She glanced around, looking for her cell phone, when the banging started again, this time right on the front door. Sounded like someone was pounding with the side of his fist. The door thumped against the frame as if the wind, or a hand, shook it.
The noise grew until it echoed through her. She knew she needed to get up and grab a frying pan or a lamp. Any makeshift weapon would work. Her mind raced with the moves she’d learned in self-defense class. How to deflect. How to scream and run.
Every nerve ending sparked to life. Energy blared through her, ramping up her breathing and shaking through her muscles. The fight-or-flight response kicked hard to the surface. She was a big fan of the flight side but one look into the pitch-black night beyond the glass doors to her backyard and she reassessed. Out there she didn’t stand a chance. In here she had things to throw.
She dumped the blanket on the floor and forced her legs to uncurl from beneath her. Her hands shook as she reached for the lamp and yanked the cord from the wall. Her fingers clenched and unclenched around the blown glass base as she lifted it.
The kitchen. She needed to get in there. Hunker down. Grab a knife.
“Tessa?”
The muffled sound refused to make sense in her brain. Her name, the wind . . . someone desperate on the other side of the door. The possibilities blended together.
“Tessa. Open up.”
She knew that voice. Loud and frustrated.
Hansen.
All the fear crashing through her morphed into fury in the short time it took her to stomp from the couch to the door. She threw it open, ignoring the pelting rain and shock of dampness. The smell of wet earth mixed with the heat thrumming off him as he stood there, soaked pure to the bone. Hair hanging down and glasses beaded with water.
He was a dead man.
A white-hot rage bubbled up inside her and she aimed every last bit of it at him. She shoved against his chest with her open hand. Smacked him, ignoring that he barely seemed to move or notice.
“What is wrong with you?” Her voice wobbled from the force of her anger. “Why would you do that to me?”
He slicked his wet hair back with one hand and frowned at her. “What are you talking about?”
She’d never found him less attractive. A man who preyed on women, who liked to see them terrified, made her want to punch things . . . mainly him. “You.”
“Me?” He wiped his glasses on his wet shirt, smearing and streaking and making an even bigger mess.
“The knocking and turning the doorknob. You scared the crap out of me.” Her heartbeat refused to calm down. It thundered in her ears and hit with enough of a punch to make her chest ache.
He froze. “When?”
“Just now. The last five minutes.” She seriously considered slamming the door in his face. “What were you thinking?”
“Get inside.” His face went blank as he guided her into the house and shut the door to the raging storm behind them. A second later he threw the lock and started moving around the candlelit room.
“What do you think—” Her voice cut off when the flickering light showed his expression. Determined. Angry. Lethal. “Hansen?”
“I would never try to terrify you.” He shoved his flashlight in his jeans’ back pocket. “Damn it, Tessa. Give me some credit.”
“But then . . .” She had no idea what he was saying. Her brain refused to restart. Terror held her in its killing grip and she couldn’t shake it loose. “Okay.”
He moved fast, all sleek and quiet. He continued to scan the room as he stood in front of her with his hands resting on her forearms. “I just got here.”
“Yeah, I know.”
He pulled her in closer until only a breath of air separated their bodies. Those dark eyes didn’t blink as he watched her. “I never touched your door. Didn’t knock. Nothing. All I did was call your name.”
“But someone . . . did you see . . . anything?” When he didn’t say anything, she knew. Her knees buckled but he held her up. “Ohmigod. It wasn’t you.”
“No.”
“So then . . .” But she couldn’t finish. She knew and dreaded him confirming her suspicions.
“There’s someone else out there.”
Chapter 5
Hansen wanted to hide her somewhere and throw his body in front of her to block out anyone who might hurt her. The instinct rose out of nowhere and he didn’t question it. But his brain fought to be logical. Whatever banging she heard had stopped, which meant the person left . . . or they were already in the house.
He unclamped her fingers from the lamp and set it on the floor. “Go sit by the . . .”
He had no idea how to finish the thought. He’d never been inside her place before. Even in the shadows, color assaulted him from every side. Ignoring that, and he barely could, this had to be the least safe house he’d ever seen. Windows everywhere. If someone decided to smash their way in, she’d be showered with glass.
“I’m coming with you. Wherever you go, I’ll be right there.” She grabbed on to his arm with the strength of an Olympic athlete.
“I need you to—”
“You’re big and can fight.” Her fingernails dug through his wet shirt to hit skin. “The plan is to hide behind you and scream my head off.”
He couldn’t exactly argue with that reasoning. “Smart.”
He lifted the flashlight out of his back pocket and aimed it around the room in one last check. The wind wailed outside and rain slammed against the front windows by the door. He couldn’t hear anything but her labored breathing as he pivoted around the room, making sure it was clear.
Ready to move on, he angled her behind him, then whispered to her over his shoulder. “Hold on to my shirt and don’t let go. You see anything, you yell. Got it?”
“You’re going to be amazed at how loud I can scream.”
