barely sparing him a look.
Which, now he thought about it, was just like her.
If she was still the same Hannah he’d known—or even slightly similar—she wouldn’t speak to him until she’d finished what she was doing. So, Nate sat there, and waited, and watched. He studied the way she smiled at the kids, noted the calming effect that her voice seemed to have on them.
She spoke so slowly—not in a boring way, but as if she had control of everything around her. As if the world could very well wait until she finished her sentence. And the kids reacted like they’d just been pumped full of Calpol and put down to bed for the night.
He wished any of the nannies he’d been interviewing recently had been half so effective. Christ, he wished the nannies he’d been interviewing had actually talked to his kids at all, instead of talking at them.
But he noticed other things, too. Like the hummingbird flutter of her lashes, and the slight dimple in her chin, and the careful precision with which she held herself. It was a precision that spoke of hesitation, of restraint. It made him wonder.
Once the kids were laden down with marshmallows, she finally looked up. At him. It felt sort of like being electrocuted. He had no idea why. Maybe that was why he blurted out, “We should catch up.”
The kids shared a meaningful look at those foreboding words. Beth mumbled around a mouthful of marshmallows, “Daddy, can we go and play?”
“Sure. Don’t go past that tree, okay?” He pointed to a nearby beech, close enough that he’d have them in his line of sight, well-lit by a streetlight.
“Okay!” They ran off together, sticky hands clasped, cheeks stuffed full of marshmallows like hamsters with grain.
Leaving him and Hannah on their knees, Nate suddenly realised, staring at each other like lemmings.
“Catch up?” she repeated faintly, with the sort of tone he might use to say “Eat mould?”
“Uh… yeah.” He ran a hand through his hair. Christ, he needed a haircut. He stood, and she followed suit, which made him realise how short she still was. Or maybe she just seemed that way because he was tall. Whatever. He should’ve stayed on his knees. He felt like some kind of ominous, oversized thing, looming over her in the half-light.
She cocked her head slightly as she looked at him, like a bird considering an unsuspecting worm. The shadows shifting over the smooth planes of her face were giving him ideas. He hadn’t shot anyone professionally in years, but all of a sudden, he could see a thousand images in his mind’s eye. Something about her…
“I don’t think we have much to catch up on,” she said.
Nate forced himself to focus on the conversation, since he was the one who’d started it. “We don’t?”
“No. I know everything there is to know about you.”
2
“I know everything there is to know about you?” Why in God’s name had she said that?
Well, it’s true, Hannah’s mind offered up. But it seemed to have missed the part where true did not mean appropriate. Nate was staring at her with an odd expression on his face, as if he wanted to frown and raise his eyebrows at the same time, but was struggling to manage the feat.
She didn’t blame him. How the hell had she blurted out something so utterly embarrassing? Oh, but she’d almost forgotten. She was having a break. Tomorrow she’d be all wrapped up in her own self-consciousness again, like an inescapable set of handcuffs, but today she was a wildcard. Typical. According to her sources—her sources being his brother, Zach—Nate Davis had been in town for a week. But of course she’d bump into him now. Of course.
“Okay,” he said slowly. It wasn’t I’m backing away and calling 999 in my pocket slow, though. It was more, I’m a complete badass and nothing can faze me, so I’m happy to calmly question my stalker slow.
And he was a complete badass. He’d been a complete badass when they were kids, and now he was all grown up and absolutely enormous with tattoos peeking out from the sleeves of his shirt. He gave her a lazy grin, one that softened the harsh lines of his face into something achingly handsome and slightly less intimidating. He pushed back his silky black hair with one hand and she realised that he had a tattoo there as well—on the back of his hand, like some TV gangster.
Usually, when Hannah saw that sort