Hannah And The Hellion (Silhouette Treasury 90s)

by Christine Flynn

  He’d just run his hand through his barely gray, honey brown hair when he promptly froze where he dripped. The thick slashes of his eyebrows slammed together like lightning bolts.

  Instantly guarded, his glance jerked from the man standing in front of the counter to the woman behind it.

  “Is everything all right here?”

  “Everything’s fine.” Hannah offered the assurance with a smile, only to feel the smile falter and her stomach knot when she saw Damon’s jaw lock. “Damon was passing by when he saw I needed help with the shutters. We’re just talking.” She tried the smile again. “Come on in.”

  The sheriff didn’t seem to believe that all was as well as she said it was. One instant he was searching her face as if looking for signs of distress. The next, he pinned Damon with a glare that would have had most people squirming their way toward the door.

  Damon met that glare head-on, his eyes cool, unblinking and revealing nothing of his thoughts or intentions. Though his motions seemed normal enough when he pushed back his hair with one hand and pulled his cap on with the other, the tension in his body was almost palpable.

  Hannah could have sworn she felt that same tension knot itself in her stomach when she saw his hands drop to his sides. He stood still as stone. Apparently, he wasn’t moving until the sheriff did.

  “Go ahead and have a seat.” She motioned the sheriff toward the counter, thinking the weather had brought him in for an early lunch. “I’ll get your coffee,” she added with a cautious smile. “It’s really bad out there, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not here to eat.” He wasn’t there for small talk, either. Looking as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to take his eyes off Damon, he nodded toward the door. “Louie Lindstrom has wandered off again. I was wondering if you’d seen him.”

  Concern replacing caution, her glance darted to the man looming beside the counter. “I haven’t. Have you?”

  There was definite tightness to Damon’s quiet “No.”

  “How long has he been missing?” she asked the sheriff.

  “It’s hard to say. He was home last night when Neil dropped off a prescription. When he called him a while ago to make sure he’d closed his shutters, he didn’t answer. Neil left work to check on him and he wasn’t there.”

  “I hope he didn’t head for the dock,” she said, not sure what to make of the way the sheriff was looking at her. His eyes had narrowed when she hadn’t hesitated to turn to Damon. Now the concern she’d first noted was no longer there. Disapproval had replaced it. Thinking only of the elderly man they’d helped before, she looked back to Damon. “It’s been a while since you were at your boat. Maybe he went down after you came up. We should help find him.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But you were so good with him before. If you were to—”

  The way his jaw tightened cut her off even before he spoke. “They don’t want my help,” he told her, his voice utterly flat. “If you want to go, that’s your business. I’ve got other things to do.”

  She started to ask what he had to do that was so important that he couldn’t help find an old man in a storm, but the sheriff’s presence stopped her cold. There was something in Damon that responded to people when they truly needed him; something he fought and denied and probably even cursed when he went to battle with it. She knew that capacity was there, but she also sensed that he wasn’t about to expose it now. At the moment, she sensed nothing in him but carefully banked anger as he started for the door.

  He’d just passed the sheriff, when the sheriff reached back and caught his arm.

  “You didn’t pay for your coffee.”

  A knot of pure dread settled in her stomach as she watched Damon slowly glance down at the man’s hand.

  “Let go,” he said in a voice so ominous that the hairs at her nape stood on end.

  The sheriffs tone was barely a whisper. “Make me, hotshot.”

  The knot in Hannah’s stomach coiled. Animosity fairly leapt between the two men. Damon looked intimately familiar with the emotion, but Sheriff Jansson had always seemed so laid-back to her. She couldn’t believe he was goading Damon as he was.

  “It was on the house.” If she sounded a little frantic, she couldn’t help it. That was exactly how she felt as she moved forward, only to draw to a halt when Damon’s cool glare cut toward her. He wanted her to stay back, but that didn’t keep her from trying to get the sheriffs attention. “It’s all right, Sheriff. Really. He doesn’t owe me anything.”

