Safe Harbor (41 page)

Hannah stiffened, one hand on the closed door as she stared down at the sharp scissors in her hand.
Someone hated her enough to try to destroy her
. The realization hit her hard and she felt sick—panicked—her newfound courage turning to dust. She swallowed hard and looked over at the file sitting on her dresser. It was a lot thicker than she had ever conceived it of being. Did all those people hate her and want her dead? How could she have ignored it all the years she'd modeled? How many were there? And what had she done to make them feel that way about her?

SOMEONE
hated her enough to want to kill her
. They had already made three attempts and would make another. What had she ever done to make someone loathe her so much?

Hannah shivered, feeling the black hatred sliding into her room. Desperate to get outside, where the wind would protect her, would wrap her up and keep her safe, she snatched up her blanket, drew it around her and hurried out to the balcony to sit in her chair. She'd have to refuse to go with poor Jonas. Oh, Lord, what had she done? She was naked under her skirt and blouse and she'd cut off her hair. She was an absolute idiot to think she could blithely go out for the evening and seduce Jonas. She felt like a fool. Thank God he didn't know what she'd been thinking all evening, getting ready for him. If he saw her in her skirt and blouse, he'd know what had been on her mind. It would be so humiliating to have to refuse him and… She buried her face in her hands. He'd know she was falling apart again.

JONAS swore and stared for a moment at the locked door. He'd spent hours going through suspect files and working to find out who was trying to harm Hannah. All day he'd thought about nothing else but getting back to Hannah. He'd worked out the steps of escaping safely with her, paying attention to the smallest detail so she wouldn't have to feel a prisoner in her own home—so she could be empowered. And now—once again—she'd locked him out.

The sweep of anger shaking him was definitely out of proportion, but he'd had enough of locked doors. Hannah knew him better than that. Resisting the idea of breaking it down, he picked the lock and let himself in.

The French doors leading to the balcony overlooking the sea were open as usual. White lacy drapes billowed into the room, bringing in the mist and tang of sea salt. She was wrapped in a blanket and sitting in a chair, staring down at the turbulent water, stubbornly refusing to look at him. He leaned one hip lazily against the doorjamb and studied her averted face.

The blanket slipped as she leaned forward to throw something over the railing. The wind blew some of it back toward him. A long spiral curl landed on his chest.

"What the hell, Hannah?" he demanded, balancing a mug of tea in one hand and catching platinum strands in the other. "What have you done?"

She jumped, a small squeak of fear tangling in her throat. She drew the blanket closer around her like a hood, covering most of her face. "A locked door usually means someone wants to be alone." Her voice was that husky whisper of sound he found sexy as hell. It played up and down his spine and gave him one hell of a hard-on. He shifted a little to try to ease the continual ache centered in his groin.

"I don't like being locked out."

She flinched under his steady gaze. "It's called privacy."

"You've had enough of privacy. You can be angry with me, Hannah, and yell and tell me to go to hell, but you don't fucking lock the door against me. It just pisses me off more. If you're having a difficult time, say so."

"Locking the door
is
saying so."

"It's the two of us together, not you alone anymore. We aren't going to have one of those lame, half-assed relationships."

She frowned. "What exactly does that mean?"

"It means you don't lock the damn door on me."

"Sheesh. All right. Fine." She sighed and capitulated. "In all honesty, I didn't realize the door was locked."

"Then why didn't you just say so?"

"Because you yelled at me."

"Well, just don't lock the door again." He handed her the mug of tea and snagged another chair, dragging it beside hers.

She immediately wrapped her hands around the warmth of the cup. "Thanks, Jonas."

"You're welcome. I put honey in it for you. Are you ready to go?" She didn't look ready, not the way she was clutching the blanket so desperately and hiding in its folds. He couldn't see her hair, but there were several long strands on the balcony floor.

She started to speak, to tell him she wasn't going, he was certain, but she stopped and took a small sip of tea as if gathering courage. When the silence stretched, she sighed. "I want to go, Jonas. It's just that…" She trailed off.

"Baby." He said it softly. "Let's just get it over. Let me see your hair."

Her long lashes fluttered. She reached up a hand and touched the springy curls beneath the blanket. "I did it for me."

He let his breath out. "That's good, honey. Let me see."

She glanced at him as if trying to gauge his true emotion. "I have so much hair and it weighs on me, you know? I just wanted to get rid of some of the weight. And it was such a burden to always be so perfect."

His answering laughter was soft. "People always did write about your perfect hair," he agreed.

"They're not the ones who had to put a zillion gallons of product in it to keep it from poofing out everywhere. I wanted to do something that was my decision alone." She wanted him to understand. And she wanted him to like it, not to be disappointed.

