Eye of the Storm

by Hannah Alexander

  Gerard Vance was the kind of man who left an impression on everyone who met him, particularly those who had no homes, no livelihood, and depended on him for the very food they ate and the beds in which they slept.

  Reluctantly summoning her courage, Megan stepped out onto the front porch and heard the sound of a car door closing. She looked up to see Gerard walking across the yard, wearing his typical jeans and T-shirt—today the shirt was tie-dyed blue and white. His hair appeared more blond, slightly longer, his skin more tanned than when she’d left him standing at the shelter two weeks ago.

  She met his gaze and something inside her weakened as birdsong echoed from the treetops. At night, the whippoorwill called across the forest; in the morning, bluebirds and cardinals often fluttered from the front porch when she stepped out on her way to work. Now she knew how they felt.

  Lines of weariness framed Gerard’s blue eyes. Something had changed. As she waited for him to reach her, she felt a new kind of tension.

  Gerard allowed himself a few seconds to feast on the sight of Megan’s face. He realized in that short span how bleak the attitude at the mission had grown without her. His life too, come to think of it. The aftermath of the murder, of course, still lingered over the three-story, 25,000-square-foot building and among the employees and volunteers, but he knew the patients missed Megan’s unwavering and nonjudgmental compassion, her laughter, her ability to stop a child’s tears midstream with a gentle touch.

  “Spending a lot of time outdoors lately?” Her voice, usually strong but gentle, with a musical lilt, strained with a transparent attempt to sound casual.

  One of the first things that had attracted Gerard to Megan was her voice—since their first introduction was over the phone. The second attraction had been her straightforward honesty. She also had a sense of humor that arose at some of the most inconvenient times, but that helped her cope with the stress of her job. He even liked that about her.

  He stepped onto the porch and heard that same creak of wood beneath his feet that had probably startled her earlier. “I’ve spent a lot of time walking and praying the past two weeks.”

  “On the streets, no doubt.” She stepped backward as if to keep him from getting too close.

  “It’s where we find our patients, Megan.”

  “They aren’t mine. Not now.”

  “You haven’t—”

  “I know, I know. I haven’t fulfilled my obligation. You made that clear when I left. You think I don’t know how much I owe? But it isn’t going to happen in the near future, if at all, and I’m sorry, but I can’t do anything about—”

  “I didn’t come here to argue with you.”

  “No?” Her gaze met his briefly, then skimmed away.

  “And I didn’t come here to coerce you back to Texas against your will. I have business in the area.”

  Her golden-brown gaze met his with a hint of disbelief. “You think a town the size of Jolly Mill has a lot of homeless?”

  “I didn’t say a mission. I said business.”

  “Oh really? You make sales calls for your own company now? Times must be hard. No one needs a lot of go-green construction pieces in this part of the country.” She held her arms out. “Look around you, Gerard. No one’s building anything here. We even have a few businesses that have closed.”

  He ignored the sarcasm in her voice. “Hans and I still need to expand.”

  “But here?”

  “We need a location for a second manufacturing plant, and we still plan to establish the rehab center.”

  She blinked at him. He’d discussed his plans with her in detail, and he knew she shared his enthusiasm for those plans. He’d never told her he was considering her hometown, but hearing her talk about the community with such affection had drawn him to this place as much as her tender heart had drawn him to her.

  “You don’t plan to do that in Texas?” she asked.

  “We’re still looking, but Hans, Tess and I all feel attracted to this area for the rehab center.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve often spoken of returning here, and you make this area of the country sound appealing. There’s also a depressed economy in many parts of southern Missouri, and more industry can only help. Besides, when people from the street come to rehab, we want to make sure they’ll be able to make a fresh start in a fresh place with no memories of failure to haunt them.”

  “You can’t be doing this because of me, Gerard.”

  “I didn’t say I was. I just thought it was time I came to take a look for myself. I’ve done some preliminary studies, and this region could be well suited to what we want in the expansion, including people in need of a job.”

  “Your timing stinks. You know that, don’t you? I need a chance to heal, and your being here doesn’t help. Besides, we’re doing well in this area financially.”

  He studied her features. “Your eyes are shadowed. Your skin’s pale. I knew you’d suffer in silence.”

  She looked away.

  He searched the surrounding woods for signs of another habitation, but the closest building he saw was several hundred feet away through the trees, and that appeared to be a barn.

  “Probably no one’s heard you screaming during your nightmares.”

  She shook her head.

  “But you’re still having them.” It wasn’t a question. Those screams were part of her excuse—no, make that her reason—for leaving the mission. She’d explained that her neighbors were complaining, and that her lack of sleep could put patients at risk.

  Gerard felt his gaze become a touchless caress and he knew she felt it too. He couldn’t help himself. After all she’d endured at the mission, until this last horrible experience, she’d been courageous and compassionate, helping all the patients she could simply because she cared. How could he not admire her?

