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Hannah tingled all over at the low timbre of Dylan’s voice. With effort Hannah kept her eyes on the road and her hands on the steering wheel. She was not going to let Dylan Hart lead her down that path! She was not! “R. G. Yarborough never said that.”
Dylan smirked. “Trust me.” Dylan lounged in his seat, radiating all the pure male power and sexy masculinity he typically did on the TV screen. He turned to look at her directly. “The way you were coming on to him, he would’ve gotten around to suggesting it before the end of the night,” Dylan predicted darkly.
Hannah knew that was true. The moment she’d walked up to tell her mark why she was there, only to have him suggest the two of them play a game of pool instead, R. G. Yarborough had looked her over like a piece of meat. “And that bothers you?” Hannah asked, completely surprised that Dylan sounded almost…jealous.
Suddenly, it was Dylan’s turn to hedge.
DYLAN WAS PUSHING TOO hard. He knew it. But the curiosity was eating him up inside. He had to know what was going on between Hannah and Cal. Because if it was what it looked like at first glance, Cal and Hannah were both in a heap of trouble. He couldn’t let either of them crash and burn without trying to stop it. “You just don’t seem the type to pick up men in a bar,” Dylan explained finally.
Now he had really hit a sore spot with her. She was taking his observation as an assault on her morality, when that wasn’t what he had meant at all.
“I hope you know you’re buying me one of everything on the menu for that remark,” she said as she turned the minivan into the restaurant parking lot and angled it into one of the slots on either side of the concrete divider. She rolled down the windows and warm August air poured over them.
A waitress on roller skates headed over to the car. She handed them a plastic-coated menu. She told them about the specials, then gave them a few moments to decide. As soon as the waitress skated off, Dylan turned back to Hannah and picked up the conversation where they had left off. “I meant that in the most respectful way,” he said, doing his best to repair the damage.
“Did you now.” Hannah kept her eyes glued on the menu.
It was late, but the place was full of teenagers in cars. All of whom seemed to be having a very good time—unlike he and Hannah.
Oh, to go back to such easy, carefree days…
“I’m concerned about your well-being and safety,” Dylan continued.
Hannah turned back to him. She was about to speak, when the phone clipped to Dylan’s belt began to ring.
Frowning, Dylan picked it up. “Dylan Hart,” he said as the waitress roller-skated past them, balancing a tray filled with food. While he listened to the voice on the other end of the connection, she attached it to the driver-side window on the station wagon beside him. The delicious aromas of onion rings and chili dogs with cheese wafted up around them.
“It happened,” Sasha, the Chicago evening-news anchor, said. “Just like you said it was going to.”
Dylan tensed as Hannah went back to studying her menu. “When?”
“Tonight around six,” Sasha said grimly. “Check your e-mail. The official notification should be there.”
Dylan clamped down on a string of swearwords. “Thanks.”
“No problem. And Dylan…” Sasha paused, empathy in her low voice. “I’m sorry.”
“Same to you,” Dylan replied just as sympathetically. He hung up to find Hannah watching him. “Mind if we take a rain check on dinner?”
Her eyes widened. She couldn’t believe his audacity. “First you interrupt my evening. Now you’re standing me up?”
Sometimes life really bites. “I need to get back to Holly Springs.”
Hannah paused, her indignation fading as fast as it had appeared. She looked at him harder. “Something wrong?”
“A problem with my job,” Dylan muttered, reluctant to tell her anything more until he saw it in print and knew for certain his life was really crashing down around him.
Hannah hesitated, her lips taking on a softer curve. “Anything I can do?” she asked after a moment.
Dylan shrugged, his mood turning grimmer by the minute as he contemplated the days ahead. He was supposed to be in Holly Springs all week, on vacation. “I need to look at my e-mail as soon as possible. Do you have a computer with Internet access that I can use?”
Hannah continued to study him, knowing, as did he, that every single member of his family had computers, at home and at work, yet he wasn’t asking any of them. She had to be asking herself why. Yet, she didn’t ask him.
“Sure.” She shrugged her slender shoulders gracefully.
