SECRET IDENTITY (4 page)

She didn’t want to cry. She had just gotten off the phone
with the hospital when he rang to let her know her father had died, which
explained how the doctor had gotten her number. After hanging up, she’d cried
herself into total exhaustion and into a state of calm where she thought she
could face this return with a more somber spirit. But looking at the warm,
sympathetic expression on Lorne’s face, and at his comforting arms, she felt
her emotions give way. Burying her face in the curve of his neck, she inhaled
his warm, manly scent. It was a natural smell, as Lorne never wore cologne. Not
even after he shaved.

His embrace was as tender as it always was. She couldn’t
remember the last time he’d held her. She knew it had been while they were
still in high school together.

Good, sweet, understanding Lorne. God, she’d missed him, and
never realized until now how much she treasured his company. It was several
minutes before she could tear herself away from his hug.

“Better?” he whispered.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Her drink felt refreshingly cool going down
her throat. Funny, she wasn’t a big fan of root beer, but for some reason she
was finding herself with a tremendous thirst for it.

“Any time. You know that.”

He saluted her with his soda.

“Hey, if it had been the other way around…”

His voice trailed off, but she understood. His father had
died a few years after they had moved to town twenty years ago. But back then
she and the boys had been kids in grammar and middle school. Already best of
friends, but unable to cope with the serious consequences of death.

“So, did you get to see the lawyer today?”

His question broke through her reverie.

“Yeah. He’ll probate Daddy’s will next week, but he doesn’t
see any problems, considering the house and taxes are paid up, and I’m the only
heir. He went ahead and let me have the keys so I could start packing.” She
tucked away a lock of hair that had come loose from her bun.

“Whatcha plan to do with the place? Sell it?”

Brenda sighed. “I had thought about it, but, I dunno.” She
glanced back over her shoulder at the only home she had ever known. “I
considered renting it out, with me living in the city now, but…”

“Well, just to let you know the offer’s on the table, we’d
be willing to buy it,” Lorne said, glancing sideways at her.

“For real?”

He shrugged, and she remembered the feel of hard muscle
underneath his shirt. Vaguely she wondered if his chest was smooth of body
hair, or if it still had just a sprinkling across those iron pecs.

Hey, girl. There’s no need to go there. He’s like a
brother, remember?

Yeah, always the brother, the same way his own brothers
were like family to you, too.

“Our place is getting a bit crowded, even though none of us
are there most of the time. Working and whatnot. I’ve been thinking about
getting an apartment, but I keep putting it off.”

He turned those dove gray eyes at her and grinned.

“If we took ownership, you’d still be able to come and
visit…and stay if you’d like.”

Brenda stared into those soft depths she’d always adored,
her mouth gaping open without realizing it. For some reason, when he had
offered for her to “stay”, she could almost believe he wasn’t implying for a
few days or a few weeks, but that he meant a lifetime.

Which was impossible.

“Thanks, Lo. It’s tempting. Hell, it’s very tempting. Let me
chew on it a while, okay?”

“Sure.”

Gentle quiet settled back over them. A wren dropped down
onto the ground a few yards away, grabbed a bug, and flew away. The sight of it
reminded her of the mysterious gentleman who had saved her two days ago.

“Whatcha been up to lately?” the equally soft voice
inquired.

It was at that moment that Brenda realized that, in all
these years, she had never heard Lorne raise his voice or yell for any reason.
Lee, on the other hand, had always been the agitated one. The youngest of the
Palmer boys, Lee was the enthusiastic, overly optimistic son. And Luke, well,
being the oldest brother, he had become a surrogate father after their parents
died. And the funny thing was, only two years separated each of them, and
Brenda fell right in the middle between Luke and Lorne.

“Well, you’ve probably seen me on TV,” she began.

“Oh, yeah. Hard not to, Miss I’m-Bringing-Dobbling-to-Fullerton,”
he teased.

Brenda giggled. “Hey, this town deserved it. Besides, it had
everything the company was seeking. Cheap land, lots of available labor, and—”

“And it made the medical profession richer,” he pointed out.

At first, she tried to figure out what he knew about the
medical patents the company was trying to obtain when she saw him wave his soda
at her blue-jeaned legs. Then it struck her. He wasn’t talking about the
patents. He was talking about the explosion.

