What Happened to Hannah

by Mary Kay McComas

  “She reminds me a great deal of you, you know.”

  She frowned. “Right. I’m graceful. I can’t hold a pencil and answer the phone at the same time. And I’m not sweet. I’m tired and grumpy—”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “Sorry. I heard this guy on the radio today saying it was the barometric pressure pressing . . . or not pressing on our brains when the weather is like this that makes some people cranky, but who knows? Hopefully, it won’t last much longer and I’ll be back to my old happy self.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  She laughed. “You know you could argue with me and tell me you hadn’t noticed how crabby I’ve been.”

  “I’ve never lied to you before, why would I start now?”

  “You wouldn’t. And I depend on you for that. So, did you call to tell me about Anna’s practice or did you want me to bring takeout when I swing by to pick her up?”

  “Yes. Anna. I told you she had a good run.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I did.” Silence. “But I don’t need food tonight. I’m going out with friends. Later.”

  “Okay. That’s great. Which friends? I can pick Anna up early if you want.”

  “No, no. It’s a late dinner.”

  “With who?”

  “Ah. They’re new friends. Well, old friends, new in town. Tell me what are you planning to do about Jim?”

  Hannah leaned back in her chair and began to wonder if Joe’s medications had lost their shelf life. “I don’t know. Hire someone to replace him, I guess. I might promote one of the junior analysts. Ken Lyman. I like him. He’s sharp. What did you think of him when you were here?”

  “He and young Jack would both do well, I think, with—”

  “Dammit.” A noise in the outer office sparked her temper and sent her blood pressure soaring. “Joe, I have to go. Tell Anna I’ll be there soon.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “One of the idiots who works for me forgot to lock the front door like I asked, and now some other idiot has walked in. Why would you have to explain to someone that when most of the lights in a building are out for the night, it means we’re not open for business? How tough is that to figure out?” She paused before opening her office door. “I’ll be there soon.”

  She put her BlackBerry in her suit-jacket pocket and worked at twisting her face into something that looked professionally friendly but please-come-back-tomorrow-ish. Halfway down the hall, murder and mayhem occurred to her so she slowed her pace, taking softer steps. She took her phone back out of her pocket and dialed in 911, keeping her thumb on Send as she peered around the corner.

  She gasped, dropped her precious phone, and the intruder turned to face her.

  “Hi.”

  Her lips moved but nothing came out—so she nodded.

  “I have this whole speech prepared.” Grady’s voice came low and cautious. “You’re supposed to be excited and ask me what I’m doing here. Maybe you could fake it?”

  She laughed. She didn’t need to fake anything. “What are you doing here?”

  “I missed you.”

  She sighed. God, he was handsome and wonderful and . . .

  “This is where you say you missed me, too.”

  Hannah nodded. “I do. I did. I’ve missed you, too. A lot.”

  “Good.” He took two steps toward her. “Now all you have to do is admit that you love me as much as I love you—and don’t try to deny it.” Two more steps. “I can see it in your eyes . . . I can hear it in your voice. I feel it, as sure as I’ve been of anything in my life.” One last step and he reached out to brush the backs of his fingers down her cheek. “You got away from me once and it tore me apart. It changed me forever. I can’t let you get away from me again, Hannah. I need you in my life. I love you.”

  It was, hands down, the best speech she’d ever heard. Much better than the ones she’d dreamed up for him over the years.

  “And this is where you say—”

  “I love you, too?”

  “For starters.”

  She bowed her head; took in and let out a deep breath. “Grady, I . . .” She looked up and caught his expression changing from hopeful to confused—as if she’d stabbed him in the chest and ripped out his heart for no reason. She framed his face with both her hands to make the look of pain go away. “I do love you, Grady. I’ve always loved you. I’ve never loved anyone else but you. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  She looked to his shirtfront for the right words. There weren’t any. “Well, I know love is supposed to conquer all things but . . .”

  “Just say it.”

  “I cannot live in Clearfield. I know you have responsibilities and a job you like there—”

  “That’s it? That’s your big objection? That’s why you’ve been pushing me away?”

  “That and I thought I was a murderer. And I was sure that when you found out you’d have to throw me in jail. So there was no point in giving you any hope.”

  He took her by the upper arms and pulled her close, wrapping first one arm and then the other around her tight.

  “Man, you’re stubborn.”

  “Well, you’re annoying.” She didn’t make it sound like a bad thing.

  “You’re frustrating.”

  “So are you.”

  He leaned back and took her face in his hands.

  “You’re also very beautiful.”

  “So are you,” she whispered as his lips brushed against hers. She went up on her toes to press her mouth to his. He nipped at her lips to punctuate the rest of his speech.

