Page 1 of Safe With Me
Chapter One
Hannah
Twenty-six years old and still stepping over cracks in the sidewalk because my mama made me nuts, but . . . she was my mama. It’s not like Iwantedanything bad to happen to her. What I wanted was for her to stop nagging me all the dang time about when I’d find some nice young man, get a ring on my finger like Gracie and Elizabeth. Maybe for her to accept me the way I was.
Hah.
Talk about magical thinking.
The bells attached to the door at Simply Home chimed, soft and sweet like Mrs. Lenora, the tones almost buried by a blaring horn. Dodging another crack, I smiled on a sip of coffee and flexed my ringless fingers in a wave as Tate’s truck rumbled by. Mama would just have to get over herself. I wasn’t in any hurry–
Mrs. Lenora backed onto the sidewalk, a swirl of linen pants and a silk blouse, and I jolted to a stop, clutching my cup and Daddy’s, swallowing afuckand a relieved squeak as the coffee in both stayed put.
“Oh, Hannah, I’m sorry.” Settling her sidewalk sign with one hand, she laid another on my arm with that pretty, light laugh of hers. “I was not looking where I was going.”
“It’s okay, Mrs. Lenora.” I smiled back because it was impossible not to. IlovedMrs. Lenora, and honestly, the piddling end to the awkward string of dates I’d had with Tick last year had left me more disappointed at losing the possibility of one day being her daughter-in-law than losing him. My yoga-class friend Deanne was married to her youngest boy and sangher praises all the time – I wanted an amazing woman like that in my life.
Okay, even more honestly, I’d been disappointed for several reasons. Mrs. Lenora’s oldest boy – the only one still single last year – was smart and funny, and he’d flirted every time he came in the store or I ran into him in town. Sure, he dated around and it never lasted long, but I couldn’t say much about that because I dated around and my dalliances never lasted long, either.
But, Lord.
We’d gone to dinner, and poof, the man became someone else. Oh, he was still smart and funny, but as soon as he picked me up, a new air of aloofness clung to him like those faded Levis, except the subtle standoffishness wasn’t nearly as attractive. Fine, I wrote it off as first date jitters, because I was a little nervous, too. I mean, the man was hot as hell, and you never know, I might have been looking across the table at my future husband.
Except it didn’t get better on the second date, when he came down from Atlanta to take me to a movie, or the third, when I met him in Columbus and I drove two hours for stilted conversation that even pizza at the Cannon didn’t make up for. I’d gotten a room at the Marriott because I didn’t intend to drive two hours back home, plus a hotel room meant privacy and a king-sized bed and no members of the gossip committee hanging on everything we said or did.
The conversation over pizza and beer might have been stiff; however, the man really could kiss and he did make a suit look good. And it wasn’t like we had to talk all that much in bed.
Yeah, I didn’t think we’d make it there. We had the elevator to ourselves, and I pressed into him, fingering his belt buckle, already thinking about the things we could do, cataloguing the responses in my body, and–
Long fingers pressed into my hips and shifted me back, his mouth lifting from mine. He puffed out a breath, brows twisted into a frown. “I’m sorry.”
Flushed and breathless and my lower belly filled with that pleasant crampy sense of want, I met his dark gaze, noted the tension carving little lines at the corners of his eyes, and picked up on the slight panic in his expression.
I eased back a step and sighed. “Want a beer?”
Confusion glinted in his brown eyes. “What?”
Lord, he was supposed to be smart – AP classes, valedictorian, multiple college degrees and all that. I didn’t roll my eyes, but enunciated each word. “Do you want a beer?”
“Um.” He scraped a hand through his hair. He needed a haircut, so the almost-black strands brushed his collar and ended up tousled at the front. “Yeah.”
Pfft. Those fancy AP classes with Mr. Davis worth it, my ass. Obviously, I’d done just fine with Ms. Ostrus’s regular college prep English.
I pulled out the key card and jerked a thumb over my shoulder when the doors slid open. “Come on, then.”
He hesitated, and then I did roll my eyes.
“I bought some beers from the shop downtown while I was waiting on you and stuck them in the minifridge, Lamar.” I stepped into the little lobby area that opened up into the hotel hallways. “I’m not going to jump on you once we’re past my room door.”
The little sound he made behind me might have been a chuckle. Lord, he was something. Not the love of my life or my future husband, but something for sure.
He followed me to my room, I let us in, and true to my word, I did not climb his tall-drink-of-water self like a tree. I grabbedus a couple of bottles, didn’t even glance at the king-sized bed, and settled on the couch-like seat in front of the window. I’d sprung for one of the fancy rooms with the original brick walls and tall windows, and these comfy little cushions ran along beneath one window. I’d be able to see the train when it ran up the street later (The reviews mentioned that as a negative, but a train running by the hotel? Heck, yes. I was all over that.).
Beer in hand, he stood in the middle of the small space of open floor, looking as awkward as Tate when he’d been tasked with holding the engagement ring during Jase’s engineered proposal to Elizabeth.
Pretty damn awkward, except I actually felt bad for Tick.
I tucked a foot under my butt and waved my bottle at him. “What’s your deal anyway?”
