Almost Midnight (3 page)

“Know what?” he asked. “I can do up to ten times ten.”

Hannah smiled. “I know you can and your dad will be so proud of you.”

She didn’t miss the frown that flashed across his face as she swung him off the sofa.

She stood and wiggled her feet. “Don’t they look pretty?” 

Jeremy snickered as he put a piece of cotton between the bloodied toes of his dinosaur. “Gosh, Hannah, you look funny.”   

“And I thought I looked like a duck.” Hannah pulled her jeans above her ankles and started to walk on the heels of her feet. “Quack-quack. Quack-quack.”

Jeremy’s warm laugh touched her heart.

“I’m going to get you, little ducky,” he said.

“Aha, so dinosaurs do speak.” Hannah waddled to the corner of the room, side-stepping a deck of cards and a pile of cotton balls.

Jeremy grabbed his dinosaur and bolted toward her, wrapping his arms around her in a tight embrace. “Gosh, I love you, Hannah.”

“I love you too, pumpkin.” Her throat grew thick. How long had it been since she had opened her heart to anyone besides her mother?

Jeremy’s hopeful gaze met hers. “Will you marry me, then?”

She tried not to chuckle. Marriage? That was something she would never think about for a long time. She would never depend on anyone ever again either. Being independent was too important. She didn’t mind taking care of her mother, she loved her. That’s why she had gone back to school and was waiting for her job application at Reach Medicals to come through in the fall.

Reach Medicals was a local company she’d applied to last month. When she’d left Illinois and moved to Clearbrook Valley, Colorado, more than a year ago, she attended the nearby four-year college and just finished her bachelor’s degree in General Engineering, hoping to start a new life. Of course, she had wished her engineering degree would have taught her the basic mechanics of a car. But sometimes the analytical side of things was much different than the practical side.

And although she could have obtained a more lucrative position in the city with her schooling, she liked it here in Clearbrook Valley and so did her mother. They were staying, no matter what. Her quality of life meant more to her than money. She had learned that the hard way.

“Hannah?”

A regretful smile crossed her lips, and she patted his head. “I can’t marry you, pumpkin. You’re only a little boy.”

“Oh, pooh!” The dinosaur flew across the room with a thud.

“Jeremy.” Her reprimand couldn’t hide her grin. “No more card games if that continues.”

“Sorry.” His puppy eyes didn’t fool her. “But I got a great idea! Maybe you could marry Grandpa. He’s not married! And he’s not that old! And he’s really smart!”

Hannah slid into the leather recliner beside the hearth and stifled the laughter that bubbled in her throat. The boy was persistent, she’d grant him that. “I can’t marry him either.” 

Jeremy sighed, slipping a hand over her palm.

Her heart swelled with love for this boy.

“Yeah, I guess not,” he said. “Grandpa’s an old weasel.”

Hannah choked out a cough and sat up. “Excuse me?”

“Dad says Grandpa’s an old weasel, always weaseling in on other people’s business. My two uncles say the same thing. Maybe you can marry one of them. Rafe is a doctor and Uncle Max is kind of crazy, but he has a big ranch with lots of horses.”

“Don’t think so, pumpkin.” Hannah smiled as Jeremy ran across the room to pick up his dinosaur.

“Yeah, you probably don’t like that horse poop smell and blood probably gets you sick.” With another sigh, the boy returned to her side. “Maybe you could marry my dad. I know he works a lot, but maybe he would stay home more if he was married.”

Hannah shook her head again. “Nope.”

Jeremy was not about to give up. “What if I had a talk with him? You could call him Tanner, instead of Mr. Clearbrook. And he has lots and lots of money that you could spend.”

Tanner? Hannah stiffened. “I thought your father’s name was John.”

Jeremy shrugged. “Yeah, but everyone I know uses his middle name and that’s Tanner. Gosh, no one but strangers call him John. Well, I guess some people in town might call him John. You know, because he’s rich and all that, and the town is named after someone in my family.”

Hannah’s heart slipped a notch as the boy kept talking. There had to be more than one Tanner in the world.

“Did you know that I had a duke as one of my great, great, great, well, I don’t know how many greats he was, but he was my great grandfather from a long long time ago.” 

