She’d meant her last comment to be teasing. But the moment the words were out her mouth, Hannah wished she could call them back. She’d been thinking only of his painful-looking bruises, but her veiled reference to his trip down a tavern’s staircase apparently reminded Damon only of the fight preceding his descent. The sudden coolness in his expression as he replaced his wallet told her he neither needed nor appreciated the reminder.
He’d probably had his misdeeds thrown in his face all his life.
“Damon, I’m—”
“Do you want this back, or is it mine?”
His features were a study in stone when he held up the key for the outer door she’d given him earlier.
“It’s yours. Listen—”
“Is there anything else I need to know before I move in?”
She truly hadn’t meant to imply criticism, but he wasn’t interested in letting her explain that. As he stepped back, stretching the gap of physical distance between them, it seemed that all he wanted was to leave.
“I think that about covers it.”
His nod was as tight as his voice. “Then I’ll get out of here and let you get back to what you were doing.” He held up the key again. “Thanks.”
He gave the key a little toss, caught it in a quick swipe and stuffed it in his pocket as he turned away. The thud of his boots echoed with each determined step, making the sudden silence when he stopped that much more profound.
He had his hand on the knob, his broad back to her when she realized that something wasn’t letting him leave. For several seconds, he simply stood there, still and immovable as a mountain.
“The old man,” he finally said. “Did they find him?”
He still faced the door, but he’d turned his head slightly to hear her response. Aware of the tension in his strong profile, wondering at the grudging concern in his voice, she murmured a quiet “Yes, they did.”
“Was he all right?”
She told him he was. She would also have told him where the old gentleman had been, but Damon wasn’t interested in the details. The moment his question was answered, he gave a taut nod, opened the door and walked out.
“What in heaven’s name was that?”
Brenda spun around by the kitchen’s swinging door, her widened eyes darting from the ceiling fixtures to the copper pans swaying on their hooks. The noise that had vibrated the walls and rattled the shelves in the pantry sounded like a sonic boom. Or a bomb blast.
Hannah spun toward the ovens. “My cake,” she moaned. The thing was going to fall like a rock. “I’m going to strangle that man.”
“What man?”
“The one downstairs. He must be moving in.” Tossing her oven mitts onto the counter, she yanked open the door by the pantry. That boom had to have been one of the big doors below banging open. “I’ll be right back.”
She was vaguely aware of Brenda gaping at her just before she fairly flew down the narrow stairwell. She’d just have to explain later. If by some miracle her cake survived the crash of the first door, she wanted to get to Damon before he could ruin it for sure with the second.
The big outer doors of the welding shop locked with metal rods that slipped into holes in the cement. Hannah burst into the shop’s nearly empty space to see Damon’s big frame silhouetted against a backdrop of gray sky and the hulking hull of his boat parked in the gravel lot. He had the rod on the second door lifted and had just put his shoulder to the frame. In another second, he’d be swinging out the huge, heavy mass.
It vaguely occurred to her that his shoulder must be better, just before she cried, “Wait!”
His dark head snapped up, his whole body coming around so fast that she was the one who froze. She’d never seen anyone move so quickly, or look so murderous.
“Damn it, woman. You scared the hell out of me.”
“I have a cake in the oven.”
Confusion joined irritation. “So?”
“I bake from scratch,” she explained, glaring at his fading bruises. Not one of them was as dark as his expression. “Scratch cakes aren’t stable. You can’t jar them like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you just did. When you opened that door,” she said, arcing her hand toward the large gap where the other door had been, “it felt like an explosion upstairs.”
It had been a week since she’d seen him. She wished she could say it had been that long since he’d entered her thoughts. Unfortunately, not a day had gone by that she hadn’t found herself listening for him, and wondering if it was relief or disappointment she’d felt when another day had passed and he hadn’t arrived. It wasn’t as if she wanted a relationship with him. He wasn’t the sort of man any sane woman would have a relationship with. She just wanted...
She didn’t know what she wanted. When it came to Damon Jackson, she had no answers at all.
She shivered as the easterly breeze filled the shop with frosty air. Intent on saving her cake, she hadn’t stopped to grab the jacket she usually threw on when she came down there.
“What happens when they’re jarred?”
His deep voice lost some of its edge as he moved closer, his expression more guarded than antagonistic now that he’d recovered from the start she’d given him.
The cut above his eyebrow was healing nicely and the rainbow shades around his eye had muted, for the most part, to a sickly shade of green. But his cheekbones seemed more prominent to her, the rigid angle of his jaw more defined, the sculpted shape of his lips more sensual. She couldn’t imagine what could have caused such changes in such a short time, until it occurred to her that this was the first time she’d seen him freshly shaven. That was also about the time she realized she was searching his face with the same guarded intensity she could have sworn she saw in his.
Steeling herself against the tug in her midsection when he stepped closer, she murmured, “They fall.”
“Did yours?”
