Oh God, this couldn’t be happening. Not after everything I’d done to escape and to start over. And why hadn’t I changed more of my name? I’d been so stupid! I’d stayed under the radar so far. No credit cards, no ATMs. I’d done nothing that would have me come up in any kind of financial search. One newspaper article and my shabby attempt at hiding was destroyed. I was smart enough to be a doctor, I should have been smart enough to avoid one dangerous ex.
While I was book smart, Brad was street smart and that was dangerous. Really dangerous. He was going to find me. I choked on a sob and clapped my hand over my mouth to hold it in.
“Hannah?” Jessie said. “Hannah, honey, are you okay?”
I couldn’t bring myself to respond. If I tried to speak, I’d start to cry. And once I started to cry, I might never stop. It was over. This new life I’d built for myself—a new life that included two men I cared about—it was time to give it up. Time to start over. I had to leave. I couldn’t stay here in Bridgewater where Brad would find me and everyone else.
“I’m fine. Sorry, I am tired.” It was hard work to fake a smile, but I did it. I stood. “If you’re okay here, I’ll go take a nap.”
“Sure, honey,” she replied.
I went out the door and around the side of the building, taking the stairs to my apartment. I hadn’t packed much when I fled California, but I’d need it all, wherever I was headed. East, maybe. Or south, where it would be warmer come fall. I couldn’t say goodbye to Jessie, to anyone. I thought of Declan and Cole. Maybe it was for the best that they had gotten over the idea that I was meant to be with them. Especially since I wasn’t going to say goodbye. Their suspicions would be confirmed, that I’d only wanted them for a quick fuck. Love ‘em and leave ‘em Hannah. Yeah, that was me. At least, it was now.
CHAPTER TEN
COLE
My head was pounding, but that didn’t stop Dec from giving me hell. I’d been so pissed after I left Hannah the day before, I’d come home and finished off a bottle of whiskey, something I hadn’t done since college. Now I was paying the consequences, not just for the drinking but for the way I’d yelled at Hannah.
Dec had been tied up at the hospital in Bozeman and then work so it wasn’t until this morning that I had a chance to fill him in on what happened. We were supposed to go see Hannah at lunch like usual but we started arguing and never stopped.
Needless to say, Dec was not pleased by my less-than-forgiving stance. No, he was fucking pissed.
“I can’t believe you told her we were through with her without giving her a chance to explain.”
I winced at hearing it put like that. My gut churned and it wasn’t from the whiskey.
“I didn’t exactly say we were through with her.”
His sigh was filled with disgust. “Might as well have.” He slammed his palm against the wall and I winced, my head ready to fall off my shoulders. I went to the cupboard, pulled down the Tylenol, popped a few in my mouth and stuck my head under the kitchen faucet to wash them down.
“Jesus, Cole, we’re supposed to be convincing this woman that she can count on us. That we can be trusted—”
“We can be trusted. What about her? Instead of ripping me a new one, maybe we should be more concerned with figuring out if she can be trusted.”
The look he gave me was almost pitying. “I know you have your trust issues with women—”
I gave a short, humorless laugh at the understatement, ran my hand over my face, felt the stubble that was one day too long. ‘Trust issues’ was putting it mildly. “Can you blame me?”
He shook his head. “Of course not.”
I knew he was telling the truth. He’d been there during the worst of it. As my best friend, he’d been around constantly when my dad first met Courtney and brought her into our lives. He’d seen with his own eyes just how fake and manipulative she could be. Worse, he’d watched as my father fell for it. He’d been a sucker, and he ended up paying for it with his life. “I’m not going to repeat my father’s mistakes.”
Dec nodded in understanding. “I get that, Cole. But there’s distrust and then there’s just plain foolishness. Hannah is not Courtney. Hell, she’s nothing like her.”
I opened my mouth to protest but he held up a hand to silence me. “Do you really think she came here, to Bridgewater of all places, because she was looking for some guys to swindle?”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I glared at my best friend. When he put it that way…
“And if she was here to con people, what’s she doing saving some choking man with a tracheotomy on the diner floor?” His voice rose in frustration.
“Maybe you have a point,” I said, grudgingly. My mouth felt like a rat had died in it. I went to the fridge, found the carton of OJ and guzzled some down. I wasn’t pissed at him. I was pissed at myself. I wiped a hand over my lips. “But she’s still hiding something.”
Declan gave a weary sigh, dropped into one of my kitchen chairs, stretched his legs out. “Of course she’s hiding somethi
ng. We knew that from the beginning. She was skittish, nervous with us, and not because both of us want her. At this point, all we know for sure is that she’s hiding medical training—not exactly damning evidence that she’s some sort of gold digger like your stepmom.”
“Fine, she’s a paramedic or a doctor. Nurse, even. She wouldn’t just come here to hide the fact that she knows her shit. What’s she really hiding?”