  She closed her eyes for a few seconds, and when she opened them again he saw sadness there as deep as a Texas oil well.

  After losing a patient on the exam table at Christmastime from the results of a vicious poisoning by someone determined to destroy Tess, Megan had redoubled her efforts at target practice so she could better guard her patients. When with Tess, traveling or shopping, she’d carried a concealed weapon, as she had in the clinic. To lose Joni Park despite all her efforts to become a security guard as well as a physician was more than Megan could emotionally handle. Gerard continued to reproach himself since their final argument outside the mission.

  His sister wasn’t too happy with him either. When Tess was forced to retreat to the mission in fear of her life last year, she and Megan had formed a tight bond. Megan was the sister Tess never had, and for the past several months, Tess had hinted to Gerard that he could make that sisterly relationship legal. After some long talks with Tess these past three weeks, Gerard understood Megan so much better than he had before.

  What was it about women that made it so easy for them to connect with one another and be able to read each other’s minds? And why hadn’t he grasped the true depth of Megan’s heart sooner, without Tess’s help?

  “Gerard, there are barely eight hundred people living here,” Megan said. “You bring Texas here and it won’t be Jolly Mill anymore.”

  “This is strictly a fact-gathering trip. I arrived this morning and wanted to see you first.”

  “You drove all night.”

  He nodded.

  “Looks like it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Something around her eyes seemed to relax. “You’re seriously considering this because of what I said about Jolly Mill?”

  “Have you ever known me to lie?”

  She held his gaze, and a glint of the gold seemed to lighten. “Not to me because you knew I’d make you suffer if I caught you at it.�
�

  He felt his own tension settle, and he grinned at her.

  “I have, however, known you to keep things from Tess,” she reminded him, “when you thought you were protecting her, and there have been times when you tended to take a more paternal attitude toward me.”

  “You’re reminding me I’m bossy?”

  “Well, yeah, there’s that.” Her voice was heavy with sarcasm, but the corners of her lips turned up.

  The two-week fight that had hovered between them over the miles had ended, just like that. Now to keep it from returning. “I couldn’t let you deal with this alone,” he said. “It’s too big for one person to handle.”

  “You seem to be handling it.”

  “I didn’t take the brunt of it. You did. And I’m not handling it alone the way you are. Tess and Sean and the whole staff know what happened. Sean and I have had some long talks about it. Who can you talk to about it?”

  She looked away.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said. “Nobody. You shouldn’t be alone with the memories.”

  “I want to be alone.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  She scowled. “You don’t listen very well.”

  “Sometimes I have to listen to the tone of your voice instead of your words. I have to read your expression.”

  Megan rolled her eyes. “Gerard, I don’t need to be rescued.”

  “Yeah. You do. And what about your patients? You’re treating again, but you told me you feared for the well-being of your patients at the mission because you weren’t sleeping.” He reached forward and touched her cheek before she could stop him. She looked so drawn. Her skin was cold. He wanted to warm it. “You’re still not getting much sleep.”

  “What part about my request for time didn’t you understand?”

  “Time to do what? Go back to the same kind of job you were doing?”

  She met his gaze. “It’s not the same kind of job at all. Everyone has a home and food to eat, and I don’t have to cut babies out of their dead mothers. There’s no comparison.”

  He heard the angst in her voice and he wanted to reach out and hold her in his arms and heal all her pain. Tess accused him of trying to play God, but she was wrong. “You need time from the memories, Megan, but you’re not getting it, obviously. Therefore you need someone—”

  “And that would be you, of course.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What would you be able to do for me?”

  “Listen. Help. Support.”

  She shook her head. “If I talk about it, the nightmares will just get worse.”

  “Have they gotten any easier since you arrived here?”

  She turned away, and the soft sound of her footsteps echoed across the wooden porch.

  “I’ll take that as a no. You wouldn’t take my calls.” He followed her. “Did you even read those messages Kirstie passed along? I know she gave them to you because she told me she did. In fact, she even called me back one time and apologized for you.”

  Megan bowed her head, and the long, ginger-colored strands of her hair glowed in the early-morning sunlight.

  “That’s what I thought,” he said.

  “Please, I’m not ready for this. I can’t—”

  “You’re going to have to work through it because your mind isn’t letting it go.”

  She turned, and her expression slowly hardened as her stare became a glare. “How I handle my emotional baggage is my own business.”

  Okay, he had that coming. Note for next time: a guy didn’t just barge in on a woman before sunrise and expect a warm welcome. Why did he push so hard? Because he was right. At least this time. He knew from talking to Kirstie that Megan was struggling.

  “How did you find me?” she asked.

  “You left your address book behind in your apartment. Your landlord found it. You weren’t answering your cell so I called every one of your friends until I reached one who didn’t sound surprised when I asked about you.”

