Out Of The Blue (The Wrong Bed #12)(31)

"Well? Did you?"

"I don't really want to talk about it," Hannah said.

"Really?" Alexi looked at her, shocked at the thought that one of them would hold out on good gossip. "Why not?"

"Because…" Why not? "Because…"

"Because you're falling for him."

"Really? Let me see." Tara came close and inspected Hannah's face carefully. "Hmm … not necessarily true," she said over her shoulder to Alexi. "It could just be the triple decker ice cream she consumed for lunch, coupled with the five brownies she just inhaled."

"You're saying that look is caused by sugar overload and not male overload?" Alexi asked.

The two of them stood there discussing her, staring into her face, as if she wasn't right there. Laughing, Hannah pushed them both away. "Go on, both of you. If you see anything in my eyes, it's annoyance. At you. Good night."

She escaped, then leaned weakly against the kitchen door, staring at the curved staircase that led to the rooms.

Was Zach up there?

She realized she was holding her breath, and she slowly let it out, knowing it shouldn't matter where he was.

If only that was the truth.

She forced herself to go directly to her room, where she wandered around until the knock came.

To her shock, it was Zach, and he looked every bit as baffled and uncertain as she was. It was a good look on him though, and just seeing him made her hurt.

When she just stared at him, he sent her one of his most irresistible grins. "The Schwartzes are watching, you know. Waiting to see how long it takes me to talk you into letting me in. You're killing my reputation."

"You can't come in," she told him. "I might do something embarrassing, like throw myself at you."

He sent her a tight smile. "I'm fairly certain I've alienated you enough today so that my virtue is safe."

Unable to hold back her own smile at that, she stepped back. "Come in then. At your own risk, of course."

"Of course." He moved past her, into the middle of the room, then turned back to face her. "I gave up my room."

"You … what?"

"The inn is overbooked. Tara was downstairs tearing out her hair."

"Oh, poor thing. I need to go help."

"You worked a double shift already. She's got it handled. But I gave up my room, and—" He sent her another one of his smiles, this one touchingly uncertain.

Her heart tugged, which really annoyed her.

"Is your couch still available?" he asked unexpectedly.

"Is my—" She narrowed her eyes and studied him. "No."

"No?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I'll probably forget myself and look into your eyes, which will make me melt, dammit, and then the next thing I know we'll be … you know, and quite frankly, Zach, my heart just can't take it."

"Maybe I want you to melt." He took a step toward her. "Maybe I've thought it all over and decided it doesn't matter to me what got us together the other night, that I'm just glad it happened." Another step, and her heart leaped. "Maybe I want it to happen again." He took the last step between them. "And again."

He was standing before her now, his face tense, his entire body tense. "Maybe I think that Los Angeles isn't that far away, that I think we should do whatever it takes to ride this thing through to the end."

She shook her head, suddenly, terribly, very afraid. "You swallowed too much sea water when you were surfing today. That must be it."

"Okay, you don't believe me." He nodded his understanding. "Hell, I hardly believe it myself. I can give you all the time you need to mull it over."

"You have only a few days left."

"That's not necessarily true."

She looked at him, wary. "I don't know what you mean. I thought you didn't want to leave any loose ends."

The hurt in her voice was unmistakable, and his fault. "Hannah—"

"No, I already know everything there is to know. Your job, your lifestyle, your everything, doesn't leave room for any entanglements. Don't you see? That's what made it all okay for me, because I knew. At least at first, it was okay." She sighed. "But afterwards, the truth stared me in the face. I was only kidding myself. I … I felt something more than just lust, and it scares me to death."

He knew the feeling, all too well. "Hannah…"

"It can't happen again."

Yes, he'd thought that, too. But he felt empty just thinking about it.

Totally, completely, devastatingly empty.

"Maybe I need more than a few more days to recover from the shooting," he said softly.

Her eyes were wide, still wary. "But you love your job."

"Yeah. But the job could wait. If it had to."

"Don't do it. Don't you dare do something like that for me."

"How do you know it would be for you?"

"Wouldn't it?"

"Maybe it'd be for both of us."

"No." There was more than a little panic in her voice. "Because you would eventually go back, and it would be worse then, so much, much worse. So just stop it, stop looking at me like that, like you really, really care, okay?"