“Do you want to tell your friends here what the other considerations were?” Like Moses parting the sea, he moved steadily down the center aisle, the people on either side edging back as he passed. “Do you want to tell them who you were really thinking about when you talked an elderly man out of his home and stuck him away from everything familiar?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The hell you don’t,” Damon growled, oblivious to the widened eyes and gaping mouths. “The only person you’re thinking of is yourself. You never took any interest in Louie until you thought the man’s money was threatened. Money you’d probably get someday. Which was it that you really thought?” he demanded over someone’s gasp at the audacity of the suggestion. “That I’d con him out of it? Or that he’d give it to me and cut you out?”
Neil’s mouth opened, closed and opened again. Looking like a fish out of water, he sputtered something that sounded like a protest.
“Deny it,” Damon demanded, edging forward, eyes even with Neil’s. “Deny that you were only thinking of yourself. You don’t give a damn about him. You wouldn’t even listen when he told you we thought one of his prescriptions was causing him to be confused. You blew it off as an old man’s ramblings. If you’d bothered to check it out, you’d know he called his doctor and his doctor changed the medicine. He hasn’t had a bad spell since.”
Groping for a comeback, Neil glanced to the sheriff for help. Jansson’s brow was furrowed, his stony glance bouncing between the two glaring men.
“He has different kinds of spells,” Neil retorted, grasping for something to fight back with. “Every time I went over there to talk to him lately, he’d just be sitting in his chair, wearing that stupid fishing vest and staring off into space. If he bothered to answer me at all, he’d mumble about not caring where I moved him. Most of the time, he’d just look at me like I wasn’t even there.”
“He’s depressed, you idiot.” That’s what Hannah had said, anyway, and Damon figured she knew what she was talking about. She was good with people, compassionate and caring. He figured, too, that if Louie looked at Neil as if he weren’t there, it was probably because he wished he weren’t. “How would you feel if you didn’t have anything to look forward to and your only relative wanted you out of the way? There’s nothing wrong with him that a little time and attention wouldn’t cure. He just needs a purpose,” he insisted, getting in the guy’s face, blocking him completely with his body. “He doesn’t belong where you stuck him. If he gets to the point where he really needs to be in a home, then put him in one in a place he knows. Protecting him from me was just an excuse to move him far enough away that you wouldn’t have to be bothered with him anymore.
“And stop worrying about his money,” he snarled. “You’ll get it soon enough.”
His own culpability where Louie was concerned was biting hard when he saw Neil retreat another step. By sheer force of will, or divine intervention, Damon hadn’t touched him, but Neil had backed into a folding chair and was about to go over it.
Instinctively, Neil groped for the nearest support, which happened to be the front of Damon’s shirt.
It was sheer perversity. Damon knew it, he even took time to acknowledge it. But since he wouldn’t let himself deck the self-righteous son of a sea witch, he did the next best thing. Stepping back before Neil’s hand could clutch fabric, he let him crash in a heap under the podium with its carving of a dove and an olive branch.
The clatter of collapsing metal had given way to gasps when Neil grabbed his right wrist and scrambled to his feet. Swearing a blue streak, he rounded on the sheriff. But Damon was already backing away, vaguely aware of a man in a clerical collar admonishing Neil to watch his mouth. He was more conscious of the collective murmurs coming from behind him—and the feel of worried blue eyes on his back.
He didn’t know what it meant that he could sense her the way he did. But he knew Hannah was there even before he turned and saw her clutching her coat around herself at the back of the room. Her face was pale, and her eyes filled with anxiety as they darted from him to the man loudly insisting that he be arrested.
“That’s assault!” Neil fumed. “He pushed me!”
The burning in Damon’s gut instantly changed quality. He’d been so far into the guy’s face that no one could possibly have seen what had happened. For all anyone knew, he’d bumped him with his chest. He hadn’t, but that didn’t matter. Not when it came to him.
He was already halfway to the door. Since no one tried to stop him, he kept going. Past the people gaping at him. Past the whispers, the stares. Past the only decent thing that had ever happened to him.
It was only his desire to protect Hannah that prevented him from grabbing her arm and hauling her out with him. She didn’t need him acting possessive around her. That would only fuel whatever speculation was still going on about them. He’d already done enough damage to an innocent old man. All he could do now was minimize the damage he’d done to her.
If she’d just let him.
The commotion he’d caused was still audible when he heard her quick, light footsteps hurrying up the stairs after him. He didn’t slow for her and he didn’t turn around, but he did hold the door when he reached the end of the upper hall until she could grab it, then headed down the wet walkway to where he’d left his truck at the curb.
“Damon, don’t do this.” Hannah’s hand curved over his shirtsleeve, her touch as insistent as her voice. “What happened back there?”
The night was quiet and cool, the air damp from the earlier rain. The breeze rattled the budding birch trees, the sound as brittle as his voice when he finally spoke.
“I didn’t touch him.”
He could see her relief in the pale light from the street lamp, her unquestioning acceptance of his word visible in her eyes. But the worry straining her delicate features remained, torturing him as much as the odd, empty ache in his chest.
