“Barb?”
“Sergeant Benson. You met her yesterday. At the station house.”
“Right. Five feet of fearsome.”
Hannah did smile at that. “Indeed.”
“From what I’ve heard so far, sounds like maybe Hartley is just the thing this town needs right now. Neither too progressive nor too conservative. Give the folks some much-needed historic perspective.”
“For a man who just got to town, you certainly seem to have nosed around a good bit.”
“Not really.” His grin deepened. “You all are a chatty bunch.”
“Can be,” she said, assessing him again, her expression making it clear she wouldn’t have been one of the forthcoming ones. Not with him, anyway.
Maybe it was the impervious expression she was trying so hard to maintain, or the fact that he liked her better flustered, but he found himself crouching down beside the car door and folding his arms on the open window frame. “Offer to hijack you out of this mess is still open.”
She smiled at that, even as he could tell she really didn’t want to. “Don’t you have your own business to attend to?”
“My meeting with Winstock was pushed back. Again. When do you have to be back for the rehearsal?”
“You’re incorrigible.” She didn’t say it in a way that was remotely flirtatious.
Which, perversely, just made it that much hotter. “Look at it this way, in that getup, you’re safer than you would be in a medieval chastity belt.”
Her eyebrows lifted and he saw her mouth pinch a little in distress. He was close enough again now and with the angle of the sun, he could spy the dark shadows under the heavy makeup. So she was sporting a healthy pair of shiners under all that. Dammit. He liked making her smile, taking her mind—and his—off of their immediate agendas. But he wasn’t trying to make her more uncomfortable. Well, just what are you trying to do, then?
Hell if he knew.
“I should get on my way,” was all she said by way of reply. She put the car into gear.
Something about a woman dressed like a bad Vivien Leigh stunt double, but still looking as cool as Grace Kelly on her best day, driving a hot rod—and a stick shift, no less—turned him right around. And on. That was also a woman he had no business getting caught up with. Not even for an hour, a day . . . a lifetime.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
That seemed to surprise her. “For?”
He lifted one hand and very gently pushed a wayward tendril of hair from her bruised and heavily made-up cheek, careful not to touch the tender skin. “The accident. Putting a painful damper on what sounds like an otherwise joyous family weekend.”
“Wasn’t your fault. And the weekend will be joyful. Is joyful.”
He chuckled at the way she’d said that, like a closing statement meant to brook no further comment. “Yeah. You sound overcome with it.”
She looked at him squarely then, which drew his fingertip along her cheek, down to her chin. “I’m very happy for my brother. I couldn’t be happier for him.”
“Then why do you look so miserable? I figured it was from getting smacked in the face with an air bag. You got some other sort of unrest going on back at the plantation, Miz Scarlett?”
She gave him a penetrating, no-bullshit stare, much the same way he imagined she’d look at someone she was about to cross-examine on the stand. It was impressive. But because he wasn’t on trial, it didn’t faze him in the least. He also noted she didn’t shift away from his touch. Now that fazed him.
“No unrest. Everything will be fine,” she said. “Is fine.”
He smiled, which spread to a grin when she scowled. “Good thing you’re not on the stand right now. You’re perjuring yourself.”
Despite herself, she smiled a little at that, then flinched when it pulled too much at her injured lip.
Despite his better judgment—because why start now?—he let his finger drift over her lower lip, stopping just short of the banged-up part. He felt her breath hitch a little, but he didn’t think it was because he was causing her any distress. A quick look at her eyes and those rapidly expanding pupils confirmed that.
He traced his finger over the pad of her lip, down over her chin, then along the side of her neck . . . and slowly across her collarbone. She let her eyes close and he felt a light tremor race across her skin.
“What are you doing?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Relieving a little pressure,” he said, and slid his fingers under the seat-belt strap, lifting it away from her injured shoulder.
She relaxed a little into the back of her seat, and he felt as much as heard the sigh of relief. “That’s really . . . nice,” she murmured.
