Plain Jane's Secret Life

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“There’s too much tea and sympathy waiting for me there,” Dylan told her truthfully. And frankly, he didn’t want to hear it. “And it would raise my family’s suspicions if I were to cut my visit short again and go back without warning.” He’d done that the previous week and ended up missing Janey and Thad’s wedding rehearsal and dinner. He was still in the doghouse with his mother over that one.

“And you’re hanging out here at my place all day long won’t draw their curiosity?” Arms folded in front of her, Hannah regarded him skeptically.

Dylan shrugged, and moved his glance away from the soft, rounded curves of her breasts beneath the clinging tank top. “I’ll tell them I volunteered to help you get a handle on your renovations,” he temporized. “Help you finish some drywalling or painting or something.”

She continued studying him astutely. “And why would you do that?”

“As penance for inconveniencing you so much this afternoon and almost making you late for Janey and Thad’s wedding, too.”

She didn’t disagree that he owed her. “You’ve got all the angles covered, don’t you?”

“For tomorrow, anyway. So, do we have a deal?”

“On one condition.”

Dylan waited.

“No more kisses.”

“Unless, of course, you initiate them.” He grinned.

Hannah scoffed. “I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen.”

Given the way she was looking at him now, he wouldn’t either. Still, he owed her. “You’re a real pal, Hannah,” Dylan told her as they headed companionably for the door. “Not that it’s any surprise you’re so understanding,” he continued, glad the mood was relaxing between them once again.

The shift from potential lover to platonic buddy was not as welcome as Dylan had hoped it would be to Hannah. “And why is that?” she asked him warily. She paused, her hand on the doorknob.

“I don’t know exactly.” Dylan struggled to put into words his feelings about her natural ability to put a man at ease. “Maybe because you’ve spent so much time with the guys, growing up, you’re almost like one of us. And bottom line,” he said as he patted her on the back in lieu of the kiss good-night he would have preferred, “guys help their buddies out.”

“ONE OF THE GUYS,” Hannah was still fuming the next morning when she went to work at the garage. Didn’t that just take the cake!

“I don’t think he was trying to insult you, honey,” Slim Kerstetter said. Hannah’s only employee, the sixty-year-old Slim had worked at the garage since he was a teenager himself, staying on after Hannah’s grandfather died and the business came into her hands. “He was probably just trying to compliment you, and it came out all wrong. Guys do that, you know.”

Hannah glanced at Slim. As usual, Slim was wearing baggy jeans and a short-sleeved shirt rolled up to expose his biceps. He’d been to the barber the day before and his salt-and-pepper hair was shorn down to a quarter-inch. “Not in this case,” Hannah said. “In this instance, Dylan Hart knew exactly what he was saying.”

Slim sent her a sly look. The fact he was a lifelong bachelor with only one real love—NASCAR—did not keep him from dispensing romantic advice. “If you want him to see you as a girlie-girl, start dressing and acting like one.” Slim removed the fuel pump from the Lexus he was working on while Hannah continued running diagnostics on a Mercedes.

“If I did that, no one would want me working on their cars,” she said.

“Then you got yourself a dilemma, don’t you, sweetheart?” Slim teased as a familiar Lamborghini pulled in.

“Hey, Hannah,” Emma Donovan-Hart waved at Hannah cheerfully as she got out of the car. “I brought my dad’s car in for servicing.”

“That was nice of you,” Hannah said to her good friend, who was the premiere wedding planner in the area. She wished she could feel even one tenth as blissfully in love and contented as Emma looked these days.

Emma strode closer, her cap of dark, chin-length curls bouncing as she moved. “Yeah, well, Dad’s having a crisis with the hockey team. Seems one of the Carolina Storm’s announcers quit yesterday to take a job with the Cable Sports News network. He’s getting his own weekly interview show, so it’s a great opportunity for him. My parents both wish him well, but now they’re in a mess because they need to hire his replacement by week’s end.”

“Do you need a ride to work at the Wedding Inn?”

“Thanks, but Joe’s taking me over.”

No sooner had Joe and Emma driven off than Cal Hart pulled in. “You want to get that or shall I?” Slim said.

“I’ll handle it,” Hannah said, walking out to Cal. The six-foot-two surgeon had ash-blond hair and gray eyes and an easygoing, compassionate nature Hannah warmed to. Whereas Dylan was her age—Cal was thirty-four. Because Cal had been so far ahead of her in school, she hadn’t known him all that well until two years ago when he returned to Holly Springs to practice medicine. Now he was like a brother to her.

“Let’s go up to my office,” Hannah said. “It’s more private there.” She led the way through the garage, up the stairs at the back, down a short hall, past the garage’s only bathroom, to a small room that overlooked the alley. It was crowded with file and supply cabinets, two chairs, a desk, phone and the computer she used for looking up parts and obscure repair manuals on the Internet. These days, a computer and all the information that could be gleaned from one was a mechanic’s best tool.

