At her words, Raid went completely still.
Then he asked, dangerously quietly, “Come again?”
She missed the danger, but she didn’t miss his words. “You used me and now you’re here acting like a jerk. Why?”
“How did I use you?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I didn’t go to the table, tell you I overheard, allow you to explain the intricacies of your plan of pretending you were into me so you could ascertain if I was in on my oh so very ex-friends’ fiendish plot to use my afghans as cover for transporting drugs. So I don’t know all the ways you used me. I just know you, like them, used me.”
“Pretending I was into you?” Raid whispered, and she threw up her hands.
“Raiden, I know,” she snapped.
“You don’t know shit,” he clipped.
“Really? So, you don’t notice me for months—no, for years—then suddenly you’re everywhere I am and how I’m,” she lifted up her hands and did air quotation marks, “linked to drug dealers or transporters or, uh… whatever you call them.”
“Yeah, babe, for years I didn’t notice you, then I did when two pieces of shit used a kind, trusting woman as cover for transporting dope.”
“Right, then, now that we have that cleared up, you can leave,” she announced.
Jesus.
“I’m not leaving,” he returned.
“Why?” she cried. “It’s over. You know I have no part in it. I don’t know your part in it. I don’t want to know your part in it. But my part is done. This is over. You don’t have to pretend anymore. Why can’t you just go?”
“I’m not pretending jack,” Raid bit out.
“God!” she yelled. “This is insane!”
Then she made a big mistake.
Huge.
She impatiently shoved her hand in her hair, not remembering it was up in a knot. She encountered whatever was holding it up, yanked it out and her hair tumbled in a shining mess around her face and down her shoulders.
Raid watched it, lost it, and advanced.
Hanna retreated, slamming into the wall at the side of the stairs.
Raid caged her in, putting one hand to her hip, fingers spread, pads digging in, one hand to the wall at the side of her head and he bent low so his face was in hers.
She’d quit breathing, which was good.
That meant she couldn’t spout more bullshit.
He forced his voice to gentle when he said, “I get you’re tweaked about this shit. I get you’re hurt that your friends fucked you over and how they did it, which is huge. What you need to get, honey, is that I’m not using you. I’m not pretending jack. I am into you.”
“Stop it,” she whispered.
Fuck him.
“Do not transfer the pain you feel that two people you let into your life and your heart fucked you to me, Hanna,” he warned.
He thought he had the upper hand. He thought if he could get her to calm down and see reason, they’d get past this.
So he was unprepared for Hanna Boudreaux rocking his world.
“I’ve crushed on you since I was six. We were on the same tug of war team three years in a row at Grams’s picnics. We were both out of class and alone in the hall at the same time second semester my freshman year, your senior year. Your locker was nowhere near mine. I don’t know what you were doing in that hallway but I’d gone to the nurse because I had flu and was getting my stuff to go home. You walked by me, looked at me and said, ‘hey’. I said ‘hey’ back, but I don’t think you heard me because you kept walking and didn’t look back. Until the pet store, that was the only word you ever said to me. ‘Hey.’”
Fucking shit.
“Hanna—”
“You left Willow then you came home and I went to Rachelle’s once a week, twice, three times just to catch a glimpse of you. You looked through me, dozens of times. Once you caught me looking at you and you jerked up your chin. You looked right at me and jerked up your chin. Then you looked away. Months later, I run into you in the pet store and it was like you’d never seen me before.”
Christ.
“I don’t remember that at the café,” Raid said softly.
“I know,” she replied. “When you met me, you didn’t know me at all, but I’ve been around for years.”
“Baby, me not remembering you doesn’t mean dick.”
“It does to me.”
He could see that. He knew she was that into him before she told him all that. No woman got that flustered around a man who she wasn’t extremely attracted to. And he’d liked it a fuck of a lot. From the minute she first tucked her hair behind her ear, hiding she was glancing at him to be sure he was still checking her out when she was with Bodhi and her bike.
And he liked it more than a fuck of a lot that she knew she was on his tug of war team when he was fucking eleven or whatever and remembered them walking by each other in the hall in high school years ago.
It was cute. It was sweet.
It was her.
He just didn’t understand the history of it, but Hanna explaining the length and extent of her crush on him explained a lot about her behavior the last week and a half. Raid could see that his not noticing her would cut deep.
He moved his hand from the wall to wrap it around the side of her neck. She tried to jerk away, but he dug his fingers in and pushed closer. This had the desired effect. She quit moving.
“A buddy of mine has some issues in Denver,” Raid explained. “Those issues leaked to Willow. He called me in, contracting me to find the supplier who’s been shifting drugs through Willow. This asshole is slippery. Every lead we got led to shit. He’s got soldiers everywhere, but he’s a ghost. Honey, you might have been at Rache’s, I might have seen you, but I had a lot of shit on my mind.”
“You thought I was involved with drug people and investigated me. You got involved with me to investigate me.”
“I got involved with you to get involved with you, but I also had to clear you of that shit so we could move on and get his fuckin’ guy.”