Brenda reached down and gently placed a hand on her calf
where the bandage wrapping was evident below the cuffs of her denim capris. She
didn’t know how badly she’d been hurt when trying to escape the poisonous cloud
and flying debris, until she and the television news crew arrived at the
hospital emergency room, and someone pointed out the trail of blood droplets on
the floor. The doctor pulled out a sliver of metal three inches long, and put in
eighteen stitches. Fortunately, the cut had been shallow.

“Yeah, well, there’s risks with any job.”

“We saw your interview at the company before the accident.
Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Hospital checked me out, took some x-rays,
sewed and bandaged up my booboo, gave me oxygen and a passing grade, then told
me to go home.”

“Bet the explosion was worse than it looked.”

“Oh, yeah. Fortunately, I managed to hide inside the Channel
Eight news van during the worst of it. For a while there, the news people and I
thought we should kiss our asses goodbye.”

“Until that guy showed up. Who was he?”

Brenda shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t get the chance to
ask.” The mere mention of the stranger in black leather was enough to put her
back in a fog as she recalled the way the mystery man had lit her fuse, if just
for a few minutes.

“Think he’s going to be our next superhero?” Lorne inquired.

“Has to be. You should have seen how he took two solid steel
doors and waved them like playing cards to disperse the chemical toxins in the
air.”

She could see him in her mind’s eye, hovering a few feet
above the ground as he waved those doors, looking like a dark angel with steel
wings.
Who is that man? What will he call himself?

An elbow nudged her arm. “Well, I’m happy to know you’re all
right. It’s been a while since we’ve last talked. How’s it going, living in the
big city? Gotta boyfriend?”

Lorne gave her another one of those sideways looks, and
added a grin to it. Brenda had to admit to herself that the unshaven, unkempt
look worked for him.

“Nope. You?”

“Nope. No boyfriend,” he admitted with a straight face.

She burst out laughing and gave him a hard shove in the
shoulder. “I meant, do you have a girlfriend?”

“No. No time.”

Sighing loudly, Brenda nodded. “I can relate.”

They continued to imbibe their drinks as the occasional car
glided by, passing through a neighborhood filled with middle-class houses circa
1950s and ’60s. The shade from the gum tree next to the house made the porch a
good ten degrees cooler than the temperature was out in the sun. Brenda
breathed deeply of the fresh air.

“I didn’t know how much I missed this place until now. Hey,
you never told me what you’re up to these days. What have you been doing since
college?”

Lorne lifted his knees before propping his arms on them, and
dangled his drink can between his legs. “Me? Not a whole lot. I stock goods and
bag groceries over at the Supermart, and sometimes I help over at Luigi’s
whenever they’re short-handed. Luke is a video game developer for a company out
of Nashville. Lee is still employed at the factory.”

“That’s good to know, but isn’t it crazy how things worked
out? Think about it,” Brenda said. “None of us ended up where we thought we
wanted to be. I got a degree in music, then became the director of acquisitions
at Dobbling Enterprises. You got a degree in criminal justice, but you work
part-time at a grocery store and pizza parlor. Luke has a degree in physics,
and he writes software. And Lee got his degree in telecommunications, but makes
cardboard boxes.” She giggled. “What’s wrong with this picture?”

“Mmmm, youthful wishful thinking?”

Mr. Tumlinson from across the street came out of his house,
checked his mail from the box mounted on side of the house next to the front
door, then went back inside.

“One of these days, Mr. Tumlinson won’t be around anymore to
do that,” Brenda mentioned softly. Suddenly the meaning behind what she’d just
said swooped over her like an enormous bird of prey, gripping her in its razor
talons and rendering her into little pieces. She dropped her soda and barely
covered her face when the tears came again, harder, heavier, and hotter.

Strong arms wrapped around her and pulled her against him to
cuddle. As her sobbing became less controllable, Lorne dragged her into his lap
where she could safely fall apart within his embrace. He said little, allowing
her to weep until she was spent. Minutes crawled by, and finally Brenda was
able to get herself under control. Looking around for a tissue, she was
surprised when Lorne lifted the tail of his plaid shirt.

