“I’ve got it covered.”
She scowled at him so he would never guess how much those words meant to her.
“You sat with me all night,” she said. She knew she should be appreciative. It came out sounding like an accusation.
“I did.”
“That’s an unexpected kindness to the stranger you think swindled your grandmother.”
“I was hoping you’d talk in your sleep.”
“Did I?” she asked, aghast.
“What are you afraid of? A confession? Don’t you remember? I asked you questions every time I woke you up.”
“Yeah, like what my name was. And my birthday.”
He slapped himself on the forehead. “Shoot. I didn’t take advantage.”
For some reason she blushed, as if he meant taking advantage in a different way. He lifted an eyebrow.
“I didn’t take advantage like that, either,” he said softly.
“I wasn’t suggesting you had,” she said primly. Feeling terribly vulnerable, she pulled her quilt up around her chin. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get dressed. I need to look after my animals.”
“They’re all looked after.”
“But how?”
“Luke helped.”
“Oh,” she said uneasily. She didn’t really like the thought of Brendan being alone with Luke, interrogating him.
“Don’t worry, he didn’t tell me a thing.”
She didn’t like that she was transparent, either!
“Even though I shamelessly tried to pry information out of him.”
“About?” she asked, attempting a careless tone.
“I started small, building up to the big question. I asked where you were from, and he said from a nice place, not a dump like this. I asked how long you had been here, and he said too long, and I asked how old he was and he said nineteen.”
“We’re from Victoria, we’ve been here six months and he just turned fifteen.”
“Then I asked him who took the money from Deedee.”
She held her breath.
“He said lots of people open the mail. The place is practically overrun with volunteers. He said he thought some of those old ladies were pretty shifty looking.” Brendan was watching her way too closely. “Are they?”
She felt backed into a corner. Of course her volunteers were not shifty looking! But she wasn’t calling Luke a liar, either. She fidgeted with the quilt and didn’t answer.
“I thought I’d better find out for myself who looked shifty. So I had Luke call some of them to come help with morning chores. Funny, I can’t really see any of the ones who showed up stealing from my grandmother, but I interrogated them, anyway.”
“You did not,” she said skeptically.
“I did. They all admitted to opening mail. None of them looked guilty, though. None of them remembered a letter from my grandmother. Of course, I’m not sure any of them would have remembered what they had for breakfast this morning. Don’t you have a system for dealing with mail? It doesn’t seem very efficient that anyone who feels like it, or wanders by the mailbox, opens the letters.”
“Systems are not my strong suit.”
“Neither is volunteer selection. If the ones who showed up today are any indication, it’s kind of like having my grandmother for a volunteer. The old biddy brigade.”
Now he sounded like Luke!
“They are invaluable to me!” The truth was Nora needed some young, strong people to volunteer, but they just weren’t who showed up when she put an ad in the paper. She hated it that the weaknesses in her organization were so blatantly apparent to him after an hour or two.
“But you can’t let any of your current volunteers near a large animal. They can’t do any heavy work. One’s afraid of dogs and one is allergic to cats. They all hate the parrot. Who bites.”
“That’s Lafayette. Did he bite you?”
“Of course he bit me. Luke says he bites everyone. Before saying things that would make a sailor blush. In three languages.”
“Did you put antiseptic on it?”
“Who’s looking after who?”
He was gazing at her keenly. She had sounded way too much like she cared. He was a tyrant, obviously. He’d waltzed in here and completely taken over. She couldn’t just let him!
“I don’t want to get sued. After infection sets in and your finger falls off. Then you sue me, and at your recommendation, I’ve lose the funding from the Hansen Community Betterment Committee.”
“I haven’t decided about a recommendation to the HCBC. Yet.”
“And please don’t alienate all my volunteers.”
“I couldn’t alienate your volunteers if I tried, and believe me, I did. But oh, no, they came around the barn after me, promising me cookies, brownies and roast beef dinner. And talking about what a nice girl you are. And available. ‘What a shame. No boyfriend. And so pretty, too.’”
“I don’t have a boyfriend because I don’t want one,” Nora told him, and felt a crimson blush go up her cheeks.
“Some jerk broke your heart,” Brendan said, and his tone was light, but his eyes were not. They darkened with a menace that made her gasp.
He was seeing way too much, and it had to stop!
“Get out of my room. I need to shower and get dressed.”
He sighed theatrically. “It’s as hard to pry information out of you as it is out of your nephew. Do you need help?”
Her mouth fell open. She gasped like a fish on a bank.
He laughed, backed into the hall, his hands in cowboy surrender, and shut the door. But he had to get in the last word.
“If you’re dizzy or feel like you’re going to vomit, call me. Even if you’re naked.”
NORA WAS GLAD Brendan Grant was on the other side of that door and couldn’t see her face. Even if she was naked?
He was trying to shock her, and she was not going to give him the satisfaction of responding.