“I am sorry,” he said. “About the pain.”
She kept her eyes closed, tipped her chin up slightly so the sun hit her face under the brim of her little hat. “Like I said. Not your fault.”
“Still don’t like you being in pain.”
Her lips curved at that . . . and suddenly he needed to relieve a little bit of pressure, too. Inside his jeans.
“Why do you care if I’m in pain or not?”
He stroked his finger back and forth over her collarbone, keeping the strap lifted away from her tender shoulder, off of the lovely curve of her breast, which admittedly the dress did some justice to. “Maybe I’m just a humanitarian. I don’t like seeing anyone in pain.”
Her smile deepened. Even when she winced a little as it stretched her bottom lip, the smile remained.
“What?” he said. “I’m just another heartless contractor? Tearing down the old to build the new. A bit cliché, don’t you think, Counselor?”
“Did I say anything?”
“Didn’t have to. Your condescending grin said it all,” he replied, but he was smiling too.
“Tell me about your farm,” she said, surprising him. Her eyes were still closed, and a smile, though softer, smaller now, continued to curve her lips.
You’re so damn beautiful, he thought, wanting her to open those stormy eyes of hers, to look at him. Into him. She could. Her natural beauty would not normally have been a plus in his book. In his very personal experience, looks like hers became all too centrally important to their owners. But her beauty went past the surface. Hannah. She was more like her name implied: no frills, essential, stripped of artifice. Which was ridiculous when you factored in how much fooffy lace she was sporting at the moment. And yet . . .
“What animals do you have?” Her voice was gentler now, more relaxed.
He continued to trace his fingertips over her bruised collarbone, then along her shoulder, back up along the side of her neck. Along the shell of her ear, prodding the netting of the hat aside as he did.
“Horses, mainly. A few pygmy goats.”
Her wider smile returned. “There’s a combination.”
“Goats come in handy. They keep the pastures manageable. But you can’t ride ’em. So . . .”
“What kind of horses?”
“Do you ride?”
She shook her head, just once to either side, as if she was too relaxed to do more than that. “Never had the opportunity. I like horses, though.”
“I have four at the moment. Two quarter horses. A Morgan. And a Tennessee Walker.”
“Just you?” she asked.
“I have barn help, but yes, all four are mine. Bought two at auction, got them off the block, saved the quarters when they were rescued from a neglected farm by the county.”
Her smile deepened. This time she made a little noise when it tugged her lip, but that didn’t hinder her smile. “You are a humanitarian.”
“Well, I tried to tell you.”
Still leaning back against the headrest, she turned her head, and opened her eyes, looking directly into his. “When is your dinner meeting?”
He felt . . . poleaxed. He was the one doing all the touching. So why was it he felt as if she’d just reached out and grabbed him? Hard. “Not until fi
ve,” he said, finding his voice. “Why?”
“I was just thinking about something my sister said to me today.”
“About what, not having enough fun?”
“About trying too hard to please other people. About not having balance. Not making fun part of the balance. She has a point. It shouldn’t be a reward for good behavior. It should just . . . be.”
He searched her eyes, but couldn’t read her. Something was going on in there, likely something that had a lot to do with that uncertainty she’d spoken of when they’d run into each other earlier that morning. He wasn’t sure that should matter. It was her issue. She was an adult, making her own choices.
“Good point. So . . . what do you want to do? For fun.”
She held his gaze, then slowly straightened in her seat, trapping his fingertips under the seat belt as it was pulled taut once more. “I want to hijack you.”
His eyes widened briefly. The exceedingly snug fit of his jeans, however, remained an abruptly increasing concern. “Don’t you have a rehearsal to get to? A sister in dire need of white gravel?”
“We can drop the gravel off at Gus’s. She’ll understand the rest. It was her idea, after all.”
“I’m thinking maybe I was too quick to judge your sister. We are talking about the same one?”