Dylan hadn’t expected such kindness. He knew, after the way he had behaved toward her this afternoon and evening, that he certainly hadn’t earned it. “That’s it? That’s all your questions?” He regarded her just as closely.
Hannah shrugged and signaled the waitress that they were finished with the menus. She shook her head in a way that let him know she had weathered her own share of personal crises. “The look on your face is answer enough.”
DYLAN EXPECTED Hannah’s Craftsman-style brownstone to look like every other eighty-year-old house in Holly Springs. Low ceilings, small cramped rooms, outdated everything. Instead, it looked like a demolition zone inside.
“What happened here?” he asked. He had been in her house a few times years ago, when he was a kid, recruiting Hannah for a game of pick-up baseball or soccer. A natural athlete, she had never failed to disappoint.
“When my grandfather died, I had a choice to either sell it or live in it. I decided if I was going to live in it I was going to make it my own. So for the past two years I’ve been remodeling, a little at a time.”
“And then some.” Dylan looked around. The original low ceilings had been completely ripped out, doing away with most of the attic and exposing the house’s sloping fifteen-foot roofline. Three-quarters of the drywall had been redone, the rest was still waiting.
“I tore everything out and hired a contractor to put in new wiring and plumbing to bring it up to code. And built that—” Hannah pointed to the end of the house, away from what was going to be a central downstairs living area.
She led him toward the stairway. He followed her up. On the other side of the waist-high white bead-board wall that ran the length of the loft was a bedroom. Hannah had left the brownstone chimney exposed. A queen-size brass bed with a surprisingly frilly white lace comforter was pushed up against it. Her bridesmaid dress and the bouquet she had carried down the aisle were scattered across it. On one side of the room was a desk, with laptop computer and printer, the other side had a television and stereo. Beyond, he could see a pretty, white and ocean-blue bathroom, with private water closet, a pedestal sink, separate ceramic-tiled shower and clawfoot tub big enough for two. There was also a linen closet and an astonishing number of bath salts and scented lotions, makeup and shampoos. The windows were covered with pleated, ocean-blue-fabric blinds.
“As you can see, this is where I’m doing most of my living.”
“Nice,” Dylan said, meaning it. By putting in the loft, she had added another five hundred or so square feet to the thousand already downstairs.
“It will be when I finish,” Hannah said, already booting up her computer while peering into a walk-in closet that seemed to contain mostly jeans, T-shirts and the one-piece coveralls she wore when working on cars down at the garage. “You know how to access your e-mail from someone else’s computer?” Hannah asked as the home page—some car mechanic’s site—came across the monitor.
Dylan nodded.
“I’ll be downstairs. Yell if you need anything.” She disappeared down the loft stairs.
“Thanks,” Dylan said.
Unfortunately, the news was as bad as Sasha had predicted. Dylan had known it was coming. Still, he was stunned.
Knowing he’d want to read the letter from the TV station later, he printed a copy then shut the computer and printer off. Still feeling as if he had been kicked in the gut, he headed downstairs. Hannah was perched on a sawhorse in the middle of the gutted first floor, a small carton of premium ice cream in hand. She had a plastic spoon in her mouth as she surveyed the unfinished wide-plank floors and partially finished drywall. “I’m painting everything down here white, too,” she told him. “And I’m going to leave the wood natural and protect it with polyurethane.”
“What about your kitchen cabinets?” Dylan asked.
Hannah got up and walked over to the stainless-steel refrigerator. Aside from the microwave, it was the only appliance currently in the house. There wasn’t even a kitchen sink, although there was a half bath with original basin nearby.
“They’re white beadboard, similar in style to what I have upstairs in the master bath. I’ve got ’em in boxes, in the garage, along with the rest of the paint and the wallboard and the kitchen appliances—which I was lucky enough to get at cost a few months ago. Just haven’t had the money to have any of it installed. Yet.”
Was that what she had been doing at the pool hall? Trying to get together enough money to finish the inside of her home? It was a laudable goal, even if the means weren’t to be commended.
She paused, her hand on the handle of the fridge. She studied him curiously. “Get what you needed up there?”
Dylan nodded.
“Then how come you still look like you just lost your best friend?”
