Her own attitude was friendly as always. Especially since she looked first to Gunnar, a leaner, quieter man, to take his order. The carpenter’s pleasant, down-to-earth manner had always appealed to her. She liked his wife, too, though she didn’t see her as much. She wasn’t so sure, anymore, how she felt about Neil.
“I’ll have the usual,” Neil told her, smoothing his sandy hair back from his high, square forehead. Beneath heavy, pale blond eyebrows, his blue eyes darted to his watch. “I’m pressed for time today, so I’d appreciate it if you’d hurry with that. After I talk to Gun here about that bleacher problem we had during Snow Daze, I have to take my youngest to get her braces adjusted. After that, I have a meeting with one of our suppliers at the store.”
He turned a beleaguered look to the man across from him, certain he’d find understanding in a counterpart. “Kirsty went to Duluth to shop,” he went on, explaining why he’d been stuck with the run to the orthodontist. He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and lowered his voice just enough to make people strain a bit to hear him. “I can’t begin to imagine what that’s going to cost me.”
Neither his mumblings nor his itinerary had been for Hannah’s benefit. They were to impress anyone within earshot, which happened to be everyone there since the room was small enough for every word to be heard.
Trying hard to not roll her eyes to the ceiling herself, not so sure that Dorothy didn’t, Hannah headed for the swinging doors to the kitchen. As she did, she heard Gun reply.
“Say, Neil, I saw your uncle,” he said, tactfully avoiding comment on Neil’s last remarks. “He and Damon Jackson were out front of the auto supply store in Two Harbors last week. It looked like they were buying cases of motor oil or some such. How’s Louie doing these days? Has he had any more problems?”
Hannah knew by now that Gun wasn’t a gossip. Since he had an elderly parent he routinely checked in on, his interest in how Neil’s uncle was faring was genuine. But as she stood in the heat of the stove dishing up hearty yellow pea soup for Neil and chili for Gun, she couldn’t help smiling at his first question. Mr. Lindstrom’s memory actually seemed better than hers most of the time. His biggest complaint these days was that his pants were getting snug from her cooking. At that very moment, he and Damon were downstairs polishing off the lunch she’d taken them.
The conversation continued, her smile fading at the sound of Neil’s voice. She truly wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but standing at the service window made it impossible not to hear Neil’s reply. Though the clatter of the pot lids made her miss the first of what he said, the gist of it was that he was really getting worried about his uncle Louie. The rest, she heard perfectly.
“His judgment is getting more questionable every day,” he declared, as she garnished Gun’s chili with sour cream, onion, grated cheddar and parsley. “And that makes him as easy a target as you’re likely to find. You hear all the time about scams against old people, and you’ve got to know that Jackson’s pulling one on him. Why else would someone like him befriend a senile old man?
“You know as well as I do that Jackson can’t be trusted,” he hurried on, seeing no need for other input. “That’s why I make him pay cash for everything at the marine supply store. You have to know he’s up to something,” he muttered, getting back to how untrustworthy Damon was. “I bet I know what that something is, too.”
The sharp clink of forks and spoons settling against dishes filtered in to Hannah. Grabbing the paprika, considering cayenne, she sprinkled the top of Neil’s soup, and heard the softspoken carpenter ask what that “something” was.
Neil’s voice lowered further. Not enough to make his words confidential. Just enough to make them sound that way.
“Everybody in town knows how tight Louie Lindstrom is with a buck. My uncle’s got more money than Croesus stashed away in his savings accounts. I’m willing to bet Jackson’s getting ready to hit him up. If he hasn’t already,” he muttered ominously. “It has to cost a fortune to refit that wreck of his, even with my uncle supplying free labor.”
“If you’re so sure of that,” Gun interjected, truly concerned, “shouldn’t you talk to Louie? Keep him away from the man?”
