Not Another New Year’s (10 page)

W
hat? 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.

When he knocked on the front door of the suite, she was ready for him. Desirée, before taking off for her shift at Hart’s (in full modern female warrior gear of those sprayed-on jeans and a see-through top over a lung-hugging camisole), had caught sight of the tabloid Hannah inadvertently brought home from the DMV. Flipping it open to an article in the middle, she’d given Hannah yet another weapon in her arsenal.

Thanks to the almost year-old magazine, she now knew enough about the Hart family to manage some dinner table small talk.

But when she turned the knob and swung open the door, her mouth couldn’t form a single word. It hit her immediately—that Tanner must know something about weapons too. It wasn’t the well-polished preppy loafers on his feet that gave it away. Nor the charcoal-colored flannel wool pleated slacks. No, props went to the collared, three-button, had-to-be-cashmere sweater he was wearing. It was pushed up casually on his forearms and was the exact same straw honey, old gold shade of his incredible hair. It made his eyes stand out like blue jewels in his tan face.

She wondered about that winter tan, then wondered if he surfed like Troy too. From there her mind leaped to the fantasy of his butt wiggling beneath a beach towel.

Heat burned the back of her neck, and her hand rose to fan her face.

Tanner cleared his throat. “You all right?”

“Sure. Yes.” Had he dressed to impress? Was this more like a real date than she’d been telling herself?

The thought set the back of her neck on fire again, and nerves started pushing each other around in her stomach, like her second-grade students in the ice cream line. Tanner’s sexual interest in her had seemed to switch off the morning of January 1, the instant he’d learned her real name. Though she thought she’d caught flickers of it coming to life once or twice, she’d dismissed the idea each time—until now. Might he truly feel the same hormonal pull she did?

She rubbed her palms on her thighs and tried to cover up her uncertainty with good manners. “You look nice. I like your sweater.”

He frowned down at it. “Yeah? It was a Christmas present, so it was on top of all the other stuff in my drawer.”

The grappling nerves in her stomach fell apart and metaphorical cold water was dashed across the nape of her neck. So much for him selecting that sweater to create a tactical advantage. So much for this maybe being a real date. The sweater he’d chosen was the one on top of all the other stuff in his drawer.

And Hannah—or getting any closer to Hannah—wasn’t at the top of his thoughts after all.

Releasing an inward sigh, she gathered up Desirée’s trench coat and a tiny purse she’d also borrowed. Then, reminding herself that the last thing she needed was to want another man who didn’t want her, Hannah left the suite and walked with Tanner to his car. It was a meal and nothing more.

His Mercedes waited under the portico roof, safe from the raindrops still coming down. He opened the passenger door for her and she dropped onto the seat, then half turned to toss the coat into the backseat.

Tanner’s big hand touched her thigh.

She yelped and whipped her head toward him. He was staring down at the length of sheer stocking revealed by her ruched-up dress. His hand was trying to smooth the hem from its place a few inches north of her knees to a more modest position.

Yelping again, she lifted her behind off the seat and readjusted the layers of silk. “Thanks,” she said, not looking at him, but instead continuing to fuss with the hemline.

“Thank
you.
”

The sexy note in his voice sent her gaze flying to his, but his face didn’t give anything away. “And I should also say you look, uh…” He cleared his throat. “Very patriotic.”

Patriotic? Of course, the dress was red, but
patriotic
? Was that some sort of hip Southern California term she didn’t know?

Figuring she’d only look dumb if she asked, she kept her questions to herself as he ducked into the driver’s side and accelerated the car away from the hotel. Silence descended and she forced herself not to squirm on her seat, even though the quiet felt more tense than a clenched fist. As a matter of fact, Tanner’s ten-and-two grip looked brutal on the leather cover of the steering wheel.

Maybe he had a headache or something. “Are you feeling well?” she asked.

There was another moment of that heavy silence,
then she heard him let out a long breath. “I’m feeling okay,” he said. His white-knuckled grip on the wheel seemed to relax. “Never better. Terrific.”

Patriotic? she almost suggested, but stopped herself just in time.

After another moment he slowed the car to point out a Coronado landmark. It was a store owned by a longtime friend of his. It had been called The Perfect Christmas, though a recent fire had destroyed the old Victorian home that had housed it. Bailey had vowed to rebuild.

Bailey was a woman, Hannah surmised, and she was about to pry along those lines—out of friendly curiosity, nothing more—when he pulled up to the restaurant’s valet parking. In minutes they were seated at a table covered with a white cloth beside a window. Droplets of rain streaked down the glass, but beyond it was that fascinating, relentless surf.

Hannah couldn’t have chosen a better seat herself, and it became clear as time wore on that Tanner was doing his best to be an exemplary dinner companion as well. During their meal, his conversation was smooth but impersonal, his manner cool yet friendly.

She relaxed, feeling safe with the fact that they had nothing more in common than his former boss and one night of hazily recollected passion. Her heartbeat was steady and her hormones stayed quiet—until he said the one thing guaranteed to shake everything inside of her awake.

Tanner Hart told her he liked to read.

She could only stare as he explained that his years in the Secret Ser vice had meant a lot of time on planes
and in hotel rooms. His best solution to the long waits and the jet-lag insomnia was an ever-present paperback.