  “Here’s the deal— Your friend Joe and I, we’ve been plotting against you . . . for weeks. No, hold still—and listen. He called you to make sure you’d still be in the office so we could talk alone, since Anna lives with you—and because Lucy and I just moved into his guest rooms.”

  “You what?” No more kissing, but he wouldn’t let go of her face.

  “Shhhh. It’s temporary. We weren’t sure how long it would take me to convince you to let us move in with you.” He grinned. “You told me once that you felt cheapened by the fact that I thought I could bribe you with a hamburger and fries. You said next time I wanted to ask you a potentially incriminating question to bring something with a bigger price tag on it.”

  The cold air on her right cheek startled her when he removed his left hand to fish in his pocket and withdraw a princess-cut diamond ring. She barely glanced at it, she was so distracted by the rare uncertainty in his eyes. Uncertainty in someone like him—who would have thought it possible?

  He took her left hand in his right. “So the potentially incriminating question is this: Will you marry me, Hannah Benson? Will you let me stay with you for the rest of my life? Promise to let me love you forever?”

  Smiling, she nodded. “Yes. I promise.”

  A brief glance down and he slipped the ring on her third finger, saying, “I’d have come sooner but I wanted to line up a job first. I gave notice and quit my old one three weeks ago.”

  “You . . . you’re going to be the sheriff here?”

  “Nah. Too much work. Too boring. I don’t know anything about Baltimore except that it’s where you are and where I need to be, so the captain up here said he’d put me on a beat for a while. Later I can patrol if I want. I prefer that, being with people. Someday, I think I may take the detective’s test.”

  “And Janice and Cal?”

  “Clearfield is her home, all her friends are there and we’ll go back and forth. Cal’s off to college in a few days.”

  A powerful ache broke loose in her chest, constricting her throat and blurring her thoughts. She leaned in, wrapped her arms around his chest, and listened to the steady thumping of his heart against her cheek. An ache so perfect and so fearsome that it could only be love.

  “I can’t believe you did all this for me.”

  He gave her a quick, affectionate hug then pulled away so she could see
him grinning with that outrageous smile of his. “Hannah, don’t you know yet? You’re one of those people. One whose strength and love make the world a better, brighter place to live. I’d do anything for you.”

  A+

  Author Insights, Extras, & More . . .

  FROM

  Mary Kay McComas

  Behind the Book

  It took me five years to write What Happened to Hannah. Not because it was a particularly complicated story to write. Not because I didn’t care about the characters or know where I wanted the story to go. And not necessarily because I’m a super slow writer—I’m slow but I’m not super slow. No, the only excuse I can give for it taking so long is: stuff happens.

  My last novel, Necessary Changes, was published in 2001. The solid little fan base I’d acquired while writing twenty-one short contemporary Loveswepts for Bantam Books assumed that it was my swan song, my last hurrah, the last thing I’d ever write. I thought so, too. After all, writing was not my first career . . . or my second. It was my third career and I’d been at for thirteen years. I was not a one-book-wonder and I considered my body of works to be, if not exceptional, at least above average. I was satisfied.

  However, and without regard to my fans and I, my agent wasn’t buying it. She refused to let me quit: What do you mean you’re out of ideas? Why don’t you try writing something and send it to me? It doesn’t have to be a romance, write about your dogs. Explain to me, once more, why you can’t write? How about we set a little deadline for you? Did I tell you, I have you on speed dial now? Call me back and we’ll brainstorm, okay? When can I count on seeing something from you? Have you forgotten that I know where you live? She was relentless.

  Finally, knowing how much I loved writing Necessary Changes—a historical chronicle of sorts—she came to me with the news that a well known publisher was starting a new line specializing in sagas, stories stretching over a period of time.

  Well. Okay. Now, she was talkin’.

  I am what some call a seat-of-the-pants writer. I often don’t have more than a kernel of an idea to start a story with. This time the seed was a story that happens over time; a story with a past and a present. I’m not kidding. It was that vague at first.

  But as every writer will tell you, the best way to write any story is to sit your bottom down in front of the computer and write it. And so I did, in late 2004.

  Grady came to me first. He was . . . an M&M, rich milk chocolate in a hard candy shell. Firm and sturdy on the outside; soft and sweet inside. I wanted Hannah to have a tougher shell—because of something in her past perhaps—and while she might be just as sweet and mushy inside, she was different; she wouldn’t simply melt in the mouth, she needed to be chewed . . . she was a Tootsie Pop. Unfortunately, the only commonality between my two characters was that they were both candy and what I needed for a really good story was some meat.

  And that’s about as far as I got in 2005 before Nora Roberts, a friend of mine, came to my professional rescue. She asked if I’d like to contribute a short story to a paranormal anthology she was planning as J. D. Robb. Well, duh. So, I put aside Hannah and Grady and spent the next several months writing “Mellow Lemon Yellow” for Bump in the Night, published in 2006.

