Almost Midnight (4 page)

However, she had decided a long time ago that no man would have control over her again. Pride was something she would always have to work on, but she definitely was not going to start changing for Tanner Clearbrook and beg him for the job.

She pasted a bright smile on her face. “Your father hired me as your son’s tutor this summer.” 

Frosty silver eyes clung to hers. He seemed to be waiting for her reaction. “Hannah Elliot,” she muttered hastily, shoving her hand out to him as a sign of both greeting and peace.

When his powerful hand swallowed hers, her heart stopped. Of course he knew who she was.  

“Miss Elliot.” The coldness in his voice made her cringe. Okay, so he had called the police.  

She cleared her throat, trying not to be affected by his compelling presence. “Mr. Clearbrook.” She jerked her hand from his, her cheeks warming at the tenseness flickering in his eyes.

He took a step back and folded his arms across his chest, looking more like a mighty lord glaring at a lowly serf than an employer scowling at his son’s tutor. He was a descendant of some duke, wasn’t he?

“So, my father hired you, did he?” 

Hannah stood stock still. Fritz must have had his reasons, she thought. She shouldn’t  jump to conclusions. But indignation soon replaced her fear as Tanner dropped his gaze to inspect her painted nails.

I need this job
, she kept telling herself.
I need it!
  

“Fritz hired me weeks ago,” she said, recovering slightly and meeting his hardened glare with one of her own. “You were away on business.”

Her feet were planted firmly on the floor now, but even at her height of five feet eight, the man towered over her by a good number of inches. “He knows my mother, and well, one thing led to another and here I am.”

The man pursed his lips in a sardonic manner. “And here you are. Teaching my son about painting toenails, no doubt. I wonder where my father finds such intellectual tutors. I take it you gave him your correct phone number in case he needed to get in touch with you.” 

Hannah could hardly blame him. He had helped her, been her knight in a sort of contemporary way, and she had been a chicken, scared spitless. But that didn’t give him the right to expect her to have a date with him. Still, she should have just told him she felt uncomfortable giving out her phone number. He probably would have understood since she didn’t want to get out of the car. Dumb, Hannah. Really dumb.

“I assure you, Mr. Clearbrook, I have your son’s education first and far most in my mind at all times. Today we studied multiplication.” 

His eyes examined her with a mocking intensity. “Is that a fact?”

“Tanner,” a male voice called from the stairs. “Gall dang it, you leave that little filly alone. I hired her, and by heaven, she’s staying put.”

The hurrying of little feet, thwack of a walking stick, and clanking of cowboy boots sounded from the hallway above. Hannah was never more relieved than to hear Jeremy and his grandfather descending the stairs.

White-silvery hair popped into view as Fritz’s lanky body swaggered toward her. The sixty-year-old man wore a pair of dark blue jeans, a sky blue shirt that matched his eyes, and a pair of weathered cowboy boots. His walking stick was more part of his costume than a needed tool. Sometimes he had it with him, sometimes not.

Hannah never asked him why he carried the mountain cane, but since the man was sweet on her mother, the lady had confided to Hannah that Fritz enjoyed carrying the walking stick when hiking or when wanting to get the attention of his sons. He had picked up the sturdy oak branch in the mountains when he had been hiking with his late wife. He then had it whittled down to size and coated for a keepsake. 

“Hello, Fritz,” she said calmly. Jeremy’s grandfather had been out most of the day. They had barely seen him except for a few minutes early in the afternoon.

“Hannah.” The older man came between her and Tanner, giving her a peck on the cheek. “How’s that mother of yours?” Fritz asked.

Hannah gave the elderly man a tentative smile. “She’s been fighting a bad cold the last few days, and with everything else, she’s on some new medicine that has some side effects. But besides that, she’s doing okay.” The side effects had sent her mother to the hospital for observation, but she wasn’t going to tell them that.

Fritz smiled at Tanner. “Told you I got a new tutor, son.”

Tanner lifted his eyebrows. “Did you now?”

“Sure did,” Fritz said.

Hannah believed the man, but for some reason, she didn’t think Fritz had ever given Tanner the tutor’s name. How odd was that?

She caught a familiar twinkle in Fritz’s striking blue eyes and wondered if this sweet gentleman had known about her meeting with his son that dark night on the mountain road.

