by Jill Shalvis
“Yeah, well, this is National Take-A-Break-Every-Five-Minutes Day. Enjoy it.”
“You’re making that up.”
“Five minutes,” Hannah said firmly, still staring at Zach. She continued to stare at him while Karrie left. “Hi.”
“Hi back,” he said. “I’m not sure what to say.”
“Well, that would depend on how much you heard.” She looked mortified. “Feel free to lie and tell me you heard nothing.”
“I heard everything.”
She took that in with a little nod. “And here I thought it couldn’t get worse.”
A woman in her midtwenties walked by. She didn’t have green hair, but was so beautiful, she looked almost unreal. When she saw Hannah, she stopped short and...giggled, ruining the effect.
“So...did any of those tips we gave you work for you last night?” She glanced sideways at Zach, sizing him up.
Hannah looked as if she wanted a hole to open up and swallow her. “Maybe we could discuss this another time,” she suggested to the woman.
The woman grinned at Zach. “Sure.”
Zach waited until they were alone again. “Let me get this all straight. Last night...you were trying to...”
“Yes,” she said miserably. “And to tell you the truth, I’d rather you didn’t tell me how ridiculous it was.”
“I...wouldn’t do that.”
“Really?” She smiled a little. “You’re awfully kind.”
That made him laugh. “Hannah, kind is about the last thing I’m feeling at this moment.”
“What are you then?”
Turned on, dammit. “I’m not sure.”
She thought about that. “Well then, I guess I have nothing to lose....” With that, she moved closer, then closer still, until the skirt of her sundress touched his thighs.
Around them, the air thickened. Her scent came to him, light and pretty. Sensuous. Her eyes were huge, and despite her bold move, very uncertain.
A complete opposition to the way her body swayed toward his. She took his hand in her much smaller one and brought it to...her stomach?
Make sure he feels it.
Karrie’s words came back to him, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or groan. “She was wrong,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with the desire he was fighting with his every breath. “It’s not the material a man wants to feel.”
“No?”
She sounded breathless, too, and in contrast to his words, his fingers spread wide to touch as much of her as he could, feeling her belly tighten. “No. It’s skin I want. Bare skin.”
Her mouth formed a perfect little O at that. “I...see.”
“Hannah...” She seemed so vulnerable, yet unbearably sexy at the same time, and now that he knew she’d never been with a man, that she was yearning and burning for just that, he could hardly breathe. “What’s going on?”
“I thought you already knew.”
“I mean other than you’re asking your clerk and guests for hints on how to...”
“Seduce you?” She winced. “I asked my brother, too.”
“Michael? God.” He let out a slow breath. “But why?”
“Why am I asking for tips?”
“Why everything. Why me? Why are you a...”
“Virgin.” Her eyes went sad. “It’s that awful, huh?”
“No. No,” he said again, then shoved his fingers in his hair as if that could help him think. “Hannah...why are you doing this?” To me, he wanted to add, but better him than some other guy, right? At least he could resist her.
Probably.
Okay, maybe he was going to have trouble in that department.
The phone rang, and he’d never been so relieved in his life.
With a small sound of frustration, Hannah backed away and answered it. Then her shoulders sagged almost imperceptibly, and her smile went tight. “Mom? Everything okay?” She listened intently, and while she did, Zach backed up and pretended interest in a selection of T-shirts to give her some privacy.
He wondered if she’d be insulted if he went running.
Probably, he decided.
“What about the money I sent you last week?” he heard her ask. “No, Mom, Michael paid that bill for you already. The other money we sent was for you.” She sighed, and when Zach risked a peek at her, she was hunched over on a stool behind the counter, rubbing her temples.
Zach remembered Hannah’s mom, vaguely, from their school days. A nice, harried woman in perpetual grief, trying to do it all: work full-time, raise two children on her own, and manage all the household chores that came with that responsibility. She’d always seemed...haggard. Worried. He knew Hannah had grown up hovering near the poverty line, and knew for her mother at least, little had changed.
He was also aware of the fact that Hannah completely depended on her income from the Norfolk Inn, every penny, much more than either Tara or Alexi, both of whom could go to their parents for help if they needed to.
The inn was still fairly new, still earning its reputation. There’d been renovations needed, big ones, and the three women had procured a loan to cover the costs.
Zach couldn’t imagine the revenues from the place paid enough to easily support Hannah, much less her mother, not yet anyway.
And damn if that didn’t twist at the heart he was trying so valiantly to ignore when it came to the elusive Hannah Novak.
“Don’t worry about it, okay, Mom?” Her voice was reassuring in a way one would expect a mother to speak to a child, not the other way around. “Michael and I’ll send you more. We’ll get it all taken care of.... Gotta go, I have a customer. Yes, I’ll call you more often. I love you, too. Bye.”
Slowly she hung up the phone, her gaze focused off in the distance as she did, her mind a million miles away. Probably figuring out how to give more, as if she hadn’t been giving all her life.
God, she was beautiful, Zach thought, hauntingly so. But it wasn’t that physical beauty drawing him now. It was that spirit and inner strength.
