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What the heck?
Then he shocked her by leaning forward and kissing her forehead before he walked out the door.
Holy. Crap. What was that? And why now?
Why couldn’t he have done that months ago? Back when she wasn’t broken. When she was whole?
A sharp knock on the door made her jump and cry out.
“Fuck, sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said through the door.
Great. She put her hand on her chest. Now, after everything that happened, she was going to die of a freaking heart attack. It definitely felt like her heart was trying to pound its way out of her chest.
“What is it?” she asked after she gave herself a few seconds to calm down.
“Lock the door.”
Shit. Why hadn’t she remembered to do that? She always locked her door now. Even during the day, when she never used to do that in Haven.
“Right.” She turned the lock and leaned back against the door before sliding to the floor.
Deep breath.
You have this.
“Sweet dreams, darlin’,” came through the door.
There was no way he could know that none of her dreams were sweet anymore. That once all of her fantasies had been filled with him and the gorgeous babies they’d have made together.
And now . . . now all that filled her mind were sour thoughts. Dark, depressing ones.
Memories of Steven.
Drawing her legs up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them and pressed her face to her knees.
That’s when the tears started. Hannah promised herself she wasn’t going to cry anymore. But this time, it wasn’t over the loss of the life she’d had. It was the loss of her dreams, of the life she could have had.
Raid slid back into the seat next to his brother at Dirty Delights.
Tanner gazed over at him. “That was quick. You walk her home?”
“Yeah, she wasn’t very impressed, though. She didn’t want me around, that was clear.”
Tanner let out a snicker.
“You think this is funny?”
“Asshole, every woman you’ve ever crooked a finger at falls over their feet to try and get to you. Stuff has always come easy to you.”
“What are you talking about? We’re so similar we could be fucking twins. The two musketeers.”
Tanner’s lips twitched. “More like Pinky and the Brain.” He was referring to a cartoon about two mice they’d watched when they were younger.
“I’m no smarter than you.”
“I know that. You’re Pinky.”
“What?” Raid snapped, insulted.
“The character everyone loved.”
Raid shook his head. “You can’t tell me that women don’t throw themselves at you. I’ve seen it.”
Tanner gave him a cocky grin. “I get my fair share of attention.” That smile dropped. “But I’m not interested in that scene anymore. I want what our brothers have. Someone special.”
Yeah, Raid understood that. “She’s so different now. She’s colder, or she’s trying to be.”
“Hmm. Seems like she’s trying to push everyone away.” Tanner nodded over at her friends, who all looked sad. “Why would Hannah push everyone away who cares about her?”
Fuck. He didn’t want to think about that reason. “She’s not all right.”
“What are you going to do?”
Raid frowned. “I don’t know.”
“Malone men don’t give up when they want something.”
Raid snorted. “Damn straight.”
The longer he’d followed her in the dark tonight without her noticing that he was behind her, the angrier he’d grown.
She needed a keeper. Someone to make certain that she took care of herself.
Raid Malone thought he was just the man to take on that task.
5
It was Sunday morning.
Raid had spent all day yesterday thinking about Hannah, wondering what was going on with her.
If pushing her was the best thing to do or not.
What he should probably do is go tell Jake that he was worried about her. He was the sheriff, after all. Plus, his wife, Molly, was a psychologist. She could use all her crazy psychic abilities on Hannah.
Molly was pretty good at that stuff.
She’d come out to the ranch a few times to chat with them. Beau thought she was trying to fix them . . . but Raid knew the truth.
There was nothing to fix. The Malones were as good as it got. There was no fixing perfection.
He’d told Molly that and she’d agreed.
Well, she’d gone a bit red in the face before bursting into laughter. But that was basically the same as agreeing, though, right?
And then she’d written a paper or something on them. He was vague on those details. But if other people wanted to read about how amazing they were . . . then so be it. He’d even told her that she could use his name, but she’d said she’d keep that part out so he wasn’t bothered by a whole lot of doctors wanting to question him.
Molly was definitely good people. At one stage, he’d thought about kidnapping her and keeping her for himself. But she’d told him how much she loved Jake and he’d never come between a man and his woman.