“I don’t know yet. But if it does, I won’t be able to serve it. Since it was your fault, you’ll have to eat it.”
His eyebrows kicked up over the flecks of quicksilver in his eyes. “That’s a threat?”
“I’d say that depends on whether or not you like spice cake.”
He’d missed her. The thought hit Damon before he could deny it, before he could even try. He’d missed her spirit, her sass. He missed the way she smelled. It had never occurred to him before that the combination of soap and vanilla could be so erotic. But the scents evoked other images, too. Images of comfort and warmth, and those seemed far more dangerous and elusive than the sensual fantasies weaving through his mind. Sex he understood. The rest of it made him feel like a kid being teased with a toy he couldn’t have.
Knowing he wouldn’t let himself touch her made him edgier than he’d felt all morning.
“Is there anything else I shouldn’t do?” he asked, absolutely determined to keep from screwing up this arrangement. His biggest fear was that she’d change her mind about renting to him. When she’d nearly stopped his heart hollering at him to wait, he could have sworn she’d done just that. “Other than not bang things around?”
He tried to keep the challenge from his tone. Changing what came naturally wasn’t all that easy. With his hands planted on his hips, it apparently showed up in his stance. She was eyeing him a little uncertainly when she wrapped her arms over the bib of her burgundy apron.
“No, there isn’t,” she quietly replied, apology in her eyes. “And I’m sorry I yelled like that. I didn’t mean to sound like a shrew.”
She didn’t wait to see if he’d forgiven her or not. Glancing past him, she nodded toward his boat. “Is your deckhand with you?”
“He left after we got the boat out. I’m through fishing for the season.”
“Do you have someone else to help you?”
“I don’t need any help.”
He could take care of the boat alone. Hannah got the message. More than that, she had the feeling he wouldn’t
have wanted help even had any been available.
“Well, let me know if you need anything,” she told him, extending the offer, anyway. “I’m right up there.”
“I know where to find you. Thanks,” he added, the word softening his abruptness. He lifted his chin toward his boat. “I better get back to work.”
He had no intention of seeking her out. Hannah felt certain of that in the seconds before she noticed the scratches on the side of his neck. They hadn’t been visible until he’d turned his head. Now she could clearly see three pink parallel lines disappearing below the edge of his heavy blue sweatshirt.
The scratches looked like fingernail marks. Marks made by someone grabbing for him, perhaps—or by a woman in the throes of passion.
Hannah’s glance met his. Had he been in another fight, there would surely be other indications, a bruise, an abrasion. But the only marks she could see were the healing ones she’d noted before. Searching again, feeling concern shift to something she didn’t want to acknowledge at all, she saw distance entering his cool gray eyes, and the faint pinch of his beautifully carved mouth.
He knew what she’d seen. He said nothing, though. He simply held her glance long enough to make it apparent that he knew what she was thinking, and that he wasn’t going to deny it.
An odd little knot had just formed in her stomach when she became aware of feet pounding behind her.
“Hannah? Come on. You have orders backing...up.”
In her rush, Hannah had left the stairwell door hanging open. Brenda’s voice had started echoing off the narrow walls even before she’d hit the bottom step. Now, having practically swallowed her last word, the petite brunette slammed to a halt. With her arms braced on either side of the entrance, she gaped at the man whose expression had closed like a breeze-blown door.
“You’d better go,” Damon said, then left her standing there, his long, powerful strides adding to the distance he was so adept at creating.
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d rented this to him?” Brenda whispered as she backed up the stairs ahead of Hannah moments later.
“Because I haven’t seen you since last Saturday. Eden worked your shift for you Sunday so you could go to Ron’s parents for his dad’s birthday, remember? By the way, you never did say how it went.”
“It went the same way it always does at my in-laws. We visited, we ate, we did dishes, we came home. And don’t change the subject.” Brenda’s eyes narrowed as she kept backing up. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“He needed a place to work on his boat, and I can use the money. It’s a business arrangement, Brenda. That’s all.”
The way her waitress’s brows lowered spoke more of curiosity than condemnation. “I didn’t suggest it wasn’t,” she said mildly. “I just asked if it was a good idea. Judging from the way you look right now, I don’t think you’re so sure it is. Neither one of you looked very happy with the other.”
Hannah didn’t doubt Brenda’s observation. What she questioned was why she should care what Damon did, or with whom.
“Everything’s fine.” She offered the assurance with a smile, determined to convince Brenda, if not herself, that she hadn’t made a huge mistake. “I just explained why he couldn’t bang things around down here while I’m baking.”
“Nothing like starting off with a landlord-tenant dispute.”
“Please don’t repeat that, Brenda. I know you’re only joking, but you and I both know what someone else could make of a statement like that. There’d be a rumor going around that I was throwing him out before he even finished moving in.”
“There’ll be rumors enough as it is,” Brenda warned. Resignation swept her features. “You might as well get used to that idea now.”
