The Stranger: The Heroes of Heyday (Harlequin Superromance No. 1266) (19 page)

When her eyes could see again, she looked at the scene before her, trying to figure out what exactly had happened. Dan was kneeling on the floor, holding his right arm and moaning. There seemed to be a large crowd of men standing over him.

Tyler and Bryce, but that wasn't all. Kieran, too. And Roddy. Poor Dan, she thought with a stupid smile. He hadn't had a chance.

Tyler was making sure Dan stayed put, but Kieran seemed to be holding a gun, staring at it bemusedly.

Bryce chuckled and patted Kieran on the shoulder. “You did great, bro.”

“I don't shoot people,” Kieran said. He scowled at Bryce. “You shoot people. It's your gun, damn it. You should have been the one to do it.”

Bryce held up his cast with a smile. “Can't. I'm on injured reserve. Besides, Lara said I'm not allowed to shoot anybody anymore.”

Kieran glared at Tyler. “We should have made
him
do it,” he said. “Mallory is his girlfriend. How come we didn't make
him
do it?”

Bryce shook his head. “He would have killed the guy. Remember? We decided Tyler couldn't be trusted not to go for the throat.”

Kieran still looked grumpy, but Bryce seemed to think it was hilarious. “Oh, get over it. You didn't kill anybody. You're just ticked off because you know this is the end of that Saint thing.”

Then the police arrived, and then some EMT guys, and it took two of them to pick Dan up off the floor. Dan squealed. “She stabbed me!”

One of the emergency technicians reached over, checked his leg and then slowly pulled the scissors out of Dan's meaty thigh.

“Two inches, at least,” Tyler said admiringly. “Way to go, Mallory. Looks as if maybe you didn't really need us at all.”

She had about one full second of basking in the warmth of his tone. It was true, wasn't it? She had done okay, all things considering.

And then she fainted.

A
S SHE SAT
in the front office of Valley Pride Property Management Inc. the next morning, Mallory gazed at Elton Fletcher with extreme distaste. Not only was the guy much too militaristic and supercilious, he was too darn slow. He was supposed to be giving her the exact location of where Tyler and his insurance adjuster were working right now, but it was taking forever.

“Let's see,” he said, hovering over his document protectively, as if Mallory might be planning to steal some of his addresses. “I know he was going to try to hit all the affected properties this morning, but in what order? I had a list, but—”

Mallory tried to be patient. “Why don't you just give me all the addresses, and I'll take responsibility for tracking him down?”

“Oh, that wouldn't be efficient,” Elton said with a note of horror. He frowned at his desk, as if it had somehow disappointed him. “I have a list here somewhere.”

It was a good thing Mindy had offered to open up
the bookstore for Mallory this morning because, at this pace, Mallory was never going to make it back in time.

It was just one of many humble, helpful gestures Mindy had made in the past twelve hours. Mallory had been afraid that her little sister might blame her for the collapse of her engagement. After all, it had been Mallory who insisted that the truth be told.

But to Mallory's amazement, Mindy had never seemed to consider that possibility. If anything, she took on too much of the blame. Even when Mallory explained that Dan's rage was at Mallory herself, that Mindy was just the weapon he had chosen to hurt her with, Mindy wouldn't let herself off the hook.

After Mallory had been checked out at the hospital last night, and released with only a couple of bandages and a prescription for a painkiller, Mindy had driven her back to the apartment and spent the rest of the night tending to her every possible need.

Tyler had disappeared much earlier, with Dan and the police. Roddy had been assigned to follow the ladies to the hospital and make sure everything was okay.

Mallory had hoped, at first, that Tyler might come back, if not to check on her, at least to his own apartment. But he never did. She had no idea where he spent the night.

Luckily, she didn't have time to brood over it. She and Mindy had so much to talk about.

They had hardly slept at all. They'd talked about Dan, and the blackmailing, and the horror in the book-
shop. Talking it out helped, Mallory discovered. It made it seem less monstrous and unmentionable.

Later they'd discussed the inevitability that Mindy's involvement with the Eight would finally be made public. Mindy seemed amazingly calm about having her secret exposed—she said she'd already told everyone who mattered, and she could handle the rest. But she wasn't able to share her emotions about Freddy and the breakup yet. The grief was too raw.

At the very last, they'd talked about the baby. And after the tears and shame had spent themselves, they'd found joy in the prospect. They had giggled and dreamed and invented crazy names, like Peacock Glockenspiel for a girl, and Bowtie Juggernaut for a boy.

