The Stranger: The Heroes of Heyday (Harlequin Superromance No. 1266) (14 page)

Bryce lifted one eyebrow. “Not if I got hold of him first. There wouldn't be enough left of him to marry.”

Tyler laughed, but Dilday waved his hands, as if shooing away a bee. “Get out of here, and take all that testosterone with you. Tell Lara I'll be there at eight.”

As Bryce opened the door to leave, he looked at Tyler. “Why don't you come along, too? Bring Mallory. Lara would be thrilled.”

Tyler hesitated. Though he'd turned down several of these invitations, this one was tempting. Though they hadn't exactly become close, he liked Bryce, who was smart and acerbic enough to be interesting.

And of course Lara was a living dream.

But the temptation was more than that. During the past two nights, when Tyler had been back in his own apartment, he'd been restless. He might call it lonesome, except that he was used to being alone. Thrived on it, in fact.

Maybe he just needed time to adjust. He'd spent the whole past week on Mallory's couch, listening to every movement, evaluating every sniffle or sigh to see if she needed anything.

And, of course, he knew that today she had made the money drop on the ferry. She hadn't sent any word to him about how things had gone, and he had a feeling she wasn't planning to. He wondered why he had hoped. Surely he knew by now that good stories didn't
just fall into your waiting hands like ripe apples. You had to go after them.

It annoyed him to discover how reluctant he was to get aggressive here. The minute he saw Mallory's car ease into a spot on Hippodrome Circle—right after breathing a sigh of relief—he should have made a beeline to the bookstore. He should have confronted her. He should have asked those difficult questions that he knew so well how to ask.

But since he wasn't going to do that, maybe it would be better to have dinner with Bryce and Lara than to sit around all evening like a stooge, waiting for Mallory's knock on the door.

“Would Lara still be thrilled if I came alone?” Tyler smiled. “At the moment, bringing Mallory might be difficult. She isn't speaking to me.”

“Really?” Bryce laughed. “Sorry about that. Mal always has been a feisty one, I hear. But you
have
to come. Lara's linguini can make a man forget a world of troubles.”

“Good, fine, great,” Dilday interjected impatiently. “Our dinner plans are settled. And now, Mr. McClintock, could I possibly persuade you to leave us in peace?”

Bryce, who obviously had caught on that no one was going to offer any explanation for Tyler's presence in Dilday's office, cast one last curious glance at the two of them. And then, with his usual sardonic grin, he was gone.

Dilday chuckled under his breath. “Those McClin
tock genes certainly do pack a punch. Three different mothers, three different childhoods. And yet you boys are as alike as triplets.”

“Do you really think so?” Tyler looked at the other man, genuinely surprised. He didn't even think Kieran and Bryce were much alike. And he…well, he was a different breed entirely. “In what way?”

“In every way.” Dilday shrugged. “I'll admit you look different. Kieran looks like his mother, who was very fair and very beautiful. You and Bryce, you take after Anderson. He was a handsome old coot, which got him into plenty of trouble, as you well know.”

Tyler smiled. “Yes. I've heard a lot about that since I got to Heyday.”

“But that's just surface. Under the skin you're all McClintocks, all bigger than life, all tougher than nails. But then the right woman comes along, and poof! You're so addled you can't even think straight. Just like your daddy.”

“I'm not sure you can lump me in that group,” Tyler said lightly, hoping he could hide the fact that for some reason this conversation made him uncomfortable. “I'm afraid I haven't had the pleasure of meeting the ‘right' woman yet.”

Dilday's wild white eyebrows rose up. “Maybe not. But you've certainly already had your brush with the
wrong
one.”

For a minute, Tyler thought Dilday was referring to Mallory. But then he realized what the old man really meant.

“That was ten years ago. How on earth did you find out about that?”

Dilday took off his black glasses and began cleaning them on his sleeve. “I did my homework,” he said. “Surely you don't think I would have solicited your help without first finding out what kind of man you are.”

