Out Of The Blue (The Wrong Bed #12)(18)

He wondered if she'd be insulted if he went running.

Probably, he decided.

"What about the money I sent you last week?" he heard her ask. "No, Mom, Michael paid that bill for you already. The other money we sent was for you." She sighed, and when Zach risked a peek at her, she was hunched over on a stool behind the counter, rubbing her temples.

Zach remembered Hannah's mom, vaguely, from their school days. A nice, harried woman in perpetual grief, trying to do it all: work full-time, raise two children on her own, and manage all the household chores that came with that responsibility. She'd always seemed … haggard. Worried. He knew Hannah had grown up hovering near the poverty line, and knew for her mother at least, little had changed.

He was also aware of the fact that Hannah completely depended on her income from the Norfolk Inn, every penny, much more than either Tara or Alexi, both of whom could go to their parents for help if they needed to.

The inn was still fairly new, still earning its reputation. There'd been renovations needed, big ones, and the three women had procured a loan to cover the costs.

Zach couldn't imagine the revenues from the place paid enough to easily support Hannah, much less her mother, not yet anyway.

And damn if that didn't twist at the heart he was trying so valiantly to ignore when it came to the elusive Hannah Novak.

"Don't worry about it, okay, Mom?" Her voice was reassuring in a way one would expect a mother to speak to a child, not the other way around. "Michael and I'll send you more. We'll get it all taken care of… Gotta go, I have a customer. Yes, I'll call you more often. I love you, too. Bye."

Slowly she hung up the phone, her gaze focused off in the distance as she did, her mind a million miles away. Probably figuring out how to give more, as if she hadn't been giving all her life.

God, she was beautiful, Zach thought, hauntingly so. But it wasn't that physical beauty drawing him now. It was that spirit and inner strength.

Walk away, he thought. You're on temporary leave from a demanding job, one that doesn't give you the luxury of letting a woman into your life, even if you wanted, which you don't.

Just walk away.

Instead he moved toward her. "Hey," he said softly. "You okay?"

She jerked, then blinked at him once before pasting another of those fake smiles on her face, the kind he was certain fooled any customer because it was such a pretty, friendly smile.

It didn't fool him because it didn't quite meet her eyes, eyes that were filled with mysteries. He'd always known the warm, cheerful, sweet and engaging Hannah had depths to her, but suddenly he wanted to explore them, every single one. Dammit. "How's your mother?"

"She … misses me." Guilt flashed across her face. "I don't spend enough time with her, and whenever she calls I'm reminded of that—not that she bugs me about it or anything—but I can hear the loneliness in her voice. It kills me." Another sigh broke free from her lips, and with everything inside him he wanted to help.

"I hear the same thing when I call my parents," he admitted quietly. "I don't do it enough because of how it makes me feel when I hear how old they sound."

The smile on Hannah's face faded as she absorbed that. "I know. I hate hearing my mother age."

"I worry that I don't see them enough and someday they won't be around to see at all. And Alexi, too. I go too long without seeing her. I've been gone so much in the past years. They hate that."

He hadn't meant to say so much, had meant only to prove kinship with her, but her eyes were deep and clear, and he felt as if he could see himself mirrored there. Certainly his own feelings were reflected back, which shouldn't have surprised him.

Neither should the fact that at that moment, he felt closer to Hannah than he did to anyone.

"Do you miss them when you're working?" she asked.

"When I'm working I don't have time to miss them. It's only now, when I'm off, that I think too much. I can't believe how many years have passed since I've been in Avila."

"Your work is important to you." She gave him a small smile. "And I don't really know much about it."

"I've been doing undercover work." It was his standard, nondescript line. But it wasn't enough for her, and he suddenly didn't want it to be. So for the first time, he expanded on it. "Working on a drug ring in Los Angeles."

"Did you haul them all off to jail?"

"It took a year, but yes, we got them all."

"Good. You're going back into that world soon."

"Yes." He was going back. Couldn't wait to be going back.

"It's dangerous," she said quietly, her gaze moving down, landing on his injured side. "Your world."

Suddenly going back was the last thing he wanted to talk about. And just as suddenly, the thought of doing it all over again, becoming someone else, losing another year of his life, maybe two, made him yearn for something … more.

Which made no sense.

He loved L.A. He loved being a cop. He really did, but he realized he didn't love the way it consumed him. The way it made him feel as though the real Zach didn't exist.

And not for the first time, he considered his devotion to the department, and what it was doing to his own personal life.