Sea Glass Sunrise (12 page)

“Good point. So . . . what do you want to do? For fun.”

She held his gaze, then slowly straightened in her seat, trapping his fingertips under the seat belt as it was pulled taut once more. “I want to hijack you.”

His eyes widened briefly. The exceedingly snug fit of his jeans, however, remained an abruptly increasing concern. “Don’t you have a rehearsal to get to? A sister in dire need of white gravel?”

“We can drop the gravel off at Gus’s. She’ll understand the rest. It was her idea, after all.”

“I’m thinking maybe I was too quick to judge your sister. We are talking about the same one?”

“Crazy chick in the wacked-out bridesmaid dress driving the Prius?” she said, settling in her seat now and putting her hands on the steering wheel. Looking like a woman on a mission. And her mission was him.

“You know, it wasn’t that bad a bridesmaid dress,” he said.

“It was horrid. Asylum horrid.”

“Yeah. It was.” He laughed, even as his body started to get rather indignant about getting itself upright and out of the potentially emasculating position it was currently in. “Still . . . I’m sure she had a good reason.”

Hannah turned and pinned him again with that look. He’d have pled guilty to just about anything when she looked at him like that.

“Fun,” she said. “That was her reason.”

He slid his fingers free from the shoulder harness, then, when she shifted to look forward, he pressed them under her chin and turned her face to his. Very slowly, very deliberately, so she had time to back off if she didn’t like where he was going, he lowered his mouth to hers.

“My lip,” she whispered, at the last second, but her gaze was fixed firmly on his mouth by then.

“Shh,” he said, and kissed the opposite corner of her mouth, then the soft, smooth edge of her bottom lip.

She let out a slow, soft, shaky breath.

So he kissed her chin, then the side of her jaw. Then ducked under the net of her hat and kissed, very, very gently, the soft, swollen skin at the edge of her cheekbone.

“Fun,” he murmured, tugging briefly, gently, on her earlobe with his teeth. “I think your sister is on to something.”

She sighed, and he liked—very much, maybe too damn much—the little shuddery sound that accompanied it. He wasn’t sure he could even stand upright at the moment without doing serious damage to himself.

“Well,” she asked, opening eyes that had drifted closed again at some point during his foray.

“Well what?”

“Get in.”

“What?” He hadn’t thought she meant it. Not really. It just didn’t seem . . . her style. She’d just been toying, teasing. Playing with him, as he’d been doing with her.

She reached forward, turned on the engine, then gunned the gas pedal as she shifted it into gear and looked squarely at him. “Get in.”

Yeah. This wasn’t a woman who teased or toyed. This was a woman who attacked, pounced, and dismantled as part of her profession.

The same woman now trying to figure out how to be playful. With him.

She had an interesting way of going about it, to be sure, but damned if he wasn’t tempted. “I don’t think so,” he said, surprising himself more than he’d apparently surprised her.

She didn’t look insulted, or even all that upset. It wasn’t confidence or arrogance he saw, either . . . just respect for his choice. Apparently, for her, a no was just a no. Nothing personal.

Made him want to take her right there in the front seat of her little blue rocket in broad daylight. And wasn’t that the damndest thing?

“Afraid I’ll crash us into a moose or something?” she said.

No,
he thought,
I’m afraid you’re going to hurt something a lot less hard than my head.

“I’d let you drive, but I borrowed this from a friend.”

“It’s not that.”

“What then?”

He couldn’t tell if she even cared what the answer was. She was still smiling, but her expression, her eyes, had shifted back to something less personal, less intimate. She was the cool, calm, collected litigator again. Never let ’em see you sweat.

For some reason, that irked him, though for the life of him he couldn’t fathom why. He’d been the one to make the hijack offer in the first place, only to be turned down flat. Now they were even, though that wasn’t why he’d said no.
Why did you say no? Afraid you might get tangled up? She clearly doesn’t care one way or the other. Why do you?

Irked with himself now, he straightened, swearing silently when his knees told him what they thought of being in a crouch for the past ten minutes, and swallowing a wince when another part of him complained about cramped quarters. He bent down, intending to brace his hands on the car door so as to block that particular body part from immediate view, only then she was tipping up her chin and it seemed the most natural thing in the world to slide his hand behind her neck and very carefully, very slowly, draw her mouth up to his as he lowered his head to hers.