“Raiden, can’t you see how I can’t see that I’ve been around, you’ve even looked right at me and didn’t see me and now, all of a sudden, you’re into me, and how I can’t believe you’re actually, well… into me?”
“How the fuck can you make something that makes no sense make sense?” he asked back.
“So you understand what I’m saying?”
“I do and it might make sense, honey, but it’s still whacked.”
Her eyes rolled to the ceiling.
“Hanna, look at me,” he ordered.
Her eyes rolled back.
“I’m into you,” he told her.
“I don’t believe you,” she told him.
“Why the fuck not?” he asked.
“I just don’t,” she answered.
“Christ, honest to God, you think I’m a man who comes back to his hometown, a town his mother and sister still live in, takes the town’s beloved native daughter—who also happens to be the great-granddaughter of the town’s matriarch —out to dinner in order to play her, and I’d do that shit at Chilton’s where everyone can see?”
She blinked.
She hadn’t thought of that.
Thank fuck, he was getting somewhere.
Raid kept going.
“And you think I’m a man who lays out bullshit lines to cute, sweet, pretty women and keeps at it after a job is fucked just for shits and grins?”
She pulled one side of her lips between her teeth.
Yeah, getting somewhere.
Raid kept at it.
“And serious as fuck, Hanna, you think that kiss was pretend?”
She stared into his eyes and her little white teeth appeared to bite her lip. She let it go and whispered, “That kiss was really good.”
Raid’s eyes didn’t go to the ceiling. His head dropped and he contemplated his boots.
He also saw she had fucking sequins glued to her toenails that looked varni
shed with black polish, but had some kind of white flower design painted around the sequin.
Christ, she was adorably ridiculous.
A sequin stuck to her fucking toe.
He couldn’t help it, and didn’t try. He started laughing.
“Are you laughing?” he heard her ask.
“You got goddamned sequins on your toes,” he said, his words trembling.
“They’re pretty,” she returned, and he lifted his head to look at her, no longer laughing.
His reward.
“Yeah,” he agreed. He wasn’t talking about sequins and he knew she knew it when he heard her sharp intake of breath. “Are we done with this idiotic conversation about me not being into you?”
“Uh… I think so.”
“So you get I’m into you,” he pushed to confirm.
She pressed her lips together and thought on it awhile.
Raid used the last of his patience to let her.
Then she nodded.
“Thank Christ,” he muttered and finally relaxed.
“So, uh… when you said you were going to call me tomorrow, which is today, incidentally, you actually meant it?”
Raid heard the growl roll up his throat before he rumbled after it, “Yeah, Hanna. I meant it.”
Her eyes lit. She liked that, didn’t hide it and he liked both.
Again, he wanted to kiss her.
“Cool,” she whispered.
“Honey, tell me you see the absurdity of me callin’ you tomorrow, which is today, incidentally, askin’ you to a movie, only so after the movie I can maneuver you to my house, then my bed, when I’m right here in your house with your bed upstairs?”
Her eyes rounded and she again stopped breathing.
Fuck yeah, he wanted to kiss her.
“Well, I can see the absurdity of you calling me when we can make plans for a movie right now,” she allowed.
Goddamned ridiculous.
And cute.
Fuck it, he was just going to kiss her.
So he did.
It was a repeat of the one before. Hot. Wet. She slid her fingers in his hair and pressed her warm, sweet, soft body to his, opened herself up and gave him everything.
He fought back the near overwhelming urge to drop her to the floor and take her in her foyer when what she said penetrated.
He ended the kiss, slid his lips to the skin under her ear and felt the soft puffs of her quick breaths against his neck.
“I’m sensing you wanna slow this down,” he noted, his voice rough.
“We’ve only had one date,” she replied softly. Then, quieter. “I’m not that that type of girl.”
She wasn’t. Hanna Boudreaux absolutely wasn’t that type of girl.
Fuck.
His reward.
He lifted his head and looked down at her to see her face soft, eyes bright and heated, lips swollen.
Fantastic.
“Movie. Tomorrow night. You pick. Text me,” he stated.
“I don’t have your number,” she told him.
“Where’s your phone? I’ll program it in,” he offered.
“It’s upstairs.” She made to move, mumbling, “I’ll get it.”
Raid locked his arms around her and her eyes shot back to his.
“Unh-unh.” He shook his head. “Already watched you run up those stairs in a sexy dress and heels tonight. Not gonna watch you do it in your sweet pajamas. Only so much a man can take.”
“Oh,” she breathed.
Fuck.
His reward.
“I’ll be here, six o’clock. Pick a movie that works with that time, but I wanna take you out to eat before so plan accordingly.”
“Okay,” she agreed.
“We need to go earlier, call Rachelle at her café. She can give you my number.”
“Okay,” she repeated.
“Now, I gotta go.”
She licked her lips and again said, “Okay.”
Raid made a move, but her arms tightened around him.
Then, suddenly, she dipped her chin and planted her forehead in his chest.