“I like her!” Jeremy spat out.

Hannah looked at Jeremy. The boy warily met her gaze, then looked away. “Jeremy, I believe you have something to say.”

The boy glanced up at his father with a mingled look of defiance and remorse. “Sorry I wasn’t nice.” 

At the moment, Hannah realized that was about the best Jeremy could do with an apology.

“We’ll talk about it later.” Tanner took the words right out of her mouth as he stuffed his hands into his pockets and stared at his son. She had to remember that she wasn’t the boy’s mother, just his tutor.

But the warmth in the man’s gaze, as he looked at Jeremy,  gave her heart a little kick. He cared about his son.

Tanner’s voice softened. “Miss Elliot tells me she’s been teaching you multiplication. Well, partner, how about telling me what three times five is?”

A brittle silence filled the hall.

Hannah noted a wave of antagonism flash across Jeremy’s face. A cold knot formed in her belly when Fritz scraped his walking stick against the marble floor, pulling Tanner’s face upward.

“No helping, Dad. Let Jeremy do it himself.”

Jeremy stared at Hannah. The pain in his eyes told her everything she needed to know. He wasn’t about to show or tell his dad anything. The boy’s hostility was due to more than just the man’s absence.

Questions swirled in her brain. Could Jeremy truly be blaming his father for his mother’s death? He seemed to have wanted to see his dad only moments ago. What was going on here?

“I don’t know what three times five is,” the boy spat out. “But I do know when someone is stupider than I am! I hate you forever and ever. You always cause trouble when you come home.” He glared at his father, spun around, and ran up the stairs.   

“Jeremy!” Hannah’s reprimand fell on deaf ears.

I hate you.

The ugly words hung in the air like a choking fog. She had thought the same words at her husband’s funeral and regretted them instantly. She stole a glance at Tanner’s face and would have missed the flicker of pain in his eyes if she hadn’t happened to turn his way. It was a pain that looked as if he’d lost his son forever.

Forever.

The misery of the past suddenly came flooding back. Nick. She had fallen in love with the wrong man, and he had broken her heart.

“Jeremy, get down here. Now!” Tanner’s face became a block of ice.

“He missed you, you know,” she said softly, her throat tightening as Jeremy slammed his door upstairs.

She had seen the light in Jeremy’s eyes when he would mention his father. She knew the boy loved the man to distraction. “I know he doesn’t show it, but I really think he was looking forward to your homecoming. I think part of his anger is because you left him for so long. A few weeks is a lot of time to a little boy.”

Tanner shot her a penetrating look. Without speaking, he bent down, picked up the dinosaur Jeremy had thrown at his feet, stared pointedly at her toes, then looked up.

Hannah found his nearness more disturbing than the night they’d met. It seemed as if he wanted to tell her something, but before she could speak, he turned an accusing glance toward his father. “I’ll deal with Jeremy later, but right now I’d like a word with you...Dad.” 

He shifted his gaze to her, then back to Fritz. “Alone.”

That one word said it all. Alone. She was going to be fired.

“What do you mean you hired that...that red-toed whatever, right under my nose?” 

Tanner’s arm shot over his father’s white-silvery head toward the closed doors of the study. He needed a tutor for Jeremy, but it was not going to be Hannah. Not the woman he couldn’t forget the past month since that night on the mountain. Not the woman whose emerald eyes flashed with a vulnerability and gentleness that made him act on impulse, making him behave like a crazy fool.

He should have recognized her car parked in the street the minute he pulled up the driveway, but he was too excited to see his son and wasn’t thinking. He noticed the old car a minute ago though.

Hannah Elliot was a dangerous woman. What the hell had he been thinking?

When his father didn’t answer, Tanner paced in front of his desk, frustrated at the way the older man could turn his life upside down in less than an hour.

Tanner scowled, distinctly recalling Hannah Elliot’s slim body as she tried to keep her toes from touching the floor. Even acting like a duck, she had a cat-like grace that attracted him. He had been instantly reminded of the night he’d found her alone on that mountain. She had been prey for any crazy man coming along in the middle of the night, and that had scared the heck out of him.

Her innocent gaze had made him want to take care of her. And what was that about?

