by Natalie Ann
Sitting across from her had unnerved him like never before. He was angry. No, he was livid, and he was hurt on top of being frustrated over everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
But under it all, a part of him just wanted to touch her again. To hold her. To say he never meant to hurt her.
Watching her look at him, trying to put on a brave front, was slowly sucking the life out of him again.
He was right, she wasn’t the same person, but part of her still was. She was still vulnerable and the primitive need to protect her had never diminished. Not that he did a great job of it years ago. And regardless of what she said, he’d have to live with his words from back then.
He lifted his hand and started to put it on her shoulder, but hesitated. The urge to touch her was so deep, but he stopped. He didn’t trust himself—he didn’t trust her—not after her comment. “What makes you think I need a friend?”
She shifted her chair back and turned her head, but he moved and leaned against the wall, putting some space between them. “I know about Kendra.”
Blowing out a huge breath, he flicked his eyes to the ceiling, then looked back to her steady gaze. “Your point.”
He shouldn’t have been surprised his grandmother kept her that well informed.
“You always came here to hide.”
He didn’t appreciate her pointing that out, even if it was true.
This place was his safe haven. The place he came when he needed to get away from work, get away from life, and get away from the past.
Why it never occurred to him she would have come here was beyond him. She’d never been to Lake Placid before, but he’d talked about his grandmother’s house all the time back then, and he knew Mallory always enjoyed his grandmother’s visits.
“So you think I’m hiding now?”
“Aren’t you?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.
“This isn’t about me.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Since it seems you know so much about me, and you want to be friends again, why don’t you catch me up on the last twelve years of your life?”
They had to start somewhere and he wasn’t in the mood to talk about his situation right now.
He watched her eyes dart around the room nervously, then settle back on his face. The uncertainty was there, he saw it, but he also saw her determination.
“You want a play by play, or do you have specific questions?”
“Am I going to get some real answers?”
“Depends on the questions.” She stood up and walked to the refrigerator. “We could be a while by the sounds of it. Did you eat? I can make you some lunch.”
He tried not to get annoyed that she was so at home in his grandmother’s house that she just got up and started to help herself. He had to put those feelings behind him, even if he did feel jealousy over it, that maybe his grandmother was closer to someone other than him.
“Whatever makes you happy or makes you talk.” He knew that came out clipped and didn’t have one ounce of remorse over it.
Picking his laptop up, he moved it into the living room, then returned while she pulled out some sandwich meat and cheese, then grabbed the bread. “What do you want? Or should I make you PB&J?”
Her lips were twitching when she said that. It was the first sign of relaxation since she walked in the back door, and he realized maybe he could actually get some truthful answers. Maybe she was going to really talk to him.
“Let me guess: my grandmother has made you that with a glass of milk when you were having a bad day.”
“More times than I care to say. I don’t even like jelly, but I’ve never wanted to hurt her feelings.”
That said something. As simple and crazy as it was, he knew Mallory loved and cared for his grandmother and that softened him at the moment. Not much, but enough.
“Whatever you’re making for yourself, just make one for me. Then sit down. I’ve got some questions and I hope you’ll give me some answers.”
Five minutes later, she put a ham and cheese sandwich in front of him and sat back down in the seat she had vacated. He got up and grabbed two sodas, opened them and set them down.
“So what do you do for a living? You own that house, right? No one rents homes on the lake long term.”
“That’s more than one question, but then again, you said you had a lot. First off, I’ll tell you that no one knows me here as Mallory Denning. It’s Mallory Dexter…an insurance adjuster who works from home. I bought the house about four years ago.”
“Dexter? Whose idea was that name?” he asked quickly.
“Your grandmother’s. Why?”
“No reason.” Mallory obviously didn’t know that Dexter was his middle name. His grandmother was fully aware of it and he wondered what could have possessed her to choose that name for Mallory. “Are you an insurance adjuster, though? You said Mallory Dexter is, but you aren’t Mallory Dexter.”
She took a bite of her sandwich, chewed, and held his stare. She was hiding something, he knew it, but the question was—would she answer him truthfully now? “No, I’m not.”
“What do you do then?”
Again with the hesitating. “I guess if I want to see if I can trust you again, then I need to give you something. I write. I’m an author. I use a pen name, and for now, we’ll keep that a secret, too. I’ve published more books than I can count right off the top of my head, and even if I weren’t hiding from my past, I wouldn’t let people know my pen name. I’m still a pretty private person.”
“You always did like to read and write.”
“I still do.”
He believed her. It made sense. He’d try to figure out what name she wrote under another time. “Ever been married?”
“What? That’s a bit of an odd question.”
It was, he knew it, and he wasn’t sure why he asked. Part of him wanted to know though—had she ever had any serious relationships? Did she have a boyfriend or a lover? Had she moved on and forgotten about him completely? Not that he’d blame her if she did.