“You know, Ms. Rackham, I believe he has his cell phone with him,” Elton said, eyeing her a little suspiciously. It apparently had just occurred to him that, if Tyler had wanted to see Mallory, then Tyler would probably have told her where to find him. “Why don't I call him now and tell him you'd like an appointment?”

Mallory shook her head. “I would rather surprise him,” she said. She couldn't say the things she needed to say over the telephone. It had to be done in person.

Of course, they could call and simply ask him where he was right now, but, as Elton so shrewdly guessed, she couldn't be certain that Tyler would even want to see her. The last time they were alone together, they had both said hurtful things. He might not have
forgiven her, in spite of the way he rode to her rescue last night.

“You're not looking to buy, are you?” Elton was watching her carefully. “Because if you are, you probably should leave a bid with me now. Mr. Balfour is in a hurry to liquidate all his assets in Heyday. That's why he rushed the insurance adjuster out today. He isn't planning to rebuild any of the damaged structures. Just tear them down and sell the land at bargain-basement prices.”

Mallory stared at the fussy little man whose clothes looked so stiff they might have been made of plastic. His tight face made him look cruel, but he was probably speaking nothing more than the truth. The master plan he'd just outlined definitely fit with everything she'd ever heard Tyler say.

“Mr. Fletcher,” she said. “Please give me the most likely address. Otherwise, I'll have to call Kieran and tell him you were unable—or unwilling—to help me.”

Elton sniffed, clearly offended that she had pulled rank. She and Kieran had been friends since childhood.

“Well, I'd assume the most problematic property is the house on King's Mirror Lake. It has a historical designation, so I'm not sure he can just tear it down. He may be stuck with that one.”

She knew that house, though she hadn't realized that Tyler had inherited it.

It was, in a way, the house of her dreams if she'd ever allowed herself to dream about owning a house, which she didn't, as it was obviously out of reach.

But this house was a beautiful mansion from the early 1900s that had been built on the edge of town. The owner had believed the city would grow out to meet it, but most development had moved toward Grupton, in the other direction. The marvelous old house still sat in isolated splendor, with at least ten acres of unspoiled land all around.

She made her way there quickly. What had seemed quite remote a hundred years ago was only a ten-minute drive today. And the owner's dream just might be going to come true before too long. Someone had erected a billboard announcing the arrival of Heyday's newest gated community, King's Mirror Lake Estates.

Several cars were parked in the semicircular driveway in front of the house. One of them, she saw with relief, belonged to Tyler. She pulled up next to a large iron statue of a ringmaster, complete with top hat, red tails and, thank goodness, a baton instead of a whip. She patted the iron man on the head for luck and went up the driveway toward the house.

You could tell this place had been built after Moresville changed its name to Heyday. The circus theme was everywhere.

The elegant double front door had stained-glass sidelights, and in each one a zebra stood on its hind legs amid a backdrop of bright green leaves. The black and white and green color scheme was repeated everywhere—on the house, on the mailbox, in the flower boxes and plantings and drapes that blew softly through the many large, opened windows.

The only other color in the picture came from the lake, which you could just glimpse on each side of the house. King's Mirror was one of Heyday's largest natural lakes. And, as its name implied, it was elegantly oval, eternally placid, always mirroring back the condition of the sky overhead.

And today the sky was a clear and royal blue.

She wondered if Tyler really would tear down this house if he could. She didn't want to believe it. If he could look on this much history, this much atmosphere and charm, and be unmoved…

Well, if he could do that, then perhaps her old opinion of Tyler was the correct one. Maybe all the new, more sensitive things she thought she'd glimpsed in him had been merely wishful thinking.

She heard voices out back, so she didn't bother knocking on the door. She walked around the side of the house, past a regal, spreading oak that had probably been planted the year the house was built. At the very back, a group of men were standing beside a huge toppled elm, which had fallen straight onto the kitchen roof.

Two of the men were holding chain saws, and two more were holding clipboards, making notes. The rest of the men were McClintocks. Tyler, Bryce and Kieran were all studying the problem, talking quietly together.

Kieran saw her first.

“Mallory!” He came over and gave her the gentlest of hugs. Obviously he hadn't forgotten all the smears of blood on her clothes last night. “What are you doing
out here? I thought we gave you strict orders to take today and stay in bed.”

Bryce came up with his usual rakish smile and, bowing, took her hand and kissed it. “This lady doesn't take orders, Kieran, she gives them. Just ask our friend Dan Platt.”