They had reached the door to the kitchen. Brenda had left it open and had already started in. Hannah let her go. She trusted Brenda, so her growing sense of unease had nothing to do with what the woman might say to anyone else. The sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach had to do strictly with the man downstairs.
Brenda was right. There would be talk. But Hannah hadn’t let herself think about that uncomfortable fact because there was nothing she could do about it. When she’d made the offer to Damon, she’d been responding to needs she’d sensed in him, just as he’d done before with her. It made no sense that they should possess that sort of empathy, but because of it—and the fact that she hadn’t been able to walk away when she could help—she now found herself in a rather unsettling position.
If there was anything positive to be found in the situation, it was the extra income—and the fact that she wouldn’t have to worry about Brenda trying to fix her up with her new tenant. Playing cupid had become the woman’s favorite pastime lately and no possible match had been overlooked.
“You’re letting this place take over your life,” Brenda had insisted just last week, oblivious to the fact that that was exactly what Hannah wanted. “It’s not healthy. You’re not interested in any of the customers. You won’t let me fix you up with Ron’s friend. And you haven’t even noticed that Deacon Jim has the hots for you. What kind of a man do you want, anyway?”
The image of a scarred and battered man on a derelict boat had immediately come to mind, and Hannah had promptly banished it. She didn’t want any man. For Brenda’s sake, though, she’d simply smiled and said, “The right one.” As for Deacon Jim, she was dead certain that her good-hearted friend had only made up the line about him. Hannah had met the mild, unassuming church deacon only twice. Both times had been at the fellowship hall when she’d dropped off meals, and neither time had she considered him anything other than...pleasant. Except for making it a point to compliment her kindness and her cooking, he hadn’t paid any more attention to her than she had to him. She couldn’t even remember what it had been like to shake his hand.
She had no trouble at all, however, recalling the unnerving sensations she’d experienced when her hand had slipped into Damon’s the evening he’d rented the shop. With nothing more than the brush of his thumb, he’d had her nerves humming and her knees going weak. Yet, he’d shown no interest at all in capitalizing on her response. Not the way he obviously had with someone else.
Not that she wanted him to, she hurried to remind herself. She might have left Brenda to believe that she was just being picky, but where men were concerned, Hannah’s self-confidence had been ground to dust.
Chapter Six
According to the radio, the storm blowing across Lake Superior the last week of October was “typical.” As Hannah understood it, that meant she didn’t have to drag out the shutters, but as she listened to the wind throw rain against the windows, she would almost have been grateful for the task.
She hadn’t had a customer since lunch, and then only two truckers headed north. Had it not been for the thought of other travelers seeking a meal or a respite from the storm, she’d have closed the café and taken the envelopes she’d addressed for the senior center fund-raiser over to the fund-raiser chairman’s house. She wouldn’t close until it was time, though. She wanted people to know they could count on her to be there during her posted hours. Especially when they might really need her. So she packed up the envelopes, reminding herself to tell the chairman she’d be happy to stuff them with flyers when the flyers were ready, and proceeded to pace between the front windows and the kitchen, fiddling with nothing in particular, and growing more restless by the second.
She couldn’t sit still to read. And she’d run out of pinecones and dried statis to finish the huge, intricate grapevine wreath currently occupying her desk. She wanted the wreath to replace the moose head she’d taken down out front the day she’d taken over the restaurant. Until she could gather more pinecones, dry them and buy more of the strawlike purple flower from Hattie, the project would languish right where it was.
There had still been no sign of a customer when, having nearly paced the polish off the floor, she finally flipped the Open sign to Closed at exactly seven o�
��clock, turned off the grill and tried to pretend the distant rumbling she heard wasn’t thunder. The last thing she needed was a dose of irrational apprehension on top of the restlessness dogging her every step. She hated not having something specific to do, but now that she didn’t need to be available in case a customer showed up, she could tend to the few closing chores she hadn’t already done, then go downstairs and water her herbs.
She couldn’t imagine that Damon would still be down there. Not as late as it was. She’d heard him a few times in the past couple of days, but she hadn’t seen him once since he’d moved in. She wasn’t anxious to run into him now, either—which was precisely why she hesitated when she opened the door from the stairwell.
The shop lights were on. Considering that to be a fair indication that he hadn’t yet left, she straightened her shoulders, wondering as she did why she felt a sudden empathy for Daniel when he’d stepped into the den.
Damon was nowhere to be seen.
Closing the door behind her, she cast a quick glance from the boxes of parts and equipment stacked against one wall, then over to his boat. It had been backed in and left on its trailer, its pointed prow inches from the bolted double doors. The pathetic old vessel looked even more derelict out of the water than it had in. The shells of bearded mussels clung like barnacles below the gray waterline on the bare, swollen wood. Below the stern, the blades of both propellers were pitted with rust.
Hannah And The Hellion (Silhouette Treasury 90s) Page 11