Hannah And The Hellion (Silhouette Treasury 90s)

by Christine Flynn

  “Sheriff Jansson’s daughter.”

  The Amber Waves rocked gently in the calm little inlet when Hannah delivered the twenty sack lunches to Ole Nelson, its skipper, and started back for the café. The gleaming white vessel wasn’t really a tour boat. The old, meticulously maintained trawler netted smelt all summer long. When Ole’s sons went back to school in the fall, he cleaned it up and hung a sign on the highway five miles south of town advertising spectacular views of Superior’s autumn shoreline on a real, working fishing boat. Word had passed on year after year and folks driving up from the Twin Cities for the day or a weekend to enjoy the fall color paid premium prices for the four-hour luncheon cruise.

  With the weather growing colder, the nip of frost on the ground every morning now, Ole’s little side business wouldn’t last but another couple of weeks. And that was only if it didn’t rain on weekends. The coming of winter meant weekend business at the café would be falling off further, too. Business would pick up again for the holiday festivals, but Hannah knew there would be some lean months before and after those few weeks.

  She was considering that cheery thought, and wondering how she could possibly make up for that lost revenue, when she glanced toward Damon’s boat. She’d noticed it moored at the end of the dock when she’d come down, but Damon hadn’t been anywhere in sight. Now she could see him leaning against the sidewall. His head was down, his hand clamped over the back of his neck as if he were studying something on his deck.

  It was possible that his engine was giving him trouble again. Or maybe he was staring at a leak and waiting for the thing to sink. The possibility wasn’t all that far-fetched. The whole boat looked about as seaworthy as a sieve to her.

  Common sense told her to keep going. But something about his posture kept her rooted right where she was. Always before, even from a distance, Damon had radiated a raw, elementat energy. Now, with his shoulders slumped as they were, it looked almost as if the life had been drained out of him.

  The very thing that had held her in place now pulled her forward. It didn’t matter that everyone kept warning her away from him. He had stopped in a storm to help her. The least she could do was make sure he was all right. She’d only be a minute, anyway. It was midmorning and there hadn’t been any customers in the café when she left, but she’d told Brenda she’d only be gone five minutes. Ten, tops.

  As usual, the wide stern of Damon’s boat was backed up to the weathered dock. Stuffing her hands into the pockets of her navy pea jacket, she moved closer, looking past the flaking paint and faded blue letters that spelled out Naiad. His head was still down, his hand still clamped around his neck. The breeze ruffled his dark hair, the strands looking freshly washed and surprisingly soft. What gave her pause was the swelling visible around his eye.

  “Damon?”

  His head snapped up. His expression as dark as an oil slick, he promptly winced and turned his broad back to her. The lap of waves against the hull all but drowned out his muttered curse.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Intruding,” she called back, watching him push his hand through his hair. The muscles beneath his cabled charcoal sweater bunched with the motion. The temperature was barely thirty. Obviously his hide was thick enough that he didn’t require a coat to ward off the chill. “I just wanted to know if you were okay. If you’re feeling well enough to be deliberately rude, I suppose you’re fine.”

  Damon turned on his heel, more aware than usual of the boat’s rocking motion. He wasn’t hungover. Not anymore. But his head still felt like little men were riveting boilerplate to the inside of his skull.

  “What made you think I wasn’t all right?”

  The demand held more challenge than inquiry, but the fact that she’d cared to inquire at all took much of the edge from his words. The way she went still when she got a good look at his face put that edge right back.

  “What’s the matter? Haven’t you ever seen a black eye before?”

  Damon was sporting more than the everyday, garden-variety shiner. A bruise the color of a concord grape on his right cheekbone merged with the crimson swelling over his puffy right eye. A small cut slanted through his eyebrow, and the corner of his lip was abraded.