She didn’t pull away, didn’t stop him. Didn’t make that little shuddery sound, either. He kissed the corner of her mouth again, then again, then gently pressed his lips to the fullest part of her lower lip, before soothing it with his tongue. She shuddered then, just a little tremor, and he felt her shoulders relax as she turned her body toward his. As her eyes fluttered open, he slid his lips to her ear and whispered, “Because when we have fun together, Scarlett, we’ll need more than the hour it will take me just to get you out of that dress.”

Chapter Eight

Hannah slipped out the front door of the pub and let it swing quietly shut behind her. Not that anyone would have heard if she’d slammed the thing. Dear Lord, but her head was one giant throb. As were her face, her mouth, and her shoulder. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into her bed back at the Point and bury her head under a mound of pillows. Really soft, cool pillows. And maybe never crawl back out again.

At least she’d finally been able to get out of that awful dress and hat. She and Delia had pulled their co-maid-of-honor rank and defeated Fiona and Kerry on wearing those ridiculous getups a minute longer once the rehearsal was over. Privately—though Hannah would never admit it to Fi—it had been pretty hilarious as they’d rehearsed the actual walk down the aisle. All of them together looked like the cast of
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Gets Hitched
. In all honesty, the laughter and snide comments they’d shot back and forth had been the best sort of distraction, keeping her mind off of all those thoughts she’d worried she’d be having as she stood by and watched her brother and Alex go through their wedding motions.

She still had the actual wedding to get through, but right now, it felt good to be wearing comfortable jeans, canvas boat shoes, and a thin, soft sweater. Better than good. Pulling them on had been like stepping into a familiar old shell. Hannah Before. Before the frantic need to climb the partnership ladder had consumed her every waking minute, before she’d begun to believe that was the only way to be a success, before she’d fallen for Tim, before . . . everything. She liked the feel of their softness, like a trusted caress against her skin. They were clothes she kept at the Point house, having no need for them otherwise. Back in D.C., even her comfortable clothes had been stuffy. She’d been stuffy.

When exactly had that happened to her? And why had she let it? Was she a stuffy person? Icy? Cold? Tim hadn’t thought so, but then Tim was a lying, cheating bastard who’d say anything to get what he wanted. His opinion counted for less than nothing.

She took a sip from the bottle of ginger ale she’d been nursing for the past half hour, having decided early on that painkillers with a beer chaser, though tempting, probably weren’t a good idea. She started to crouch down to sit on the pub steps, since she’d only come out seeking a much-needed break from the noise, but decided to go for a walk instead. It was a beautiful, late-spring night. Only a very light breeze was coming up off the water from the harbor below and the clear night sky was studded with grand, celestial sweeps of stars.

Once away from the pub lights, she paused and simply stared upward. She’d always been awed by the night sky here. As a child, she’d often wished she could soar up and out to them, through them, to the galaxies hinted at beyond. She smiled, thinking that didn’t sound like such a bad idea now, either. “To infinity and beyond,” she murmured, and lifted a ginger ale toast to the cosmos.

Smiling now, she continued on her walk, content with a lazy stroll. Back in D.C., she’d never strolled. At work it was run, run, run, too many things demanding her attention, never enough time. At home awaited another list of demands. Run to the market, run to the dry cleaners, run to this lunch appointment, that dinner meeting, the next social function. Hurry, hurry, don’t be late! Someone else might beat you to the punch!

Now all she could think was . . .
what freaking punch?

She crossed the road and started making her way down a steep side street that led to the waterfront in the pocket of the harbor and the Monaghan shipyard, and beyond that, Delia’s Diner. Or where Delia’s had been, she realized. She faltered a step, thinking maybe now was not the time to see yet another part of her life that had been filled with such love and fond memories gutted and leveled to the ground.

She took another sip, then tipped her head back and drew in a slow, restorative breath of cool evening air as the fizzy soda tickled its way down the back of her throat. The silence felt good. Even the chill in the air felt good. Her thoughts drifted to what else had felt good that day . . . namely Calder Blue. The way he’d touched her, stroked her skin. And that kiss . . .