  “Are you sure?” he demanded, sounding as if he couldn’t believe she wasn’t being coerced into letting Damon off.

  “Of course I’m sure.” Her displeasure at his actions put steel in her tone. “Let him go.”

  It was with great reluctance that he released Damon’s arm. Actually looking disappointed that Damon hadn’t stiffed her on a bill, he didn’t spare him so much as a glance before he jammed his own hat back on. He didn’t say a word to Damon, much less offer an apology—something Hannah felt Damon definitely had coming. He had done nothing wrong. Yet, from the moment the sheriff had laid eyes on him, the older man’s distrust and dislike had been glaringly obvious.

  Small wonder, she thought, that Damon nearly took the door off its hinges when he jerked it open and stalked out into the rain.

  “He had just helped me,” Hannah repeated, hurrying over to shut the door when the wind blew it back. “There was no reason to treat him that way.”

  “I think I know Damon Jackson a little better than you do,” the sheriff assured her, making it sound as if that were reason enough. “The next time you need help with your shutters, you call me or Bill across the street, or Brenda’s husband. You don’t need a man like him hanging around here and ruining your reputation.

  “Now,” he continued, as if he’d just put everything in order and there was nothing left to discuss, “if you want to help find Mr. Lindstrom, I’m sure Neil would be obliged. There’s no sense you being out in this weather, so maybe you could do some calling around. Just let dispatch at the station know if you come up with anything. They’ll get in touch with me.”

  Chapter Four

  “It must be awful getting old like that,” Brenda murmured, plates clattering as she placed them in the wash rack. “I saw Mr. Lindstrom at the hardware store a couple days ago and he seemed just fine. He was telling the checker that he’d been working in his garden, getting it ready for winter.

  “I don’t think the checker was much interested in chatting,” she confided, shoving in another plate, “but the old guy really wanted somebody to visit with. I talked with him for a couple of minutes about how to prune back my shrubs, but other than seeming kind of lonely, he was just as normal as you and me.” Lifting her arm, she rubbed her nose with the back of her wet hand. “I hear Neil was fit to be tied when he finally found him in his boathouse.”

  Hannah measured flour into a large aluminum bowl, trying to concentrate on both her task and on Brenda’s running dialogue. The feat shouldn’t have been particularly challenging. Doing two things at once was practically second nature to her, but there was a bit more than cooking and conversation on her mind at the moment. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake the memories of how Damon had looked when he’d touched her hair, her cheek, and of the caged anger that had filled his body at the sheriff’s affront.

  “I heard that, too,” she replied, thoughts of Damon’s refusal to help the man they were discussing further straining her concentration. “Do you suppose he got confused again, or just went out to check on something and decided to wait out the storm?”

  “It’s hard telling. But as long as there’s the possibility he did get confused, maybe Neil should get someone to stay with him.”

  “Or move him into a wing of that big house of his.” Wondering if she should have tried to stop Damon when he’d left, not sure what she could have said if she had, Hannah reached for her measuring spoons. “There should be enough room. That place looks h
uge.”

  “It is. I served at their open house last Christmas,” Brenda replied, spraying off another plate. “I got lost trying to find the bathroom. I swear I’ve never been in anything that size that wasn’t a hotel. But Kirsty Lindstrom and Neil’s uncle in the same house?” The sprayer snapped back into place on the wall above the stainless steel sink with an audible clunk. “I don’t think so. As picky as she is about everything, she’d have a heifer the first time he came to the table in that fishing vest he likes to wear. And he’s just stubborn enough to refuse to take it off. I think they all pretty much do their separate things.”

  Brenda shoved the rack into the washer and punched buttons. An instant later, the sound of water running through pipes joined the music coming from the disk player. After Hannah closed the restaurant, she usually changed from the quiet instrumental music conducive to dining, to alternative rock or the classics, depending on her mood. Brenda, who readily admitted being stuck in the eighties when it came to everything from music to makeup, insisted she could tell whether the day had been good or bad by the CD Hannah put on once the customers were gone and how loud she played it.

