Out Of The Blue (The Wrong Bed #12)(2)

"I'd settle for him being employed," Alexi muttered.

Hannah would settle for having any other conversation. She loved her friends, loved them as if they were sisters, but she didn't want to talk about her pathetic lack of dates. "Hey, what happened to our business goals? You remember, the Norfolk Woods Inn? The lodge we run?" It was their pride and joy. It'd been their dream ever since Tara had inherited it right out of high school. "We're going to maybe add on a room, buy new dishes for the kitchen, give the staff a raise … that sort of thing?"

"Nah, catching a man is far more important." Tara fluffed her perfectly sculptured chin-length blond hair. "Three of them to be exact, one for each of us."

"Absolutely." Alexi shoved her own darker, longer, unruly curls out of her eyes and grinned, reminding Hannah that she wasn't nicknamed Rebel Junior—her brother was the original rebel—for nothing. "Men. Pronto."

Hannah tried again, because honestly, catching a man was completely out of her realm of expertise, and they really needed to have this business meeting. "Look, the lodge is completely full, more than full, and we only have a little while here. We really need to—"

"I know. I know," Tara said mournfully. "It's just that I'm in the mood for a good romance, that's all." If Alexi was the rebel, then the willowy and elegant Tara was easily the sophisticate of the group.

Which left the goody two-shoes position for herself, and Hannah filled it all too well. "No thanks on the romance. It's too … complicated."

The understatement of the year.

"Complicated, yes. But lots of fun." Alexi looked to Tara for support. "Right?"

Wrong.

For Hannah, romance was too much work to be anything other than agonizing. From the beginning she'd been hopeless at it. Maybe it had been her home life, so different from all her mostly upper-class fellow students. Maybe it had been her own shyness. Whatever the reason, it had started in sixth grade, when she first became truly aware of boys. Fool that she was, she'd fallen hard for Alexi's older brother, Zach, and it had been nothing but humiliating because he thought she was the dreaded "cute."

No boy her age had compared to him, but she'd given it a try. In seventh grade she'd nearly drowned Eddie Bachman in the pool during swimming class because he'd tried to kiss her and she'd panicked.

In eighth grade she'd given Peter Horn a black eye when she accidentally fell on him as he tried to maneuver her beneath the mistletoe during a Christmas dance.

By the time she'd wanted a boy to make a move on her, she'd garnered the reputation of hurting any male unfortunate enough to give her a second glance.

The bad rap had stuck.

She'd had dates since then, but exactly one per guy. Just enough to warn them their life was in dire danger if they dared ask her out a second time.

She'd never figured out why she was such a big klutz around men. Her brother Michael said it was because she spent too much of her time worrying about things other kids didn't have to, things like having enough money to eat that week. Or was their mother depressed again. Michael said as a result of those worries, Hannah spent too much time caring about everyone other than herself. But she couldn't help it, it was a habit years in the making.

Hannah believed her brother. She just didn't know what to do about it. Rather than face the humiliation of continuing to try, she'd taken a break from actively pursuing a dating life.

But her heart had never gotten the message. It continued to yearn and burn to know what she was missing.

Which had nothing to do with this meeting, darn it. "Guys, come on now, we—"

"Romance…" Tara said dreamily. "Sweet nothings, slow dancing, and long-stemmed roses. I want the whole enchilada."

"Try a good steamy novel then," Hannah suggested, determined to move on. "They have guaranteed happy endings." She leaned over to tap her pencil on their supposed list of goals, which at the moment included only one—Lose Single Status. "We have to get serious here."

But really, who was she to begrudge her friends needing more, just because she'd always failed at it? Just because her whole life was the Norfolk Inn, that didn't mean it had to be the same way for them. Yes, it was a dream come true for all of them to work together at their own business, but neither Alexi nor Tara ever put work ahead of their own personal lives.

Hannah did. She just didn't know how to do anything else.

Maybe they were right. Maybe it was time for a change. A new attitude. She was older, wiser too. Certainly she could do anything she set her mind to.

After this meeting.

"So … it's settled?" Alexi asked them. "We're all going for it? Most important goal for the summer, lose single status?"

"Count me in," Tara said. "Hannah?"

"Well—"

"Just third the motion, would you?"

All she had to do was say the words. Put voice to the need deep inside her, that she'd love to find someone to go out with, someone she could trust enough to lose more than her "single" status to.

Besides, Alexi and Tara looked so excited about the prospect of summer, and of finding someone… How could she disappoint them? She could just agree, and then forget about it. "I give," she said. "Can we finish discussing the business now?"