“I guess not.” Tyler smiled. He shifted on the chair, eager to change the subject. “But I've taken enough of your time already. I came here because I want to ask your help with something. I'm afraid the blackmailer may be getting edgy. I want to go with you to your next drop and see if I can spot the guy. I know it's a risk. He might spot me, instead, and take it out on you. But I'm not sure he's going to get caught any other way. He's just smart enough, and he's damn lucky.”

Dilday put his glasses back on. He blinked twice as his eyes adjusted, and then he focused his intelligent gaze on Tyler. “I'd like to help you, but I can't.”

“I understand your reluctance,” Tyler said. And he did understand it. But he had to overcome it.

His best source, the one he'd been counting on to help identify the blackmailer, was Greta Swinburne, the former leader of the Eight. But Greta, who had married and started a new life, had been avoiding his calls. She said her husband had forbidden her to talk to Tyler.

He could strong-arm her, of course, but that wasn't really his style. And she wasn't exactly the subtle type, so it was hard to reach her any other way. Still, the idea
of intimidating her, threatening her, however indirectly, didn't sit well.

But if he couldn't get Greta, Mallory and Dilday were the only leads he had. If he lost Dilday…

There was only Mallory.

He knew he had to avoid that, at all costs.

“As I said, I know it's a risk. He might get mad enough to do what he's threatened, write that anonymous letter accusing you of consorting with the Eight. But I honestly think I can avoid—”

“No, no,” Dilday broke in. To Tyler's surprise, the old man was smiling sheepishly. “You don't understand. I can't help you because I'm certain I won't be hearing from him again. He called a couple of nights ago, and…well, I guess he caught me at a bad moment.”

Tyler felt a sinking sensation. “What did you do?”

Dilday adjusted his neat plaid bow tie with a gesture of unmistakable pride. “Well, let's see. First, I told the son of a bitch he wasn't getting another dime from me.”

“But what about his threats?”

Dilday grinned. “I told him to go ahead and write his letter. I told him that, at my age, it's actually flattering to be accused of being kinky and oversexed. Then I told him to go to hell. And I'm not one hundred percent sure about this part, as I was fairly wrought up, but I think I may have suggested what he should do when he got there.”

For a minute Tyler couldn't even speak.

“I'm sorry, Tyler,” Dilday said earnestly. “I know I asked you to catch him for me, and now we probably never will. But I couldn't help it. It felt so damn good.”

Tyler smiled. “Good for you,” he said.

And he meant it. One part of his mind was applauding. The old guy really was amazing.

But the other part was thinking of Mallory. He knew now why the blackmailer had sounded so furious when he'd talked to her. He'd just lost control of Dilday, which a personality like his simply couldn't endure. Outwitted by a seventy-year-old man? No wonder the blackmailer had needed to lash out at someone. At Mallory.

The real question was how far would he go to regain his sense of importance and power?

 

W
HEN
T
YLER LEFT
Dilday's office, he sat in his car, right there in the parking lot, and dialed Greta Swinburne one more time. She answered warily, obviously knowing from her caller ID that it was Tyler.

“I have to talk to you,” he said.

“No. Look, I've already told you everything. My husband doesn't want me talking to reporters. Can't you just leave me alone?”

“I wish I could.” He was sorry, but if it was a choice between hurting Greta and hurting Mallory, he'd choose Greta anytime. For one thing, Mallory was innocent.

For another…

“There's too much at stake,” he said. “You can pick
the day, and the place. But this time if you don't show up, I'll have to come to your house.”

A long silence. He ordinarily could read silences pretty well, and could predict whether they would end in a yes or a no. But this one was too ambivalent. He didn't know what Greta would eventually say, because Greta herself didn't know.

Finally, he heard her sigh. It was the sigh of surrender.

“Friday,” she said. “Four o'clock. Same place we met last time. City Hall, in Grupton.”

Then she hung up.

And as he sat there, in his car, lurking in the shadow of the leafy maple trees, with his cell phone in his hand, he realized that he'd become a blackmailer himself.

T
HE BEAUTIFUL WEATHER LASTED
only a few days. By midweek, black clouds marched in from the west and squatted over Heyday, like a grumbling, heavy-booted army setting up camp.