She abruptly tipped her chin forward again and continued on her walk. However nice it might have been to have a little attention thrown her way from a good-looking man, she was smart enough to know she’d only let him because it had soothed her self-esteem, which Tim had left battered in his duplicitous wake. So, yes, a moment of weakness, an understandable one even. But not one she planned to repeat anytime soon.

Yes, it had felt good. Okay, better than good, if she was honest. It had been . . .
Jesus, it had been electric.
She took a steadying breath, another fortifying sip, put a more determined pace in her gait. Feeling . . . well, anything, right now, was probably unwise. She wasn’t ready. She needed to be stronger, more distanced from what had happened, more settled on her new path, before including anything like that—or anyone like that—in her life. At the moment, what she needed was to stay comfortably numb a little longer.

She shoved thoughts of men, past and present, from her mind, and smiled as the music from the Rusty Puffin echoed after her down the hill. She always loved it when Fergus got out his fiddle, and tonight he’d rustled up a few local musicians to join in for a full-blown, traditional Irish
ceilidh
. She’d enjoyed watching everyone dance, had even taken a step or two herself. She smiled, picturing Kerry trying to teach them some Maori tribal dance, but in the manner of Irish step dancing, which . . . God, only Kerry. Hannah would have stayed longer, stayed forever in that cocoon of love and family, but her head had had enough. Logan and Alex would understand. Fiona had already asked her a half dozen times if she wanted to go on back home again to get some rest.

Home.

Hannah paused at the bottom of the hill to look out over the harbor. Yeah, what home meant to her now was . . . complicated. So she let her thoughts shift instead to how it felt to be back in the Cove. For good. To how it felt to not have any cases pending. At all. Of course, she worried about the ones she’d handed over when she’d tendered her resignation, worried they wouldn’t be handled the way she would have handled them. She’d spent significant time with the new counsel for each case, made sure each had her contact information if clarification or assistance was needed. Her last day had been ten days ago now, and she’d been on the phone a dozen or more times, answered an avalanche of e-mails on various notes and proceedings, but it otherwise hadn’t been as bad as she’d thought it would be.

When she’d walked out the door that last day, she’d had this feeling that she’d never be able to truly leave that part of her life behind, that it would dog her, as had all the rumor and innuendo, forever. She’d been so deep in it, her every waking moment so consumed by it, she honestly couldn’t imagine it ever being truly over.

And yet . . . standing here, tasting the salt in the air, and feeling the utter calm that surrounded her . . . she realized that it just truly might. She laughed at herself as she began walking along the harbor road. And how pathetic was she? All she’d wanted was to escape, to put all the ugliness and hurt and pain behind her, and if that meant leaving her thriving career behind too, then so be it. The one had become inextricably linked to the other anyway, so she couldn’t even lose herself in her work to drown out her personal pain. Not when her personal pain had marched its pregnant self right into her office and announced its presence to God and the world. Her world. Her former world.

And now she was feeling, what . . . miffed? A little insulted that the legal whirl on Capitol Hill hadn’t come to a crashing halt because she’d decided to exit it, stage left? Okay, maybe she was. A little.

The caseload that had defined her life for more days, weeks, months, and years than she could remember was gone. Poof. No problem. Hand the files over and walk away. Don’t let the office door hit ya on the way out. Easy come, easy go. See ya later, bye.
That’s what you wanted, remember
?

So what if it seemed that both Tim and the profession she’d dedicated her life to could let her go. So easily, and so swiftly. Easily forgotten, easily replaced.

If only it could be that way for her.

Now her biggest problem was figuring out how to never be either of those things again.

She paused at the shipyard, looking up at the dark, shadowed spires that were the four tall ship masts, soaring so improbably high up into the night sky. Incredible. She made a note to ask Logan when the launch date would be. She wanted to see it being rolled out into the harbor, as the Cove’s ancestors had done so many times in centuries past.

Her thoughts drifted to the other changes coming to Half Moon Harbor. The yacht club. For God’s sake, who had let that plan get through? Without her wanting it to be, her gaze was pulled past the shipyard, to where Delia’s Diner would have been standing, and she felt a gut-deep pang to see the spot was nothing more than a flat lot, graded over, parking lot, deck and all. The docks that went along with the property were still there of course, but otherwise it was just a gaping hole, waiting to be filled.

She understood how that felt.

