Not Another New Year’s (25 page)

“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.

Winter in Southern California can be as warm as an ideal summer day or wet and cold, just like the weather Hannah experiences in Coronado (yes, it does rain in Southern California!). Although the weather and general descriptions are true to the “island” and surrounding parts of San Diego, this is still a work of fiction and I took liberties (okay, just plain made stuff up) for the sake of the story. So while you shouldn’t waste time looking for Bentley’s Beach, do enjoy a lovely day at the San Diego Zoo if you ever make a visit to the area.

Please visit my website,
www.christieridgway.com,
for more about Southern California, including cute surfer hang-outs. But wherever you are this new year, I hope it finds you healthy and happy.