Hannah & the Dom Next Door (3 page)

Caleb had been the love of her life, her one and only, since she first met him at the age of fifteen. She had no wish to settle now for an older man and be a surrogate mother to his three children simply because she and Caleb were never blessed with children of their own and, now that she was pushing thirty-one, she was considered past her prime. Nor did she feel compelled to get involved with a man for companionship. She didn’t know if her strange, uncharacteristic response to Mitch was due to the way his tee shirt stretched tautly over his wide chest, the short sleeves snug around his thickly muscled arms; or the way his tight jeans emphasized the strength in his long legs; or the way his wavy black hair curled around his thick neck; or the way his darkly shadowed face emphasized his rugged good looks; or the way those dark chocolate eyes had looked so carnally open at her that had her body coming alive in a way she had only experienced when she made love with Caleb. Curiosity had her contemplating seeking him out again just to see if her response a few minutes ago was an anomaly or if she was ready and willing, to indulge in a physical only relationship. Her family wouldn’t understand or condone such a liaison, but since she buried her heart along with her husband, it was the only kind of relationship she would be willing to contemplate right now.

Hannah left the car idling while she ran into the house to wash up before heading to the store. The cool, air-conditioned interior of Mary’s 1915 Tudor home was a welcome treat and just one of the things she had forgone when she married Caleb. Caleb’s roots were steeped in the Old World Amish lifestyle and he had been rigid in his beliefs. The use of electricity in her grandparent’s home had been only one of the differences between her Beachy Amish upbringing and his more restrictive lifestyle. Right now, as she felt her perspiration damp skin drying, she wondered how she endured the hot Ohio summers for all those years without this luxury, especially after having had a taste of it the year she spent with her aunt, at Caleb’s insistence, when she was sixteen. She supposed she had been so blissfully happy and in love, that she hadn’t minded the discomfort of the heat.

Running upstairs to the hall bathroom, Hannah looked in the mirror and cringed when she noted the grease smudge on her cheek, the straggly tendrils of hair that had escaped her braid clinging to her neck and her red face. She let her gaze wander down her body, taking in the same type of clothes she has worn most of her life, wondered what Mitch had thought of her and then wondered why she cared. She was raised to look beyond the physical when viewing both herself and others, believing a person’s worth lies within themselves, not in their physical appearance, but she would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit it was Mitch’s physical appearance that had her body still quivering with awareness and making her wish she had been more presentable upon their first meeting.

After cleaning her face and fixing her hair, Hannah grabbed her purse and returned to the garage as she mentally reviewed what she would need at the store to fix a casserole and dessert for Mitch as a thank you for his help. Since she just arrived late last night, she hasn’t had time to do anything except unpack her few belongings and put them away in the charming blue and white guest room that had been completely redone since she stayed here fourteen years ago. Thankfully, Aunt Mary left detailed directions to the nearest conveniences. Too much has changed in those fourteen years for her to navigate the streets without help yet. She would always be grateful to Caleb for insisting she spend that year away from him and both their communities before making the big decision to commit to him and his stricter way of life. She hadn’t wanted to be away from him for so long and, since Caleb didn’t have a phone at home, they only spoke rarely during that year, whenever he could get to a public phone. She had loved spending that time with her mother’s sister and relished attending a public school and learning more about the world outside her small community. But she had missed Caleb desperately and gladly given up all the creature comforts of modern day society she had come to appreciate and returned to marry him a year later, as soon as she turned eighteen.

Now, sitting behind the wheel of a car again, her only regret about the past was that ten years hadn’t been enough with Caleb, despite the hardships of living within the confines of his stricter beliefs after having been raised with more progressive values. Now, having gotten just a taste of the benefits of modern society again, she knew this trip wasn’t going to be a temporary hiatus.