And they seemed to have no intention of marching away anytime soon.

Business was terrible. For the first time in a year, the Bobbies didn't show up for their Thursday night book-club meeting. The circus historian who had a book signing scheduled for Friday afternoon phoned first thing in the morning to cancel. People called to put books on hold but then never showed up to get them, undoubtedly daunted by the sight of choking, bubbling gutters and flooding roadside ditches.

By four o'clock on Friday, when a thunderstorm began waging war on Heyday with booming cannons and jagged spears of lightning, Mallory had been all alone in the bookstore for hours.

She could have used the money, but maybe it was just as well no customers showed up. Monday afternoon, as soon as she got back from making the pay
ment, she had called Mindy. After a strange conversation, in which Mindy seemed strangely reluctant to commit, her sister finally agreed to tell Freddy everything by the end of this week.

Mallory had been on tenterhooks ever since. So a little quiet time was very welcome right now. Her customers expected her to chat and charm, but until she heard from Mindy, she was hardly able to think. Charm was out of the question.

Besides, she loved her store when it was empty, and all hers. She curled up in the comfortable seat in her front bay window and watched the ragged clouds, which had an odd greenish tint, racing across the low-hanging sky.

The street was deserted. The wind and rain owned the park today. The raindrops romped and splashed in the puddles. The wind rode the swings like invisible children and whipped the treetops in a mile-high game of tag.

She kept her phone on the cushion next to her. She hadn't strayed more than ten feet from a telephone for days now. But so far, no call from Mindy.

The whole thing was driving her crazy.

Suddenly the front door burst open, and the little bells trembled as the wind came rushing in. Mallory swung her feet down from the window seat and hurried around the corner, slipping her phone into her pocket. Who would be out in such a storm?

To her surprise, it was Aurora York, as disheveled and upset as Mallory had ever seen her.

“I thought that was you in that window! Get somewhere safe, girl! Haven't you been listening to the weather report?”

Mallory couldn't tell what color Aurora's signature feather had been when she got dressed this morning. Right now it was limp and the color of old asphalt.

“No, I haven't,” Mallory answered. “You're soaked, Aurora. Let me get you a towel.”

“No time for that,” Aurora said. “There's a tornado warning. One already touched down in Grupton. They say it's headed this way. The spotters say it may be a multiple-vortex tornado. It has a two-mile rotating column!”

“Oh, dear.” Mallory tried to sound supportive, but she wondered whether Aurora might be making a mountain out of a molehill. Aurora tended to watch the news stations compulsively, and frequently let the newscasters wind her up pretty tightly about things that didn't even remotely affect Heyday, like botulism lurking in California's canned goods, or a sinkhole swallowing a motel in Florida.

“Multiple-vortex tornado.” “Two-mile rotating column.” Those weren't her words. She must have been listening to the radio in her car and panicked.

“I'm sorry about Grupton,” Mallory said, reaching behind the checkout counter and grabbing the roll of paper towels. She pulled off half a dozen and handed them to Aurora to mop her face. “Still, there's no reason to be too worried, is there? Tornadoes affect a pretty small area. Unless it spins right down Hippo
drome Circle, it'll come and go without our realizing it.”

She wasn't quite as confident as she tried to sound, of course. She knew that tornadoes were unpredictable and quite deadly. But Aurora looked absolutely ashen, and Mallory felt sure calming down would be good for her.

And probably it was the truth. The odds of a tornado hitting downtown Heyday were slim. Thankfully, Heyday got very few. They were many miles outside the official “tornado alley.”

The last one to hit within the city limits had been four years ago, when a small funnel cloud ripped a path through a dairy farm at the southeast edge of town. The damage had been minimal—one barn down, two cows injured and, what upset the city leaders most, about a thousand gallons of manure lifted and splattered on the rooftops of the good people of Heyday. Even that wasn't all bad. Once they washed the odor away, they noticed that their flowers had never bloomed better.

