In the Dark (20 page)

Forget it,
she told herself,
It was nothing. And just to be on the safe side, don't sleep with him again.

Tarrying as long as possible, she went back into the room, girded in a towel. To her relief, Luther was gone. The sky behind her shades was dark. Hannah dressed in a mint-green nightshirt, which wasn't as soft as Westy's Harley-Davidson T-shirt, but at least it covered her.

Heading down the stairs, she found the SEALs watching football on TV.
"I
think I'll call it a night, guys," she announced with forced brightness.

Luther sent her a long, solemn look. In his eyes, she could see both regret and concern. "Go ahead and sleep in your bed, Hannah. I got plenty of rest today."

"No," she said quickly. "I’ll be in the guest room. You shouldn't stay up all night."

The disappointment on his face assured her that her message was clear. They wouldn't be sleeping together. No more sex until she figured out how to detangle her emotions from the act itself.

Westy looked back and forth between them, his little smirk notably absent.

"Hannah," Luther called as she turned back up the stairs. She looked back, heart clutching traitorously.

"Sleep well," he called.

"I will," she lied. "Good night, Westy."

"'Night."

Despite Luther's wishes for a good night's sleep, Hannah tossed and turned
on the
daybed in the guest room. At one in the morning, she heard Luther return to the adjoining bedroom. He groaned in pain as he eased onto the mattress. She wondered if he'd torn something when he'd nipped her over, driving himself deeply inside of her. The memory of that experience brought on a rush of renewed desire. She wanted to relive the pleasure again
…
and again. She sighed, turned over, and tried to sleep.

At three in the morning, she surrendered to her hunger pains and crept down the stairs to find a snack, moving as quietly as possible, so as not to disturb Westy who was sprawled upon a sleeping bag in the living room.

The streetlight outside was her only illumination, shining brightly through the sheer curtain at her bay window. Bypassing the two front rooms, Hannah crept down the hall to the kitchen.

She opened a cupboard, feeling for a box of ginger-snaps. The cookies went best with milk, but that had been poured down the disposal.

Crunch.
She bit into the stale cookie as quietly as possible.

The light came on suddenly, and she whirled with surprise, half expecting a stranger to be stalking her. It was only Westy, standing there with his long hair in disarray, his chest naked, and his gun clutched casually in his left hand. Hannah couldn't help but wonder why his broad powerful torso didn't affect her the way Luther's did.

"You going to eat all of those?" he asked, gaze dropping to the box.

She handed it to him. He helped himself to a handful and gave it back. They stood there, munching gingersnaps in silence.

"You're good for him, you know," Westy said, finally.

"What?"

"Little John. You're good for him."

"You don't know what you're talking about," she said with that same feeling of confusion storming her.

Westy just looked at her, his blue eyes unbearably direct. "Some things can't be planned ahead of time. You take them as they come. Maybe you both need to learn that."

She took exception to his advice. "Yeah, well some plans are too sacred to be messed with," she countered. "For three years I've been holed up in a little cubicle analyzing foreign military reports. I've dreamed of nothing but getting the hell out of there, out of this country, to do something that actually matters."

"Sounds to me like you're running. Or maybe chasing someone"

Her jaw dropped as she stared at him. "What the hell do you know?" she said sharply.

Her temper didn't seem to faze him. "Just think about it," he said easily.

She didn't want to think about it. She stalked past him, shoving the half-eaten box at him as she headed for the stairs.

Who was Westy to tell her what her motives were? What was it with men, anyway? For three years she'd been placating Uncle Caleb, who didn't want her doing anything dangerous. Then there was Kevin, who'd starve
to death
if she didn't remind him to eat. Now Westy had the gall to insinuate that her motives for returning to the CIA were flawed somehow.

What did he know about her motives?

Another thought occurred to her as she flung herself down on the daybed. Maybe Luther'd asked Westy to talk her out of her plans. Maybe he wanted Hannah to stick around, to be part of his life.

Not likely, she thought, ignoring the little flutter in her chest. She was her father's daughter, every inch of the way. If she meant to leave her mark on this world as her father had, she'd better get to it. No man, no matter how appealing, no matter how heroic, handsome, sensitive rich—God, the list could go on forever—was going to make her plot a different course than the one she'd chosen.