"Has anyone seen it?" He knew the answer before she said it.

"Joley did it for me, but she promised not to tell."

"She didn't dye it some outrageous color, did she? You don't have purple curls under the blanket, do you?" He reached over and took the mug out of her hand, taking a drink, allowing the liquid to warm his insides.

A small smile curved her soft mouth, drawing attention to her full lower lip. He wanted to spend some time nibbling at her lip again, but Hannah wasn't giving him any help.

"No color. Joley says the style is sassy and sexy. But everything is sexy to her."

"Are you going to let me see or do I have to wrestle the blanket off of you?"

"A couple of reporters hired boats and tried to get pictures this afternoon while you were gone. And Joley went crazy and confronted the Reverend. She basically had him confessing his sins on national television."

"So I heard. It was a crazy thing to do." She was stalling. He knew she was and considered calling her on it, but there was more going on here than a new shorter hairstyle. He needed to let her work her way around to telling him the real problem.

Hannah took the tea back, swallowing hard, once again not looking at him. "I thought this story would just die down and everyone would go away, but it isn't going to happen, is it?"

"Not for a while."

"And Joley could have made herself a target as well, right?"

She looked young and vulnerable and so fragile he ached for her. "I'm sorry, baby, I want to tell you different, but the truth is, Joley made herself a target a long time ago just by stepping out into the public eye."

His voice was gentle and grief hit her hard, making her throat raw and her chest tight. "Like I did." She swallowed hard and shook her head, tears spilling over when she'd tried so hard to hold them back. "Jonas." She couldn't say anything else. As it was, his name was choked out of her, ripped from somewhere so deep it left an open wound. "Why do they hate me so much?"

"I don't know, baby." He pulled her into his arms, holding her as tight as he could, pressing her face into his chest, wanting to smash something, anything, to relieve the fierce frustration and helplessness he felt. "It's going to be all right, Hannah. I'm going to find them."

"I don't even know how to hate someone that much," she said, her voice muffled.

He did. Whoever had ordered the hit on her needed to die. Jonas could hate and he had a very long memory. He held her as close as possible, while she clung to him, listening to her cry as though her heart was broken, and deep inside, a monster grew stronger. He finally lifted her and sank back into her chair, rocking gently back and forth, murmuring reassurances, feathering kisses over the blanket and down the side of her face where her skin peeked out of the cover.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Jonas. I thought I was over this. I don't know why it hit me so hard all over again."

She was careful to keep her face turned toward the sea, but he felt the wash of tears. Jonas let his breath out slowly to stay in control. She was everything to him, and seeing her so torn up, so frightened and fragile, destroyed him. He rubbed his face over hers, skin to skin, trying to show her what was inside him—that she had him always—
always
—and he would stand for her.

"After you left this morning, I asked Elle to get the file from Jackson, the one with all the people who have written threatening me. Joley handed me the scissors to put away and I just flashed on the knife. I couldn't help it. The file was sitting on the dresser and I thought it might give me some answers. But all those people, Jonas…" She drew back and looked at him then, her eyes wide and hurt. "There are so many of them. I had no idea there would be so many."

He leaned back in the chair, pulling her close again. "Listen to me, Hannah. Those people have nothing to do with you. They're sick—disturbed. Mentally ill. Yes, there are plenty of them fixating on you, but most are just harmless. Jackson should never have given the file to Elle. You didn't need to see those letters."

"I needed to see them. This is about me, and I needed to see them."

He let her slip out of his arms and watched as she paced restlessly across the balcony, one hand holding the blanket closed, the other wiping at tears on her face. Finally she picked up the mug of tea he'd set on the railing and took a sip before handing it to him, watching his strong fingers settle around the handle. "I wish I were more like you. I feel so afraid now, and sometimes I look in the mirror and I don't know who I am."

He made a faint sound of disbelief. "You know exactly who you are, who you've always been. You're not Hannah Drake the model, she's a small part of you, that's not who you are at all. It never was you."

"You're always so sure of yourself, Jonas."

He shook his head. "I'm sure of you. I know exactly who Hannah Drake is. That streak of stubborn, the one of wild. The crazy sense of humor. You never wanted to go out looking into the world for other things and other people. You wanted to stay home and just be the barefoot girl running on the beach in her rolled-up jeans."

Hannah blinked back tears again. "I cry a lot. I think I'm okay and then I fall apart again."

"You suffered trauma, baby, it's normal. If you didn't cry, that's when you can worry about having a problem."

"I was so ready to go out with you tonight. I was feeling strong and happy about making my own decisions, and the next thing I knew, I was terrified, angry and weepy, all rolled into one. I'm a mess."

"You're as normal as a Drake can possibly get." He tugged at the cover. "Now lose the blanket and let me see your hair."