Close, Dylan thought with a sad sigh. Then finding he needed someone to confide in—someone with a guy’s gut sense when to stop with the questions—and a woman’s compassionate heart, he said simply, “It was my job.” He watched her carefully for reaction. “I got fired tonight.”
Hannah took the news in stride, as he had hoped she would, and opened the freezer compartment. “Then you’re going to be needing this,” she said wryly as she took out another pint of ice cream and handed it to him, along with a plastic spoon.
There was no judgment in her eyes, only silent sympathy.
His hand warmed at the contact of her fingers brushing his. He looked down at the label, fighting the feeling of failure. Six years and four jobs in the business had taught him that television news was a brutal medium in which to work. “You think mocha cocoa crunch will help?”
“Ice cream always helps. So does chocolate.” She reached over and touched his hand, more gently this time, before resuming her perch on the sawhorse. “I’m sorry about your job, Dylan.”
“Me, too,” he said honestly. He pried off the cardboard top of his ice cream. Although it had been irrational, he’d hoped to escape this bloodbath. Forcing himself to be a man about it, he looked into her eyes. “But that’s the way it goes in my line of work. New owners mean new management, which means new staff.” Usually in pretty quick order. Which was what had happened here.
She took another bite, then licked the back of the spoon. “Did you get severance pay?”
Telling himself to not even think about what her mouth would feel like under his, Dylan concentrated on answering her question. “Two months.”
“Well that’s good. Besides, a guy with your looks? You’ll probably find something right away. Meantime—” Hannah waved her spoon for emphasis “—you’ve got the support of the entire Hart family.”
Dylan let the rich chocolate slide down his throat and tried not to dwell on the fact this was the first time in his life he’d been fired—from anything. “I’m not telling them.” He paused to let his words sink in. “Not until I have another job, anyway. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t, either.”
If she was shocked she had the grace not to show it. “Whatever you want. Although that begs the question.” She looked deep into his eyes. “If you’re not telling them, why tell me?”
Why indeed? It wasn’t like him to trust someone he knew he shouldn’t trust. Not since he had been involved with Desirée, anyway. “’Cause I’m going to be needing access to a computer while I’m in town this week,” he said calmly. “And I was hoping you’d let me use yours.”
A teasing light crept into Hannah’s emerald-green eyes as she gave him the slow, thoughtful once-over. “Do I get to charge you?”
Depends, Dylan thought. How badly do you need the money?
Hannah’s phone rang. Her eyes still on his, she pulled the receiver off the kitchen wall. “Hannah. Yeah, hi. No, I didn’t, sad to say. Because we got interrupted. Not to worry. I’ve at least got him interested. Yeah, ten to one he’ll call. If I’m lucky, tomorrow or the next day. I promise. ’Night.”
“Anyone I know?” Dylan asked, wondering if that had been Cal and how he felt about that if it had been.
“I make it a policy never to talk and tell. So…” She gestured around her. Dylan could see chalk outlines on the floors, where all the appliances, and the sink and so on were to go. “What do you think about what I’ve done so far with my downstairs?” she asked.
“I like it.” Dylan studied the layout of the roughed-in kitchen that overlooked the backyard. “When will you be done?”
Hannah frowned. “I’m not really sure. Depends on the money situation. Materials aren’t so bad. It’s the labor that’s so costly.”
Dylan figured it would take thousands of dollars to finish what she had started. And although the upstairs was nice, the downstairs was barely livable. He couldn’t imagine living like this for the two years she said it had been going on. No wonder she was getting antsy. “You can’t get a second mortgage?” he asked helpfully.
“Already maxed out on that avenue. That’s how I got all the materials and the upstairs done.”
Dylan searched for alternatives. “What about doing the labor yourself?”
“I want it to look professional.” Finished with her ice cream, Hannah put the lid back on and slid it into the freezer compartment. “Besides, it’ll all get done eventually, as soon as I get my bank account built up.”
Finding he had little appetite, Dylan handed over his ice-cream container, too. “You could always moonlight.”
Hannah gave Dylan an even glance. But the confession he hoped to coax from her, about what she and his brother had been up to that evening, didn’t come. “I suppose,” she said eventually.