Walk away, he thought. You’re on temporary leave from a demanding job, one that doesn’t give you the luxury of letting a woman into your life, even if you wanted, which you don’t.
Just walk away.
Instead he moved toward her. “Hey,” he said softly. “You okay?”
She jerked, then blinked at him once before pasting another of those fake smiles on her face, the kind he was certain fooled any customer because it was such a pretty, friendly smile.
It didn’t fool him because it didn’t quite meet her eyes, eyes that were filled with mysteries. He’d always known the warm, cheerful, sweet and engaging Hannah had depths to her, but suddenly he wanted to explore them, every single one. Dammit. “How’s your mother?”
“She...misses me.” Guilt flashed across her face. “I don’t spend enough time with her, and whenever she calls I’m reminded of that—not that she bugs me about it or anything—but I can hear the loneliness in her voice. It kills me.” Another sigh broke free from her lips, and with everything inside him he wanted to help.
“I hear the same thing when I call my parents,” he admitted quietly. “I don’t do it enough because of how it makes me feel when I hear how old they sound.”
The smile on Hannah’s face faded as she absorbed that. “I know. I hate hearing my mother age.”
“I worry that I don’t see them enough and someday they won’t be around to see at all. And Alexi, too. I go too long without seeing her. I’ve been gone so much in the past years. They hate that.”
He hadn’t meant to say so much, had meant only to prove kinship with her, but her eyes were deep and clear, and he felt as if he could see himself mirrored there. Certainly his own feelings were reflected back, which shouldn’t have surprised him.
Neither should the fact that at that moment, he felt closer to Hannah than he did to anyone.
“Do you miss them when you’re working?” she asked.
“When I’m working I don’t have ti
me to miss them. It’s only now, when I’m off, that I think too much. I can’t believe how many years have passed since I’ve been in Avila.”
“Your work is important to you.” She gave him a small smile. “And I don’t really know much about it.”
“I’ve been doing undercover work.” It was his standard, nondescript line. But it wasn’t enough for her, and he suddenly didn’t want it to be. So for the first time, he expanded on it. “Working on a drug ring in Los Angeles.”
“Did you haul them all off to jail?”
“It took a year, but yes, we got them all.”
“Good. You’re going back into that world soon.”
“Yes.” He was going back. Couldn’t wait to be going back.
“It’s dangerous,” she said quietly, her gaze moving down, landing on his injured side. “Your world.”
Suddenly going back was the last thing he wanted to talk about. And just as suddenly, the thought of doing it all over again, becoming someone else, losing another year of his life, maybe two, made him yearn for something...more.
Which made no sense.
He loved L.A. He loved being a cop. He really did, but he realized he didn’t love the way it consumed him. The way it made him feel as though the real Zach didn’t exist.
And not for the first time, he considered his devotion to the department, and what it was doing to his own personal life.
It was killing it.
There had to be a better way, a way to have both a life and the job, but he couldn’t imagine what that was.
That was fatigue talking, he figured.
“Isn’t it?” she pressed, waiting for an answer. “Dangerous?”
“I’m careful,” he said finally.
She snorted. “How careful can you be against a punk with a gun?”
“You worry about me,” he said with some surprise.
“I worry about lots of things. I worry about the stray cat we have, I worry that the guests won’t have enough towels, I worry that—”
“You worry about me.”
She went still, then smiled. “Yes. I can’t seem to help it. The worrying. Alexi starts it, and then it becomes contagious.”
“I love my job, Hannah.”
“I know.”
He had to shake his head. “We can go on about this and get nowhere. It isn’t what I want to know.”
“No?”
“No.”
Her face went guarded.
“We need to discuss it, Hannah. Last night.” He didn’t want to, he really didn’t. “I won’t be able to think about anything else until we do,” he admitted.
That brought a new light to her expression. “Really?”
“Did you think I could just forget?”
Before she could give him any answers, the door to the shop opened. Karrie came back in, craning her neck with curiosity. “Break’s over,” she called out. “Here I come, ready or not.”
Hannah blew a strand of hair out of her eyes and shot him a frustrated look. “The timing in my life, in case you hadn’t noticed, is really, really off.”
The strand of silky hair slipped back over her eye, and without thinking about it, or their audience, he gently tugged it back.
She went absolutely still as once again a simple touch seemed to rock both of their worlds. And this time, at least for him, it had nothing to do with the way she filled out her sundress, which happened to be incredible.
It had everything to do with Hannah the person. “We really need to talk,” he said quietly.
She bit on her lower lip, but nodded. “I only have a few hours of work to do around here. Some inventory stuff. Then...I’m free for a little while.”
Walk away. Don’t get involved. And yet, he stroked a finger down past her ear, delighting in the shiver that wracked her. “You feel so soft.” His thumb brushed her jaw and she let out a soft sigh.
It thrilled and terrified him at the same time, so he pulled back.
She smiled, a bit uncertainly, tugging at his heartstrings yet again, and he found himself returning the smile.
For reasons he didn’t come close to understanding, he shifted forward again, meaning only to kiss her cheek once before he left. Except she shifted at the same time, turning her face toward his.
And their lips met.
It was brief, but so warm and innocent. So incredibly right, and filled with unbearable yearning.
