Not Another New Year's

by Christie Ridgway

  A rotund senior citizen wearing Easter egg colors came to wait beside her. He smiled, tipping his compact umbrella at her in friendly greeting. "My knees are telling me it's going to be a gully-washer," he confided. "You'd better get indoors before the clouds start crying."

  Hannah smiled. "It never rains in Southern California," she said for the second time that morning, her gaze shifting upward just as a fat drop fell—splat!—onto her nose. Her jaw dropped and another landed square on her tongue.

  In the next second it was as if someone had overturned a giant watering can. Cold, fat raindrops landed on her shoulders and the top of her head. Between one breath and the next, car tires were hissing on dark pavement that was turning even blacker with the wet.

  She smelled that distinctive mix of rain and petroleum products and tamped down the unpleasant memories it evoked.

  Her companion unfurled his umbrella, and as the light turned green for them, he offered to share his little island of dry as they crossed the street. Glancing ahead, Hannah groaned out loud.

  "Are you all right?" her friendly man asked.

  "I'm fine." Frustrated. Out of luck. The visitors in the park were already scattered, running down the street and into cars. By the time she made it to the other sidewalk, they'd all be gone. "But I won't be crossing after all. Thanks, anyway."

  With a little shrug he left her high and dry (well, wet, of course). Drenched, actually. And she experienced again that creepy sense that someone was watching.

  It made her jump back when an old but pristine Mercedes sedan pulled up to the curb in front of her, though too late to prevent a rooster tail of gutter water from spraying over the top of her borrowed black boots. Then the passenger window rolled down to frame a familiar face on the driver's side.

  "Hey, little girl," Tanner said. "Can you help me find my lost puppy?"

  Chapter Eleven

  The lost puppy was him, Tanner thought later. Lost, sick, out of his stinkin' mind. Because he was thinking about sex while sitting in a molded plastic chair at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

  He didn't want to be thinking about sex. That whole "every seven seconds" thing was a stupid, lousy magazine-article myth, and he knew this because he'd been able to not think about sex for eleven freak in' months.

  He'd considered it the best way to keep his dumb ass out of trouble, and he'd been right. Look what happened the instant he let down his guard. He'd gotten himself tangled up with the most dangerous female in his galaxy.

  Maybe he should take Desirée up on the marriage offer after all. Then he could get himself a camel from one of her al-Maddah uncles or cousins and set off into the desert, a lone nomad for the rest of his life.

  He was really feeling sorry for himself, he realized, but he intended to keep right on wallowing in that self-pity. It was a hell of a lot better than dwelling instead on the occasional brush of Hannah's arm against his as she sat in the chair beside him, or staring at the perfect curve of her profiled cheek, or recalling in vivid detail the way she'd looked at him at the Hotel Del Coronado that morning...as if she wanted to crawl inside his clothes.

  He was consumed by the way she appeared in hers—well, Dez's. Hannah had the sweetest damn ass he'd ever seen in his life, round in all the right places, and accentuated by the way the jeans she wore were strategically bleached—two palm marks right where a man's hands would like to play. She probably considered the black sweater she'd teamed with the pants conservative, but Dez had a sexy fashion sense that came from having a model mother and too much spending money. Instead of being your average pullover-type garment, this little number laced up the front, and when Hannah moved, between the grommets it revealed distracting bits of creamy skin.

  And just the tiniest peek of a black bra. Lace.

  He was really obsessed about that. Hannah and all her long legs and luscious curves in black lace underwear.

  It was a conventional turn-on, he knew, but still the fantasy made him want to stand up and sing the national anthem in enthusiastic appreciation.

  Christ, what was it about him, her, and this patriotic imagery? He glanced at the flag in the corner of the large room. Being stuck in this goddamn government building wasn't helping.

  Blowing out his air, he shifted in the uncomfortable seat and then leaned over—almost impaling himself on his own half-hard cock—to reach for some reading material left beneath Hannah's chair. He dropped a three-day-old financial page over his lap and the smaller tabloid magazine into hers.

