Like it had in hundreds of assault-on-principal training sessions, time stopped, Tanner's heartbeat slowing down with a single whoosh. Adrenaline flowed into his bloodstream, tightening his focus and every muscle in his body. He heard a distant, high whine in his head and his sense of smell heightened—he could pick out the diesel exhaust from a nearby bus, the sticky sweetness of a grape Slurpee in the hand of a five-year-old on the adjacent sidewalk, the scent of his own soap as he broke out in a light sweat.
Now biologically prepared, time moved again, but slowly, like a succession of freeze frames. Convenient, that, because it gave him the opportunity to take everything in. Hannah was still resisting the man trying to yank her into the sedan. The sedan was pointed toward the exit, ready to speed off once its prey was captured. Now the man let go of Hannah's duffel strap to grab her arm.
Her face registered more alarm, probably realizing this wasn't another robbery, but a kidnapping, or worse. Her mouth was moving as if she was yelling, but no one was heeding her cries. Her gaze darted around, as if she was looking for…
Oh, God, he hoped she was looking for him. He hoped she knew he was here and would never let anyone, ever, hurt her again.
The traffic in front of him moved, and he edged the car—though the world was still moving at that anti-warp speed—to block the parking lot's exit. Then he was out of the Mercedes, its keys in his hand, his attention on Hannah, his sole ambition to show himself worthy of her trust and confidence, the Secret Service motto.
Not that he gave a shit about the Service now. What an ignorant, shallow asshole he'd been, whining for a year inside his own head about how he wasn't a hero. Even being jealous of Hannah's dead Duncan because he wore medals on his ghostly uniform while he himself had nothing but his life.
And Hannah. He'd had Hannah and almost lost her to his ego, which didn't want anyone or anything coming between it and fulfilling some ridiculous family rep that no one with a brain would care about over having her alive and in his arms.
"Hannah!" he shouted.
Her head swung toward him. At the fear in her eyes, time jump-started.
He raced toward her. In one move he wrenched her out of the goon's clutches and leaped toward the enemy. The man was taller and more solid than he was, but the goon wasn't in love.
The man went down on his back with a grunt, and Tanner shoved his forearm against his throat. Then he threw his keys at Hannah. "Get out of here, sweetheart. Get away and call 911."
Glancing back to make sure she obeyed, his peripheral vision only caught the brief glint of sun against the blade of the knife.
Hannah couldn't catch her breath. It didn't matter, she didn't think she needed it, because panic was fueling her body as she dove for the passenger door of Tanner's car. The damn thing was locked, so she practically high-jumped over the hood and dropped into the driver's seat.
Now what? Now what?
The keys were in one of her shaking hands. Get out of here, sweetheart, he'd yelled. Get away and call 911. She was going to leave him? The front passenger door of the bad guy's sedan was open now too, hiding from her the action between Tanner and the man who had tried to...to...what ever it was he'd wanted.
Get out of here, sweetheart. Get away and call 911.
Her gaze jumped to the keys in her hand. She was supposed to drive?
He knew she didn't drive. Deborah's death had understandably spooked her parents, and when it came to their youngest, their remaining daughter, they'd encouraged her reluctance not to get behind the wheel after the required driver's training stuff. With their cooperation, she'd been a passenger all her adult life.
But Tanner had asked her to drive. Tanner, who had shown up to rescue her just as she was screaming his name with every cell in her body.
Gritting her teeth, Hannah shoved the key toward the ignition. She missed, had to make another stab, then started the car. It purred.
But she couldn't put it into gear. The stupid duffel bag was in the way of the gear shift. With a quick movement she ducked her head under the strap and chucked it away from her. Then she put the car into Drive.
She looked over at the parking lot again. She still couldn't see Tanner. Her heart was slamming against her breastbone so loud she couldn't hear anything but that echo of the last words he'd spoken to her.
Get out of here, sweetheart. Get away and call 911.