“Or you could ask your friends to help you out.”
Hannah planted her hands on her hips. “Like who, for instance?” she asked drolly.
Dylan held her gaze, not sure why he was volunteering, just knowing he was. And not just for Cal’s sake. “Like me.”
Hannah’s auburn eyebrow arched. “Are we friends?”
Good question. And one he intended to answer. “I don’t know.” Dylan took her into his arms, cupped her chin in his hand and tilted her face up to his. “Let’s see.”
Chapter Three
The way Dylan had been looking at her since they’d met up at Sharkey’s Pool Hall, Hannah could swear he knew what she was up to. And more—disapproved of her methods of getting his brother what Cal wanted and needed to turn his life around.
Not that Dylan could possibly know anything of the secret she was sharing with his doctor-brother, Hannah reassured herself bluntly as Dylan’s lips came impossibly closer to hers.
“You’re not going to kiss me,” Hannah murmured as she splayed her hands across the hard, warm surface of his chest.
Dylan’s sexy grin merely widened. “Want to bet?” he said.
And then his lips were on hers, and so many emotions poured through Hannah all at once. Shock that he dared to put the moves on her, amazement that she was actually letting him. She had never felt anything like the sweet seduction of Dylan Hart, never melted in anyone’s arms this way. The depth of her response, the way she got caught up in the unhurried pressure of his lips, and the liquid stroking of his tongue shook her to her soul.
Furious at both him and herself—she didn’t give this part of herself away to just anyone!—she clamped her lips together. To no avail. He subtly traced the seam and worked them apart using a mixture of pressure and temptation that was unlike anything Hannah had ever dreamed or felt. Pressing her even tighter against his hard, muscled length, he kissed her again and again as if there were no tomorrow for either of them. And as desire swirled inside her and caught flame, she could almost…almost…believe it. Probably would have, if the hard lessons of life hadn’t taught her to protect her heart.
“Darn it all, Dylan,” Hannah told him breathlessly when at last he lifted his head. “You had no business laying one on me—especially like that!” She felt herself flushing as he cupped her face between his hands.
“I still want to do it again,” he whispered, looking down at her.
And so did she, Hannah thought on a beleaguered groan as she surged right back into his arms. Right or wrong, who cared, when it felt so darn good…
Dylan had started this on impulse. Mostly as a test. To see if Hannah kissed like the experienced lady of the evening she had acted and sounded like back at the Wedding Inn, when she had been receiving instructions from Cal. Instead, the delectable Hannah Reid kissed as if she was all of sixteen, sweetly and awkwardly at first, tentativeness turning to enthusiasm, shy reserve to passion. And it was that mixture of innocence and ardor that was nearly his undoing. Because when their mouths were fused together like this, when he felt the responsiveness of her lips moving with sweet deliberation against his, it was all he could do to hold his own passion in check. It had been so long since he’d felt anything genuine or spent time with anyone this complicated and challenging. And he needed that, he was beginning to realize. Needed this…unbridled passion.
Unfortunately, because of the situation with his brother and his suspicions about Hannah, he couldn’t give in to it. At least not yet.
Hearts pounding, regrets already forming—on both sides—they drew apart. Hannah looked at him as if she wanted to kiss him and smack him for his audacity simultaneously.
He knew how she felt. He wanted to kiss her and smack himself, too.
Then, as he sort of knew she would, she composed herself admirably. Becoming the cool, unflappable Hannah who hung out with the guys and never ever let anything faze her, once again. “You really have to leave,” she told him firmly, in responsible-grown-up mode again.
He found himself wishing the reckless teenager would come back. For just one more kiss. Maybe two?
“Now,” Hannah continued, giving him an even look. “Before we do something we’re both going to wish we hadn’t.”
Dylan nodded, knowing that was the shrewdest course. Now all he needed was a plausible excuse to stay close enough to her to be able to find out what she was up to with Cal. His being fired was it. “Can I come back in the morning? Hang out here during the day so I can make phone calls and do e-mails and start looking for another job?” After all, she wouldn’t be here, she would be at her auto repair shop.
Hannah studied him as if wondering what he was up to. “Why not go back to Chicago if you want to do that?”