  She looked down at the wrinkled, glossy cover, then over at him. "Thank you."

  He grimaced. "You're easy."

  She jerked in her chair. "What?"

  "No, no. That came out wrong." Her face was already pink. "I meant in regards to thanking me for that likely outdated and definitely trashy rag I just dumped on you."

  She gave it a cursory glance. "And I meant thanks again for the ride here."

  He knew that, standing on the sidewalk in the rain, she'd been ready to reject his company again until he'd drummed up a practical reason. Now what would have been more practical was to keep running from her as he had at the hotel, but there was still that promise he'd made to his boss, and there was Hannah herself, looking so dejected, not to mention half drowned, by the sudden deluge.

  "Getting a duplicate ID is one thing I could do from my end," she continued. "My mom will overnight my replacement ATM and credit cards as soon as they're delivered to my house. One of my brothers volunteered to drive them down along with more of my own clothes, but I managed to head that off, thank God."

  "You don't get along?"

  "It's not that. My brothers are great, my parents are great, everyone in my whole small town is great, but..." She shrugged.

  He let her Pleasantville depiction go unchallenged, because he remembered he didn't need to know any more about her than he already did. He was supposed to be thinking of himself, poor Tanner. Poor Tanner, stuck in a windowless bureaucratic office building beside a woman he wanted to bed in the worst way.

  And shouldn't. Couldn't. Would not.

  Her number was finally called and he watched her walk to the counter, keeping his eyes off those pseudo handprints on her cute butt cheeks. He looked at her silky hair instead, and her delicate shoulders, and the graceful length of her fingers, the left ones still wrapped around the tabloid he'd found.

  In mere minutes she turned around, the new ID in hand. He stood up and couldn't help himself from stretching out his palm, curious to get a gander at her plastic card.

  Frowning, she whipped it behind her back. "Everybody lies about their weight," she said, defensive.

  "And everybody looks like crap in their photo too." He tugged on her elbow. "C'mon, let me see.

  I'm searching for clues as to why you've gone four years without a date."

  Her full mouth tightened. "Forget it. I signed up to give away my organs, not donate to your quota of daily laughs."

  Shrugging, he stepped back to let her precede him toward the exit. Then, as she relaxed and fell for the trap, he leaned forward to snatch away the card.

  "Hey!" She whirled on him.

  Tanner closed his fingers over the ID and smiled. "What'll you give me if I don't check it out?"

  "You should worry about what I'll give you if you do check it out. Did I mention my older brothers? They taught me how to fight dirty."

  He smiled wider, leaning close to chuck her under the chin. "Mine too, sweetheart. See how much we have in common."

  His hand lingered on her soft skin. That was a mistake. That and knowing what else they had in common. Desire. Christ, in the middle of the DMV of all places, it was acting like some kind of hot air machine, heating the inches of space between them and causing his cock to stir to life. Again.

  The gaggle of other people receded into the far distance, and instead of being aware of the babble of voices and hum of computers in the cavernous room, his senses fine-tuned to her. Her reaction.

  His hea
ring picked up Hannah's startled hiccup of concern, and he saw her eyes flare wide. Her whole body trembled beneath his fingertips. Her skin started to burn against his, and he knew he could have her. Right now. Right this minute.

  Tanner snatched his hand away. Then he cleared his throat and flipped her the plastic card. She caught it out of the air in one hand, and then they both swallowed, both broke their joined gazes, both moved on.

  He kept silent until they were back in his Mercedes and he was waiting for her to buckle her seat belt. She lifted her butt from the bottom cushion so she could slide the new ID into her front jeans pocket.

  "I didn't look closely, but isn't that a regular license? I thought you said you didn't drive."

  And he'd noticed on their journey to the DMV what a tense passenger she was too. She'd braced one hand on the dash and strangled the door handle with the other.