Swallowing the huge lump of fear in her throat, she pressed her foot against the gas. The car leaped forward, someone honked, she shifted her foot to the brake pedal and pressed so hard the tires shrieked and her neck whiplashed.
Her wet palms slid on the steering wheel, but gritting her teeth, she tightened her fingers on the leather and moved her foot once again to the accelerator. This time she was able to edge somewhat smoothly into traffic. She accelerated only a few feet before she had to stomp on the brakes again in response to the car abruptly stopping in front of her. Hannah peered anxiously over her shoulder.
Her heart thundered even louder when she saw that Tanner was on his feet, blood running down his arm, his mouth a grim line. The first thug was a lump on the ground at his feet, another guy was backing away, his hands half up, his gaze directed on the—
Oh, God. The knife in Tanner's hand.
She made a strangled sound of distress just as another car cut through the traffic behind her. It was one of those big, black, mile-high things that rappers drove in hip-hop videos. Except it didn't look like that was Nelly, Fifty Cent, and Ludacris pouring out as it braked, blocking the parking lot exit.
The three who were heading toward Tanner and the three who were getting out on the other side to follow behind them didn't look like they were ready to make a music video either. They looked ready for murder.
Hannah emitted that panicked, strangled sound again.
What should she do?
Should she leave Tanner behind?
Get out of here, sweetheart. He'd said that, hadn't he? Get away and call 911.
But...but...no. She couldn't follow orders this time. She wasn't passive pleaser Hannah anymore, taking suggestions as if they were commands.
It was time to get out of that damned passenger seat and be the real driver of her own life.
She shifted the car into Reverse. Pushed down on the accelerator. The car shot back, and she jerked the wheel left at the same time, jackknifing the back end toward the curb.
Crunch.
Ooops. Jackknifing the back end toward the curb and directly into that big black car's front bumper.
Except that might be good.
Because all the major players looked over at the crashing sound. And Tanner saw his chance. He tore through the wall of bodies between him and the Mercedes, taking advantage of their distraction. At the last instant she remembered the lock and leaned over, pulling it up just as his fingers wrenched open the door.
He threw himself inside.
She stared at him, stunned at her own success. Then she opened her mouth to say something (declare her love?) and—
The rear window of the Mercedes shattered. Her body jerked in shock.
"Shit," Tanner said. He pushed down on her shoulders. "Get down, get down, they've got guns.
And for God's sake, drive!"
Sirens were sounding in the distance, but Tanner didn't want to wait for the cavalry. Not when the black hats had knives, guns, and an unnatural fixation on his woman.
"Drive, Hannah!" he urged her again.
"But I can't see."
He didn't ease up on her shoulders, even as he reached over to put the car into gear himself.
"Press the gas and turn the wheel left."
Horns honked, he felt the Mercedes bounce off another vehicle as if they were playing bumper cars, and then he risked another peek over the dashboard. "Left, left, left!" he yelled. "Hit the gas and go left!"
Hannah's inner Mario Andretti complied to his order and she accelerated, whipping them onto a side street. Then, her eyes barely peeking
over the steering wheel, she took another turn.
And another.
"Good, good." His tongue had thickened and his right arm was going cold. A police car passed them, sirens blazing, heading in the opposite direction. Grimacing at the clumsy heaviness of his torso, he half turned so he could watch the road behind them. "No one's following."
Hannah had a death grip on the steering wheel. "Do you think the police have caught them?"
"Yeah." He had no idea. Holding back a groan, he used his left hand to fish inside his front pocket. Then he dropped his cell phone in Hannah's lap, hoping she wouldn't notice he had blood on that hand too.
"Look, if you get back on Orange at the next intersection and head toward the bridge, you'll find the hospital. There are signs that lead you to the emergency room." Black dots were doing water gymnastics on the inner surface of his eyelids. "Call...call 911 if you get lost."
And then he was lost to the black dots as they coalesced into complete darkness.