“Two people in Grupton are already dead.” Aurora sat down in one of Mallory's armchairs, obviously exhausted. Mallory wondered if she'd been running from shop to shop warning people. “The spotters say—”

But before she could finish her sentence, a roaring sound, the kind you might hear if you stood close to a big, beautiful waterfall, filled the room.

Mallory didn't think. She just acted. She'd never been in a tornado before, but she'd read enough stories
about its thundering power. Without a word, she grabbed Aurora's hand and pulled her toward the checkout counter, which was large and sturdy, the biggest piece of furniture in the room.

Aurora didn't need to have things spelled out. She ducked under the counter, moving pretty quickly for a seventy-year-old woman who complained of wretched arthritis. There wasn't room for both of them, so as soon as she was sure Aurora was secure, Mallory ran back to her office. It had one window, which wasn't ideal, but it also had a large desk.

Within seconds the rushing waterfall had turned into a roaring, deafening freight train. Pressure built in Mallory's ears, and she could see the office window reverberating, shivering, as if it were made of flexible material, not firm glass at all.

Suddenly a bright light flared just outside the window, blue-white against the stormy darkness. Out in the store, Mallory heard something heavy fall, and the smashing of glass. Something hit the desk above her and rattled to the floor.

The lights flickered and went out.

She prayed for Aurora, but there was nothing else she could do. They were like two islands, adrift in this roaring, pulsing darkness.

It probably didn't last more than a minute, at most. But it felt like an eternity. Finally the freight train began to scream off into the distance, and a trembling silence returned to the store.

She climbed out carefully. What little light came in
through the windows was that green-black storm light, and it didn't help much. Stepping over things she couldn't quite identify, she made her way out into the store.

“Aurora?”

She got no answer. There was more light out here, because of the bay window, which now had a large tree branch thrusting through it. The splintered, leafy ends spread over the window seat where, just minutes ago, Mallory had been sitting.

She turned away from that and scanned the room. At least two of the heavy book stacks had toppled over. One of them had fallen across the counter.

“Aurora!” Forgetting caution, she stumbled across scattered merchandise, slipping on the glossy covers of magazines and colliding with spinner racks that now lay broken, on their sides. “Aurora, are you all right?”

Only an ominous silence answered her.

Mallory wasn't strong enough to move the bookcase alone. She climbed on one free edge of the counter and tried to find Aurora. But the open side of the counter, a narrow area that backed up to a wall, was now piled with books.

She reached her hand in and felt around until she touched Aurora's shoulder. But Aurora seemed unaware of Mallory's hand. The frail shoulder didn't move at all.

Mallory straightened, trying to think, trying to stay calm. She needed help. She touched her pocket. The phone was still there, thank God.

But when she clicked the button, nothing happened. Either the lines were down or the power outage had disabled the telephone. Her own cell phone was upstairs. She didn't know what she'd find up there, and besides, there wasn't time.

She made her way to the front door, which at some point had blown open. Aurora must not have shut it firmly, caught up in her urgent need to warn Mallory. The carpet in front of it was soaking wet, littered with twigs and leaves, pieces of paper, and some wet pink goop that looked suspiciously like the insulation from someone's roof.

Mallory rushed past it all, out into the rain. She had to find someone to help her.

At first she saw no people, only a confusion of
things.
Mixed-up things, broken things, things so mangled she couldn't identify them.

Trees were down all over the park, the pines snapped in half, the oaks yanked up by the root-ball, huge circles of earth and grass lifting with them like bright green skirts. On the sidewalk in front of her shop, one of the park's baby swings lay in pieces, the chains tangled in the leather seat. A chair from the diner sat in the middle of the street, looking startled, as if it had no idea how it got there.

“Mallory!”

She turned eagerly toward the sound of the voice. “I need help,” she called, though she couldn't tell yet who it was. “In here. It's Aurora. I think she's hurt.”

The man's pace quickened, and he started loping to
ward her. It was Kieran.
Thank heaven.
Kieran would know what to do.

“I told her to get under my counter,” Mallory explained as they hurried back into the store. “But then a bookcase fell right on top of it, and I can't move it by myself. She's—” She said another prayer. “She doesn't seem to be conscious.”