“Sorry I phoned so late last night,” Cal said.

Hannah knew how upset Cal had been lately. Her heart went out to him. It was rough, not knowing where you stood, or if and when things would ever work out. “No problem.”

“I got the feeling I was interrupting something,” Cal said.

No kidding, Hannah thought, her mind going back to the fevered kisses that had left her reeling, both physically and emotionally. “Your brother Dylan was there.” Briefly, Hannah explained how Dylan had tracked her down to get his suitcase.

Cal sighed and shoved his hands through the short, traditionally cut layers of his hair. “So you didn’t even have time to shoot a game of pool with R. G. Yarborough,” he noted, obviously disappointed.

About that, Hannah felt only relief. “No, but I had plenty of time to size him up,” she told Cal grimly. “Yarborough’s every bit as narcissistic and self-centered as you said. To get what we want from him we’re going to have proceed carefully.”

SLIM KERSTETTER GRINNED as Dylan walked up. “Beginning to look like a regular Hart family reunion around here,” he drawled as he moved a car up in the air via hydraulic lift.

“Say again?” Dylan blinked.

“First Emma and Joe.” Slim picked up his tools and stepped beneath the belly of the vehicle. “Then Cal. Now you. And not a one of you had an appointment to get your car fixed. Yep. I’d say that’s a record, all right.”

And Cal’s Jeep was still parked in one of the spaces. Dylan pushed away the feeling of unease. “Where is Hannah?” he asked.

“In her office.” Slim pulled a kerchief from his pocket and mopped the sweat from his forehead. “And Dylan—a word to the wise. You plan to get anywhere with that gal, you got to stop treating her like one of the guys.”

What the hell was that about? Hannah couldn’t have told him about the kisses they’d shared, or had she? “I’ll take that under advisement.” Pulse picking up, Dylan rounded the corner, past the hydraulic lifts, to the stairs at the rear of the garage.

He mounted them silently and strode just as soundlessly down the short hall, beyond the restroom. The door to her office was closed. Through the glass top half he could see Hannah sitting on the desk, her face tilted up at Cal. They were talking intently. Or so it appeared. As Dylan neared, their voices drifted toward him. “Difficult but not impossible,” Hannah was saying. “Trust me. If there’s anything I know, it’s men and their—”

“Well, yeah,” Cal concurred, his voice cutting off whatever it was she’d said.

“Everyone has a weakness,” Hannah continued matter-of-factly. “Something in his life that’ll make him prone to deal. We just have to find his. And as soon as we do—”

“I feel kind of sleazy just talking about this,” Cal lamented, running both hands through his hair.

Jealousy twisted Dylan’s gut as he watched Hannah reach over and pat Cal’s arm.

“I wouldn’t lose any sleep over our…” She hesitated, as if searching for the proper word.

“Manipulation?” Cal guessed dryly.

Hannah dropped her hand. “What is important is that we get what you want and come out ahead,” Hannah continued sternly.

“It still feels like a con job,” Cal protested in a low, guilty voice.

Hannah shrugged her slender shoulders. “So what if it is? You’ve got to think about the end result here, Cal, and what you stand to gain. Forget about R. G. Yarborough’s feelings and well-being. I guarantee he isn’t giving a thought to either yours or mine.”

So what was this? Dylan wondered, stepping back out of sight of the office door and into the restroom. Some type of con job? Last night he’d thought it was Cal pushing Hannah to do something she didn’t want to do. This morning it sounded as if it was the other way around.

The office door opened. Cal walked out briskly and headed right down the hall. Dylan waited until his brother had disappeared from view then stepped around the corner and into the office. Hannah was in the process of booting up her computer. Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink when she saw him, but that could have been as much from the memory of the kisses they’d shared the evening before as anything. Certainly, she didn’t look as though she knew he had been spying on her.

“What brings you here?” she asked.

Easy, he thought, glad for the excuse. “Your house key.”

DYLAN WAS DOING IT AGAIN, looking at her almost suspiciously, as if he knew what she was up to with his brother. But that was impossible. No one but she and Cal knew about the transaction they were trying so hard to pull off.

“Oh yeah.” Hannah fished the spare out of her desk and handed it to him. “Don’t lose it.”

“I won’t,” Dylan promised.

Their hands brushed. Their gazes meshed. And in that instant, Hannah knew Dylan had slept lightly, if at all, the previous night. Not that she could blame him. Losing your job, especially when your work meant as much to you as Dylan’s did to him, had to be devastating. She would have lain awake all night, staring at the ceiling, too. Wanting to help him, she said, “You ever thought about announcing instead of sportscasting?”

Dylan made a face. “Different talent.”