An hour later, Hannah was bringing in groceries, priding herself on making her first trip out without getting lost. Mary’s kitchen had also been completely gutted and remodeled since she was here last and for someone like her who loved to cook, the dark wood cabinets, spacious granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances were a chef’s dream. A wall had been removed to open the kitchen up to the dining room as well as the den area and she liked the open concept much better. The wide, long island acted as a separation between the kitchen and other rooms and gave her ample space to spread out the ingredients to make a deep dish spaghetti pie and a batch of sugar cookies before she put away the rest of her purchases. She was still reeling from all the choices the large grocery store offered as opposed to the smaller mart she walked to whenever she needed something she couldn’t get from her garden back home. Their meat came from their own bred and raised cattle and chickens and she only knew how to fix everything from scratch. She couldn’t imagine buying pre-packaged cookies or macaroni and cheese and liking them; then again, she much preferred opening a refrigerator door and lifting out a gallon of milk and a few boxes of butter to milking cows or the hard chore of churning.

Two hours later, Hannah stood under the warm spray of her shower trying to bolster her courage to take the freshly baked casserole and cookies over to Mitch. The longer she procrastinated, the more she questioned what she was doing. Surely she had just imagined her body’s heated response to Mitch; after all, it has been almost three years since she has been close to a man. Wasn’t it normal to want human contact after such a long dry spell? She still missed feeling Caleb’s hard body next to hers at night, missed the way he wrapped his arm around her and held her close even after the sex.

Running her soapy palms down her neck, over her breasts, she sucked in her breath on a sharp gasp as her nipples tingled then tightened. She hasn’t felt that fleeting pleasurable sensation since the last time she made love with Caleb shortly before he died and it was his calloused palms gliding over her breasts, but now it wasn’t his hands giving it to her, or even his image in her mind. His beard covered face had been replaced with Mitch’s rough good looks and five o’clock shadow and her imagination wasn’t recalling the way Caleb had spent only enough time touching her breasts to leave her aching for more. Her quick, strong response to her light touch, the same touch she used on her body every time she bathed that had no effect on her senses before now, reinforced her decision to go next door and test her body’s reaction. Really, it was the only common sense solution to this predicament she found herself in and she promised herself when leaving Ohio that she would face the challenges of acclimating to modern life head on, without backing down.

Hannah, dressed in a clean skirt and blouse and her hair tightly braided, had the hot casserole and freshly baked, still warm cookies ready to deliver next door. Putting them in a large, cloth covered basket, she hurried out the front door before she could change her mind. The large maroon truck with Burnett Contractors labeled on the side was still parked in his driveway, hopefully meaning Mitch was at home. An elderly couple had lived in his house when she was here last and Hannah remembered their house as being dark and closed in, much like Aunt Mary’s before she had it remodeled, the interiors reflecting the age of both homes. Stepping onto his pillared, stone porch, she lifted her hand to rap loudly on the double doors before she could chicken out and run back home.

Hannah’s eyes widened in surprise and she felt a warm blush cover her face and spread down her neck when Mitch opened his door.
Oh God
, was all she could think as she stared at his bare chest, which just happened to be as hard and thickly muscled as she had imagined earlier. Only, when he had been wearing a shirt, she hadn’t imagined how mouth-watering a man’s chest could be when decorated with a light coat of curly black hair, hair that tapered down his ridged abdomen to a narrow strip that disappeared into the waistband of his unsnapped jeans. She swallowed convulsively as she noted even his bare feet looked sexy and that was just…wrong somehow. It had taken her and Caleb over two years after being married to shed their nightclothes completely to make love, and even then, they both slipped them back on afterwards, their strict moral upbringing not allowing for such intimacy as sleeping together completely naked, or, God forbid, run around the house barely clothed. She hadn’t minded, hadn’t thought anything of it until now. Now, her brain was fried and all she could think about was how that hard chest would feel against her softer one, how that crisp hair would tease her sensitive flesh. One thing that was coming through loud and clear was that her response to him earlier had been real, not a fluke, and paled in comparison to the sensations rioting through her now.

New, intense, warm, pulsing sensations she had absolutely no idea what to do about.

