Energized (8 page)

W
HAT
THE
HELL
was he saying? Niall finally had Hannah in the same room again after all this time and he was sending her away?

“It's okay.” Hannah gave him a winning smile that didn't quite mask the surprise and hurt in her tawny brown eyes. “I'm only in town for a few weeks anyway.”

“Niall, we'll be short a server without her on Saturday.” Karma stepped between them, but her gaze bounced from Niall to Hannah and back again, like she was watching words volley through the air. “Surely, we can afford to keep her for a few days. The guests loved her. I swear she sold more desserts tonight than we have in a week. And her being here gives me time to train her for Saturday.”

He couldn't argue with the logic but Karma didn't know everything he did. A one-night stand showed up unannounced in his restaurant months after their night together. A one-night stand who didn't have the decency to give him her real phone number. Something about the whole thing didn't sit
right with him. And not simply because Hannah's presence evoked a sexual response in him.

“Karma, will you excuse us? I'd like to get to know my new employee.” He stepped back and gestured to Hannah. “Come into my office.”

Hannah's brows knit and she gave Karma a nervous, wary smile. And damn, if that didn't piss him off more.
She
was afraid of him? She showed up in his place of business after giving him a bogus number but was acting as if he frightened her. The woman probably was every bit the nutball he'd suspected she was back in Fincastle. Why in the fuck had he slept with her in the first place?

“Absolutely, Mr. Graham.” She gave him a winning smile and strode into his office.

Niall ignored Karma's suspicious stare and closed the door between them. Turning, he found Hannah had claimed the only chair in the room. Sitting cross-legged, with her hands folded primly in her lap, she smiled at him. “Hi, Niall. Or should I call you
Mr. Graham
? Or is it
Boss
?”

He sighed and leaned his back against the door. The doorknob was a lifeline he held on to to keep from crossing the small room and touching her. His head might think she was some kind of wacko stalker but his body certainly didn't seem to care. She was beautiful, ethereal, and damned charming with that mouth that always seemed to be smiling. “What are you doing here, Hannah?”

Her smile widened marginally and she uncrossed her legs, letting her feet dangle in front of her. They didn't quite reach the floor because the chair was set for him.

“If you think I'm some psycho stalker chick, forget it.” She shrugged. “I had no idea you even lived in Tidewater. I didn't know you owned a restaurant. I thought you were in the Marines.”

“I was. When you met me last winter, I was in the Marines. My enlistment ended in May.” He glanced around the cluttered room. “I came home to take over the family business.”

“From your brother?”

“
With
my brother,” he replied more defensively than he'd
intended. “But you still haven't answered my question. Why are you here, in Tidewater, applying for a job in my restaurant?”

She tilted her chin up and slightly to the left, staring at him with those eyes that seemed to peek into his soul. It was damned unnerving. He almost hoped that she had sought him out, twisted as it sounded in his own head. Then at least this attraction he felt would be mutual. No. Wait. That was wrong. Heinously wrong. He didn't want her to want him because then her presence meant she had to be a stalker.

She's making me fucking crazy and she hasn't even said why she's here yet.

“I'm searching for my sisters. They live here in Tidewater. Or so I've been led to believe.” She pushed off the chair. Her shoes scuffled on the floor as she stood. “Relax, Niall. I didn't track you down like some lovesick Marine groupie. My being in this spot wasn't my intention. Well, it was but not because of you. This place,” she indicated the space with both hands, “used to be my house when I was a child.”

Niall's teeth set at the lie. Christ, he hated liars. Good. If she were a liar, it would be easier to make her go.

He pointed at the floor with a single finger. “This place wasn't habitable until five years ago.”

“So suspicious.” She crossed the minuscule room, stopping right in front of him. “But you're right. Sort of. This building wasn't habitable five years ago, but an old woman lived here twenty years ago. She was my mother's landlord. My mother's little bungalow sat where the parking lot is now. I came here this morning to see if I could remember anything about living here.”

“You
lived
here?” he asked. She shrugged and he clarified, “In a house that used to stand on my parking lot?” It seemed too unbelievable to be true.

“Yes.” She pointed at the far wall. “The church across the street was our church. It's where my mother and father were married.”

“The parents who own the bar in Fincastle?” She had to be lying. The alternative was too uncomfortable to be true.

“No, they adopted me when I was three.” Her ever-smiling
mouth turned down at the corners. “My first mother died when I was three. I was adopted by Axel and Rosalind and we moved to Ohio not long after. I don't really remember much about living in Tidewater. It's why I wanted to come back here and see if I could remember anything before I went to find my sisters.”

“And did you?” When confusion wrinkled her brow he added, “Remember anything about living here?”

An odd expression slid across her face. It was so fast, he doubted he'd actually seen anything.

“Sort of. I remembered a day that happened a few months before my mother died but not much else. Anyway, I saw Ross put a placard in the window asking for a waitress. It seemed like a sign.”

“A sign?”

That blinding heart-stopping smile was back on her face. “Yes, a sign. No pun intended. I needed a temporary job while I'm in town for the summer. I know it seems like a huge coincidence but I was just as surprised as you to find you here.”

“A coincidence?”

“Yeah. Well, a sign. I don't really believe in coincidences. Do you?”

He shook his head. “So you saw the sign and applied for the job?”

“That's what I said.” Her eyes sparkled. “Right?”

“Right.” He was repeating her but he couldn't seem to stop himself. Something about her made him both want to boot her out the door and go in for another one of her amazing kisses. He did neither but kept talking. “Didn't you just graduate college? Shouldn't you be looking for more permanent work? Or is this what you plan to do while you paint?”