  Her tongue came out to moisten her lips. "I took the classes." The rain drummed against the roof of the car, and she stared out the windshield, as if fascinated by the rivulets of water washing down. "I took the test and passed. But I'm not confident behind the wheel."

  "It can take some practice."

  Her head bobbed in a jerky nod. "I ride a bike to work. I live close enough to stores and anything else I need that I can use my two wheels or my two feet. It's good exercise and I don't need to rely on anyone's charity."

  "Sure. Gotcha." Of course there was more to the story—that fact was staring him in the face in foot-high neon—but getting it out would mean focusing on Hannah when he kept remembering he shouldn't. Think about yourself, Hart. Poor Tanner. Poor Tanner. Poor Tanner.

  It was once more time to run. He turned the key and the car purred to life.

  Hannah started at the sudden sound. She shot him a swift glance. "There was an accident."

  Without thinking, he switched the engine off. Nothing would compete now with the sound of their voices and the muffled drum of the rain. "Car accident?" Damn his curiosity.

  Another nod. "It was a day like this."

  Ah. He glanced away from her face to take in the dark clouds and the heavy rain. "Were you hurt?"

  "No, no. It was my sister. My sister died."

  "What?" His belly cramped, twisting and squeezing into a knot. "What did you say?"

  "She was sixteen. The oldest of us kids. She'd had her license about a week and I had dance class that afternoon. I was six and wanted my big sister to collect me. She wanted to drive whenever she could. My mom was up to her eyebrows in my brothers' science projects and they lobbied for her to stay home with them and continue helping. In the end, when my sister didn't make it to the dance studio, there was plenty of guilt to go around the Davis family. I'm pretty sure my dad figures he should have been able to stop the rain." She laughed a little at that.

  The sad sound tightened the half-hitch in his abdomen. "Jeez," he whispered. "Jeez, Hannah." He'd seen death and he had his own guilt, but if he could, he'd take over the memories and the regrets he could read in the deep brown depths of her eyes. "I'm so sorry."

  "Thanks. I don't usually tell people about it." A frown drew her eyebrows together. "I don't usually have to...it's a small town and word gets around."

  He could understand. For all its Southern California trappings, Coronado was a small town too.

  And hell, no one knew better than he how TV, tabloids, not to mention the gossip websites and the scandal blogs, could make the least scrap of news go global by sundown.

  Her uncle's admonition to him now made perfect sense. He'd warned that Hannah had been going through some rough times, and Tanner could see what those were and why the other man was so protective of her. Except...

  Except Geoff Brooks had said she'd been going through some rough times recently. That car accident had to be more than twenty years ago.

  In his former job he'd been trained to listen to his instincts and he'd been schooled in always assuming the worst. Now the hairs on the back of his neck were rising as he shifted in his seat to more fully look at her face. "Do you have any other secrets I should know about?"

  Her eyes cut to his, then jumped away. He saw her palm press against the pocket that held her new ID and he could practically read the indecision in her mind.

  A blush of color rose along her neck. "A clarification, more like. It's not that I've been 'dateless' for the last four years. Not exactly."

  "How not exactly?"

  She was silent, her front teeth pressing deep into the pillow of her bottom lip.

  Poor Tanner, he thought again. Poor Tanner who can't look away from her mouth. Poor Tanner, who can't turn away from knowing more about this woman who was shredding his good intentions with her pretty face and her pregnant pauses.

  "I was engaged to be married for three of them. My fiancé, Duncan, was either across the country in military training or across the ocean fighting for all that time. Then a few months back, I...I was dumped." She made a face. "Not dumped—that was really what made things worse. He didn't actually ever even break our engagement. I was still wearing his ring when I found out he'd married someone else."

  "Fuck."

  She sent him a quick glance from underneath her lashes. "So, now you see." Her hand made a little wave.

  Tanner had sworn off women for eleven months, but before that he'd had plenty of experience.

  When a woman said something like "now you see" in that bright, isn't-this-all-logical voice, it was a 99.9 percent chance that he was blind as a bat. "See, uh, what?"