29 September ~ 08:54 EST

"What about a desk?" Hannah asked, peering past the dining-room table and upended chairs. Her basement was chock full of household goods from her grandmother's estate. Grandma Estelle had sickened and died shortly after the crash that killed her daughter and son-in-law. The furniture from two estates didn't fit into Hannah's diminutive town home. It sat gathering dust and mildew in her basement. At five o'clock in the morning, she'd gotten the great idea that she would give it to Luther as repayment for the money he'd spent on her.

"You don't have to do this, you know," he said,
looking
over the furniture with a hand jammed into the pocket of his jeans.

"I want to pay you back for all the clothes you bought me—”

"Clothes you'll never wear," he interrupted.

 "That's beside the point," she insisted. "Plus I need to get rid of this stuff," she added.

"What about Kevin? Isn't he going to want any?"

"Kevin's already picked through it. He doesn't like antiques."

"Well, at least let me pay you," Luther insisted.

Hannah looked up sharply. Rays of sunlight shot through the high windows of her basement, lighting the troubled blue depths of Luther's eyes. "That won’t be necessary," she said, her tone frosty.

He pulled his hand out of his pocket and rubbed his neck. "Okay, Hannah" he relented. "I'll take the desk, the dining-room set, the dresser, and the nightstand. And anything you want to get rid of."

"Thank you," she said. "You can start with that hat rack, and don't you dare use your right hand. We'll get Galworth and Stone to help. I'll line up a rental truck."

It took until midafternoon to empty Hannah's basement. Luther, fanning himself at the wheel of the U-Haul, glanced at his watch. It was fifteen hundred hours, hot as sin, and the U-Haul had no air-conditioning. Westy planned to take the lead in his Nissan. The Winnebago would follow at the rear. They should be back at the beach by nightfall.

Hannah, who'd just locked up her town house with her extra key, looked from the Nissan to the U-Haul, as if deciding who to ride with. To Luther's consternation, she marched past both vehicles and knocked on the door of the GallStones' Winnebago.

Oh, no, no. Valentino had warned him to stay vigilant, which meant he needed to insist that Hannah ride with either him or Westy. But did he really want to do that? She'd been in such a stormy mood all morning, he couldn't predict the outcome with any certainty, except that he'd probably come out looking like a fool. The gallstones were trained bodyguards. They ought to be able to keep her safe on the three-and-a-half-hour ride home.

With a sigh, he signaled the go-ahead to Westy, who was watching with consternation through his rearview mirror. With a shake of his head, Westy pulled out into the narrow street, afternoon sunshine glinting off his cobalt sports car.

Luther could understand Hannah being mad at him. They should have talked before they'd done what they'd done, even though she agreed that there was no future for them. But why was she mad at Westy?

He'd overheard them in the kitchen last night, talking briefly. He trusted Westy not to trespass into his territory, but the chief must have stepped over the line somehow. Hannah had spoken to him shortly and then stomped up the stairs. Now she was avoiding both SEALs.

Feeling vaguely sorry for himself, Luther tailed the Nissan toward the George Washington Memorial Parkway, driving with the windows down to cool himself. The Winnebago stayed right behind him. Christ, it was a good thing the Individual
was
in Valentino's custody. They couldn't be any more conspicuous than they were at the moment, driving in a freaking convoy to Virginia Beach.

It was dusk by the time the U-Haul had been fully unloaded. Hannah's furniture filled Luther's previously empty house. He stood in the living room, taking in the effect with mixed feelings.

The overstuffed sofa Veronica had disdained to take with her went amazingly well with the braided rug Hannah had rolled out in front of it. An end table with a brass lamp on it flanked one end. A rocking chair sat across from the sofa, with a mahogany coffee table in between. An old-fashioned clock chimed every fifteen minutes from its perch on his fireplace mantel. He wondered if it would keep him up at night.

How was he supposed to forget Hannah when her possessions had taken over his home? He might have thought she'd done it intentionally, only she'd avoided him all day, making a point, perhaps, to prove that she wasn't out to claim him.