“How can I keep him away?” he asked, sounding helpless. “I can’t lock him in his house. And I have talked to him. All he does when I bring it up is stare at his television and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m sure he doesn’t,” he conceded with a snort. “He doesn’t know what anyone’s talking about anymore. He even tried to blame his medicine for making him senile.”
Hannah made it as far as the swinging door, bowls in hand and anger on slow simmer. From the moment she’d first met Neil, her impression of him had been that he’d always felt he’d deserved more than he got, and that he rather relished feeling put upon. He constantly hinted about how hard it was to work for his demanding, unappreciative father-in-law, how his wife and daughters were spending money faster than he could make it, and what a burden it was keeping an eye on his old bachelor uncle. Hannah knew Mr. Lindstrom didn’t care for Neil and what he called Neil’s “uppity” family, and with no other family on his side in town, that had to make things difficult for his nephew. But it was hard for Hannah to feel charitable toward the man. Not when his speculation about two people she cared very much about was so disparaging.
Conversation stopped completely when she backed through the door and slid the men’s meals in front of them. She asked Gun if she could get him anything else, and after he said everything looked fine, she turned to the man reaching for the salt. She didn’t ask what else she could get for him.
“Be careful, Neil.”
“I know,” he muttered. “It’s hot.”
“I’m not talking about your soup.”
She met his quick frown evenly and turned back to Gun. “I couldn’t help overhearing what you asked Neil about his uncle,” she said quietly. “I visit with Mr. Lindstrom a lot and our conversations are quite rational. He enjoys working with Damon, too.
“As for what Neil said about Damon scamming him,” she continued, knowing at least three people watching them would repeat every word they heard, “Damon would no more do something to hurt Louie Lindstrom than you or I would. They’re friends.”
Neil gave another snort. “You’ve just caught him on a couple of his good days,” he pronounced, dismissing her observation with the snap of his burgundy napkin. “I know you’ve taken an interest in my uncle, too, but I see him at least once a week and he’s definitely deteriorating.”
She saw his uncle nearly every day, and she didn’t agree with his assessment at all. But this was neither the time nor the place to floor a debate over the difference between deterioration and cantankerousness, or to suggest that he take the conclusion Damon had obviously mentioned to his uncle about his medication more seriously. She just wanted to make sure Grady, Dorothy and Dorothy’s daughter-in-law had another side to tell when they recounted the conversations they’d heard—and to let Neil know she wasn’t going to put up with comments about Damon in her café.
“I’d be more than happy to talk to you about your uncle later,” she informed him, quite politely. “In fact, I’d really like to. What I don’t care for are unfounded conclusions that start rumors.”
Neil’s face turned the color of his napkin, his glance darting to Gun, then back to her. He was definitely peeved. She just couldn’t tell if he was because she’d disagreed with him, or because she’d called him on what he’d said about Damon.
Thinking it best to let everything drop for the moment, she turned to ask Dorothy if she’d like more coffee. As she did, Neil’s arrogance got the better of him.
“I’ve known Damon Jackson since I was a boy,” he informed her. “So has Gun. And Grady,” he continued, rising from his chair, “you and Dorothy and your families have known him longer then we have. Knowing what we all know about him, I have good reason to question his agenda with my uncle. No man with his lack of moral fiber ever does
anything without an ulterior motive.
“Now, if I were you, Hannah,” he warned, planting his hands on either side of his soup to lean toward her, “I’d be real careful about what you say and do around here. The God-fearing, law-abiding folk I know have already questioned your judgment about renting space to such riffraff. From the way you’re always coming to Jackson’s defense, I’m inclined to question a couple of other things about you, too.”
A soft gasp sounded from the ladies’ table. Hannah just wasn’t sure if it had been precipitated by the suggestive look Neil ran over her body, what he’d said, or the fact that the man he was talking about was standing with his hand braced on the open swinging door of the kitchen.
Damon hadn’t caught the whole conversation. He’d walked in at the God-fearing part. Actually, that was the part he’d heard when he’d pushed open the door into the café and eight pair of eyes swung toward him. The part that had stopped him was what Neil had said about her being careful.