“Come on, Dad, the last tutor you hired, you wanted me to marry. In fact, every female tutor you hired has been interested in my money.” 

The moment Tanner mentioned the word marry, Fritz lowered his eyes, unleashing a crooked smile that spilled across his face.

“Fine, I admit it,” Fritz said. “That last gal was a mistake. Moonlight Pinkly wasn’t the right one. This one is.”

Tanner rolled his eyes. “Forget the others, what about this one? Did she get past nail polish school?”

Tanner rubbed a hand across his face in frustration. He was exhausted. He’d made three trips this month, one to New York, one to Rome, and the last one to Chicago. Jeremy was becoming more emotional with every trip he took, and now, it seemed he’d made some attachment to this new tutor.

An attractive woman around the house Tanner didn’t need.

Fritz leaned back in his chair, pursed his lips, and with a gentle thwack, rested his mountain cane against his son’s desk. “First of all, I did tell you I hired a tutor, so I don’t know why you’re so fired up. Second of all, I heard from Harry over at Police Headquarters that you called there asking for a one Miss Hannah Elliot?”

“Harry?” Tanner shouted, his temper rising. So good old Chief of Police Harry had told his father all about the phone call. Things were finally falling into place.

The two older men were best of friends and had been on the rodeo circuit together. Fritz had broken his leg falling off a bucking bronco, ending his career. He suffered a slight limp at times, but the man liked to exaggerate his old injury with that silly walking stick, something he didn’t need at all.

It was strange, but Tanner and his brothers knew that the stick was more of a physical reminder Fritz used when he was upset with his sons. And somewhere in their English history with the Duke of Elbourne, Tanner had heard stories of someone’s crazy aunt who had used a parasol in a similar manner. In fact, Fritz loved those stories...

“She ain’t a gold-digger, I’ll tell you that. But she did give you the run around, huh?” Fritz let out a wicked smile. “Got to ya, did she?”  

“Got to me?” Tanner said, casting his father an incredulous look. “You bet she got to me.” With cornsilk hair and a scent as sweet as the flowers near a mountain spring, she got to him. Even Hannah’s gentle way with Jeremy had touched him.

But Tanner wasn’t going to tell his father that. The man knew enough already and was smarter than he let on. The fact that Fritz had lost his mother at ten, dropped out of school at fourteen, and ran away from home to join the rodeo circuit never ceased to amaze Tanner.

Tanner’s grandfather, on the other hand, was a domineering man who drank too much and died early. Although Fritz had inherited much of his wealth, the man gave to many charities and was on the board of directors for many of them. And while Fritz may not have had a college education like their mother, what the older man knew of the world was enough to give Tanner the jitters. 

As if reading his mind about Hannah, Fritz let out a snort of amusement.

“She’s a sweet one, ain’t she? Rather like Julie. Like your mother too. God bless her soul. Good thing your mama made me promise to send you three boys to college. Not that going to college is for everyone. But you boys needed it. Your mama also made sure you wouldn’t be talking like your old man. Yep, the lady sure did have an education and turned you boys out just fine. Real fine. But she’d be turning in her grave if—”

“Dad, that woman you hired painted the dinosaur’s feet with red nail polish!” 

“Yep,” Fritz said, ignoring his son. “Knew the moment I set eyes on Hannah she was the one for you, especially when I heard the little filly turned you down cold. No gold-digging there. Disciplines like your mother, too. You should take a lesson or two from that gal.” 

The older man rapped his mountain stick against Tanner’s desk. “I said, Fritz, I said, a girl like that should be Jeremy’s tutor. Your mother was a teacher, and this one reminded me of her.”

“Oh, come on, now,” Tanner said, grimacing. “This woman is nothing like Mom.” 

He lied. Hannah’s intelligence that night on the mountain road reminded him too much of his mother. But it was her vulnerability that reminded him too much of Julie. The thought shocked him.

Still, it was a good thing Hannah hadn’t left the car that night, because all he had wanted to do was hold her to keep her from shaking and let her know he wasn’t going to attack her.

 But that would have scared her more, because when she handed him that fake telephone number, the moment their skin touched, he was hooked. He felt that same electricity shoot up his arm when he’d held Hannah in the hallway. It was the first time he felt like that since his wife had passed away.