Slowly, he straightened.
They stared at each other.
Zach had no idea what it meant, but given her doe-caught-in-the-headlights look, Hannah didn’t know, any more than he did. It was the sort of kiss he wasn’t likely to forget.
He doubted she would, either.
CHAPTER 7
THE LODGE WAS BUSY. Summer was in full swing, and as a result, it was more than a few hours before Hannah managed to come up for air.
It hadn’t helped that Karrie came down with some sort of flu, turning the same shade of green as her hair, which left Hannah facing the dessert crowd by herself.
It happened to be her specialty, mostly because she loved to eat it. On a normal day, she would have enjoyed serving, enjoyed chatting. She loved to talk to their visitors, learning about them and where they came from.
But today wasn’t normal.
Today she had something to do when she was finished, something that wasn’t just another chore or more work. Today she had Zach waiting for her, waiting for answers, maybe waiting for more than answers, which is what she’d wanted.
But the reality of it so unnerved her she ate two ice-cream sandwiches.
She had to remember, no matter what happened, that this was just a temporary interlude for Zach, one he’d probably remember with fondness as he went back to his adventurous, exciting life, but he would go back.
As if she’d summoned him, he appeared outside the window of the shop, carrying a surfboard and heading toward the beach.
She didn’t let herself appease her curiosity by plastering her nose to the full picture window on the side of the shop that faced the beach.
Much.
Near the water, he stripped off his sweatshirt, then his pants, too, leaving him in nothing but swim trunks that clung to his body like a glove.
Had he said he was out of shape? she wondered, pressed up against the window. Not possible, not with that powerful, sleek build. Clearly favoring his right side, he waded into the water and put the board to good use.
“Who are you watching?”
Hannah bumped her nose on the glass. “Nobody. Nothing,” she said, turning as casually as she could to face Tara.
“Uh-huh.” Tara grabbed a bowl and helped herself to a triple scoop of Fudge Ripple. “Which is why, of course, you’re blushing.”
Hannah cursed her fair skin as Tara proceeded to top her dessert with whipped cream. “I always blush.”
“It’s a good thing, too.” Tara paused to moan sinfully as she took her first bite. “Otherwise, how would Alexi and I ever know what’s up with you?”
“I tell you what’s going on with me.”
“The surface stuff maybe, but not the good stuff.”
“Such as?”
“Such as why you’re watching Zach surf while pretending not to.”
“Oh. That.”
“Would it have anything to do with the curious call I just took from Michael?”
Dammit. “That depends.”
“On what? On how badly you freaked him out?”
“That bad, huh?”
“I just barely convinced him not to drop everything so he could come out here and kick ‘some stupid jerk’s ass’.”
“Oh boy.” Hannah let out a disparaging laugh, sank to a chair and looked at Tara helplessly. “You did talk him out of it, right?”
“Yep. Told him I had things under control. Told him Alexi and I would kick any butt that needed kicking. Which means you owe me now. So sing. What’s up?”
“Look, I know I’ve been acting a little str
ange—”
“A little?”
“But I’m not ready to talk about it.”
“You talked to Michael about it.”
“Yeah, well, I have a new tactic.” She’d figured out it was an individual thing. She had to do this by herself. “And if I’m looking out the window a lot, it’s because I’m thinking of what I’m going to change in the garden.”
“Right. That explains the dreamy look you had in your eyes. Flowers. Silly me, thinking it was that tall, gorgeous cop out there in the water.”
“Tara—”
“Honey, look.” She set down her ice cream and went serious. “I know you have this misguided thing that because you don’t have any money, you think you have to work harder than Alexi or me, but quite honestly, that’s a bunch of bologna. Okay? We’re all equals, and we help each other. We love each other. So when I see you today, smiling like an idiot, offering a beautiful man a condom instead of coffee, then gazing out the window lost in a daydream, it thrills me. Don’t ruin it for me.”
Hannah didn’t know what to say to that.
“So...what happened last night between you and Zach that’s got you acting like a jumping bean? Or should I just guess?”
“No!” Stalling now, Hannah opened the industrial refrigerator and gazed at her stock, eyeing the two huge strawberry pies she’d planned to give to Alexi for the restaurant. Scooping them up, one in each hand, she turned back to Tara. “I’m sorry. I love you, too. With all my heart. But this is something I have to figure out for myself.”
“So no more midnight calls to New York?”
“I think I have it handled.”
“I’m sure your brother will be happy to know that the birds-and-bees talks are over.”
Hannah worked at keeping her expression even.
Tara sighed. “Fine. I’m leaving it alone.”
“Good.”
“Really. I’m washing my hands of it.”
“Great.”
“But—”
Hannah gave her a long look, which Tara ignored. “Just remember, it’s more than just music and candles. It’s all in the body language.” She stood and grinned. “Just in case you’re wondering.” She laughed when Hannah rolled her eyes. “Hey, don’t blame me for prying. Blame Alexi and Michael. I’m not allowed to go back to the lodge until I know what’s going on between you and Zach. Michael wants to know if he needs to kill him, and Alexi wants to know if she’s cleaning toilets for the summer.”