Tanner came awake to the smell and sounds of hospital. He was too tired to open his eyes, so his other senses registered what they could: that plastic, puke, and paperwork scent, the muted clap of rubber soles on squeaky linoleum, the raspy texture of hospital linens beneath his hand, the disgusting taste of old saliva in his mouth.
He needed a piece of gum or a breath mint, he thought. Maybe Finn—
No. He wasn't in the hospital to visit Finn. That was last year and Finn had been released months ago. So who was he visiting and why had he fallen asleep in a hospital bed? Someone was going to be mad...
Hannah. Hannah.
His mouth was too dry to speak, so he gathered his will and peeled open his eyes. It was daylight and damn bright in the hospital room. He had to squint as the sun moved through the windows, dazzling him, yet illuminating a standing figure looking out through the glass.
Hannah.
His pulse settled back and he let his eyelids fall to half-mast. It was all right, then. She was all right.
They'd both made it.
He worked his tongue around, trying to loosen it up as fresh saliva flooded his mouth and he swallowed to lubricate his throat. Hannah continued standing at the window, and he let his eyes close again, drifting for a moment.
He'd been doing that for the last year, drifting on the tide of last January's calamity, feeling powerless and resentful and as if he should have been able to stop Ayesha from being killed, from Finn losing his eye, from he himself being looked upon as a fool.
"Somebody should have taken a big pin and popped my ego months ago, Hannah," he said, his voice a croak at first, but then getting stronger. "It was after the assassination attempt that I became the real fool."
He'd thought what happened last year was the big, defining moment of his life, and it was a tragic moment—but not his tragedy. He took in a breath, and then realized his shoulder was tightly bandaged. The knife wound, he remembered.
No wonder he could see it all so clearly now. "Do you know what my defining moment was? Meeting you. Falling in love with you so that I could learn to put my life in real perspective."
He wasn't some hero who should—or could—have saved the day a year ago. And even though he'd helped Hannah today, in the end she'd saved them both.
"I'm just a man, doing a job, in love with a woman." It all made so much sense now. "What do you think about that?"
There was a pregnant silence, then a surprising voice.
"I think I feel really bad that you told all that to me instead of telling it to Hannah." His eyes flew open. The woman at the window approached the bed.
"Damn it, Desirée. How could you—" Then another thought struck. "Is Hannah all right? Is she—"
"She's fine, she just walked out to—oh, she's back."
And then she was, his Hannah, all disheveled and concerned and nearly crying when she saw he was awake. She grabbed hold of the hand of his uninjured arm and squeezed it like a blood pressure cuff.
"Ouch ouch ouch," he said, but he thought he was smiling.
"Next time you could tell the woman who loves you that you need thirty-seven stitches," she said, her voice tight.
Uh-oh. He'd known someone was going to be mad. "I didn't—"
"Next time you could warn the woman who loves you that you have a couple of cracked ribs from your fight with that ugly creep."
"How could I—"
"I'm sending your mother in here. She's waiting to straighten you out." Hannah dropped his hand.
"No, wait, wait, wait." He grabbed for her fingers, found them. "Don't go. Don't go until I tell you...ask you..."
She'd said she loved him. He'd heard that, right? Now he should tell her he loved her back.
But hell. The first time he'd said it—by mistake to damn Desirée—he hadn't been thinking as clearly as he was this minute. Now he realized that once the words were spoken, he would have ceded control.
To that prim schoolteacher at her desk in his head.
To that wanton seductress burrowed under the sheets in his heart. God. His world would never be the same.
But while he might know he wasn't any kind of hero, he'd never been a coward. "Hannah. Hannah Davis, I love you with everything I am. Will you marry me?"
And then, ah, and then he remembered how he'd been waiting this past year for some electrifying moment, some instant of heraldic, heavenly fanfare that would be the signal that he could restart his life. And it was electrifying, but awesomely quiet when Hannah stared at him, apparently stunned, and then apparently very happy, and then apparently without power over her voice, meaning she could only mouth her enthusiastic and very definite, "Yes."
It was all the fanfare Tanner needed.