He liked Harlan Coben.

“Me too,” she croaked, her gaze drinking in the lean lines of Tanner’s cheeks and the solid strength of his square jaw. She shifted on her chair, sliding closer to the edge of the table.

It turned out that Tanner was a big fan of Coben’s sports agent mysteries, while she liked the stand-alone thrillers. They’d both read Lisa Gardner, Tami Hoag, and Dan Brown (though who hadn’t been Da Vinci’d?). He didn’t sneer when she said the bulk of her reading list was contemporary and historical romances. The minute he told her his current to-be-read pile contained the latest Harry Potter, a book about the world’s worst dog, and one by Christopher Moore, the room heated and her pulse started pounding at her wrists.

His interest in books wasn’t just talk. This was a man who
read.

For an elementary school teacher, one who’d dressed up as Martha Washington, a bunny rabbit, not to mention a bookworm, all to foster her students’ love of reading—well, Tanner’s conversation was as arousing as a French kiss from George Clooney.

Better. Because she’d recently uncovered her latent hankering for blond men.

She was watching his forefinger trace designs in the condensation on his water glass when he moved on to television.

Hannah’s chest loosened a little, even as they discovered a mutual love of
Law & Order.
Tanner liked
the “Criminal Intent” incarnation. Hannah admitted “SVU” too often crossed her squick boundary. They both enjoyed the original best.

“And your favorite character?” Hannah asked.

“Lenny,” Tanner replied without hesitation. “Who does a New York detective better than Lenny?”

Hannah sighed. “When didn’t Jerry Orbach just rock? Not only
Law & Order,
but—”

“‘Nobody puts Baby into a corner,’” Tanner interjected, grinning. “Johnny told that to Jerry when he played Jennifer Grey’s father in
Dirty Dancing.
”

Hannah stared, dumbstruck. Once again her heart started up like a bongo in her chest and she swallowed hard, looking for her disappearing voice. “I didn’t know men admitted to seeing that movie. I think my brothers would put their eyes out with barbecue tools before they’d confess to watching Patrick Swayze do the mashed potato.”

Tanner leaned forward, his elbows on the table and his fingers laced. There was a votive candle to his right and its light flickered like gold and amusement in his eyes. “I’m the youngest of four sons. My mom had given up on her girl, so she brownie-bribed me into viewing the whole pantheon of chick flicks with her:
Dirty Dancing, His Girl Friday, When Harry Met Sally,
to name but a few.”

Hannah tried to imagine a young Tanner. She thought she could see him: towhead, skateboard, a pair of jeans and a clean white T-shirt.

“Though don’t think my brothers didn’t make me pay for it. According to the male majority of the Hart house, a real movie only stars Rambo, Schwarzenegger, and weapons that shoot, slice, or decimate.”

“They were mean to you?” Hannah amended her vision. Now his jeans were ripped and there was a scrape on one gorgeous cheekbone.

“Only until I got big enough to be mean back. And anyway, those scabs and bruises made for tough skin.”

Something the Hart family was known for. She thought of the ten-month-old tabloid article that Desirée had directed her to. Triggered by the “Big Kiss,” as it had been headlined, the paragraphs had told Tanner’s full family legend.

“There was a story about you in that magazine from the DMV,” she said. “Is it true there’s a street in San Diego named after your grandfather?”

He stilled, then shrugged. “Sure. He was a WW Two naval hero. His brother was awarded medals in Korea.”

“Like your dad and your uncle in Vietnam—”

“And my brothers in Afghanistan and Iraq.” There was a half smile on his face, but his eyes had lost their light and cooled to blue ice. “A whole family of heroes except yours truly, of course, the lone black sheep.”

While he continued to sit across the tiny table, it was as if he’d left the room. His gaze strayed off into the distance, unseeing, and one hand fisted on the pristine cloth.

Her schoolteacher instincts kicked in, sensing trouble as they did when the boy assigned the desk closest to hers was simmering with emotional turmoil. In the case of her students, its source could be one of several problems: uncaring parents, bad
nutrition, a learning deficit yet to be diagnosed or corrected, or a combination of any of the above.

For Tanner, the source was her. Bringing up his family had brought up a past he found painful.

Her fingers tightened on the stem of her water glass. It was her fault, which meant it was also up to her to find a way to distract him.

Of course, here in the restaurant she didn’t have a flannel board or sock puppets or math puzzle cards to whip from her bag of teacher tricks. They’d already covered favorite books, TV, and movies.

Without a clear plan in her head, she slid her arm slowly across the table. Leaning forward, she placed her palm over his fist.

His gaze shifted from faraway to her fingers. Hannah swallowed. “I’ve just got to ask…”

His expression hardened. “I didn’t have the faintest idea Dez was going to kiss me,” he said in a low voice, not looking at her. “And yes, I did know the agent who was killed in my place.”

Guilt jabbed Hannah again. She had meant to ask something banal about his meal or his work at the bar or something dull but distracting like that.

Oh, why had she brought up his family? And how had that segued into a rehash of the night of the assassination attempt? Of course, no one had been taking his “place.” The article had been quite detailed about the entire event. The agent, Ayesha Spencer, had been new to that particular Secret Ser vice team, but there wasn’t the hint of an accusation that her death had anything to do with Tanner.