More slowly, Tyler made his way over, too. It obviously would have looked odd if he hadn't kissed her, so he gave her a careful, fraternal peck on the cheek. He looked tired, she thought. She loved the McClintock boys, but right now she wished Bryce and Kieran were anywhere on this earth but here.

“Hi,” Tyler said, a little stiltedly. “How are you feeling?”

“I'm fine,” she said. “Much better, thanks.”

Kieran and Bryce exchanged a grimace. Together, as if they were twins with one mind, they patted Tyler on the back.

“Well, we'd better get going,” Bryce said. “Urgent business in…um…where was that urgent business of ours, Kieran?”

Kieran grinned. “I forget.” He winked at Mallory. “But we'd better get going or we'll be late. See you later, Tyler. I'll get John Gordon to draw up the papers. We can sign everything tomorrow.”

Tyler nodded. “Great. Tomorrow will be good.”

And then, with another round of careful kisses and backslapping, the other men were gone.

“I'm sorry,” Mallory said, watching Bryce and Kieran walk to their cars, still laughing and teasing each
other mercilessly. “I didn't mean to break up your meeting.”

“We were already finished,” he said. “Besides, I'm glad to see you. Are you really fine? Last night was very difficult, I know. I would have come to check on you, but I thought you and your sister might need some time together.”

“Yes,” she said. “We did. It was good for us. But I—” She hesitated. “I missed you.”

He looked out over the lake. “How's Mindy?”

She flushed. The change of subject was so abrupt it was almost painful. He could hardly have been more clear. He didn't want to talk about personal things. He had gone back to his detached-journalist persona.

“Good,” she said, attempting to match his neutral tone. “She's doing well. She's going to stay in Heyday for a couple of days, just to be sure I'm okay. After that, she needs to go back to Richmond, at least for a couple of weeks. She says she can't quit her job without giving notice, but then she's coming back to Heyday for good.”

Mallory had been surprised to hear that, but Mindy had insisted that it was time she gave Mallory a little help, both with the store and with caring for their mother. Running away from her past meant that Mindy had run away from her obligations, too.

From now on, Mindy had vowed, things were going to be different.

“That's great. She'll need family right now.” He turned to her with a somber look. “I'm sorry to hear the engagement is off.”

She nodded. “Yes, it's very sad. But it was just too big a hurdle. About Freddy—of course you were right all along.”

A pulse worked in his lower jaw. “I would rather have been wrong,” he said. “I hope you can believe that.”

She wasn't quite sure how to begin, but this seemed like an opening, a chink in the fortress he'd built of deliberate, careful indifference. She knew she had to seize it.

“I do believe it,” she said. “That's why I've come. I know you're leaving soon, and I wanted you to know that I appreciate the many ways you've befriended both of us—last night, of course, but many times before that, too. Sometimes I was so caught up in my own emotions that I couldn't see when you were giving me good advice.”

Somewhere behind them a worker cursed colorfully, and then they heard the sound of a chain saw spinning into action.

Out front, she heard more cars pulling into the driveway. The insurance adjuster, perhaps? She knew she had very little time left, and she'd better make it count.

“I—” This was so important, but confusion tied up her words in knots. What should she say? In some ways, this man she saw before her now felt like a stranger to her.

It was as if there were two Tyler Balfours.

One was the professional Stranger, not the type
to get involved. An observer, never a participant. He had made it clear he'd come to Heyday to do a job, not to adopt a new family, a new woman or a new town.

And yet his actions contradicted that over and over again. Whether he meant to or not, he
had
become involved. He'd cared for her when she was sick, tended her store, even visited her mother. He had climbed into a flooding car to pull his half brother, a man he supposedly didn't care about, to freedom.

He had made love to her in the moonlight.

And, last night, he had been ready to kill a man for hurting her.

So which one was the real Tyler? The distant, detached stranger who saw everyone as material for his book? Or the warm lover who had protected her at every turn?

Maybe Elton Fletcher was right. Maybe Tyler couldn't wait to get out of Heyday. But maybe, just maybe, the little man was wrong. Maybe, in spite of his best intentions, Tyler had come to care about Heyday and the men here who were tied to him by blood.

And what about her? Had he come to feel anything about her?

If she didn't take a risk right here, right now, she might never know.

“There's something else I wanted to say. The other night, when we—” She swallowed, the movement stinging a little, one of the echoes of last night that would take a little while to die away.

“When we made love,” she finished firmly. “I want you to know that I didn't have any ulterior motives that night. And I don't believe that you did, either. I think we both had wanted that for a long time, and it just happened, that's all. I want you to know that I'm not sorry it did.”