Neil straightened. Curious to see what had pulled the attention from him, he glanced over his shoulder.
Damon scarcely noticed the way Neil’s bluster faded. All he cared about was Hannah. Framed by a pair of frilly curtains, she looked as pale as the snow melting outside the window.
“What’s going on?”
The question was a low rumble of demand, directed only to her. He didn’t even look at any of the other people scattered around the cozy little room. His eyes bore into Hannah’s, the latent tension in his powerful body defying anyone else to speak while he waited for her to respond.
She drew a steadying breath as Neil sank into his chair and everyone else suddenly became enamoured with whatever was on their plate. But before she could offer a word of assurance or explanation, the bell over the door cut through the air with a cheerful tinkle that sounded as out of place as laughter at a funeral.
Brenda didn’t notice the six feet of wire-taut muscle at the kitchen door. Busy stowing her dripping fuchsia umbrella, she saw only that her boss was waiting on the customers she should have been tending herself.
“Oh, Hannah, I’m sorry I’m late, but I got stuck at the gift shop. Hi, Dorothy.” The aside was as natural as her smile as she started edging sideways toward the kitchen, her attention again on her employer. “I stopped to pick up a card for the Sondheim’s new baby, but the only one I liked was the same one you sent. So I ran across the street to the pharmacy to see what they had,” she continued, working at the buttons of her red slicker as she kept backing up, “and Holly Miller started telling me about Arvida Sieverson’s accident at the grocery store this morning. I guess there was glass and pickled beets everywhere....”
Confusion suddenly washed over Brenda’s pixieish features as she cut herself off. The odd atmosphere in the room must have finally registered. Either that, or she’d just felt the presence of the rugged, rough-hewn man behind her.
She glanced over her shoulder, then promptly cranked her head up when all she could see was a corrugated wall of black T-shirt.
Hannah knew the petite woman’s wide-eyed expression was more surprise than disquiet. Brenda regarded Damon with the same benign skepticism he regarded her, but the waitress knew as well as Hannah did that he deliberately avoided being anyplace where he could run into the people cautiously eyeing him now.
“Would you bring the bread for this table when you get your apron on?” Hannah asked her, managing a wan smile for an uneasy Grady at the counter as she passed behind him. “And refill everyone’s coffee?”
“Sure,” Brenda replied, looking a little worried as Hannah slipped past her and the big man still holding the door.
Damon waited until Brenda had entered the kitchen, too, then let the door swing closed behind them all. In the time it took for whispers in the café to escalate to a low buzz, Brenda had hung her slicker on the hook by the back door, washed her hands and was tying on a burgundy bib apron like the one Hannah wore while she hurried back out. Damon wasn’t sure if the diminutive waitress hadn’t stuck around to ask questions because of his presence, or because of what her boss had asked her to do. He didn’t care. All that mattered to him was that Hannah kept making their situation harder than it needed to be.
“Did you or Mr. Lindstrom want something else?” she asked, heading toward the lunch tray he’d set on the counter.
She was trying to pretend that nothing extraordinary had happened. To push the unpleasantness out of the way and continue on as if this, too, would pass. The woman was like an ostrich.
She’d taken two steps past him when he caught her by the apron strings at the back of her waist. Tugging her around, he immediately let go. If he touched her anywhere else, he’d get grease on her—or wring her lovely neck.
“You can’t go around doing that anymore,” he informed her, banked fury shimmering in his low, certain voice.
“Doing what?”
“Defending me. Dammit it, Hannah. In the first place, I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it all my life. What’s more important,” he grated, “is that people are going to get the wrong idea if you keep it up and start thinking we’re something we’re not.”
The harsh words jolted her back. Grappling with what Neil had said, not sure how much Damon had heard, she simply hadn’t been prepared for the sting that came with his bluntness. She already knew he’d dismissed any possibility of them as a couple. She’d dismissed the idea herself. Regularly. But in the past months, their relationship had grown into a wary sort of friendship. One that she’d come to count on a little too much. One she’d thought, hoped, Damon had come to count on a little, too.