  “What happened to you?” she asked, the words rushing out on a breath. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.” He ignored her first question. He usually didn’t care who witnessed the results of his temper, but for reasons he didn’t care to question, he didn’t want to share those details with this particular woman. He didn’t want to be affected by her concern, either. He didn’t want to be affected by her, period. If it hadn’t been for her, he wouldn’t have been at the café when that jerk of a sheriff had shown up. The mere thought of the man’s condescension made his blood pressure spike.

  The thought of his own stupidity made him angriest, though. He’d known better than to put himself where he didn’t belong. Yet, he’d done it, anyway. Because of her.

  “Have you seen a doctor?”

  “What for?”

  “What for?” she repeated in mild disbelief. She moved closer, her head tilted, her eyes narrowing. “May I come up there?”

  He’d have shrugged to let her know it didn’t matter what she did, but the motion would hurt. “Suit yourself,” he muttered, then made himself stay where he was when she grabbed the short ladder and swung her long, black corduroy-covered leg over the stern. Half of his instincts wanted to help her, to make sure she didn’t slip. To touch her. The other half, the self-protective half, let her climb aboard on her own.

  Her feet had barely hit the planks when he saw her glance from the long grooves on the deck that delineated the hatch for the fish hold, to the square boathouse near the front of the boat. He’d closed the door at its center, but the lower edges of the square windows on either side of it were propped open with sticks.

  “Do you have a mirror in there?” she asked, her expression utterly innocent.

  “Why do you want a mirror?”

  “You asked why you should see a doctor. I want to show you.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was frowning at the skinned spot by his lip, or if she was looking at the nick he’d put there last night trying to shave around it. He was just wishing she’d look someplace else when she glanced to the cut in his eyebrow.

  “Did you clean that?”

  “Of course I cleaned it.”

  If it was his intention to glare her down, Hannah thought he might well have succeeded—had he not winced when he started to plant his hands on his hips. Intimidation thwarted by injury, he lifted his hand to his ribs, gingerly holding his side as he blew out a slow breath. When his eyes locked on hers again, she saw as much discomfort as defiance.

  “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “I can’t help it. You look—”

  “Like hell?”

  “I was going to say that you look as if you’re hurt a lot worse than you’ll admit. But since you mentioned it, yes, you look like hell.”

  “Thanks.”

  She ignored his sarcasm, concerned with how carefully he moved when he lowered himself to a long metal box along the sidewall that apparently doubled as a bench. She’d been told that he drove like a demon. Though he’d taken no risks at all the one time she’d been with him in his truck, he’d told her she should consider the rumors about him true. “Were you in an accident?”

  “No.”

  That left only one other possibility. “A fight?”

  Damon eyed her evenly. The discomfort he felt wasn’t just physical. It was with her seeing him as he was.

  Embarrassed, hating the feeling, he went on the offensive. “Yeah. I got into a fight. That’s what I do. Haven’t you heard?”

  Locking his jaw against the pain in his side and shoulder, he reached into his shirt pocket for a packet of headache tablets. Any second now, he fully expected her pert little nose to wrinkle in distaste. She’d called him kind before. She’d even defend
ed him. Or some principle he represented, anyway. It wasn’t too hard to imagine what she thought of him now.

  Not that he cared, he reminded himself.

  “I’ve heard,” she quietly replied, wondering at the weight of the chip on his shoulders. “But I’ve also heard that you hadn’t had any trouble since you moved back here.”

  “That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, does it?”

  The note of accusation in his flat tone made it sound as if she were somehow responsible for that circumstance, but it was apparent he neither wanted nor expected a reply. Having no idea what she’d done, she watched him rip open the packet with his teeth, then mirrored his grimace when he reached sideways for the open quart of orange juice he’d set on the deck.

  The effort was too painful to witness. Intent on sparing them both, she moved across the gently rocking deck, unconsciously using his leg for balance when she hunched down to pick up the carton herself. With one knee on the deck, she glanced past his dark sleeve and held it out to him.