“Crazy chick in the wacked-out bridesmaid dress driving the Prius?” she said, settling in her seat now and putting her hands on the steering wheel. Looking like a woman on a mission. And her mission was him.
“You know, it wasn’t that bad a bridesmaid dress,” he said.
“It was horrid. Asylum horrid.”
“Yeah. It was.” He laughed, even as his body started to get rather indignant about getting itself upright and out of the potentially emasculating position it was currently in. “Still . . . I’m sure she had a good reason.”
Hannah turned and pinned him again with that look. He’d have pled guilty to just about anything when she looked at him like that.
“Fun,” she said. “That was her reason.”
He slid his fingers free from the shoulder harness, then, when she shifted to look forward, he pressed them under her chin and turned her face to his. Very slowly, very deliberately, so she had time to back off if she didn’t like where he was going, he lowered his mouth to hers.
“My lip,” she whispered, at the last second, but her gaze was fixed firmly on his mouth by then.
“Shh,” he said, and kissed the opposite corner of her mouth, then the soft, smooth edge of her bottom lip.
She let out a slow, soft, shaky breath.
So he kissed her chin, then the side of her jaw. Then ducked under the net of her hat and kissed, very, very gently, the soft, swollen skin at the edge of her cheekbone.
“Fun,” he murmured, tugging briefly, gently, on her earlobe with his teeth. “I think your sister is on to something.”
She sighed, and he liked—very much, maybe too damn much—the little shuddery sound that accompanied it. He wasn’t sure he could even stand upright at the moment without doing serious damage to himself.
“Well,” she asked, opening eyes that had drifted closed again at some point during his foray.
“Well what?”
“Get in.”
“What?” He hadn’t thought she meant it. Not really. It just didn’t seem . . . her style. She’d just been toying, teasing. Playing with him, as he’d been doing with her.
She reached forward, turned on the engine, then gunned the gas pedal as she shifted it into gear and looked squarely at him. “Get in.”
No frills, essential, stripped of artifice.
Yeah. This wasn’t a woman who teased or toyed. This was a woman who attacked, pounced, and dismantled as part of her profession.
The same woman now trying to figure out how to be playful. With him.
She had an interesting way of going about it, to be sure, but damned if he wasn’t tempted. “I don’t think so,” he said, surprising himself more than he’d apparently surprised her.
She didn’t look insulted, or even all that upset. It wasn’t confidence or arrogance he saw, either . . . just respect for his choice. Apparently, for her, a no was just a no. Nothing personal.
Made him want to take her right there in the front seat of her little blue rocket in broad daylight. And wasn’t that the damndest thing?
“Afraid I’ll crash us into a moose or something?” she said.
No, he thought, I’m afraid you’re going to hurt something a lot less hard than my head.
“I’d let you drive, but I borrowed this from a friend.”
“It’s not that.”
“What then?”
He couldn’t tell if she even cared what the answer was. She was still smiling, but her expression, her eyes, had shifted back to something less personal, less intimate. She was the cool, calm, collected litigator again. Never let ’em see you sweat.
For some reason, that irked him, though for the life of him he couldn’t fathom why. He’d been the one to make the hijack offer in the first place, only to be turned down flat. Now they were even, though that wasn’t why he’d said no. Why did you say no? Afraid you might get tangled up? She clearly doesn’t care one way or the other. Why do you?
Irked with himself now, he straightened, swearing silently when his knees told him what they thought of being in a crouch for the past ten minutes, and swallowing a wince when another part of him complained about cramped quarters. He bent down, intending to brace his hands on the car door so as to block that particular body part from immediate view, only then she was tipping up her chin and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to slide his hand behind her neck and very carefully, very slowly, draw her mouth up to his as he lowered his head to hers.