  "That what happened on New Year's...that was just a reaction to my circumstances. Not a reaction to you in particular."

  He stared at her. Did she really believe that bullshit?

  "While changing into dry clothes before we headed for the DMV, I thought about Uncle Geoff and the kind of man he is. When I came to Coronado, I thought you were only going to give me a few vacation tips, but I can see him twisting your arm into taking on the favor of watching out for me while I'm here."

  "Hannah—"

  She put up her hand. "Let me finish. Because of New Year's, because I came on to you like...like a desperate house wife or something, I don't blame you for coming to your own conclusion that I need a keeper more than anything else. But now..."

  "Now?"

  "Now that I've explained about Duncan, you can appreciate that it was just an odd response to New Year's Eve, and mojitos, and...and..." She made that little hand flip again. "Now you can feel confident that I'm perfectly able to handle myself. By myself."

  Is that right? She thought now he should feel free to let loose a woman who'd been without sex in four years and probably doubted her desirability to boot? Not to mention that she was someone who was so out of touch with her sexuality that she thought it was her circumstances that had drawn them together. Her circumstances, and not a this-particular-man, this-particular-woman, particular to him and Hannah, particularly red hot, take-your-panties-off-right-now chemistry?

  Of course, he'd vowed he wasn't going to be participating in any further science experiments himself, not with his Secret Ser vice career on the line, but he couldn't let a woman this dangerous to mankind out of his sight. Who knew what trouble she might get into? He only knew who would be getting the blame if she did.

  He gave her his best smile. "Neither one of us has anything to worry about, then. It's not as if we' re about to fall into bed again."

  "Right." She sat back, obviously relieved. He noticed she still had that tabloid he'd found. Her fingers tightened on it when he reached over to pat the back of her hand.

  "And so there's no reason you can't go out to dinner with me to night."

  Chapter Twelve

  What? After her long speech about being capable of handling herself and of no longer being in her New Year's Eve, uh, "state," could she possibly have said no to Tanner's invitation to dinner?

  Refusal would have made her look foolish, and that particular fashion was so last year on Hannah.

  With that
firmly in mind, she'd let Desirée raid her overstuffed closet once again, and out had come this beautiful and bold red silk chiffon strapless dress. The bodice curved over the tops of her breasts and cupped under them, creating an empire waistline. From there, more layers of fabric fell to her knees in soft pleats and folds. Desirée pulled out a pair of sharp-toed red pumps to match, as well as a lipstick in the same exact shade.

  The other woman had apparently absorbed makeup tips through the umbilical chord. Although it didn't seem she was close to her former-model mother, Desirée was positive about what Hannah should do with her face.

  "A brush of powder in a naked-skin shade," Desirée declared, sweeping sable hairs over Hannah' s forehead, nose, and across her eyelids. "Then just the red mouth and gobs and gobs of mascara."

  "This isn't like a real date or anything," Hannah hastened to assure them both, as she followed directions and looked at the ceiling while Desirée wielded the black wand on her upper and then her lower lashes.

  "What ever you say," Desirée agreed. "But when a woman goes out with a man—for what ever reason—she needs all the armor she can get."

  "So that's why you're wearing the jeans that you complained to me yesterday are a size and a half too tight," Hannah said. "Because you're going to be with Troy to night."

  Instead of answering, her suite mate started humming as she left off with the mascara and then performed girl-magic with a hairbrush and a light hair spray that made Hannah's long hair fall across one eye in a sexy side part. "Voilà!" Desirée finally said, drawing Hannah to the full-length mirror mounted on the closet door. "Helmet, shield, spear."

  No schoolteacher in sight. Hannah swallowed, bemused by her unfamiliar reflection. Her eyes looked bigger, though her red mouth was the focal point of her face. After that, there seemed to be yards of skin, all of it looking decidedly bare in the room's soft light.

  She appeared almost as bold as the crimson color of the dress. Surely the strange woman in the mirror could win what ever battle Tanner might bring her way.