’s greatest cynic believed what he had only suspected until now.

She could heal things.

The light shining in her eyes almost made him believe she could heal the most impossible thing of all: a heart smashed to pieces.

For a stunned second, he felt his throat close. But then he fought it.

Because who would want that fixed? For what reason? So that it could be smashed again? So that a man could face his impotency over the caprice of life all over again?

He jerked his hand out of hers, and she stiffened, guessing it, correctly, as rejection. Then she had the good sense to look relieved. She actually glared at her hand for a minute, as if it had mutinied and acted on its own accord.