“Hannah, sweetheart, do you need help with the car again?” It took every ounce of Mitch’s considerable control not to grin openly at Hannah’s shocked, aroused face. If he didn’t know she had been married, he would assume she was a damn virgin from the nervous, but interested look on her face. In the process of jumping in the shower before meeting the McGilley’s for their Sunday night poker game, he didn’t bother to slip on the tee shirt he just removed before answering the door. Now he was glad he hadn’t because the look on her face was priceless. “Hannah?”

“What? Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare, it’s just that I wasn’t expecting…I mean I’ve never…Oh…here!” Hannah thrust the basket at him and turned to make a hasty exit, but his hand latched onto her arm, stopping her before she could take a step.

“This smells wonderful. What did you bring me, and why?” he asked her gently, not wanting her to leave just yet. At odds with how he felt before going next door earlier, he spent the hours since reluctantly thinking about her, or, more precise, thinking about how to get her out of those God awful clothes. In between imagining her sprawled on his bed or tied belly down on a padded bench, he kept telling himself it wasn’t going to happen, no way, no how. Of course, his little head, as usual, refused to heed his big head, making for a long afternoon fighting the urge to go back over and check on her. Had he known she was going to surprise him this way, he would’ve headed out sooner. Or not.

“It’s just a spaghetti pie casserole and some cookies, to, you know, thank you for your help and for introducing yourself. I’m sorry if I bothered you. I’ll just go…”

“And leave me to eat alone?” Maintaining his light grip on her arm, he ushered her inside and kicked the door shut behind her. “I was planning on grabbing a burger on my way to see some friends, but this is much better.” Seeing the deer caught in headlights look on her face, he released her and took a step back. “Will you stay and join me?”

She shouldn’t, she really shouldn’t, especially considering how her body was coming alive again in a way that had her questioning her sanity and her strict moral beliefs. Damn it, she had been married and enjoyed sex for over ten years, why did she feel so…needy as well as lacking around him, like what she experienced with Caleb in their marriage bed had only been the tip of the iceberg and she had no clue what kind of devastating effects were possible. She might be embarrassed at her vulnerability, but she wasn’t a coward. “What about meeting your friends?”

“They’ll understand if I’m late.”

“Then okay, if you’re sure you want me to.”

“I want you to. Come on into the kitchen.”

Hannah reluctantly stepped into his foyer, noted the new tile floor, the refurbished look of the ornate wooden handrail curving up the wide staircase and that the small parlor on the right had been converted into an office before she followed Mitch to the left. Expecting the large, formal living room she remembered from her few visits with the previous owners, she was stunned to step into the largest, brightest space she has ever seen. Like her aunt’s house, walls had been removed, a new bay window afforded her a wide view of the front and a wall of windows spanning the back of the room made it easy to see his pool and the five-acre lake beyond. White crown molding stood out starkly against taupe walls and black leather furniture was grouped in a semi-circle facing the wood and gas burning fireplace above which boasted the largest television she has ever seen. The great room had a masculine feel and look that suited him, but as she followed Mitch across the hard wood floors, it was the kitchen she wanted to drool over. Antique white cabinets and black marble countertops as well as appliances she has never seen before made her want to spend hours in that space just playing and exploring. Most women, she knew, thought of spending time in the kitchen as necessary work. She found cooking, even the simple, home cooked meals of her people, relaxing and pleasurable.

And then it dawned on her. The sign on his truck, the changes to both houses, had to mean he did all this himself. “You?”

“Me, and my crew. I still have work upstairs to do. This place is a 1939 Colonial Revival and is a challenge to update while preserving as much of its original structure as possible. Mary’s house was even harder as it still had the original electric and plumbing. There were many nights her and Patty stayed over here to avoid the noise, chaos and dust.”

“Aunt Mary doesn’t like clutter, so I can’t imagine her staying through that extensive of a renovation. I love both of the kitchens. Mine at home was a fraction of this size and held none of these conveniences,” she admitted, waving her arm. “Makes me wonder what took me so long to take Aunt Mary up on her offer to come stay with her after my husband died.”