"What's the plan, sir?” Westy asked from his seat on the living-room sofa. The sky in the window behind him had deepened to indigo. It was getting late. All of them were tired.

Hannah stepped out of the kitchen, where she was cleaning up the crumbs from their sandwiches. "I'm beat," she announced, flopping down on the couch, as far from Westy as she could get, her legs sprawled before her.

Luther's gaze slid up her impossibly long legs. She was wearing jeans that clung to her curves and a hot-pink tank top in deference to the Indian summer heat Her short wavy hair was windblown, and she looked sexy as hell.

The realization that he owned only one bed wormed its way into his brain. Concerns for Hannah's safety grappled with the desperate need to have her to himself.

"I don't see any reason for you to stay, Chief, if you don't want to. Newman's watchdogs are out front if anything comes up. We'll see you at the Trial Services Building tomorrow at zero eight hundred."

Westy glanced at his watch and rolled to his feet.

"I need to fetch Jesse from the sitter's," he said decisively. "See y'all in the morning, unless you'd rather come with me, ma'am?" he asked Hannah, flicking Luther an inscrutable look.

It was obvious Hannah was caught off guard by the offer. Through narrowed eyes, she looked from Westy to Luther and back again, as if determining which was the worse of two evils. "No, thank you," she said remotely. "I'm too tired to move."

Westy nodded. He sent Luther a quick salute and disappeared. The door closed quietly behind him.

"Did I miss something between you and him?" Luther asked, prompted by jealousy.

"I doubt it," she said in that same strange tone.

"Why are you mad at him?" he persisted.

"I don't know, you tell me."

"If I knew, I wouldn't be asking," he retorted, impatient with batting words around.

She switched topics on him abruptly. "How's your shoulder?"

'It's throbbing," he admitted.

"I'm sorry. Maybe this wasn't the best time to move my furniture."

"I'm fine. And thank you- Everything fits in really well."

She glanced at the chestnut table and chairs filling his dining area. "It does, doesn't it?" she said, sounding a little bemused.

Seeing the dark circles under her eyes, he forgot his frustration with her. "Would you like to shower?" he asked. It was obvious she hadn't slept at all last night. Neither had he. He'd relived their lovemaking second by second, whetting his appetite for more. Pride alone had kept him in the bed when he was oh so tempted to cruise down the hall and beg her to do it all again.

"You first," Hannah said. "The hot water will help your
shoulder." She keeled over, kicking off her shoes as she sprawled along the length of the sofa.

The curve of Hannah's waist was almost his undoing. He turned away without a word and shut himself in his blue-tiled bathroom.

Twenty minutes later, he ventured into the living room wearing pajama pants. Hannah was sound asleep in the same position he'd left her. In the lamp's soft glow, her face looked young and untroubled. He went to fetch a blanket and pillow from his linen closet.

On second thought, he grabbed two blankets and two pillows. He didn't want to leave her by the curtainless window, and with his shoulder out of commission, he couldn't carry her to the bedroom. So, the only option was to lie down next to her, on the floor.

He dropped his linens to drape a blanket over Hannah, stuffing the pillow under her head. With a moan, she pulled it close, hugging it the way she'd once hugged him.

He nudged the coffee table off to one side and spread his own blanket over the rug. Switching off the light, he lay down and sought a comfortable position. There wasn't one. His shoulder protested mightily. But he'd put up with worse, lying in traction for six months, not to mention all those wretched weeks in SEAL training. He closed his eyes and willed himself to fall asleep.

Deep into the night, Luther sensed movement. Someone was standing over him. He couldn't immediately remember where he was, only that he was lying on the ground. He responded immediately and instinctively. Sweeping a leg out, he knocked whoever it was off their feet.

Hannah went down hard. The sweep had come so unexpectedly, she wasn't able to do anything more than put her hands down to break her fall. She landed on her tailbone, between Luther's legs. He threw one leg over her midsection, pinning her to the braided rug. "It's just me," she managed to gasp.

He released her immediately, groaning as they both sat up to take stock of each other. The waxing moon cast just enough light to throw Luther's form into silhouette. "Are you okay?" He ran his hands over her, the way he had on the RIB the night he'd whisked her out of Cuba. The pleasure of his touch made her forget her sore backside.