“Just curious,” he said, his tone as nonchalant as he could manage.
“No. That would be a little hard to do when no one knows my real identity.”
“So you’ve never been in a relationship then?”
Why the hell was he asking these types of questions? What was wrong with him? There were so many more important things he wanted to know and yet all he cared about was if she had been seriously involved with someone.
“I’ve been in a few. Nothing serious enough to reveal my identity, if you must know. And since you think its okay to ask questions like that, what happened with you and Kendra?”
“I’m not the one who’s been hiding my life. I’ve got no secrets.” Not really. At least nothing she knew about or would suspect.
“True. I guess it’s not fair for me to ask why you canceled the wedding at the last minute.” She shrugged her shoulders and ate some more. “It has nothing to do with me.”
Her comment hit a little too close to home, so he changed the subject. “You said you bought that house four years ago. Have you lived here with my grandmother all along? If so, where did you go when we visited?”
There had never been any signs of someone else living in the house when he and his family visited.
“I lived here until about four years ago, yes. I was trying to save money to buy a house. I didn’t want to risk getting a loan and letting anyone know who I really was or what I did for a living, so I had to stay longer than I would have liked until I could afford the house outright. As for where I went when you visited…lots of places.”
“Such as?”
“We normally had enough notice someone was visiting that I would book a hotel even if it was an hour away, or further. I’d find any place I could and get out of town while you were here. We never wanted to risk me running into you or your family.”
“What about all of your stuff, though?
There was nothing ever in the house to lead us to believe someone else lived here.”
“I never had a lot of possessions. Just clothes, really. I’d pack as much as I could and put it in my car. The rest we’d put in storage. I had a storage unit, just a small one, and we’d move everything there when we had to.”
She laughed, and it warmed him. Reminded him of the girl he used to know whose eyes just lit right up when she was happy. Almost carefree. He wondered if he’d ever see that face again or hear that laugh. The laugh he’d loved so much. The one he sought to hear when they were together back then.
“What’s so funny?”
“There were a few times Trixie and I didn’t have much notice that someone was coming.”
“Like now?”
“That’s one.”
“When else?”
Then he remembered. Right after he graduated from college, he came here to surprise his grandmother. He’d missed her and he needed her advice. He wanted to start his own company when no one else believed in him. He knew she’d be the one person that would give him the push he needed to take that step.
“Right before NB Innovations came about,” he said before she could answer him.
“Yep. Trixie and I thought it was all over right then. You pulled in the driveway and I’d been cooking dinner when she shouted for me to get to my room. I stayed in Rene’s old room, not yours. You were too observant, and would have noticed if anything was out of place. Rene was a little more laid back.”
“You mean she was more clueless?”
“If you want to use that word, I won’t argue,” Mallory said, grinning. “Anyway, I ran upstairs to my room and locked myself in. I could hear Trixie in the kitchen throwing pots and pans around, and was wondering what the heck was going on. I wanted to run back down and see if she was okay, but I couldn’t.”
“When I knocked on the door I smelled something burning.”
“She’d purposely ruined the dinner so that you’d have to take her out to eat, to give me time to remove any trace of myself and leave the house before you both returned.”
He shook his head. His grandmother was craftier than anyone ever gave her credit for. She was cunning and fast on her feet. He’d always wondered if he got that trait from her.
He smiled, remembering that visit, and looked over at Mallory grinning with him, her crystal blue eyes holding some type of emotion. What, he wasn’t sure.
Both of them were relaxed right then. Even with all the secrets and lies between them, they could still share that memory. One they both had and didn’t even know they shared. “Where did you go?”
“It was hard to find a hotel last minute, let me tell you. The beginning of summer with tourist season starting.” She stopped and shuddered, and it was just another memory of the girl he once knew that always let go more around him than anyone else. “I was terrified I was going to be sleeping in my car. But Trixie texted me an address when you were out to dinner and told me the key was under a flowerpot. It was the cabin of a friend that she knew was out of town. I ended up staying there for the week. If they’d been in town, I probably would have slept in my car or found a camping spot. Anything but here.”
“Was what happened to you at home so bad that it caused you to do that so many years later? That you had to pick up and run whenever anyone who knew who you really were could spot you?”
He just couldn’t fathom that. He couldn’t understand what would make her run and stay so hidden. Nothing made sense to him.
“Yes, it was.”
Her eyes were glossy now as they stared at his, the light from moments ago extinguished.
He watched her hand start to slide across the table, stop, and then hesitatingly start again, until her fingers were lying top of his. “I’m sorry, Nick. I never meant for anyone to be hurt. I never thought my life would end up like this. And it’s hard for me to move forward and put it behind me. I’m not sure I can do it. I’m not sure I know how to do it.”
The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “I’ll help you.”