At the moment, upset with Neil for what he’d implied, and with Damon for doing what he did best by pushing her away, she could only think that she’d been wrong to assume Damon would let himself count on anything at all.
“I’ll defend whomever I choose,” she informed him, forcing calm over anger and hurt. “Especially when I know someone doesn’t deserve the treatment he’s getting. As for giving anyone the wrong impression about us, I can’t imagine how much more wrong people around here can get.” She lifted her arm in an arc. “Half this town already thinks we’re sleeping together. The other half suspects it. Since we seem to be the only two who know we aren’t, I don’t see that it makes any difference what I say.”
Through the service window came the distinct sound of someone choking on her coffee. Aware that their conversation was far from private, she saw Damon turn his turbulent scowl to his hands. A heartbeat later, with a look that seemed to say “what the hell,” he grabbed her arm, turning her so quickly she nearly lost her balance, and steered her into her office.
He’d barely booted the door closed when he turned her back to the wall and planted his fists on either side of her head.
“I heard Neil, Hannah.” His granite-hard face was inches from hers, his eyes glittering with anger and some emotion she couldn’t begin to name. “I heard what he said about what people are saying about you, and about how their attitudes will affect your business. There isn’t a hell of a lot that I’m inclined to agree with when it comes to that man, but I’ll back him on this. It doesn’t matter that your sense of fairness is insulted by the way things work around here. You’d damn well better start taking my reputation seriously before the good citizens of this town stop patronizing your establishment completely and you lose everything you’re working so hard to get.”
Hannah’s shoulder blades bit into the wall. His anger was a physical force that pushed her back as surely as if his hands had been locked on her arms. He wasn’t touching her. Even if he had been, he would never hurt her. Yet the way she shrank from him made him think she didn’t know that for certain.
The thought sickened him. He’d cut off his own hand before he’d harm her. It hadn’t been his intention to badger her into backing down. All he wanted to do was make her understand how foolish it was of her to befriend him. But if he had to make her fear him to accomplish his goal, then he
’d just have to live with her being as apprehensive of him as everyone else. He could give her nothing. But he could keep her from losing what she had.
He could also make sure that Louie’s jerk-of-a-nephew understood who was fair game in this town, and who wasn’t.
Breathing in the impossibly erotic scents of cooking spice and herbal shampoo clinging to her, he raked one last glance over Hannah’s delicate features. He halfway expected to see her tip that stubborn little chin up and challenge his demand. For once, she didn’t push back. Her usual composure had shattered. She looked bewildered, confused, hurt. He hated that she’d chosen to button herself up in a place that would surely extinguish the fire inside her. But it was her choice. And he’d see that no one deprived her of it.
He pushed himself from the wall, shaking inside. From fury with bigots like Neil who were allowed to be insufferable because they’d been born into the right family, from a sense of lost he didn’t understand. Jerking open the door, he stepped into the kitchen and caught Brenda’s eye through the service window.
He didn’t give himself a chance to consider what he intended to do. That alone should have told him not to do it. But he motioned her into the kitchen, then stayed behind the swinging door after she came through so no one could see him or hear what he said.
“Is Lindstrom still out there?”
The petite woman with the dark, curling hair hesitated, then gave him a nod.
“He said he’d lost his appetite and paid his bill. He’s just getting ready to leave.” Suddenly leery, she stepped closer to the door. “Look,” she whispered intently. “I have no idea what’s going on yet, but if you’re going to cause Hannah trouble, I can’t let you go out there.”
Had Damon been in the mood to smile, he would have just then. The woman was barely five feet tall, mostly smile and hair. Yet she was looking as proprietary and protective as he felt himself.
She was also standing in his way.
“I’m not the one who started this,” he muttered, and reached over her head to push open the door.
Hannah And The Hellion (Silhouette Treasury 90s) Page 19