He pulled her closer and dropped his lips to the top of her hair.
Finally, he got it.
She hadn’t heard it all.
Not even most of it.
Just the part she could misinterpret.
“You missed the part when my partner was givin’ me shit about my new babe takin’ my mind off the job, how I needed to get my head back in the game and how you were distracting me from doing that.”
“Oh,” she whispered into his chest, her arms around him going even tighter. She dropped her head back and he lifted his up to catch her eyes. “I should have told you I overheard. Let you explain. I’m sorry.”
Straight up apology.
It took balls to do shit like that, even for sweet, cute, shy women.
His f**king reward.
“It’s done, baby,” he told her.
Hanna nodded, then again tipped her chin down and planted her forehead in his chest.
“Do you think I’m a crazy, creepy stalker lady, hanging at Rachelle’s just to see you walk in?”
“Absolutely not,” he replied immediately, his voice steely, and her head jerked back so her eyes could scan his face to ascertain the veracity of his words.
He let his expression do the talking because he didn’t think her crush was crazy or creepy.
It was like everything about her, sweet and cute.
He just wished like f**k he’d been paying more attention, so instead of spending the next however long it took coaxing her into his bed she’d already be there.
Finally, she said, “I think I actually believe you.”
Raid smiled. “Good, ‘cause I’m not lyin’.”
Hanna’s body melted into his and she gave him a smile back.
Fuck, he had to get out of there.
“Now let me go unless you want me to stay,” he ordered.
He was gratified at the lengthy hesitation before she let him go.
He leaned in, kissed her forehead and moved to the door.
He had it open when something occurred to him and he turned back.
“You thought you were ending this earlier,” he noted. She tipped her head to the side, but then righted it and nodded. “So why did you give me the afghan?”
Her brows drew together in confusion, he sensed not at his question, but at her actions. Then she laid it out honestly.
“I don’t know. Maybe I was being my usual idiot and wanted to give you something to remember me. Maybe, even with what I thought you were doing, I knew you were a partial good guy, what with offering to take care of Grams’s yard and all, and I wanted to give something back. The only thing I had to give. Something that would keep you warm. But really, I don’t know. I just…” she shrugged, “did it.”
“Glad you did, honey,” he replied.
“Me too,” she said.
He gave her a grin. Hers was shy, but she returned it.
“Lock this after me,” he commanded.
Hanna nodded and he jerked up his chin.
Then he walked out the door, closing it behind him. He was on the steps when he heard it lock.
Raid sat in his Jeep and didn’t pull away until the downstairs lights were off and he saw her shadow moving behind the filmy curtains of her bedroom.
He drove to his place. He tagged the afghan and walked up the side stairs, unlocked his door and moved in.
He pulled off his clothes, yanked the comforter off his mattress, untied the satin ribbons around the afghan and threw it out on his bed.
Then he climbed under it.
He’d been right when he first touched it.
She’d been right when she said it would keep him warm.
Heaven.
Then Raiden Miller fell asleep under the warmth of Hanna’s cashmere, and for the first time in a long time he didn’t have a nightmare.
Not even one.
Chapter Eight
Double Feature
The next evening…
“Leave it to you, when I’m lookin’ forward to my plans for after the f**kin’ movie, you find a double feature,” Raiden grumbled.
I threw a nervous smile over my shoulder at Raiden, who was carrying a big bucket of popcorn in the crook of his arm and two huge sodas in his hands. He was following me down the aisle of the Willow Deluxe, our theater in town that, against the odds of competition from the huge cineplexes only forty-five minutes away in Denver, stayed in business.
This was mostly because the town liked it. Then again, the citizens of Willow just liked Willow.
Our town was one of those strange exceptions to every rule. We had not gone the way of one-stop convenience and bulk buying economy.
We had a butcher. We had a fruit and veggie shop. We had a non-chain hardware store. We had a grocery store that everyone went to that was family owned and had been for over fifty years. We had a florist, a craft shop, three gift shops, a coffee house, Rachelle’s Café, a pizza joint that did great Italian on the whole, a biker bar, a cowboy bar, a Broncos fans only bar and more.
Including the Deluxe, which was a not-for-profit and stayed in business as well as continued renovations due to the generosity of a town that wanted to keep its old-fashioned, hometown feel.
I loved the Deluxe.
I loved my town.
But my smile was nervous because of what I suspected Raiden’s plans were for after the movie, not because I was still worried and wondering if he was really into me.
No, even if last night, or more accurately, super-early this morning he had not made that very clear, earlier that evening he’d made it even clearer.
Needless to say, Raiden’s idea of “slowing this down” clashed with mine.
In other words, before the movie he took me to Rachelle’s for dinner, and even before that, he’d told me to call his sister to get his number, which, of course, I did not.
He had to know, since Rachelle was at the café a lot even in the evenings, that she might be there and see us together.
And she’d been there.
I’d been at that café a lot and never seen Raiden there with a woman.
Making out with one outside, yes.
Inside, never.
And neither had anyone else, like KC or my other friends, all of whom followed Raiden’s actions like, well, what we were: crazy, creepy Raiden Ulysses Miller stalkers.
So it was not lost on Rachelle (or me) what Raiden taking me to her café meant.
However, this was the least of my worries, when, after she saw us together and her eyes bugged right out of her head, she came rushing to us, exclaiming, “Ohmigod! Hanna! I haven’t seen you in forever! Look at your hair! I love those highlights! They look great! And it’s so long! I barely recognized you.”