She let the memories roll in, almost defiantly now, all the times she’d spent at Delia’s, how much a part of her life it had been, and O’Reilly’s—Delia’s grandmother’s restaurant—too. Birthdays, graduation dinners. Older kids going to prom. O’Reilly’s had been gone before Hannah had reached prom age, but she remembered family dinners as a young girl, watching the teenagers coming in, boys all awkward in their tuxedos, girls in their fancy dresses, hair pinned up, corsages on wrists and boutonnieres pinned crookedly to lapels. It had all seemed so romantic to her.

Hannah forced her thoughts away from what she thought about romance these days, and thought instead of Delia as she’d been that afternoon, in the awesomely appalling bridesmaid dress she’d worn to the rehearsal. The gothic, almost funereal, punk-style getup—complete with studded collar and chainmail chastity belt—had made Hannah feel positively stunning by comparison. Delia was about ten years her senior, but they’d been like family for all of Hannah’s life, which was probably how Delia felt about pretty much everyone in the Cove. They certainly felt that way about her. Delia and Alex had become good friends, hence the co-maid-of-honor designation. Alex’s way of honoring both her ties to the Cove and Logan’s family, which Hannah thought had been beyond kind and thoughtful, given they hadn’t even met yet.

Her phone chirped, startling her. She juggled her bottle of ginger ale and dug the phone out of her jeans pocket, not bothering to look at the screen before answering it. It would be Fiona. “Hi, I’m okay. I just decided to get some—”

“Glad to hear it,” came an unfamiliar male voice. “Do I have the right number? Is this Hannah McCrae?”

Her mind wiped clean of all thought by the sudden shift, she took a beat to switch gears. She glanced at the phone, but the number was unknown to her. Putting it back to her ear, she said, “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage. Who is this?”

“Mike Garrison. Over at Thompson, Craft and Banks. Got a minute? I have a proposition for you.”

The knowing note he’d injected into that last part had her hackles rising. “I’m afraid I don’t, Mr. Garrison. It’s quite late, and I’m not—”

“From what I understand, late nights aren’t a problem for you.”

So. Apparently her past wasn’t done with her quite yet.
Yippee
. She lowered the phone, too tired to be pissed off, too numb to care, her thumb on the END button, then stopped and put it next to her ear again. “I sincerely doubt you understand much of anything. You’ll have to take your proposition elsewhere.”
Preferably up your ass. “
I’m not with Holcombe and Daggett any longer.”

“Don’t be so quick to judge. I know you left them—that’s why I’m calling.”

“The only one guilty of snap judgments, Mr. Garrison, would be you. Whatever you thought to propose, I’m not interested. Good night.”

“Wait! Listen, maybe that wasn’t the right approach, okay?” He chuckled. “I should have known you’d want a little more foreplay. My bad. I just wanted to say that H and D is a stuffy firm and I don’t blame you for walking. But not all firms are like that one. Some of us have a more . . . open-minded view of the workplace. I think there might be a place here for you. I’d love to meet you for drinks. Feel you out.” He chuckled again, and it made her skin crawl.

“Thank you once more for the incredibly insulting and demeaning invitation, Mr. Garrison. You’re right, I don’t belong at Holcombe and Daggett. And given your description, I can say with equal certainty that I also don’t belong at Thompson, Craft and Banks. It does sound, however, as if you’ve found exactly the right spot. Best of luck with that.”

“Stone-cold, straight-up bitch,” he said before she could click off, and worse, he made it sound surprisingly complimentary, then actually chuckled again. “Heard that about you, too. Like to make a man work for it, huh? Well, I like a challenge. Given your taste for the forbidden fruit, though, I hope it won’t put you off when I tell you I’m single. But I can promise you—”

She found the END button then and clicked off, barely resisting the urge to turn and fling the phone as far out into the harbor as she could, as if by doing so, she could fling Mike Garrison, and everyone just like him, out to sea with it. She would have hung up sooner, should have, but once he’d started in, she’d just gone still, shut down. Now she stood there, trembling in disgust, in anger, and yes, in hurt and humiliation, and—
dammit
—feeling the chill of the harbor breeze suddenly straight through to the bone. Deeper, if that were possible.

“Hey.”

She let out a short shriek and her phone did fly up in the air as she whirled around at the sound of the deep masculine voice coming from just behind her.