Hannah swallowed. Her Tanner from the limo could not be the same man who owned half of Clearbrook Valley! The man was a limo driver for heaven’s sake, not a millionaire! Not Jeremy’s father!

Yes, there was a  part of her that had regretted not giving the man her phone number after he had fixed her car. And she knew she might run into him eventually.

Yet why had Fritz told her his son’s name was John when everybody called him Tanner? Everyone had heard of John Clearbrook, the rich millionaire who made his money investing in real estate and buying out companies. That was Jeremy’s father.

She had spent a minute or two looking the man up on the Internet, but the photos were so bad, she thought she would wait to meet him. Now, she wished she had dug harder. When she got home tonight, she would hop onto that computer and do some real digging. How stupid could she be?

This had to be a coincidence. But John Tanner Clearbrook?

“Jeremy, don’t ever ask your father to marry me.”

“Why?” The boy wrinkled his nose. “Some people say he looks like me. I have a picture of him in my drawer upstairs, if you want to see it. Or we can find a picture of him on the Internet. Some of them don’t look so good. He usually is wearing sunglasses or a hat and it’s hard to see what he really looks like. But Grandpa showed me some pictures of him from the newspaper that were on the Internet and they look really good. We used to have lots of pictures of him around when my mom...well, Dad took them all away. Anyway, you’ll see, he looks a lot like me.” 

Hannah’s heart gave another painful twist when Jeremy mentioned his mom. The little boy was still suffering. Yet as she stared into Jeremy’s gray eyes, a cold shiver swept down her spine as she recalled a pair of silvery eyes the night on that mountain.

She’d see all right. She’d see herself right out the door!

Why, oh, why hadn’t she looked up more about his father on the Internet? She had recalled a photo of the man skiing in Aspen. But he had on a ski helmet with goggles!

Besides, at that time, she hadn’t really cared what he looked like anyway. She just wanted this job!

Anyway, she hated dissecting a person’s private life by scouring the Internet. She thought knew enough about the man. The pay was decent, and this job worked out well with her library job and classes.  And though she’d heard that Mr. John Clearbrook was a handsome man, she really couldn’t have cared less. After Nick, she wasn’t interested in dating anyone, especially rich men. She didn’t keep up with Clearbrook Valley social life either.

However, right now, she regretted not having the town paper delivered to her apartment. Surely Mr. Clearbrook would have been included in some local stories – with his photo! Yet that was more money to spend on a paper, money she didn’t have.

She glanced at the
Clearbrook Valley Gazette
stained with red nail polish. She was a part time librarian. She should have been more diligent. But with her mother not feeling well, caring about what John Clearbrook looked like was the last thing on her mind!

This job had been perfect for her. Her mother knew Fritz. She had met Jeremy’s grandfather at a church. And Fritz Clearbrook had made it quite clear that his son had approved of her working at his home.

She groaned. She knew it had been too good to be true!

However, something told her this job was more than coincidence. Did Tanner set her up? Did he ask Fritz to meet her at church and offer her a job? What was going on here?

The fear of her mother’s cancer returning, along with rising debts, was enough to worry about. No, she wasn’t about to lose this job.

Independence was one thing she had learned these past three years. Her imagination was running away with her.

And what was she worried about anyway? She’d been almost assured the position at Reach Medicals in the fall. She would just make ends meet until then, Tanner or not.

“He really is handsome.” Jeremy looked up with a sudden light in his eyes, then checked his dinosaur’s feet.

Hannah’s stomach churned. “I’m sure he is.” 

Still, what if someone had placed her in Tanner’s house on purpose - if it was the same Tanner? Could it be true? She prayed she was wrong.

If it was up to her, John Tanner Clearbrook could stay away the entire summer. Her fingers itched to get to her computer and find out for certain. Hot tears stung her eyes. Okay, so she didn’t need a computer. She knew. She knew.

Jeremy must have seen her frown, and he touched her arm. “I love you, Hannah. Please don’t leave. Ever.”

“I love you too, pumpkin.” She swallowed the panic in her throat, forcing out a laugh. “Let’s play catch-old-Hannah before we make our gingerbread, okay? If we hurry, we’ll have time for both.” Her gingerbread with lemon sauce had been her first victory in winning Jeremy’s trust.

Before the boy could answer, she waddled toward the hall. “Can’t catch me. Quack-quack.”  