  Tonight, since Hannah hadn’t bothered to change the music or the volume at all, she supposed her mood could best be described as preoccupied.

  “Is it Mr. Lindstrom who has you so rattled, or is something else bothering you?”

  The question forced Hannah’s head up. Brenda stood at the sink, her arms crossed and a frown threatening. Her own brow furrowing, Hannah reached for a box on the shelf above her work station. “There’s nothing bothering me.”

  “Well, you’re thinking about something, and it’s not about what you’re doing. I thought you were making your rocky road, double fudge brownies for that order.”

  The order Brenda referred to was a standing order of twenty sack lunches to be delivered to the owner of a tour boat first thing in the morning. It had already taken Hannah twice as long as it should to get as far along as she had. “I am.”

  The pint-size brunette gave a cryptic nod toward the box Hannah held. “That’s paprika.”

  Hannah’s glance darted back to the box. With a sigh of disgust, she traded the box for one of baking powder. “I am concerned about Mr. Lindstrom,” she admitted, willing to concede that part of her preoccupation. “I know Neil is busy, but I get the feeling he sort of brushes his uncle off.”

  She’d met Neil Lindstrom several times now. He would come in to chat with the mayor over coffee about organizing Snow Daze, since Neil was annual chairman of that event. Or he’d have pie while visiting with someone about the Pine Point Boosters, since he was president of that organization, as well as the PTA and heaven only knew what else. He was always polite to her. She just didn’t care for the subtle way he had of making sure people knew how hard he worked. In many respects, he was still the town’s golden boy.

  The exact opposite of Damon.

  “He was having breakfast with the mayor this morning, and I got the feeling from what he said that his biggest concern about his uncle missing yesterday was the time he’d had to spend looking for him.” She frowned at herself and blew a breath. Heaven help her, she was beginning to sound like Inga. “Ignore me, Brenda. I could have that all wrong. Maybe the next time Neil mentions his uncle, I’ll ask if he’d like to get him involved over at the senior center. It could be that Neil’s responsibilities are just stretching him to his limits.”

  “Maybe.” Brenda repeated the word slowly, considering Hannah closely. “But now that you’ve got that figured out, do you want to tell me what else is bothering you?”

  “What makes you think there’s something else?”

  The neat wings of Brenda’s eyebrows lowered over the concern and curiosity in her warm brown eyes. “What about Damon Jackson?”

  Hannah’s fingers tightened around a container of salt. “What about him?”

  “I understand he was with you when the sheriff came looking for Mr. Lindstrom. Come on,” she prodded when Hannah’s only response was to hesitate before she added salt to the bowl. “You’ve been preoccupied ever since I got here. And you haven’t said a word about Damon coming in yesterday. I didn’t even know he had until Bridget asked me a while ago if it was true.”

  “Bridget?”

  “Sonnenfeld,” Brenda added. “She lives next door to one of the deputies.”

  “There’s nothing to say,” Hannah replied, continually amazed at the extent of the grapevine. “He helped me with the boards on the windows, I gave him a cup of coffee, and he left.” Right after the sheriff tried to make like Clint Eastwood, she thought, but she wasn’t about to add that bit of grist to the mill.

  “Bridget also heard that he had his arm around you when you two came in here.”

  “What?”

  Brenda held up her hands, palms out. “I’m just telling you what I heard. Apparently someone in the appliance store saw you two run in here, and whoever it was said Damon had his arm around you.”

  “I ran in here because of the lightning,” she explained, exasperated. It was no wonder the grapevine was so tangled. “I have no idea what Damon did right then, but it’s possible he grabbed the door when I pulled it open. Maybe from across the street it looked like his arm was around me, but I know it wasn’t.” Even now, more than twenty-four hours after the fact, she could easily remember the heat that had pooled inside her when he’d done nothing more than touch her face. Had his arm been around her, had she been pressed to his very big, very solid body, she would have most definitely remembered it.