“Be my guest.”

“Thanks.” She wiped her eyes before blowing her nose. When
she was done, Lorne shrugged out of his shirt and bundled it into her lap. “I
can’t believe I did that again.”

“We were stunned to hear about your dad’s death,” his deep
voice murmured against her hair. “He was a great man, and a wonderful neighbor.
We’ll miss him.”

She nodded, unable to answer.

“Thank you for letting me and my brothers be pallbearers.”

“Th-thank you for accepting.” More tears flowed. Brenda
sniffed. “He…he was always a strong man. He was
my
superhero. Always
strong. Always there, even after Mom died.”

“Mr. Mac was a good man. My brothers and I always looked up
to him.”

“Even when he caught us in the swimming pool at two in the
morning in our birthday suits?”

Lorne laughed. It was a deep, chesty, man’s laugh, not the
high-pitched giggle of an adolescence.

“Bren, we were in elementary school then!”

She managed a laugh, and they hugged once more. She felt
like she had come home. For real. People were always bemoaning the fact that
people could never go home, at least not emotionally. They were wrong. Either
that, or she was very, very lucky.

The Palmers had moved in next door when she was six.
Immediately the three boys had adopted her as a sister, and she was included on
all their escapades. They had persevered through the trials and tribulations of
grade school and junior high, boyfriends, girlfriends, break-ups, proms, final
exams, and graduation. As they grew up and filled out, and Luke went off to
college, they began to hang out less and less. Brenda went to seek her fame and
fortune a year ahead of Lorne. Lee, the baby, took a football scholarship to
help with the financial burden.

Boom, boom, boom, boom. Four years in a row one of the
Fullerton Four, as they called themselves, left the nest. The Palmer boys
remained in town, returning once they’d gotten their degrees. But Brenda was on
her way up and up, getting hired at Dobbling Enterprises as a clerk fresh out
of college. From there, she worked her way up to assistant director. And now
here she was, within the span of a year, suddenly thrust into the position of director
and given charge of finding new locations and clearing the way for Dobbling to
expand. Naturally, her first instinct had been to help bring prosperity back to
Fullerton, and to her delight, the board of directors had okayed her plan to
build in her hometown.

Funny how circumstances had brought her full circle. That
was when she realized how long she’d been gone, and how much she’d missed her
hometown. Now with the factory gone, and Michael McKay’s sudden death, the
brightness surrounding her homecoming was covered in a black pall.

“Hungry?”

“When am I not hungry?” she challenged, pulling back to look
him in the face.

Lorne grinned. “Guess some things never change. Come on. I’ll
treat, but you drive.”

“Don’t you have a car?” They uncurled themselves from each
other and got to their feet. Brenda went inside to get her purse.

“Luke has the car tonight,” he said.

“One car, three brothers. The math doesn’t add up, Lorne,”
she teased, locking and closing the front door behind her.

“Hey, I can walk to work in ten minutes, and Lee rides the
bus.” He followed her into the garage and waited for her to unlock the
passenger door with her remote.

“All right, smart guy. Where am I going?” she asked as they
both hopped into her car.

“Where else?” he smiled.

“Pooches!”

They laughed in unison.

Chapter 5

Pooches

Pooches had not lost its feel for nostalgia since the day it
opened back in 1954. When Lorne escorted Brenda into the soda and burger shop,
memories of yesterday seemed to rise up and greet them. The results made them
feel as if, once again, they were naive teenagers filled with hope, ambition,
and dreams. Brenda, with her desire to go to the big city and create a stir in
the art world. And he with his predetermined destiny.

At that time he had been waiting for his powers to show.
Luke had already found out he had been blessed with tremendous mental
abilities. Very little was beyond his reach—telepathy, clairvoyance, mental
projection, telekinesis. By the time he’d graduated high school, Luke was
already helping the police, FBI, and Interpol with their cases, but he was
doing it very hush-hush. Very much incognito. No one knew him as anything other
than Mr. Mental, and no one outside of law enforcement was even aware that he
existed. If there came a time when he had to “appear” before a group, he did so
as a disembodied face, a floating head like a pale, ghostly mask, with
ink-black eyes.