He hoped he didn’t find out, but he really liked her attitude. She would go out fighting.
He followed the flashlight beam. Shuffled his feet, keeping his steps short because she’d practically wrapped her body around his. He half carried her, half dragged her through the small structure. The bedroom with blue everywhere appeared clear. No one in the closet or under the bed.
Next, the other small room. The one she clearly used as an office, which he knew from the papers stacked on the bed and the two computers lining the desk. He tried to remember the word for the type of writing she did. She told him once. Clearly it was something that generated a lot of paperwork.
He’d walked away from that life, temporarily anyway. Stopped commuting to an office. No longer attended meetings. Finally reached the point where he didn’t hear the office phone ringing in his sleep.
The memories rushed through him. He tried to fight them off, but they flicked through his brain, one after the other. The long hours. All that takeout food and the meals out. He’d once, not that long ago, thrived on the pressure. Thought he had it all until his world imploded.
“I think we’re alone in here.”
He heard her voice but what she said didn’t register until she pinched his arm and said it again. “Uh, right.”
He clicked off the flashlight as they walked back into the living room. The safe room . . . the one without a bed or her bra on the floor. Even with the tension slapping him, he’d noticed that in her bedroom. Light pink and lacy. Now he knew.
“I’m not making it up. There was someone out there.”
He looked at her, really watched her now. Her pale face and big eyes. The way she shifted her weight from foot to foot. Those tiny PJ shorts that showed off every inch of those sexy legs . . .
This was not the time for that. Reality was, he didn’t have any time for that, but especially not now. “I know.”
“You believe me?” The doubt lingered in her voice and in her eyes.
“Of course.” That level of fear? Totally real. Even now she shivered as if she were freezing, and the room was cozy warm. “Are you okay?”
“
I don’t think so.” Her teeth actually clicked together as her jaw bounced up and down.
“Shit.” Without thinking it through, he took a step forward. “May I?”
She hesitated before nodding.
Then his arms wound around her. He pulled her tight against his chest and ran his hands up and down her back. This was about keeping her warm and calm. He kept repeating that refrain in his head as he whispered words in her ear that he hoped sounded comforting.
He realized that she was suffering from a nasty bout of shock. The unspent adrenaline rushed through her. He knew because he’d experienced it before and hated the lack of control.
The entire time he held her his gaze roamed the house. Every nook and cranny he could see. Someone had scared the crap out of her and could still be out there. The mysterious stranger who washed up. Had to be. Hansen couldn’t imagine a Whitaker resident walking around in this. Fishermen, maybe, but none of them would terrorize Tessa.
No, someone came for her. Either that or her house was the unlucky winner when they tried to break into the first one they saw. That struck him as odd since the houses outside of the main shopping and eating area around Berman’s Lodge, like hers, were spread out across the island. Some out alone and tucked deeper into the forest—like his. Some up high on hills to maximize the water views and others down closer to the rocky beaches. Most were surrounded by trees or at least required a drive or a walk through them to get out of the residential setting.
The area around her cottage was green and lush, and it sat in a group of other small houses. She could see her neighbors on either side but they weren’t on top of each other. She’d need a mighty loud yell to get someone’s attention, which might have been the reason hers was the target.
But the reason someone picked her house over someone else’s didn’t matter right now. No one scared her and got away with it.
A few minutes later, her body relaxed. Her weight fell heavier against him and her fingers flexed against his waist. For the first time he remembered that he was drenched and likely soaking her and her clothes . . .
Shit.
He pulled back and turned away from her. Acted like his body had caught fire because it fucking had. Her soft skin. The smell of her hair. The way she melted against him. All bad. Very bad.
“Hansen?”
She sounded confused. That made two of them.
“Give me a second to think.” He couldn’t face her yet. Chalk it up to a mix of need and stupidity, but all he wanted was to put her on that couch and crawl on top of her.
The timing was wrong. His feelings were off. Basically, he hovered right on the edge of messing up six weeks of pretending she was fine and nice and all but meant nothing to him.
She popped up in front of him. Leave it to her to refuse to give him five seconds to regain his control. “You’re soaking wet.”
And half-hard and all stupid. Yeah, that described him pretty well. “It’s no big deal.”
“You should take those off and—”
He said the first thing that came into his head. “Why isn’t your generator working?”
“What?”
Everyone on Whitaker had a generator. When the ferry only ventured by the island two times per week and the weather could whip along the water, residents had to be prepared for outages. Most people invested in whole-house generators that clicked on automatically when the electricity shut off. A few used those plus portable generators for smaller storms. No one went without.
He finally met her gaze. Big fucking mistake. The pinkish color had returned to her cheeks but her PJ top, which was already cropped and formfitting with bunnies all over it, now stuck to her.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had sex and he knew he wouldn’t be able to think of much else.
“Your generator?” Because they needed lights and she could use a jacket.
“I have two portable ones.”
Not the answer he wanted to hear. “Which are where?”
“Outside.” She winced. “I have them in the carport. Because of the wind they’re likely wet.”