Helpless
Two days later, Nick found himself walking down the road in search of Mallory’s house. He didn’t tell his grandmother where he was going, only that he was going for a walk.
He figured he could find her house somehow, even though he wasn’t sure what street she lived on. It wasn’t like he could actually get lost as long as he stayed to the roads.
After Mallory had left a few days ago—after he’d offered to help her, and she just stared at him like he was some circus act in front of a church on Sunday morning—he continued to sit in the chair as if he were watching paint dry on the wall.
His grandmother had returned at some point and saw him there. She’d never said a word, just walked right past him toward the sink, filled a glass of water, then finally commented, “Mallory was here, I see.”
“How do you know?”
“Two dishes in the sink.”
He turned to look at her. She was leaning against the counter smirking at him, seeing more than he cared for. She was sharp as a tack, always had been and probably always would be. “Go on, say it.”
“You look like someone kicked you between the legs.”
He snorted. She was never one to mince words either. “I feel like it.”
“I thought for sure all that tossing and turning last night would have helped you get a better grasp on things, yet you’re still looking shell-shocked. What happened now?”
“Nothing more than talking. She came to make amends, I guess you could say. Wants to be friends.”
“Friends, is it?”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” she asked, her eyes laughing more. Laughing at him.
“Like you did when I was a kid and you knew I was hiding something. I’ve got nothing to hide right now.” She walked forward, her running sneakers squeaking on the hardwood floor. Bright pink and black, matching the black yoga pants she had on and the bright pink T-shirt. “I thought you were going to lunch with friends.”
“I did, and then we went to yoga. I take yoga a few days a week in town. Don’t try to change the subject on me, though.” She pulled the chair out that Mallory had been sitting in and got comfortable. “So what did you two talk about? Other than her wanting to be friends again.”
“Why should I tell you? You won’t tell me anything about what happened. Nothing. You won’t answer any of my questions.”
“Don’t get snippy with me, Nick. I’m still your grandmother and I can still find a ruler and rap you on the knuckles with it.”
He grimaced, remembering the times she’d done just that. It didn’t matter he was an adult, that he owned his own company and had hundreds of people who answered to him. His grandmother could still make him feel like he was five and had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar right before dinner.
“Why won’t you tell me anything?” he asked again, like he had the night before.
“It’s not my place, Nick. I’m sorry for that, but you should hear it from her. How she felt and what she went through.”
“Is Mallory in danger?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Was she ever in danger? Serious danger, or was this just some stunt a scared girl did?”
“You should know better than to ask if she was a scared kid running away. Had you ever known Mallory to pull a stunt over anything? To overreact or act out at all? The answer is no. So that means it was something serious. But she needs to come to the decision to tell you on her own.”
His grandmother was right. Mallory had been by all appearances the perfect teenager. She was smart, she never missed school, she always did the right things, she was always helpful, and he’d never remembered her ever raising her voice.
Nothing in her life would have ever led anyone to believe she would be someone to run away from home. “She wasn’t physically hurt?” He was trying anything he could to get
an answer.
“I would say she escaped a fate that might have been worse than death in her eyes.”
“But you won’t tell me what that is,” he said, running his hands through his hair.
He couldn’t remember ever being this frustrated talking to someone. He’d never before gotten the runaround in his life when he wanted something, and right now he had two people giving it to him.
When his grandmother only continued to look at him with humor dancing in her eyes, he decided to change the subject a little.
“She seems very comfortable here.”
“She should. She lived in this house for over seven years.”
“She told me. She also said everyone knows her as Mallory Dexter, an insurance adjuster, but she’s actually a writer.”
His grandmother sat up a little straighter, losing a bit of her composure. Good, he managed to rattle her. “She told you all of that?”
“Why do you look so surprised?”
“No one knows that about her. She has friends, you know. People she talks to and does things with in town. Not really close friends, but she isn’t completely alone, and yet not one person has ever been told what she actually does for a living.”
“She said she wanted to learn to trust me again. We agreed trust goes both ways. I guess that was her peace offering. She wouldn’t tell me her pen name though, or what she wrote.”
“No surprise there. And honestly, it’s not that big of an issue right now. I have to say I’m happy she told you what she did. That’s progress at the very least.”
“Progress for what?”
“I’ve tried to get her to move forward with her life for years, Nick. She wasn’t ready. I wondered if she would ever be ready. But now with you here and finding her, she doesn’t have a choice. She didn’t have time to hide or plan it out. Now she has to react to what’s going on around her and she’s never been good at that. She’d never been spontaneous.”
“Really? This from a girl who disappeared one night?”
“That doesn’t count.”
He looked at his grandmother more closely. Her stylish bob still dyed a light brown, the wrinkles on her face not nearly what they should be, her eyes clear as day, understanding front and center. “You care for her a great deal, don’t you?”
