The Place I Belong (15 page)

He used his hands to lever himself to his feet and stood with his head bowed, leaning on the solid wood under his palms. He
held himself very still, trying to quell the battle raging i
nside him.

He could feel himself losing the fight, surrendering to the need for oblivion.

He closed his eyes, trying one last time to find an anchor to hold onto, and Hannah’s image formed in his mind.

He didn’t think; he just reached for his cell phone and found her contact information, hoping the number she’d given him was one she’d answer even at midnight.

Chapter 11

H
ANNAH REACHED ACROSS
Ginger, one of her
rescue
dogs, who was curled up on the covers beside
her, grabbing the cell phone vibrating and chiming on her bedside
table. She’d crawled into bed early, wrung out from the stress of doing Satchmo’s spinal tap. Since Tim was away she was on emergency call 24/7, so she’d left the phone’s ringer on full volume.

She cleared her throat and hit “answer.” “Hello, this is
Dr. Linde
n.”

“Hannah! You’re there.” It was Adam’s voice, but distorted.

She shoved herself up to a sitting position. “Adam? What’s wrong? Did Trace get out again?”

“It’s not Trace.” There was a long pause, and she was trying to clear her sleep-fogged brain to ask another question when he said, “I have to get away from here. I’d like to see you.”

“At the office?” She was confused.

“Wherever you are now.”

“Well, I’m at home, so I guess you could come here.”

“Thank you.” She heard him exhale as if he’d been holding his breath. “Where do you live?”

She gave him her address. He muttered “thank you” again and disconnected so fast she didn’t have time to ask anything further.

She frowned down at the phone, trying to remember exactly what he’d said. Something about he had to get out of there. Had he had a fight with Matt? She shook her head. The boy would be asleep by now. Since Adam spent even his days off at the restaurant, it couldn’t be that he was tired of work. Unless something had gone terribly wrong at The Aerie. But why would he want to talk to her about that?

Giving up on her useless speculations, she threw back the covers, earning her a disgruntled stare from Ginger, who retreated to the foot of the bed. It would probably take Adam about twenty minutes to get down from his mountain lair, assuming that’s where he was. Dragging on a pair of jeans and a pale-blue, long-sleeved tee shirt, she shifted into speed clean-up mode.

She’d whipped the dog quilts off the sofa and chairs, scrubbed
out the dirty pasta pot, and hurled all the chew toys into a floor basket before she remembered to run a brush through her hair and twist it into a loose bun at the back of her head with a plastic clip.

The doorbell rang and the dogs set up their usual chorus of greeting. Hannah put them in a sit-stay, smoothed down her shirt, and opened the door.

Adam stood on the front porch, his hair picking up glints from the yellow bulb of the porch sconce. The light was too dim to see much other than his usual color scheme of a black leather jacket over black trousers. “Come in,” she said.

He hesitated. “I shouldn’t be bothering you.”

She swung the door open wide. “You wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.”

When he stepped into the illuminated foyer she nearly gasped. The lines around his mouth were etched so sharply he seemed to be in physical pain. The leather jacket had been thrown on over what she recognized as his work suit, minus the tie. His hair looked as though he had repeatedly worried it with his fingers.

“Let me get you some tea,” she said, closing the door
b
ehind him
.

He shrugged out of his outer jacket with a travesty of a smile. “Tea sounds great.”

She hung his coat in the closet by the door and led the way into the kitchen, releasing the dogs from their “stay.” “Herbal or Earl Grey? Those are my only offerings.”

He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and leaned against the doorframe. “Earl Grey, thanks.”

Three dogs filed past him and took up stations around Hannah, hoping a treat was in store.

“May I be introduced?” Adam said, squatting and offering the back of his hand for sniffing.

“Pardon my lack of manners. Ginger, Annabelle, and Floyd,” Hannah said, smiling when the dogs abandoned her for the intriguing stranger who knew all the best places to scratch. As she boiled water and dropped teabags into mugs, she snuck glances at her unexpected guest, happy to note the tension in his jaw easing. Dogs had that effect on people.

“They’re all rescues?” Adam asked, rubbing Floyd’s exposed tummy.

“Why do you think that?”

He switched to stroking Annabelle’s long, multicolored coat and lifted his gaze to Hannah’s. “Because that’s what you do.”

His eyes were haunted and intense, making Hannah shift uncomfortably. “Mm, yes, Anabelle is a purebred collie with epilepsy. Her owner couldn’t afford the meds. Floyd is pure street mutt. One of our vet techs found him lying on the sidewalk near her apartment in Chicago with multiple fractures. Probably got hit by a car. Ginger, well, she adopted me. She lived in my neighborhood, and when her original owner moved, he left her behind. So she followed me home.”

She poured the boiling water into the mugs. “Sugar? Honey? Lemon juice?” She remembered he was used to gourmet beverages. “The juice is from a bottle, though.”

“Black,” he said, straightening to take the mug from her. He wrapped his big hands around the handmade pottery, making it look as though the thick crockery had shrunk.

She picked up her own tea and waved toward the living room.
“I’ll turn on the fire.” She was embarrassed that the fireplace was one of those gas imposters which required only the flick of a switch
to ignite. It was like her lemon juice—convenient but not real.

She hit the switch and settled on the couch, joined immediately by Ginger and Floyd while Annabelle laid herself elegantly at Hannah’s feet. The two cats had fled at the sound of the
doorbell
, but now Blanche strolled into the room and began rubbing against Adam’s ankles, leaving a trail of white cat hair on his expensive trousers.