“We'll get her,” Kieran said steadily. He touched her shoulder. “She'll be okay.”

He took one edge of the bookcase, and within ten seconds he had hoisted it to its normal position.

“Don't bother trying to clear away the books,” Kieran said when Mallory started trying to gain access from the back. “I'm just going to shove the counter away from this side.”

He moved the heavy maple-and-granite counter as easily as if it had been made of cardboard. As soon as he did, Aurora's body tumbled free.

“No,” Mallory cried softly. She ran to Aurora and knelt beside her. Kieran was there, too. He'd already lifted Aurora's head and taken off her bedraggled hat. “She's breathing,” he told Mallory, smiling bracingly.

He had his cell phone in one hand and was already punching in 911.

“Come on, Aurora,” he said when he'd finished talking to the emergency operator. He touched the old woman's lined face and wiped some dirt from her forehead. “Talk to me, you old tyrant.”

Mallory held her breath.
Come on, Aurora,
she echoed.
Talk to us.

Finally, when it had gone on so long Mallory's lungs ached and screamed for oxygen, Aurora began to stir. She made a muffled noise and shifted her head, frowning.

She looked at Kieran and blinked several times. “Well,” she said finally. “It's a good thing you're the saint. If I'd opened my eyes and seen that devil Bryce leering down at me, I would have thought I'd died and gone to hell.”

Mallory began to breathe again. She heard herself laughing from sheer relief.

Kieran grinned. “Nice to see you, too, Aurora,” he said. “I knew it would take more than a little old tornado to knock you down.”

Aurora made a
harrumphing
sound and closed her eyes again.

Suddenly there was noise at the doorway. “Kieran! Have you seen Mallory?”

Mallory's heart began to race. It was Tyler. His voice sounded tight, anxious. She stood quickly, realizing he must not be able to see her squatting off to the side, beyond Kieran and Aurora.

Her hand flew to her mouth. Oh, God, he looked terrible. His shirt was practically torn from his body. His torso was covered in mud, and under the mud were streaks of blood. Without thinking, she rushed over to him and grabbed hold of his hands.

“Tyler! Are you all right? What happened?”

“Mallory.” He didn't ask permission. He just wrapped his arms around her and held her close. “Thank God.”

Bryce's dry voice suddenly spoke over her shoulder. “Uh, I'm sorry to be a buzz kill here, brother dear, but have you forgotten that we were actually on our way to the hospital?”

She glanced up. Bryce looked almost as bad as Tyler. He was muddy and disheveled, and he held his left arm up across his heart, supporting it at the elbow.

Tyler didn't release her, and she didn't ask him to. She spoke from the shelter of his strong, muddy arms. “Bryce! Are you okay?”

“Well, I'm alive,” he said. “Thanks to Tyler. I was driving along, minding my own business, when out of nowhere this monster wind comes at me and slides my car into the ditch. The impact messed up my arm, and then I couldn't get the damn door open. I figure I was about five minutes from drowning when Tyler broke the window and dragged me out.”

She looked at Tyler. “He's exaggerating,” Tyler said with a smile. “He was already halfway out when I got there.”

“Anyhow,” Bryce went on. “Tyler here could use about a hundred stitches, I think, and I damn sure need to have this arm set. But do we go straight to the hospital, like normal people? No. First we've got to stop off and check on
you.
”

Kieran, who was helping Aurora to her feet, began to grin. He arched an eyebrow.

“Well, what were you doing driving around when we were under a tornado warning, Bryce? One will get you ten you were on your way to the ranch to check on Lara.”

Bryce scowled. “Oh, yeah, like you wouldn't do the same for Claire, if she—”

“Oh, for heaven's sake,” Aurora bellowed. She shrugged off Kieran's steadying hand and shoved her wet hat onto her slightly tilted wig. “Look at you.
The heroes of Heyday,
my left foot! If you boys are arguing about which of you is stupider when it comes to women, I can tell you there's not a skinny millimeter's worth of difference. You're all nuts.”