she wondered as she prayed for her life. It wasn't too late to get Dorothy back to Kansas.
Then Desiree took a second turn and they left suburbia for another, wider street. As Hannah chanced a cautious peek, she saw something spectacular out the windshield. Sand. Ocean. A wide expanse of gray-blue dotted by pockets of gold and silver sunshine.
A frothy wave crashed onto shore, and she stared at it, fascinated. Oz'd.
Thanks to more of her companion's aggressive driving tactics, they made it to a take-out place - Junie's Java - and into a corner of a parking lot beside the sand in what seemed like seconds. As they sat, blowing across the tops of their triple-shot lattes (Hannah's heartbeat finally slowing from its survival race with the BMW), Desiree hit a button and the convertible's top peeled back.
The smell of saltwater mixed with the steamy scent of the coffee. Sun warmed the top of Hannah's dark hair and washed over her cotton-clad shoulders. She felt her hangover loosen its hold and a sigh of delight drew up from her toes and out her mouth. "It's January," she said to Desiree. "How warm must it be?"
The other woman shrugged, her gaze straying to a pair of surfers who walked in from the beach toward a decrepit Volkswagen bus on the other side of the lot. They had boards under their arms, and while their black wet suits still clung to their legs, the top halves were unzipped at the back and dangled from their waists, leaving their chests and arms bare and the neoprene sleeves bouncing against their knees.
"Watch this," Desiree whispered, still looking at the men. "It's why God invented Southern California surfing."
Bemused, Hannah obeyed, giving them her attention as she sipped at her cup. The men opened the back of the van and slid their boards inside. Then they produced two striped beach towels. One rubbed his over his wet hair; the other, bigger man didn't bother. His head was shaved as clean as a baby's butt.
After a minute, both men wrapped their towels around their waists and, half bending, reached beneath the fabric to shimmy out of their clinging wet suits.
"Look at the way the tall one's butt wiggles when he does that," Desiree pointed out. "I don't think he realizes how hot he makes me."
An odd note in the woman's voice pulled Hannah's gaze her way. "Do you know him?" She glanced back at the big guy and narrowed her eyes. "I think I know him."
The man lifted his head as if about to peruse the parking lot, and Desiree slid lower in her seat. "You probably saw him at the bar last night. That's Troy, Tanner's older brother."
Tanner. At that man's name on this woman's lips, Hannah stilled. She'd been putting off the inevitable, but now that she had coffee, fresh air, and a segue into the subject, she couldn't avoid it any longer. While she'd sort of agreed to be Desiree's temporary guest, and had gone along with Tanner's plans when it came to the rest of her day, she'd done it because it seemed the fastest way out of his bed. The option of leaving town ASAP, however, was still open.
And at the moment, she was leaning toward doing it. This conversation would likely topple her right over.
"Listen, Desiree," she said. "I suppose it's time we, uh, talked about Tanner and me."
The other woman tore her gaze off the surfers. "Tanner and you?"
Hannah inspected the seam of her cardboard cup. "Or maybe we should start there instead. Tanner and you."
"Tanner and me?"
Hannah knew her laugh sounded as jittery as her stomach. "I'm getting us all confused."
"Why don't you just spit it out."
Honesty again. After what Duncan did, she should know how important it was to be forthright. She looked up into the other woman's eyes. "You asked him to marry you. So I assume there's something between you, and I wanted to assure you that...that..."
Good Lord, how was she supposed to get through this? If she was being honest and forthright, she would tell this exotic-looking female that Hannah had apparently had explosive sex with her almost-fiance and one mention of it this morning and she'd wanted to have it all over again.
Heat flooded Hannah's face and she took a breath. "You see, things like what happened last night are really out of character for me. A few months back I learned the man I was engaged to dumped me after I'd been wearing