Out of the Blue Read online

  “Yeah, well, this is National Take-A-Break-Every-Five-Minutes Day. Enjoy it.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “Five minutes,” Hannah said firmly, still staring at Zach. She continued to stare at him while Karrie left. “Hi.”

  “Hi back,” he said. “I’m not sure what to say.”

  “Well, that would depend on how much you heard.” She looked mortified. “Feel free to lie and tell me you heard nothing.”

  “I heard everything.”

  She took that in with a little nod. “And here I thought it couldn’t get worse.”

  A woman in her midtwenties walked by. She didn’t have green hair, but was so beautiful, she looked almost unreal. When she saw Hannah, she stopped short and...giggled, ruining the effect.

  “So...did any of those tips we gave you work for you last night?” She glanced sideways at Zach, sizing him up.

  Hannah looked as if she wanted a hole to open up and swallow her. “Maybe we could discuss this another time,” she suggested to the woman.

  The woman grinned at Zach. “Sure.”

  Zach waited until they were alone again. “Let me get this all straight. Last night...you were trying to...”

  “Yes,” she said miserably. “And to tell you the truth, I’d rather you didn’t tell me how ridiculous it was.”

  “I...wouldn’t do that.”

  “Really?” She smiled a little. “You’re awfully kind.”

  That made him laugh. “Hannah, kind is about the last thing I’m feeling at this moment.”

  “What are you then?”

  Turned on, dammit. “I’m not sure.”

  She thought about that. “Well then, I guess I have nothing to lose....” With that, she moved closer, then closer still, until the skirt of her sundress touched his thighs.

  Around them, the air thickened. Her scent came to him, light and pretty. Sensuous. Her eyes were huge, and despite her bold move, very uncertain.

  A complete opposition to the way her body swayed toward his. She took his hand in her much smaller one and brought it to...her stomach?

  Make sure he feels it.

  Karrie’s words came back to him, and he didn’t know whether to laugh or groan. “She was wrong,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with the desire he was fighting with his every breath. “It’s not the material a man wants to feel.”

  “No?”

  She sounded breathless, too, and in contrast to his words, his fingers spread wide to touch as much of her as he could, feeling her belly tighten. “No. It’s skin I want. Bare skin.”

  Her mouth formed a perfect little O at that. “I...see.”

  “Hannah...” She seemed so vulnerable, yet unbearably sexy at the same time, and now that he knew she’d never been with a man, that she was yearning and burning for just that, he could hardly breathe. “What’s going on?”

  “I thought you already knew.”

  “I mean other than you’re asking your clerk and guests for hints on how to...”

  “Seduce you?” She winced. “I asked my brother, too.”

  “Michael? God.” He let out a slow breath. “But why?”

  “Why am I asking for tips?”

  “Why everything. Why me? Why are you a...”

  “Virgin.” Her eyes went sad. “It’s that awful, huh?”

  “No. No,” he said again, then shoved his fingers in his hair as if that could help him think. “Hannah...why are you doing this?” To me, he wanted to add, but better him than some other guy, right? At least he could resist her.

  Probably.

  Okay, maybe he was going to have trouble in that department.

  The phone rang, and he’d never been so relieved in his life.

  With a small sound of frustration, Hannah backed away and answered it. Then her shoulders sagged almost imperceptibly, and her smile went tight. “Mom? Everything okay?” She listened intently, and while she did, Zach backed up and pretended interest in a selection of T-shirts to give her some privacy.

  He wondered if she’d be insulted if he went running.

  Probably, he decided.

  “What about the money I sent you last week?” he heard her ask. “No, Mom, Michael paid that bill for you already. The other money we sent was for you.” She sighed, and when Zach risked a peek at her, she was hunched over on a stool behind the counter, rubbing her temples.

  Zach remembered Hannah’s mom, vaguely, from their school days. A nice, harried woman in perpetual grief, trying to do it all: work full-time, raise two children on her own, and manage all the household chores that came with that responsibility. She’d always seemed...haggard. Worried. He knew Hannah had grown up hovering near the poverty line, and knew for her mother at least, little had changed.

  He was also aware of the fact that Hannah completely depended on her income from the Norfolk Inn, every penny, much more than either Tara or Alexi, both of whom could go to their parents for help if they needed to.

  The inn was still fairly new, still earning its reputation. There’d been renovations needed, big ones, and the three women had procured a loan to cover the costs.

  Zach couldn’t imagine the revenues from the place paid enough to easily support Hannah, much less her mother, not yet anyway.

  And damn if that didn’t twist at the heart he was trying so valiantly to ignore when it came to the elusive Hannah Novak.

  “Don’t worry about it, okay, Mom?” Her voice was reassuring in a way one would expect a mother to speak to a child, not the other way around. “Michael and I’ll send you more. We’ll get it all taken care of.... Gotta go, I have a customer. Yes, I’ll call you more often. I love you, too. Bye.”

  Slowly she hung up the phone, her gaze focused off in the distance as she did, her mind a million miles away. Probably figuring out how to give more, as if she hadn’t been giving all her life.

  God, she was beautiful, Zach thought, hauntingly so. But it wasn’t that physical beauty drawing him now. It was that spirit and inner strength.

  Walk away, he thought. You’re on temporary leave from a demanding job, one that doesn’t give you the luxury of letting a woman into your life, even if you wanted, which you don’t.

  Just walk away.

  Instead he moved toward her. “Hey,” he said softly. “You okay?”

  She jerked, then blinked at him once before pasting another of those fake smiles on her face, the kind he was certain fooled any customer because it was such a pretty, friendly smile.

  It didn’t fool him because it didn’t quite meet her eyes, eyes that were filled with mysteries. He’d always known the warm, cheerful, sweet and engaging Hannah had depths to her, but suddenly he wanted to explore them, every single one. Dammit. “How’s your mother?”

  “She...misses me.” Guilt flashed across her face. “I don’t spend enough time with her, and whenever she calls I’m reminded of that—not that she bugs me about it or anything—but I can hear the loneliness in her voice. It kills me.” Another sigh broke free from her lips, and with everything inside him he wanted to help.

  “I hear the same thing when I call my parents,” he admitted quietly. “I don’t do it enough because of how it makes me feel when I hear how old they sound.”

  The smile on Hannah’s face faded as she absorbed that. “I know. I hate hearing my mother age.”

  “I worry that I don’t see them enough and someday they won’t be around to see at all. And Alexi, too. I go too long without seeing her. I’ve been gone so much in the past years. They hate that.”

  He hadn’t meant to say so much, had meant only to prove kinship with her, but her eyes were deep and clear, and he felt as if he could see himself mirrored there. Certainly his own feelings were reflected back, which shouldn’t have surprised him.

  Neither should the fact that at that moment, he felt closer to Hannah than he did to anyone.

  “Do you miss them when you’re working?” she asked.

  “When I’m working I don’t have ti