“Come back to the café. I’ll lock up and we can talk. Or not talk, if you don’t want to.” Her glance searched his, offering reassurance, asking for the same. “We’ll figure out what to do for Louie. We’ll go see him tomorrow.”
“I already know what I need to do.”
The rage had leaked out of him. The fire that had burned in his eyes extinguished as if the wick had been cut from a candle. Hannah could have dealt with his anger. She’d been prepared for that. But its sudden absence frightened her even more than Damon’s abrupt withdrawal this afternoon. All that remained in the shadowed angles of his face was distance, and resignation.
Slowly, deliberately, he reached for her hand and moved it from his arm.
“I can’t do this anymore, Hannah. If Louie hadn’t been helping me, he’d be in his house right now going through his gardening catalogs. I hurt him. And I’m hurting you,” he added, as if the deed were a simple, irrefutable fact. “Your business is already suffering because of who I am.”
The temptation to argue his conclusion wasn’t there. His strange calm precluded excuses. But it was the way he’d cast off her touch that robbed the strength from her voice. “It’s not that long until summer,” she said, folding her arms over the awful knot in her stomach. “You know it’ll be better then.”
“This isn’t about just scraping by. That’s not why you came here. You want to belong, and that won’t happen if you’re with me. You know as well as I do that reputation is everything around here. This town isn’t going to change the way it thinks, and I can’t do anything to change my past. Hell, it’s my present,” he said, his voice starkly devoid of emphasis. He motioned toward the church, looking as if he expected the sheriff to come bolting out any minute. “Even when I try, I can’t stay out of trouble.”
He turned, heading for the driver-side door of his truck. Hannah stepped in front of him, blocking him at the fender but careful not to touch him. It almost seemed as if he were pushing her away to protect her. But it wasn’t his protection she wanted. She j
ust wanted his heart.
“You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t say anything in there that I wouldn’t have said if I’d thought of it.”
The plea in her voice was for understanding, and for the chance she could feel slipping through her fingers like wet glass. She’d known it was only a matter of time before he pulled completely away from her, but she’d let herself dream, anyway. And the pain of those shattering dreams was fierce.
She wanted his heart. But he wasn’t offering that. He never had.
“As for changing the way people think about you,” she continued, trying to break through any way she could, “you’ve never given them reason to change their minds. You’re a good man, Damon. You’ve got so much to offer if you’d just let yourself. All you’ve ever let them see is what they expect to see.”
She knew now why he did that. It didn’t hurt as much when he could push someone away before they could push him. It was the same defense he used for people he might care about, the one he was using now as he cut his glance from her as if there was no point discussing the obvious. He simply abandoned people before they could harm him. The way his mom had done. The way his father had emotionally abandoned him. The way the system and the community had cast him aside. All his life, he’d been doing the only thing he’d ever been taught to do. That had to be why he didn’t try to give himself a chance by moving someplace else. It didn’t matter where he lived. No matter where he went, he wouldn’t let himself risk being anything other than alone.
“I’ll clean out the shop in a couple of days,” he said, stepping around her to open the truck’s door. “What I have to do shouldn’t take much longer than that.”
She didn’t let herself ask what it was he intended to do. But Damon knew it had her concerned. He caught a glimpse of that worry in her eyes, along with the hurt he’d put there, before she turned and walked away as the first drops of rain began to fall.
There was nothing he could do about that hurt, except live with the same feeling himself. Seeing light spill from the doorway when the side door of the church opened, he started the engine and pulled out onto the dark, damp street. The only way he could stay out of trouble was to keep to himself. He’d known that. And he’d been doing fine...until Hannah. But he’d broken his own rules and stepped beyond the boundaries he could control. It was time he returned to his own world. It was where he belonged. But first, he had to do what he could do for Louie.
The rain that started that night never let up. For two days, the dismal gray sky leaked a constant supply of the wet stuff—which meant every person darting through the door of the café had a comment about how nasty it was outside. The remarks were invariably followed by mention of the only other topic worth discussion—the now-infamous scene at the pastor selection meeting at the Good Shepherd church.
“That wind!” Brenda exclaimed, pulling down the hood of her wet raincoat as she closed the café’s front door. “I haven’t seen it like this since last fall.”
Hannah was well aware of the wind. Between the ache in her chest she was trying hard to not think about and a nagging sense of worry she couldn’t ignore, she was agitated enough without Mother Nature getting in on the act. “Do the spring storms get as bad as the fall ones do?”
Hannah watched Brenda bat at her curls as she cleared plates from a table. Considering the weather, it had been fairly busy until a few minutes ago. Given that the rain was now blowing in sheets, the midmorning lull was likely to be even quieter than usual.
“They can. That’s one of the reasons I’m here. You might want to put up your shutters.”
Hannah had already thought about that. But since she hadn’t noticed any of the other merchants boarding up, she’d decided to wait herself. “What’s the other reason?”
“To check on you.”
A soft smile touched her lips. “I’m fine, Bren. Really,” she lied, knowing she wasn’t fooling her friend. “I just wish I knew where he was.”