Let the new year, he thought, and their new life together, begin.
The End
Author’s Note
Coronado is a lovely place to visit any time of year. While I tried to give the flavor of the “island” in the story, with very few exceptions I made up street names and other details.
Don't miss the first book in Christie Ridgway's holiday duet, Must Love Mistletoe.
Sample Chapter: Must Love Mistletoe
By Christie Ridgway
CHAPTER ONE
Fingers hovering at the switches by the front door, Bailey Sullivan glanced over her shoulder at the interior of The Perfect Christmas and wondered what would happen if she set Santa’s beard on fire.
But the happy, arsonistic notion died a swift death. That wasn’t the answer to her problems. Surely the manufacturers of the dozens—hundreds!—of Santas in her family’s shop would have treated their respective fabric, resin, wood, or cotton-floss facial hair with flame retardant.
Damn it all.
And anyway, a visit from the Coronado, California, fire department would only make bigger the mess she’d been forced back home to put to rights. With a resigned shrug, she doused the lights and cut off Marilyn mid–“Santa Baby.” For the first time in ten hours Bailey’s ears experienced a grateful reprieve from holiday assault. Until the rattle of the jingle bells as she exited the front door, that is. But that noise was mercifully brief, and after she locked the door behind her, she closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the cold plate glass.
One day down, twenty-four to go.
She sucked in a deep breath of night air, cooled and salted by the Pacific Ocean just a block away, and let it clear out the lingering notes of cinnamon-and-clove potpourri that was The Perfect Christmas’s signature scent. Customers Internet-ordered the stuff from all over the world, claiming it captured their very best holiday memories.
As far as Bailey was concerned, captured was the operative world. From the day she could be trusted to unwrap merchandise to the day she could run the cash register with her eyes closed, she’d been a prisoner in the two-story Victorian that housed the almost sixty-year-old family business. She’d managed to escape for the ten years between eighteen and twenty-eight, but now, just as surely as Hermie’s dental skil
ls came in handy, just as inevitable as the foggy night that required Rudolph’s very shiny nose, she was once again held hostage.
Until December 25. Then she was outta here and back to Los Angeles and her happy holidays-less life.
Giving an emphatic nod, she almost lost the green-and-white striped hat jammed over her blond hair. With a grimace, she yanked the thing off and stuffed it in the front pocket of her red cotton and fake-fur-trimmed apron. This morning she’d driven straight from her condo in L.A. to the shop and found them hanging on their customary hook in the back office. Along with her customary nametag—her name between two peppermint sticks—that read:
BAILEY
(Yes, like George!)
Just about everyone except the Japanese tourists recognized the identity of the main character of the movie classic It’s a Wonderful Life. Just about everyone loved the idea that she’d been named after a famous Christmas character.
Just about everyone.
Gee, thanks, Mom.
Which made her think about the next item on her today’s to-do list. Heading the eleven blocks to her childhood home and confronting her mother. Bailey rested her head another moment against the cold glass, then straightened. There was nothing to it but to do it. And there was no one else to do it but Bailey.
She turned, pointing herself in the direction of her car that earlier she’d moved to the end of the block beneath one of the streetlights. Her gaze lifted to the holiday decorations suspended from the metal poles along the avenue. When she was a kid, they’d been tired-looking tinseled bells and dusty angels, but in the new millennium they were bright polyester flags depicting holiday icons like nutcrackers and snowmen. Over her silver Passat hung one stamped with a multicolored tree ornament, and beside her car was a little man in a uniform holding a ticket book.
A ticket book?
“No!” she called out, rushing down the walkway and along the sidewalk. She wasn’t going to get a citation. She couldn’t. Wasn’t being back in the shop enough? Wasn’t it already unfair that she’d be spending the night in her old twin-sized canopy bed, sleeping with her Nirvana posters instead of on her Posturepedic mattress and with her framed Picasso prints? Her day wasn’t supposed to get any worse. “Hey!”
Not Another New Year's (Holiday Duet Book 2) Page 24