Jeremy grabbed his dinosaur and hurried after her. “Yes, I can,” he giggled. “Ducks are slower than dinosaurs any day.” 

Hannah turned down the hall, lifting her toes in the air. “Run, run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the—” 

She gasped in surprise when she collided with a hard wall of muscle. Two strong hands clamped her shoulders.

“Gingerbread man,” came the low, smooth voice above her.

Hannah inhaled the scent of musky cologne. Her instincts told her she had smelled that scent before. A reluctant shudder coursed through her as she tilted her head back. To her horror, the same silvery eyes that had caressed her face the night on the mountain locked onto her face.

She wanted to sink into the ground. The knight in the white limo...was Jeremy’s father!

CHAPTER TWO

It was him. The same Tanner.

At the sight of his mouth thinning with displeasure, her heart dropped. He glanced over her shoulder at Jeremy. Those hard, gray eyes left no doubt that this man was the boy’s father, and worse than that, she had a very funny feeling he had no idea why she was here.

Did he think she was reconsidering his offer after she had discovered who he was? The rich millionaire who owned a good chunk of Clearbrook Valley. The thought made her sick.

She opened her mouth to speak, but balancing on her heels, she tipped backwards. His hold on her tightened.

That silver gaze and powerful form immediately brought her back to the night on the mountain. For some crazy reason, she dreamed of being held in his embrace forever.

But within seconds, his steely glare brought her back to earth. Mr. Tanner Clearbrook was anything but pleased.

“She’s my tutor,” Jeremy cried, sensing his father’s displeasure. “And you can’t get rid of her!”

Hannah blinked in dismay as the child rammed both his head and his dinosaur against his father’s Armani suit. Oh, yes, she had heard from Fritz, a salt of the earth cowboy, that his eldest son wears Armani.

“Jeremy,” Hannah cried, not noticing when the man let go of her.

Jeremy looked up, his eyes filled with tears. “He didn’t know you were here, and I don’t want you to go. Neither does Grandpa. It was supposed to be a secret! Grandpa didn’t tell him!”

Grandpa didn’t tell him!
Those words said it all. Hannah’s face heated with embarrassment.

“Jeremy...” The man sounded tired, and Hannah could almost feel the pain behind his voice.

Jeremy glared up at his father. “But you don’t like her! I can see it in your face. You better not get rid of her or I’ll run away from home. Grandpa said she can stay!” 

Hannah tried to concentrate on the boy and not the towering man beside her. Fritz had mentioned something about Jeremy blaming his father for his mother’s death, and Hannah knew the feeling of blame all too well. She had done it to herself many times in the last few years.

But for some reason, it seemed Fritz Clearbrook had set this entire thing up without a word to his son. Though she didn’t want to admit it, she felt a twinge of sympathy for Tanner Clearbrook, no John Tanner Clearbrook.

Hannah turned to Jeremy. “He was just startled, pumpkin. I wasn’t watching where I was going. I ran into him and he steadied me. I probably banged his toe or something. But even so, I think you owe your father an apology.”

Jeremy thrust his chin forward and wiped his eyes with the back of his hands. “I’m getting Grandpa! He won’t let Dad get rid of you. Not like the other tutors.” 

With dinosaur in hand, the boy pounded past them, then flew up the staircase leading to his grandpa’s suite on the second floor of the mansion.

Hannah slowly turned and gave Tanner a tremulous smile. All right, so Mr. Rich Man was not happy.

He stood with feet apart, a stern reprimand settling across his tanned face. Golden brown hair gleamed against the sunlight fingering through the front windows. Crow’s feet were etched at the corner of his eyes, making him appear more approachable.

But that mesmerizing smile that had turned her knees to jelly weeks ago had disappeared completely.

“You must be wondering what I’m doing here,” she said with a false bravado.

He said nothing, and the chill between them seemed to grow.

The lines in his mouth tightened. Oh, he remembered her.

Inwardly, she winced. The look in his eyes told her he had called the phone number she had given him. She doubted that getting the police on the phone for a dinner date was not something that happened regularly to this handsome millionaire.

She sneezed, breaking the silence.

She had been fooling herself. She needed this job until Reach Medicals came through. Her part-time position at the library just didn’t pay the bills. Even though this tutoring job wasn’t permanent, her mother depended on her now, and so did Jeremy.