“Oh heavens, Blanche, stop!” Hannah exclaimed, plunking her mug down on the coffee table and starting to rise.

“I like cats,” Adam said, waving her back and settling into one of the armchairs before he leaned forward to scratch under the cat’s chin.

“Yes, but your suit will have Blanche hairs woven into it for the rest of your life.”

“When you wear black, you have to be prepared for that.”

Again she wanted to ask why he always wore the same dark color, but decided this was not the time.

“I owe you an explanation,” he said, cradling his mug in his hands, while Blanche stalked off in a huff at the withdrawal of his attention.

“You said you needed to get away from something.”

“Myself,” he said. “A hard thing to do.” He sat back in the chair and blew out a breath. “I didn’t know I had a son until Matt’s mother died four months ago. And now I hate that I missed all those years I could have known him.”

“That seems like a normal reaction.” Hannah was out of her depth here.

He looked straight at her. “I have no right to feel that way.”

“Oh.” Way out of her depth. She took a gulp of hot tea, scalding her tongue.

“I’m an alcoholic. Adam’s mother knew that and decided to keep him away from me.”

“But I thought…don’t you sponsor, er, people at AA?” Hannah wasn’t sure she was supposed to know about Paul’s brother being mentored by Adam.

He propelled himself out of his chair and paced over to the weak flicker of the gas fire, staring into it for a long moment before he turned back to her. “I’ve been sober for nine years, but I will
always be an alcoholic. It’s not something you can be cured of.”

“But you control it,” she said. “Isn’t that all you can ask of yourself?”

“Tonight I saw a photo of Matt as a newborn, and I was overwhelmed by a gaping sense of loss. You know what I wanted to do with that?” His mug rattled as he set it down on the mantel. “I wanted to flood it with liquor.”

She understood. He’d needed to get away from the craving. He’d reached out to her for help because he couldn’t fight it alone.

When she looked at him, she saw not a world-famous chef but a creature in pain. Suffering was something she couldn’t bear, whether it was a dog, a horse, or a man.

She put her mug down and stood up, quickly crossing the room to wrap her arms around him. “I’m sorry,” she said.

For a moment, he stood motionless, and she wondered if she’d done the wrong thing. Then his arms came around her shoulders, moving her in against the solid wall of his body.

She let out a relieved sigh. When she drew in the next breath, it came laden with his distinctive aroma of spices and warm male. No words came to her so she did what she would do with a distraught patient. She slid her palms up and down his back in long, soothing strokes.

His grip on her tightened.

She was pressed so closely against him she was having trouble filling her lungs. But she didn’t want to pull away for fear he would think she was withdrawing her comfort. She closed her eyes and listened to his heart thump against her ear, taking small sips of air.

“Hannah.” His voice was low.

It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. “Yes?”

He shifted, putting one finger under her chin so he could tip her face up to meet his gaze.

What she saw made her gasp for an entirely different reason. His eyelids were half-closed, and his eyes were intent on her lips. His touch slid from her chin and along her jawline until his fingers tangled in the hair clipped at the nape of her neck.

He stopped and waited, looking at her with an intensity that set off flares of heat deep inside her. She felt his hand at the back of her head, and the clip clattered onto the hearth while her hair spilled down her back. He combed his fingers through it, sending delicious shivers dancing over her scalp and down her spine.

Still he gazed down at her, the space between them snapping with a strange, unexpected awareness.

Nervousness caught in her throat as she realized he was waiting for her to decide. She froze, balanced between her yearning to feel his big, calloused hands against her skin and her fear of losing herself to another man who might be using her. She searched his face, finding suffering even as his eyes glittered with the fever of arousal.

He was beautiful and troubled and in pain. She rose onto
her tiptoe
s and brought her mouth against his.

There was no hesitation from him this time. He angled her head back farther so he could drag his mouth from her lips to
her throa
t and back again. Breathing no longer seemed important
as his other arm came around her like an iron band, locking her against him from thigh to shoulder, her breasts crushed against his chest. Between kisses, he murmured her name like an incantation, as though it could ward off the demons clawing at him.

She kneaded the fine cotton stretched across his back, trying to hold on as he sent waves of sensation shuddering through her. It wasn’t enough. She yanked at his shirt, pulling the tail free so she could slide her hands up under it against his bare skin. His hands might be calloused and crisscrossed with welts but his back was pure satin. She skimmed her palms up to the muscles of his shoulders before tracing back down along his spine.

His murmur turned to a low groan of pleasure as he released her lips and arched back into her touch. A sense of power swept through her and she slipped her hands around his ribcage and up over his chest, savoring the springy texture of his hair and the hard points of his nipples.

When she dragged her hands back downward toward his waist, he seized her wrists and pulled her hands out from under his shirt. “Where’s your bedroom?”

“Down the hall,” she said, nodding toward the open arch opposite the sofa.

Before she realized his intention, he had scooped her up in his arms and started across the living room. Startled, she grabbed his shoulders. “Wait…what?”

Without breaking stride, he looked down at her. “Having second thoughts?”

“No, I just figured I could walk.”

“I don’t want to let you go long enough for that,” he said, turning sideways to get through the doorway without banging her head or feet against the frame.

She snagged the edge of the door and slammed it in the face of her three dogs.