Not Another New Years - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,3

system in the corner. His tip jar overflowed, benefited by the apparent dueling camps in the establishment - those that wanted Garth and Toby, with a little Gretchen mixed in, and others whose tastes ran more to Ludacris, Nelly, and the odd Green Day here or there.

It was like Saturday mornings in the gym she had a birthday membership to, thanks to her second older brother, Tom. This particular combination of music presumably acted like a nonbanned supplement to natural testosterone.

Which made her think of her beautiful man again. Sipping at her drink, Hannah let her gaze roam the room.

Found him.

Alone at a tiny table, he sat with his chair tipped back and his head propped against the wall behind him. His too-long blond hair and stubbled chin gave a hard edge to his golden good looks. Part surfer, part gunslinger, his eyes were at half-mast and there was a wry set to his mouth, as if he was amused. Maybe even by himself and the unfriendly chip she could practically see balanced on the ledge of his wide shoulder.

No one approached him, and he looked as if that was the way he liked it.

A gorgeous, spoiled boy, she decided. One who'd grown up into a beautiful but brooding man.

Okay, call her a woman with an overactive imagination, but as someone who had been taming wild beasts every day for the past six years, she could size up the opposition pretty darn quick. If a twenty-years-younger version of this man walked into her classroom, she would assign him the desk closest to hers. Because no doubt about it, despite the very pretty package, he was trouble.

Someone bumped the back of her chair, jostling her glass so that she spilled mojito over her wrist. Hannah's attention was forced away from the sexy, simmering guy as Twin B made a growling sound and handed her a cocktail napkin.

"I'll get you another drink," Twin A said, looking around for the waitress who had served them before.

"Oh, maybe I shouldn't," Hannah protested. She remembered she was supposed to be making contact with Tanner Hart, and her gaze moved to the bar. But there were so many people bellied up there, she couldn't make out those working behind it. "You've already been so nice, though I can't imagine why."

"At first we thought you were Desiree," Twin B explained, his expression serious.

"Desiree?" Maybe it was the mojito, but Hannah wanted to preen a little at the idea of being mistaken for someone with a name as glamorous as "Desiree."

"Yeah," Twin A agreed. "Dark hair, nice bod."

"Oh." Hannah mentally preened a little more. She loved these guys.

"But then we saw that you weren't," he continued.

Twin B nodded. "No, up close you don't look so much like Desiree, you look like - "

"A schoolteacher," his twin and he said together.

"Mrs. Robertson - "

"We had her for fourth grade."

In an instant deflated, Hannah slumped in her chair. Was this what had gone wrong with her life? Had the blue liquid starch they used for tissue paper art projects replaced the blood in her veins? Did no one want her because she looked ready to blow a recess whistle at any moment?

Depression darkening her mood, she drained the dregs in her glass and banged it onto the table. "Boys, it's New Year's Eve and I need another one."

She needed something all right. She needed to prove something. But what, exactly?

That she still knew how to have fun.

As the third (fourth?) mojito chased away the blues, it occurred to her that she hadn't been to an honest-to-goodness New Year's party in four years. With her fiance away for training or away fighting terrorism, she'd always spent December thirty-first putting together yet another care package and writing yet another long letter.

She truly did deserve a good time, right? By the fifth (sixth?) drink - oh, why count? - she was grinning from ear to ear and having herself one.

She danced with Twin A.

She danced with Twin B.

She danced with both Twin A and Twin B (there were more guys than dolls at this New Year's celebration, wahoo!) and almost forgot about being dumped. As a matter of fact, Hannah was feeling pretty darn pleased, not only with the way the night was going, but also with the cardboard tiara someone had slid over her hair. It was made like a headband, and there was lots of glitter and some red boa feathers gracing the top. When she made a restroom stop, in