  She leaned against a support post beside the steps and crossed her arms. “And you felt you had a right to page through my personal property?”

  “Sure did. I was worried about you when you didn’t even call Tess.”

  “And Kirstie was willing to trust a complete stranger?” Megan asked.

  “Not until I chatted with her for a while.”

  “Charmed her, you mean.”

  He grinned. “I simply convinced her I was trustworthy. You’d paved the way, of course, but she’s also a good judge of character.”

  “She wasn’t always.”

  “You’re talking about her husband, the weakling who abandoned her after the diagnosis.”

  Megan’s eyes widened. “She really did trust you.”

  He shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a trustworthy man.”

  Megan shoved away from the support post and gazed through the trees toward the barn Gerard had spotted earlier. There was the sadness again, not only in her eyes, but in every inch of her body, the way her shoulders slumped, the way her mouth turned down, the way she drew into herself as if trying to zip herself into a body bag.

  “She told me about her blackouts,” Gerard said.

  “The doctor who diagnosed her called it sundowner’s syndrome. How many times did you two talk?”

  “Twice. I refuse to call it sundowner’s until someone can prove she has chronic Alzheimer’s or dementia.”

  “You had extended conversations, no doubt.”

  He nodded. “Not counting dozens of emails.”

  “You didn’t tell her why I left the mission, did you?”

  “I didn’t tell her about Joni. I did give her some explanation as to why you left.”

  “Gerard.”

  “I told her you’d lost a couple of patients in the past few months but that you didn’t like to talk about it. Did she mention to you that she was afraid she was being poisoned?”

  Megan’s expression froze into the image of a porcelain figurine, all but the eyes, which darkened with shock. “She told you that?”

  “Aha! And she didn’t tell you.”

  As if by habit, Megan smacked him gently on the arm. “Don’t gloat. Poison? She said that word?”

  “Those words exactly, and before you say anything about this to Lynley, don’t. She doesn’t know. Kirstie told only me.”

  “Why didn’t she say something to me about it?”

  “You refused to take her case.”

  “Of course I did. She needs a neurologist.”

  Gerard shook his head. “You still think that?”

  Megan raised an elegantly arched brow. “What would you say if I told you she warned me recently that I could be in danger?”

  He studied that carefully held expression. It was the one he’d seen often when Megan and Tess were playing a joke on him. Megan’s emotions were all over the place this morning. “Kirstie said that?”

  “I think she was talking about you. So that means you told her you were coming.”

  “I said I would be coming soon, but I didn’t make the decision to drive here last night until she told me about the poison theory. I didn’t want you to face that, along with everything else, all alone.” And Kirstie had given no hint that she was suspicious of him. Quite the contrary. “She said you were in danger from me?”

  A wry smile crossed Megan’s lips as she slid her gaze away from him. “A certain kind of danger.”

  He continued to watch her, relaxing enough to enjoy yet another break from the tension. “Ah. I see.” He couldn’t help returning the smile, and he did it in double quantity, though Megan still avoided his gaze. “She’s a perceptive lady. You’ve spoken to her of us t
hen.” He knew she had. Kirstie had alluded to hearing his name mentioned quite a few times over the past year or so.

  “Of you. Singular.”

  He could tell by the light in Megan’s eyes that she was also enjoying the break in tension, temporary though it may be. “Well, that’s still good. She said you told her how strong I was, that I was an ex-cop.”

  “Did you tell her you forced me to take classes to get a license to carry—”

  “I did not force you to do that.”

  Megan blinked up at him. “I hope you didn’t lie to her. She can see through lies these days, and she does not take kindly to them.”

  “I didn’t force you to get the license. I strongly suggested it because of the section of town where we’re located.”

  “You threatened me with my life.”

  “I did not. I only suggested you might save a life in more ways than—”

  He realized too late that he should have let it drop when Megan turned away, shoulders once again drooping, eyes closing in pain.

  “Kirstie did share your description of me,” he said, gently resting a hand on her back. “Even I was impressed. I’m a tough, giant blond guy with strikingly beautiful blue eyes, and no woman should be able to resist me.”

  Megan turned back. “I did not say that.”

  Gerard chuckled. “No, wait. You said I was still a tough cop at heart.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Kirstie did agree with you that I tend to growl on occasion.”

  “Well, here we are on your favorite subject again,” Megan drawled in the Texas twang she’d developed during her time in the town of Southern heat. “You.”

  “Ouch.”

  He watched the pain ease from around Megan’s eyes again as the discussion lightened. Something inside her was sealed up like a brand-new Deepfreeze. Maybe she truly couldn’t have this conversation with him yet. This argument. This call to return to the scene of the crime and work through the tangle of confusion and pain that left them both with open wounds.