  But I went right straight back to my novel after that. I’d been mulling on it while I wrote the novella, you see, and my characters now had histories. He was all-American country boy; popular at school, solid family; healthy and innocent. Her life was all-American as well but on the other end of the spectrum. She was a social outcast, her family was a festering nightmare, and her life was anything but healthy. Yet where their lives touched from time to time. . . .

  That’s as far as I got before I was offered a spot in another J. D. Robb anthology. And everyone knows that an offer in the hand is worth more than a story in the bush so I happily put aside my novel in 2006 to write another novella for 2007.

  When I got back to Hannah and Grady they’d both grown up, had lives that didn’t include each other, and had now met again. Storytelling dictates that the situation must be stressful so I added a single-parent family for Grady and a niece for Hannah that she knew nothing about but must now take custody of . . . after I wrote another short story for 2008.

  Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, I wasn’t asked to do another novella until 2009 for a 2010 release date. That left me with almost a whole year to work on my book. I gave it a working title of The Legacy and sent the first half off to my agent to read. Denise Marcil and I have worked together for twenty-four years and she always asks me the same thing: What’s your character’s motivation? And in my head I always reply: to get to the end of the story.

  In truth, I sent this part and then that part of the story, then this revised part and that rewritten part to Denise so often that year she was quoting passages to me over the phone with her next set of suggestions such as: Can you enhance the drama here or try making that more compelling? or See if you can flesh out that character a little more.

  And then suddenly, finally, it was done. In late 2009 I sent the final copy to Denise and then the truly hard work began. She had to sell it.

  Which she did, of course.

  Avon bought it as part of a two-book contract. I am presently working on Something About Sophie—and I don’t have five years to finish it. I’m looking forward to seeing it on shelves in 2013.

  I hope you enjoy Hannah’s story. Clearly she’s a character that kept drawing me back, again and again, to tell her tale.

  Mary Kay McComas

  Discussion Topics for Book Clubs

  1. How do the children impact Hannah? Do you think they help Hannah deal with her own childhood? Which one was your favorite?

  2. Do you think Hannah feels love and resentment toward her mother in equal parts? Or one more than the other? Are her emotions understandable? As an adult, after years of therapy and an educated awareness of the dynamics of her family, do you feel her reactions to her present situation appropriate?

  3. What was your favorite scene and why?

  4. Were you able to find any symbolism in the story? For example: Hannah purging her memories and emotions while purging her childhood home.

  5. Hannah clearly grew and changed during the story. What about Grady? What adjustments did he make in his thinking? How did Hannah’s return to Clearfield alter him?

  6. Love isn’t something to be wasted or ignored. When Hannah and Anna finally moved back to Baltimore, Hannah was testy, short tempered, and missing Grady. Do you think she might have eventually conquered her feelings and moved back to Clearfield to be with him if he hadn’t come to her?

  7. There’s a little storyteller in everyone. If you could rewrite any part of Hannah’s story what would it be? And how would you tell it?

  About the Author

  Mary Kay McComas was dyslexic as a child, so becoming a writer was way down on the list of things she dreamed of doing someday. In fact, she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing, worked in ICU-CCU for ten years, traveled a little, got married, had four children under the age of six, and then started writing. That was twenty-five years ago and now she can’t imagine not writing. To date she’s written twenty-one short contemporary romances, five novellas, and What Happened to Hannah is her second novel. She was born in Spokane, Washington, and now lives in a small town in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with her husband, three dogs, a cat, and her children nearby.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

  Praise for Mary Kay McComas and

  What Happened to Hannah

  “Blending poignancy with humor, crafting characters as real and recognizable as your next-door neighbor, Mary Kay McComas weaves stories that brighten the heart.”

  —Nora Roberts

  “I love Mary Kay McComas. Her books are honest and real, and transport you to a place that feels like home.”

  —Patricia Gaffney


  “It is hard not to be moved by the tender love story that emerges from the depths of violence in this haunting and touching novel. You will never forget What Happened to Hannah.”

  —Jessica Anya Blau

  “[An] inventive contribution . . . that steals the show. McComas focuses on the most important relationship of all—the relationship one has with oneself—and spins an introspective and irresistible story that, for some readers, may make this collection worthwhile.”

  —Publishers Weekly on “Melon Lemon Yellow” in Bump in the Night

  Credits

  COVER DESIGN BY RICHARD L. AQUAN

  COVER PHOTOGRAPH © BY IRENE LAMPRAKOU/ARCANGEL IMAGES

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  WHAT HAPPENED TO HANNAH. Copyright © 2012 by Mary Kay McComas. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  FIRST EDITION

  ISBN 978-0-06-208478-1

  Epub Edition © FEBRUARY 2011 ISBN: 9780062084798

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