Silver Linings

hell. Paul was trying to leave a message for me that Rainbird was there on Purgatory. Shit .”
    “Who is he?” The repressed violence in Hugh was making Mattie tense. She could feel his fingers clenching into the flesh of her upper arms. “What do you know about him?”
    “He's supposed to be dead, for one thing.” Hugh looked at the phone. “Damn, I should have talked to Dangerfield myself. Where was she calling from? Her room in that inn?”
    “Yes. She said a customer was on his way down the hall.”
    “The customer can damn well keep his pants zipped for a while longer.” Hugh dug out his wallet and fished through some bits and pieces of paper. “Here it is.”
    “What?”
    “The receipt for our room. The phone number is on it.” He was already punching out the number.
    Mattie could feel Hugh's tension radiating from him in cold waves. It was a battle-ready sort of tension, a terrifyingly masculine thing that assaulted her on all fronts. She waited in silence while Hugh put through the call. A moment later he had the inn clerk on the line.
    “She can't be gone,” Hugh said into the receiver. “She just called us from there. She's with a customer and not answering the phone, that's all. Go upstairs and get her. Do it now .”
    Mattie shivered a little at the savage tone in Hugh's voice. She looked around, thinking that the temperature in the apartment seemed to have dropped several degrees in the past few minutes. Hugh spoke again after a couple of minutes. “Goddamn it.” He tossed down the phone.
    “She's gone?”
    He nodded brusquely. “Left right after she called you. Walked out the front door. With a suitcase.”
    “Alone? Or with whoever was coming down the hall to her room? Hugh, do you think she's in any danger?”
    “I don't know.” Hugh was already punching out numbers on the phone.
    “Who are you calling now?”
    “Silk.”
    There was another tense pause before Hugh gave up in frustration and dropped the receiver back into the cradle. “Shit,” he said again. “Goddamn it to hell. Rainbird. After all these years.”
    Mattie sat down on the edge of the couch, her arms crossed under her breasts. “Don't you think you'd better tell me what this is all about?”
    He looked at her as if surprised to see her still there. She could tell he was a million miles away in his mind. “No.”
    She stared at him, nonplussed. “No? Hugh, you can't just say no like that. You have to tell me what's going on here. I'm involved in this, too.”
    “No, you're not involved and you're not going to get involved. Silk and I will take care of Rainbird, and then it will all be over. For good this time.”
    “You can't shut me out like this.”
    “I'm not shutting you out. This has nothing to do with you.”
    “The hell it doesn't,” Mattie said, gritting her teeth.
    “Let it be, Mattie. I'll deal with it.”
    Something snapped inside Mattie. She jumped up in front of Hugh, clenching her small fists at her sides. “Now, you listen to me, Hugh Abbott. I've had about enough of taking orders from you, and I've had enough of your refusal to talk about your past. You've got some nerve, you know that? You won't tell me anything about yourself, but you expect me to give up everything and move out to that stupid island with you.”
    “Now, babe, I never said that.”
    “You didn't have to say it,” she stormed. “It's been perfectly obvious from the beginning. Why do you thing I've been so tense lately? I knew that sooner or later you'd pin me down and force me to make a decision. But how can I do that when you won't even tell me who you really are or where you've been most of your life? It's obvious your past has come back to haunt you. That means it affects our future. I demand to know the truth.”
    “My past does not affect you,” he said, spacing each word out carefully, as if by stating the concept forcefully enough he could make it reality.
    “Everything that affects you affects me.” Mattie was near tears. “Don't you understand? I love you, Hugh. I love you . I have to know what's going on here.”
    He stared down at her for a long while. Then, without a word, he opened his arms and she stepped into them. He buried his lips in her hair and held her so tight Mattie thought her ribs might crack.
    “Babe,” he muttered, his voice husky. “I never wanted you to know. I didn't want you to find out about any of it. Not ever.”

CHAPTER

Sixteen

    “Once upon a time,” Hugh said