“Yes, but if you had the chance, would you do it?” Hannah persisted.

He shrugged his broad shoulders amiably. “Sure.”

“What do you know that I don’t?” he asked, studying her face.

Delighted to be able to deliver some good news, she said, “One of the Storm’s announcers just quit. They’re filling the position by week’s end.”

HANNAH WENT HOME PROMPTLY at six that evening. Dylan wasn’t there. Nor was there any note for her, or any way of knowing if he would even be back that evening. No painting or drywalling had been done, but there was plenty of evidence of his job search in the neat stacks of paper all over her bed.

Feeling glum, she had rushed to get home to see how his day had gone to no avail, Hannah dropped her grimy clothes in the hamper and stepped into the shower to scrub off the day. Mindful of the steamy August heat, she put on a dark green V-necked T-shirt and denim shorts, and was still combing out the tangles in her hair when she heard the front door open and close.

She walked down the stairs from the loft just as Dylan walked in to the open downstairs area. He was wearing the same suit and tie he’d had on the previous day at the airport. One hand held two large carry-out sacks from the root-beer stand they had been at the evening before; in the other was a cardboard carrying tray containing two large drinks.

“What’s all this?” Hannah asked as the delicious aroma of chili, cheese and onion rings filled the air.

“The rain check on the dinner I owe you—one of everything on the menu plus some extra chili dogs with cheese and onion in case you’re still as wild about them as I am. Are you?”

Hannah nodded. There was nothing like it, in her estimation, as far as junk food went. Funny he would think so, too, when in every other way they were so different. Usually guys wanted to buy her very hip or gourmet food—when they even asked her—and that was usually as payment for taking a look under the hood of their car or diagnosing a particularly perplexing electrical or mechanical problem with their vehicle. Nobody ever just bought her dinner for the sake of it, or went out of their way to spend time with her, one on one. Which begged the question. Why was Dylan suddenly so eager to spend time with her? Why was he suddenly hanging around, when he could just as easily have avoided her, the way he had at Janey’s wedding reception?

Was it because he wanted to continue to use her house as a temporary office while she was at work? Or was there something more going on here? Something that had to do with those series of kisses last night?

Dylan tilted his head at her, as if wondering what was on her mind. “I hope you haven’t eaten,” he said.

As if on cue, Hannah’s stomach growled. “Ah, no, I haven’t,” she said, embarrassed.

“Good.” He looked around them with a bemused grin. “Although where we’re going to eat is a good question. Where is your furniture?”

“I sold everything in a tag sale, to make more money to spend on the interior. I figure when it’s all done, I’ll just buy some new stuff that will fit the space.”

“Makes sense. In the meantime, where do you usually eat?”

“Perched on one of the sawhorses. Or upstairs, on my bed,” Hannah continued. “Sort of depends on what I’m eating.”

He nodded at her, considering. “So where are we going to do this?”

It was so hot outside. The mosquitoes were fierce this time of year. “My bedroom, I guess,” Hannah allowed finally. “You can sit at my desk. I’ll sit on the floor.”

He arched his eyebrow. “Not the bed?”

Hannah smiled wryly. “Somehow, eating chili dogs on a white bedspread doesn’t seem like a good idea. And speaking of chili dogs.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you really going to eat this dressed in a suit?”

Dylan shrugged, unperturbed. “Unless you want me to strip down to my skivvies again.”

“Uh, no,” Hannah said hastily. She held up a hand in stop-sign fashion. “Once was enough.”

He grinned again, in an appreciative male way that made Hannah think he was considering making love to her then and there. Which was silly. Except for the kisses the night before, there had never been anything between them. And since he was leaving at the end of the week, off to Chicago or parts unknown again, there never would be. Unless…

“So. How’s the job search going?” Hannah asked after they made their way upstairs to her bedroom. She settled picnic style on the rug in front of her walk-in closet and was surprised when Dylan bypassed the chair she had offered him and sat cross-legged opposite her. “Did you check out the announcing job for the Carolina Storm hockey team?”

Dylan took off his jacket and tie and tossed them onto her bed. “That’s where I was this afternoon. I went over and auditioned.”

Hannah watched as he undid the first few buttons on his shirt and rolled up his cuffs. “Already?”

He nodded, looking a lot more relaxed as he leaned against the wall and they divvied up the food. “Yeah. They were already vetting résumés and doing preliminary interviews, and anyone who passed muster was then eligible to get in line and go into a taping room. Basically, they handed us roster lists for both teams on the tape, as well as specific information they wanted worked into the broadcast. We all ‘called’—or announced—the first twenty-minute period. Then we were taken into another room to videotape a mock interview with one of the public relations staff, who was pretending to be either a player or a coach, and that was it. They’re going to review all the applicants by week’s end and have a decision no later than Monday.”