the other agent."
But it appeared that a different Hart - Troy Hart - blamed Desiree. "My uncle is Tanner's old boss," Hannah said slowly, putting the pieces together. No wonder he'd looked at her with such horror. Kissing women hadn't been going well for him lately.
Desiree let out a little laugh, then shook her head. "Poor Tanner. Just can't catch a lucky break."
Poor Hannah too, she thought. Because the more she knew about her one-night stand, the more she couldn't stop thinking about him. Last night was supposed to be a liberating sexcapade, an experience-it-now, forget-about-it-after event, but instead it had become a complication to her supposedly healing, supposedly relaxing, vacation.
The best thing for her to do was give up and go home, she decided. She could forego the relaxing, she supposed. It had never been her priority anyway.
But the healing?
Hannah closed her eyes, imagining herself back in her small town, with the pitying glances and speculative stares. And those were just the ones she saw in the reflection in her own mirror.
Damn. She didn't know whether she wished she could question Duncan or curse him - but both ambitions were out of her reach.
There was, though, still a way left to salvage some of what she'd come to Coronado for. She'd given herself ten days to work up her nerve, but if she went ahead and took care of that one particular task today, she could get on a return flight and be back in Northern California by nightfall. Maybe it would be enough to make this next year a different one for Hannah Davis.
She sent Desiree a sidelong look. "Do you happen to know where Taft Street is?"
Desiree did know where Taft Street was. Coronado Island, she told Hannah, was really not an island at all, but a peninsula, connected to the mainland by the bridge or a narrow strip of land called the Silver Strand. And in terms of landmass, the "island" was only 7.4 square miles, so it didn't take much to become familiar with the layout. At the turn of the century two visionary businessmen had taken what had once been a whaling station and then a wheat farm and established it as a vacation paradise.
From what Hannah had seen so far - from sugary sand beaches to charming homes and shops - they'd done a fine job.
Taft Street was a curve and a corner past the municipal golf course that clung to the San Diego Bay side of the peninsula. She saw bright-sailed boats and cigar-shaped kayaks glide through the waters beyond the lush greens before Desiree turned inland onto the narrow, dead-end avenue that was their destination. The homes were smaller here than some others they'd passed, more like beach shacks, and the BMW pulled up to the smallest one.
"Here's the address you wanted," Desiree said, studying the house. "Do you think your friend is home? It looks pretty quiet."
Now that they'd reached the place, Hannah's heart felt as if it was pounding in her throat. She looked over the house and yard, noting the overgrown grass, the peeling sections of faded yellow paint, the old newspaper stuck in one corner of the cement porch, its pages brown and brittle as autumn leaves.
Her own house in her hometown wasn't much bigger than this. It was even a mellow yellow too. But her little cottage's paint was tight and the white trim fresh - she'd done the job herself last July, wishing all the while she could overhaul herself just as easily.
"Aren't you going to get out and knock on the door?" Desiree asked as Hannah didn't stir from her seat.
She swallowed around that great lump that was threatening to strangle her. Confronting the person on the other side was her secret desire and the real motivation behind her solo trip. "I...I want to."
"Well, then do it."
Hannah sighed. Desiree made it sound so simple, when knocking on that door was something that she'd been fantasizing about for months, ever since one of her friends happened to let slip the name of the town. Though she'd tried to talk herself out of it for a solid week, eight days after hearing "Coronado," she'd been Googling with the limited information she had.
Some mouse clicks later, and with the Taft Street address tattooed on her brain, she'd known what she had to do.
What she had to do right now.
Taking a deep breath, she popped open the door and stepped onto the cracked sidewalk. The short front walk