  His eyes flicked to hers, then focused on her hand splayed over the worn cargo pants covering his upper thigh. Her heart hitched when she noticed that the tips of her nails rested scant inches from his groin.

  It was impossible for her to tell what Damon thought of the unintended familiarity. Or if he thought anything of it at all. He simply took the carton and eased it from her grip.

  “Thanks,” he murmured.

  The bone and muscle beneath her hand felt like granite. Thinking the rest of his body was probably just as hard, head included, she eased herself up and curled her fingers into her palm. She told him he was welcome, but he paid no attention to her as he popped the two white tablets into his mouth. Tipping his head back as far as he dared, he drank deeply from the carton, the strong cords in his neck convulsing with each swallow. When he’d drained the container, he lowered it, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand—and promptly hissed in a breath.

  Dragging his fist across his lower lip had pulled at the abrasions in the corner. The acid from the orange juice probably didn’t help matters, either. “You might want to stick with milk for a while,” she suggested.

  “I might do that.”

  “What was the fight about?”

  For a moment, Hannah didn’t think he was going to answer. He held the empty carton in both hands, dangling it between his wide-spread knees and staring down at the top of it. But instead of shutting her out, he moved down on the bench to make room for her.

  His focus remained on the carton when she cautiously sat down a foot away. From somewhere beyond the breakwater came a long, deep blast from a tanker’s horn. Damon barely noticed. His awareness had narrowed to the woman sitting quietly beside him, and the feelings gnawing at his insides.

  He would tell her what the fight was about because it was simpler than dodging her questions. But he wouldn’t tell her what he’d done beforehand that had made him force a fight in the first place. He wouldn’t speak of how hard it had been to swallow his bitterness when the sheriff had tried to goad him into doing something stupid by grabbing him the way he had. And he wouldn’t tell her that he’d gotten himself royally stewed in an attempt to forget how lousy he’d felt walking out when she’d asked him to help her find Mr. Lindstrom again. He didn’t believe for an instant that any of the townspeople would have wanted him involved. But she hadn’t hesitated to turn to him.

  What he did say was that he’d driven to a tavern ten miles inland after he’d left the café, and run into Bud During. “He owns the building where my dad stored the boat every winter for as long as I can remember,” he explained, his words tight. “Only I’m not storing it there this year. The lease Dad signed was up when I took the boat out of storage last April, but During said he wouldn’t have a new one ready to sign until this fall. He wanted to make changes in the lease form or something. There were changes, all right. He decided to announce in front of everybody that he’s doubling my rent and cutting my space. Take it or leave it.”

  He gave a snort. This wasn’t the first time a local supplier had decided to treat him differently from other paying customers. He took most of his business twenty miles up the road to Caribou Bay, not that he had much business to tend, other than at the grocery store, the bank, a gas station and, when his hair grew over his collar, a barber shop. But no one paid any attention to him in Caribou. He fueled his boat there, too, or at Two Harbors if he’d fished more in that direction that day. The only other close place to buy diesel was at the new marina, which happened to be owned by the marine supply store, and that was part of the world of Pine Point he avoided. Even if it hadn’t been, his checks and credit cards weren’t welcome there.

  He’d discovered that the morning he’d met Hannah. He’d given Marty his credit card to buy a new fan belt, but Neil wouldn’t accept it. Considering that the card hadn’t been Marty’s, Damon would have understood the store’s refusal to take it. But Marty had returned with the message that the store didn’t take checks or credit cards anymore. All business was strictly cash.

  All of Damon’s business, anyway.

  The intention behind the practice was hardly subtle; make his life miserable enough and he’d leave. As far as he was concerned, Superior would turn into a hot springs before that happened.

  “I suppose you could say we had a philosophical difference,” he finally said.

  He’d used the same explanation she had for letting her cook go, mostly because that was what the matter boiled down to. Hannah, however, didn’t seem to see any similarity at all.

  “So you hit him?”