“I know you think I’m an idiot and this is ridiculous and I understand why you were angry I didn’t discuss things with you when I overheard you talking. But I heard you say I was clueless and you were going to end this tonight. I obviously mistook what you said, but what you said didn’t sound good,” she explained in a hesitant, hushed voice.
He pulled her closer and dropped his lips to the top of her hair.
Finally, he got it.
She hadn’t heard it all.
Not even most of it.
Just the part she could misinterpret.
“You missed the part when my partner was givin’ me shit about my new babe takin’ my mind off the job, how I needed to get my head back in the game and how you were distracting me from doing that.”
“Oh,” she whispered into his chest, her arms around him going even tighter. She dropped her head back and he lifted his up to catch her eyes. “I should have told you I overheard. Let you explain. I’m sorry.”
Straight up apology.
It took balls to do shit like that, even for sweet, cute, shy women.
His fucking reward.
“It’s done, baby,” he told her.
Hanna nodded, then again tipped her chin down and planted her forehead in his chest.
“Do you think I’m a crazy, creepy stalker lady, hanging at Rachelle’s just to see you walk in?”
“Absolutely not,” he replied immediately, his voice steely, and her head jerked back so her eyes could scan his face to ascertain the veracity of his words.
He let his expression do the talking because he didn’t think her crush was crazy or creepy.
It was like everything about her, sweet and cute.
He just wished like fuck he’d been paying more attention, so instead of spending the next however long it took coaxing her into his bed she’d already be there.
Finally, she said, “I think I actually believe you.”
Raid smiled. “Good, ‘cause I’m not lyin’.”
Hanna’s body melted into his and she gave him a smile back.
Fuck, he had to get out of there.
“Now let me go unless you want me to stay,” he ordered.
He was gratified at the lengthy hesitation before she let him go.
He leaned in, kissed her forehead and moved to the door.
He had it open when something occurred to him and he turned back.
“You thought you were ending this earlier,” he noted. She tipped her head to the side, but then righted it and nodded. “So why did you give me the afghan?”
Her brows drew together in confusion, he sensed not at his question, but at her actions. Then she laid it out honestly.
“I don’t know. Maybe I was being my usual idiot and wanted to give you something to remember me. Maybe, even with what I thought you were doing, I knew you were a partial good guy, what with offering to take care of Grams’s yard and all, and I wanted to give something back. The only thing I had to give. Something that would keep you warm. But really, I don’t know. I just…” she shrugged, “did it.”
“Glad you did, honey,” he replied.
“Me too,” she said.
He gave her a grin. Hers was shy, but she returned it.
“Lock this after me,” he commanded.
Hanna nodded and he jerked up his chin.
Then he walked out the door, closing it behind him. He was on the steps when he heard it lock.
Raid sat in his Jeep and didn’t pull away until the downstairs lights were off and he saw her shadow moving behind the filmy curtains of her bedroom.
He drove to his place. He tagged the afghan and walked up the side stairs, unlocked his door and moved in.
He pulled off his clothes, yanked the comforter off his mattress, untied the satin ribbons around the afghan and threw it out on his bed.
Then he climbed under it.
He’d been right when he first touched it.
She’d been right when she said it would keep him warm.
Heaven.
Then Raiden Miller fell asleep under the warmth of Hanna’s cashmere, and for the first time in a long time he didn’t have a nightmare.
Not even one.
Chapter Eight
Double Feature
The next evening…
“Leave it to you, when I’m lookin’ forward to my plans for after the fuckin’ movie, you find a double feature,” Raiden grumbled.
I threw a nervous smile over my shoulder at Raiden, who was carrying a big bucket of popcorn in the crook of his arm and two huge sodas in his hands. He was following me down the aisle of the Willow Deluxe, our theater in town that, against the odds of competition from the huge cineplexes only forty-five minutes away in Denver, stayed in business.
This was mostly because the town liked it. Then again, the citizens of Willow just liked Willow.
Our town was one of those strange exceptions to every rule. We had not gone the way of one-stop convenience and bulk buying economy.
We had a butcher. We had a fruit and veggie shop. We had a non-chain hardware store. We had a grocery store that everyone went to that was family owned and had been for over fifty years. We had a florist, a craft shop, three gift shops, a coffee house, Rachelle’s Café, a pizza joint that did great Italian on the whole, a biker bar, a cowboy bar, a Broncos fans only bar and more.
Including the Deluxe, which was a not-for-profit and stayed in business as well as continued renovations due to the generosity of a town that wanted to keep its old-fashioned, hometown feel.
I loved the Deluxe.
I loved my town.
But my smile was nervous because of what I suspected Raiden’s plans were for after the movie, not because I was still worried and wondering if he was really into me.
No, even if last night, or more accurately, super-early this morning he had not made that very clear, earlier that evening he’d made it even clearer.
Needless to say, Raiden’s idea of “slowing this down” clashed with mine.
In other words, before the movie he took me to Rachelle’s for dinner, and even before that, he’d told me to call his sister to get his number, which, of course, I did not.
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