  She swiped flour from her hands onto her apron, wondering if her myopic neighbor had also seen Damon leave. Remembering his quiet rage, she could only imagine what someone would make of that.

  The sensation in her stomach turned leaden.

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “This is Pine Point.” Brenda shrugged, catching Hannah’s irritation if not all the reasons behind it. “You get used to gossip. Just be careful. Okay?”

  Normally, Hannah would have taken the sincerely offered advice and let the matter go. When it came to Damon, she found that she would listen to what people said until she could politely change the subject, and offered little comment about him herself. Brenda was becoming a friend, though, and Hannah had discovered that the little woman with the big hair and toothy smile laid claim to broader views than those of her counterparts.

  “Do you know him?” Hannah asked, needing insight she couldn’t seem to find anywhere else. “I mean, have you ever had anything to do with Damon personally?”

  “Like go out with him, you mean?”

  “Did you? You’re about the same age.”

  Coffee brown curls bounced as Brenda shook her head. “The only person I ever dated was my husband. Ron and I were a couple from eighth grade on. But even if I hadn’t been stuck on him, I can’t imagine having anything to do with Damon Jackson. He was too much of a loner, even before he started getting into trouble. And I think he’s a year or two older,” she added. “He must be thirty-two or thirty-three. We were in a lot of the same classes through school, but he’d been held back a grade somewhere along the line.”

  “Why was he held back?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Common sense told Hannah she should let this go. Damon was not an easy man to know. She wasn’t sure she even wanted to know him. There was too much about him that unsettled her. But she seemed to pick up things about him that everyone else was either content to ignore or simply didn’t notice. Or, maybe, she acknowledged, unable to imagine why it would be, that he only allowed her to see.

  “I’m just wondering how much of his reputation is earned and how much has been embellished. After all, this is the land of tall tales. You and I both know that the thousands of lakes around here weren’t really made by the hoofprints of a big blue ox.”

  The mention of Babe, Paul Bunyan’s bovine buddy, had Brenda nodding sagely. “I’d go sixty-percent truth, forty-percent elaboration. Damon
was a rough kid who’s grown into a tough man. He never did anything to me personally,” she admitted, “but I remember him hanging around the bleachers smoking cigarettes at lunchtime...and that he’d fall asleep in class and get sent to the principal’s office a lot.”

  “What about his mom and dad?”

  “I don’t know what happened to his mom. She wasn’t from around here like his dad was. I heard she was one of the summer people, but that’s all I know about her. Damon lived with his dad, and his dad was always sort of drunk.”

  The Jacksons had lived a world apart from her own family and their friends, Brenda went on to say, finishing up the pots while Hannah finished the large sheet of brownies. She did remember when he left town, though. It had been three or four years after graduation. The only reason she could recall it at all was because there’d been so much speculation about why Damon had disappeared. It wasn’t as if anyone saw him on a daily basis. It was more a case of people suddenly noticing that he hadn’t been around in a while. No one had heard his old, souped-up Chevy screaming down the highway in the wee hours of the morning. No one heard him and his dad fighting with each other on the dock. Nothing was missing from any of the other boats.

  “I remember my dad saying he figured Damon left town because the fishing industry was doing poorly and one boat couldn’t support him and his father. A lot of fishermen turned to other work about that time, so that could well have been true,” Brenda continued. “But there was also a rumor going around that Damon took off when he did because Maryanne Jansson’s father was going to arrest him on charges of statutory rape. I guess Maryanne’s brother caught her and Damon doing the wild thing in the woods.”

  The thought of Damon doing the wild thing with anyone caused Hannah’s heart to lurch. “Maryanne Jansson?” she calmly inquired.