  “No,” he replied, his tone as flat as the horizon. “That’s not what I did. Contrary to what you may have heard, I’ve never thrown the first punch. I just told him what I thought about his business practices. He took exception to my way of thinking and tried to loosen my teeth.” He unconsciously touched the angry purple bruise on his cheek. “All I did was stop him.”

  Bud had missed on his first swing. Damon hadn’t. That circumstance hadn’t set well with Bud, who didn’t seem to appreciate that Damon wasn’t in a mood to exercise restraint. Damon tried to tell him that when he’d shoved the big ox against the wall, but Bud’s friends had joined in about then. The long and the short of it was that both men, along with two others Damon had never seen before, had wound up in a heap at the bottom of the tavern’s stairs.

  He was no longer welcome at that particular establishment. He didn’t much care, since he’d rarely hung out there, anyway. His only concern was his boat, and where he would dry-dock it before the lake froze.

  The nights were already cold, the days growing shorter. The snows would begin in November, and temperatures would range from double digits below zero to a couple degrees above. By January, Superior itself would be a vast sea of ice. The port of Duluth would be frozen in for a solid three months. So would the inlet at Pine Point. The frigid weather was simply part of life for the lake people, and being one of them in that sense, Damon enjoyed the relative isolation that would come. He just needed to find a place for his boat.

  “Isn’t there somewhere else to store it?” she quietly asked. “Or can you cover it and leave it on a trailer? That’s what my dad does with his bass boat.”

  “I could winterize it and leave it covered out at my place if it didn’t need so much work, but this boat won’t last another season without an overhaul. I need indoor space big enough to tear her down and put her back together.” He’d been on the phone all yesterday afternoon looking for space. “Any sheltered places around here that size and with electricity were grabbed up months ago. The only place I found that sounds promising is up in Caribou Bay. But I sure don’t relish the thought of that drive every day in the dead of winter.”

  There would be days when he wouldn’t be able to get to Caribou to work on his boat because of the inevitable blizzards. And days when he wouldn’t be able to get back, and he would be stuck there. He didn’t have to mention that for Hannah to understan
d why he didn’t seem terribly pleased with the possibility he’d found.

  “Why did you come back here, Damon?” Was it to prove something to the town? To himself? Between what he’d told her about his encounter with. Bud During, and what she’d witnessed between him and the sheriff, it was apparent that Damon wasn’t the one trying to cause problems. Yet, he apparently had no intention of walking away. “Why do you stay?”

  The hard look he gave her tightened the muscles in his bruised jaw and burnished his eyes with heat. Her tone held nothing more than a quiet need to understand, but apparently all he’d heard were the questions themselves.

  Or so she thought, until some of the rigidity eased from his wide shoulders. Setting the carton on the deck between his spread thighs, he stared down at his hands.

  “I was away from here for ten years,” he told her, still amazed by how little had changed in Pine Point in that time. Contemplating his bruised knuckles, he was no longer sure he’d changed that much himself. “I worked freighters on the St. Lawrence and on the docks at Sault Ste. Marie. I had nothing holding me anywhere, so I spent some time on oil tankers sailing between the West Coast and Hawaii. But I hated punching someone else’s time clock, and I missed Superior. It grows on a person. Sort of becomes part of him,” he admitted, then cut himself off because he wasn’t accustomed to sharing what mattered to him.

  “So you came back because you missed the lake.” Hannah offered the conclusion quietly, looking beyond the breakwater to the vast inland sea that had such a hold on him. As solitary as he seemed, she was surprised he’d admit that anything had a hold on him at all. She suspected he’d also fought that hold for as long as he could. “But the lake is huge. There has to be a hundred other places you could settle where you wouldn’t be bumping into the past every time you left your boat.”

  “None of them are Pine Point.” He looked at her as if he would have expected her to understand, seeming almost disappointed that she hadn’t. “When my dad died, he left me this boat and the house where I was born. This is my home.”