He counted to ten because yelling at her about not being prepared after someone tried to scare her spitless struck him as an asshole thing to do. “Okay.”
She stood there in her fluffy white socks, curling her toes into the hardwood floor. “The storm blew in and I was out running around and thinking about the guy in the water.”
He wasn’t at his best right now either, so he got it. “And you didn’t plan ahead.”
“Right. Look, I think it’s safe for you to go, if you need to take off and . . .”
“Yes? If I need to do what?”
“Shower.”
She was trying to kill him. There was no other explanation.
“First, I’m not leaving you alone after someone tried to break in.” He thought that would have been obvious, but he said it anyway.
She nodded. “The merman, most likely.”
“I’m ignoring that reference.” But he did have to swallow a smile because he could hear the amusement in her voice when she said the word. After her scare, he’d worried that her usual spunk might abandon her. Apparently not. “Second, I’m not sure who or what tried to get in, but without electricity and with the rain still coming down, I’m not going to run around out there and try to find out.”
“Good call.”
“Thank you.” That was the first semi-compliment she’d given him since the incident with the man on the beach. He’d been pretty sure his lack of an excited reaction to her big reveal about the boat disappointed her. He shouldn’t care, and really, it was good to push her away. Still, the idea of her not talking to him, not calling him, or worse, thinking he was some sort of loser . . . Not okay.
“I’m assuming you don’t have anything that would fit me.” He looked around, trying to ignore all the purple. “This isn’t how I thought you’d decorate.”
“I wouldn’t. Ever. The house came this way.” She shook her head as she stared into the kitchen. “I thought it would grow on me and I’d find it charming.”
“And?”
“Turns out I was wrong.” She sighed. “I’m pretty sure the room I use for an office has giraffes stenciled on the floor molding.”
“Good lord.”
“Right? I find something new and confusing every single day.”
Yeah, she was better. More relaxed. She’d somehow turned off the fear or tamped it down. Compartmentalized so she could move forward. Impressive skills but they made him wonder why she’d had to develop them in the first place.
“I have an oversize college sweatshirt and we could wrap . . .” She eyed his pants and screwed up her lips as if she were assessing what she saw.
He wasn’t sure if he got a good mental review or not. “Wrap what?”
“Wrap a blanket around the rest of you.”
Or he could just go home. That would make sense. Get her to grab a coat and some shoes and take her with him because he refused to leave her alone. But that meant letting someone into his space. There were no good options here.
“I can try to start your generator.” He made a move toward the door.
She stepped in front of him. Basically, threw her body right into his path. “Absolutely not.”
“I’m already wet.”
“And there may or may not be a rogue merman out there.”
“Now you’re just saying the word to annoy me.”
She laughed. “It’s cute the way you growl.”
An alarm flashed in his head.
“Be careful.” He wasn’t sure if he was talking to her or himself or both of them.
“It’s a joke.” She walked over to the ottoman in front of the couch and bent down to grab the lid and open it.
Her pajama shorts rolled up her thigh, flashing him. He doubted she knew it was happening and he certainly should look away. He did . . . for a second. Glanced at the ceiling until her bare skin called to him again. He took
in the lean muscles and the—
“Are you gawking?”
She didn’t sound angry or interested, unfortunately. More like amused with a touch of gotcha. The smile did him in. It lit up her face. The teeth-rattling was gone. She no longer looked ready to bolt or climb on top of him for protection.
The smart, capable, kind of adorable, and hot as hell version of Tessa returned. And that scared the crap out of him. He had very few defenses against her when she was like this. He’d tried being grumpy. Threw sarcasm at her. Even spent a few days trying to ignore her, until he finally made a lame excuse to go into town and see her at the lodge where she had coffee with Sylvia almost every weekday morning.
“I’m not dead.” No, but he was interested even though he didn’t want to be.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She winked at him, then left the room. Headed for her bedroom, the one room that needed to stay totally off-limits to him. Just as he was about to call out to her, she walked back in with a pile of clothes in her arms.
“I have a few oversize plaid shirts, the sweatshirt, a bunch of towels, and some blankets.” She nodded toward the opened ottoman.
He was not getting naked in her house. “I’m fine.”
“If you get sick, the women of Whitaker will hate me.”
“What does that mean?”
She sighed at him. Didn’t even pretend she was doing anything other than finding him tedious.
“You can’t be that clueless.” She dropped the stack on the chair and reached over to lift off his glasses. She cleaned them with a square of cloth. “I use this on my computer screens, so I figured it would work for sexy glasses.”
“They’re nerd glasses.” He chose them for that purpose. They were thick and black and after decades of wearing contacts he used them as a shield of sorts.
She handed them back. “Sexy nerd glasses.”
“Tessa, I . . .” He stopped because that was really all he had. Her name and stuttering. He’d lost the ability to think around her and he had no idea what to do about that. It had been years since a woman had him spinning and confused. And the timing was all wrong for it to happen now.
Her Other Secret Page 4