“You remembered that I'm an artist?” Delight made her tawny eyes soften.

“Of course I remember. Your blue owl was unique. Extraordinary.” Much to his surprise, her lips were now inches from his. She hadn't moved closer. He had. Somehow he had closed the distance between them without realizing it. His hands, no longer clutching the doorknob, hung limply at his
sides. His fingers tingled with the need to touch her. “Are you looking for permanent work or is this a summer break thing?”

“A summer break thing, but shouldn't you be more concerned with, um . . . other matters?” She sucked in her bottom lip, but it did nothing to dim the smile on her face.

“Other matters?” he asked hoarsely.

She folded her arms over her chest, her face solemn. “Firing me, for one. Unless I've passed your not-a-psycho-stalker test.”

“Right.” Her words dipped him in frigid reality. He had been worried about just that. And clearly, she knew it. Way to look like an ass in front of her.

A stalker wouldn't have given him a bogus number. Therefore, she couldn't be a stalker. An infuriatingly attractive woman he'd slept with once but not a stalker. A woman who had the skills to do the job and do it well. Why not hire her? It was only for a few days.

“Look, what I said out there was true,” Niall said. “We cannot afford to keep you on past the wedding but Karma is also right. Since you're not staying in Tidewater indefinitely, this could work out for both of us. You can work this week, while looking for your sisters and another job, and I don't have to find someone else to train.” He paused, then added, “Let's just keep what happened back in Fincastle back in Fincastle, if you know what I mean. You work for me, nothing else.”

He held his breath.

A vertical crease appeared between her brows and she nodded slowly. “Sure. That's ancient history. You're my boss and I'm your employee. Got it.”

Then they stood there.

Unmoving.

Breathing the same air. Honeysuckles.

Christ, the scent made him think of their night together. An incredible night.

She reached out a hand and he might have jumped, if not for his training. It wasn't him she reached for. It was the doorknob.

“Right,” he said, reaching past her before she could touch it. He yanked the door harder than he'd intended but it was open. He'd started, so he kept right on going, striding out of
the office and to the back door. He didn't trust himself not to touch her when she moved past, so he followed his brother's lead and headed to the exit, calling over his shoulder, “Lock up, Karma. See you tomorrow.”

Once outside in his truck, he sat with the key in the ignition.

It would be easy, too easy, to go back inside. Tell her to forget what he said about forgetting Fincastle. Why in the hell had he said that anyway? Like he wouldn't have jumped at the chance to fuck her again.

No, not fuck.

Their night had been more intense than that. More personal than a simple itch that needed scratching. Not the flowery crap that poets write about . . . but something that made a corner of his soul crave the chance to experience it all again.

And that was why he sat in the truck, unmoving. Part of him wanted to leave. The woman was damned unnerving. She affected him in ways he didn't want to think about. She was a stranger. He shouldn't feel this bizarre pull to be around her. Hell, he'd even tried to call her for all the good it did him.

Not to screw her or to touch her or to even see her. Just to talk to her. When had he ever felt that desire before? Never. That cold December night, she managed to reach inside and comfort him on the very night he could have sworn he'd never feel peace again. Then she'd kissed him good-bye and handed him a phone number to nowhere.

And that too kept his ass in the seat of his beloved truck.

Christ, he was a fucking Marine. Marines didn't run from danger, they ran toward it. But he'd bet his left nut that no Marine had ever before gone up against a slip of a woman with a fairylike face and the ability to bring a man to his knees with a simple glance.

Tomorrow, he wouldn't run. He didn't need to. She'd be gone in a few days. But before she left, he'd find out why she'd given him a bogus number.

*   *   *

“
A
RE YOU ALL
right?” Karma asked as soon as Niall left.

“Sure. I still have a job.” Hannah smiled and tried to push
away the hurt that had knifed through her at Niall's request to leave what happened between them in Fincastle. She'd already decided she'd have to show him he needed her around. She'd just kind of hoped that he'd
want
to pick up where they'd left off.

Karma pursed her lips, giving her a narrow-eyed stare. “Your au—” She cut herself off as Michael pushed through the door from the Master Room, a bin full of dirty dishes in his hands. Turning to him she said, “Michael, just leave the dishes, I'll get them. We'll see you tomorrow.”

Michael's bangs shifted, as if moved by raised eyebrows before he smiled. “Sure. Clock me out?”

Karma nodded, taking the bin from him and disappearing around the demi-wall to the sink area.

Michael removed his apron, tossed it into the laundry basket by the back door, then left. Karma immediately pulled the screened door closed and latched it, then shut and locked the heavy wooden door behind it. Lifting her shoulder in a come-with-me maneuver, she gestured for Hannah to follow her to the sink.

Despite being tired and seriously ready to call it a night, Hannah obeyed.

The big metal dishwasher ran noisily. Steam poured from beneath the grate, wafting through the room like a wet, heavy cloud. But everything, aside from the tub of dirty dishes, gleamed in the kitchen.

“Wow, the cooks don't waste time cleaning their stations at night, do they?”

Karma smirked. “Can you blame them? Virgil wants to get home and spend time with his wife. And Paulie . . . well, he's an enigma. Doesn't really say where he's going at night. But if I had to guess, I'd say he's curled up at home in bed with a book.”

“Not an extrovert?”

“Hardly. Our chefs, and we call them chefs here, are more comfortable sorting tomatoes than talking to guests. That's why they have us.” Karma set the bin of dishes on the floor next to a white cooler with a blue lid. She lifted off the top, pulled out two bottles of water, and handed one to Hannah.