She didn’t pull away, didn’t stop him. Didn’t make that little shuddery sound, either. He kissed the corner of her mouth again, then again, then gently pressed his lips to the fullest part of her lower lip, before soothing it with his tongue. She shuddered then, just a little tremor, and he felt her shoulders relax as she turned her body toward his. As her eyes fluttered open, he slid his lips to her ear and whispered, “Because when we have fun together, Scarlett, we’ll need more than the hour it will take me just to get you out of that dress.”
Chapter Eight
Hannah slipped out the front door of the pub and let it swing quietly shut behind her. Not that anyone would have heard if she’d slammed the thing. Dear Lord, but her head was one giant throb. As were her face, her mouth, and her shoulder. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into her bed back at the Point and bury her head under a mound of pillows. Really soft, cool pillows. And maybe never crawl back out again.
At least she’d finally been able to get out of that awful dress and hat. She and Delia had pulled their co-maid-of-honor rank and defeated Fiona and Kerry on wearing those ridiculous getups a minute longer once the rehearsal was over. Privately—though Hannah would never admit it to Fi—it had been pretty hilarious as they’d rehearsed the actual walk down the aisle. All of them together looked like the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Gets Hitched. In all honesty, the laughter and snide comments they’d shot back and forth had been the best sort of distraction, keeping her mind off of all those thoughts she’d worried she’d be having as she stood by and watched her brother and Alex go through their wedding motions.
She still had the actual wedding to get through, but right now, it felt good to be wearing comfortable jeans, canvas boat shoes, and a thin, soft sweater. Better than good. Pulling them on had been like stepping into a familiar old shell. Hannah Before. Before the frantic need to climb the partnership ladder had consumed her every waking minute, before she’d begun to believe that was the only way to be a success, before she’d fallen for Tim, before . . . everything. She liked the feel of their softness, like a trusted caress against her skin. They were clothes she kept at the Point house, having no need for them otherwise. Back in D.C., even her comfortable clothe
s had been stuffy. She’d been stuffy.
When exactly had that happened to her? And why had she let it? Was she a stuffy person? Icy? Cold? Tim hadn’t thought so, but then Tim was a lying, cheating bastard who’d say anything to get what he wanted. His opinion counted for less than nothing.
She took a sip from the bottle of ginger ale she’d been nursing for the past half hour, having decided early on that painkillers with a beer chaser, though tempting, probably weren’t a good idea. She started to crouch down to sit on the pub steps, since she’d only come out seeking a much-needed break from the noise, but decided to go for a walk instead. It was a beautiful, late-spring night. Only a very light breeze was coming up off the water from the harbor below and the clear night sky was studded with grand, celestial sweeps of stars.
Once away from the pub lights, she paused and simply stared upward. She’d always been awed by the night sky here. As a child, she’d often wished she could soar up and out to them, through them, to the galaxies hinted at beyond. She smiled, thinking that didn’t sound like such a bad idea now, either. “To infinity and beyond,” she murmured, and lifted a ginger ale toast to the cosmos.
Smiling now, she continued on her walk, content with a lazy stroll. Back in D.C., she’d never strolled. At work it was run, run, run, too many things demanding her attention, never enough time. At home awaited another list of demands. Run to the market, run to the dry cleaners, run to this lunch appointment, that dinner meeting, the next social function. Hurry, hurry, don’t be late! Someone else might beat you to the punch!
Now all she could think was . . . what freaking punch?
She crossed the road and started making her way down a steep side street that led to the waterfront in the pocket of the harbor and the Monaghan shipyard, and beyond that, Delia’s Diner. Or where Delia’s had been, she realized. She faltered a step, thinking maybe now was not the time to see yet another part of her life that had been filled with such love and fond memories gutted and leveled to the ground.
She took another sip, then tipped her head back and drew in a slow, restorative breath of cool evening air as the fizzy soda tickled its way down the back of her throat. The silence felt good. Even the chill in the air felt good. Her thoughts drifted to what else had felt good that day . . . namely Calder Blue. The way he’d touched her, stroked her skin. And that kiss . . .
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