“Did Dorothy tell you she thinks Damon is right?”
Hannah nodded, carrying dishes to the kitchen. “She was in yesterday.”
Dorothy, who hadn’t been at the meeting but had certainly heard about it, also thought Damon could have exercised a little more restraint by not shoving Neil. But, like several others who’d generously shared their opinion with Hannah—every one of whom she tried to set straight on the shoving issue—any criticism of him had been tempered with respect. Damon hadn’t caused the disruption to defend himself against Neil’s accusations. He hadn’t attempted to benefit himself at all. Everything he’d said had been in defense of Louie Lindstrom.
It was Damon who needed to hear their remarks, though. Not that he’d think they made any difference. And not that he was where anyone could talk to him. He hadn’t moved his things from the shop. He hadn’t been home when Deacon Jim had stopped by his house yesterday and this morning. And his truck wasn’t at the dock.
“Hannah?”
“What?”
“I think we ought to get the shutters up. The welcome sign from the Curl Up and Dye just blew by the newsstands.”
Hannah couldn’t see the dislodged sign, but when she glanced back through the service window, she could see the trees behind the appliance store across the street bowing sharply to the left. Brenda was right. But even as she grabbed her slicker and she and Brenda hurried down the stairwell and wrestled the first board out the silent shop’s door, the concern that had nagged at Hannah all morning took firmer hold.
They had that board up and were starting back to the shop for the other when Hannah caught Brenda’s arm.
“Go back inside,” she insisted over the drumming of the rain. “And don’t you dare try to finish this yourself.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Damon’s boat.”
“What?”
“If his truck is there, I’ll be right back.” She could see vehicles in the lot at the end of the narrow street, but with the rain blurring everything, the shapes all looked the same. “If not, I’ll be back in ten minutes.”
The sound of thunder rumbled in the distance. Bracing herself against it, she took off down the hill with her head bent against the sheeting rain. If his truck was in the lot, it would mean he was taking care of his boat. If it wasn’t, she’d have to do what she could. After all the work Damon had put into the Naiad and as much as it meant to him, she couldn’t bear the thought of anything happening to it. She could hardly keep it from being tossed out of the water if the waves got that high, but she could make sure the windows were covered and the extra bumpers tied on.
The windshield wipers were barely keeping up with the deluge when Damon pulled away from the café to head for the dock. He couldn’t believe Hannah had left her windows half shuttered to take care of his boat. But that was exactly what Brenda had said she’d done, just before he’d jammed the other board into place himself and jumped back in his truck.
Swiping water from his face, he focused on the road through the blur of water pouring against the windshield and the frantic slap of the wipers. He didn’t know which was pushing him more at the moment, anxiety, irritation or some feeling he was truly afraid to name. Hannah hated storms, and the thought of her being out there for him only added to the turmoil he’d fought relentlessly for the last two days.
A pine bough tore past his fender as he bumped into the gravel lot. Slowing, he fastened the top toggle on the long yellow slicker he’d pulled on before he’d boarded Hannah’s window. Wanting only to get the job done so he could get to the dock, he hadn’t bothered with the sou’wester that had fallen to the floorboard. He didn’t bother with it when he pulled up by the white van with the fish logo, either. As he cut the engine and opened the door, his only thought was to get Hannah into the truck and to secure his boat. At the moment, anything beyond that didn’t matter.
Leaving the keys dangling in the ignition, he bent his head against the whip of wind and rain and bolted for the wooden stairs. On
ly the knowledge that the steps could be slick as ice when they were wet slowed him down, but even then he was at a steady jog.
The dock normally sat a couple of feet off the water, but waves were sloshing across the planks as he passed the other big boats being jostled against the wharf. Those other vessels had already been secured with extra ropes and protected by the long, cylindrical foam bumpers that buffered their beating against the pilings and, at times, one another. But what made no sense to him when he spotted the bright blue of Hannah’s slicker near his stern was that three men from those other boats were just leaving his.
The first of those yellow-slickered men came over the stern just as Hannah turned toward him. The wind caught her hood with her movement, blowing it back from her head, but she seemed so startled to see him that she didn’t think to snatch it back. In seconds her hair was soaked, and her skin looked like pale, wet marble.
“She’s as secure as she’s going to get. You did a nice job on her, too,” Ernie Pedersen said, slapping him on the shoulder before he jogged off in the rain.
The guy behind him, a man Damon recognized as one of the Feldsons’ deckhands, gave him a thumbs-up and took off after the man who, until that moment, hadn’t spared him more than two words in the past ten months.
Axel Feldson jumped off right behind him, wiping water from his mustache with one hand and pointing across the stern with the other. “I couldn’t find a rope to tie off on that port cleat, so I used one of mine. You can get it back to me whenever you get a chance.”
Head ducked against the torrent, he followed the others, anxious to get out of the storm.
Through the gray downpour, Damon watched Hannah move toward him. She looked a little hesitant, and a lot uneasy. He wasn’t sure how much of that had to do with the weather and how much with him, but he was guessing it was a toss-up right about now.
Hannah And The Hellion (Silhouette Treasury 90s) Page 23
