Free Almost Midnight by Teresa McCarthy Page B

silvery gaze pinning her to the spot.
    The sight of him in a white polo shirt and faded jeans sent her pulse skittering. He looked almost friendly and way too masculine for a woman who couldn’t trust a man again.
    The reason he had shed his layers of annoyance toward her was anyone’s guess, but it was his nearness that she found more disturbing.
    She must have been crazy to think he had been going to kiss her earlier. Yet why had he interfered with Alex?
    Her confusion increased when he smiled. That set of bright white teeth flashing her way made her knees go weak. And then there was that dimpled chin that made him too adorable for his own good.
    “Evening, Hannah.” 
    Not Miss Elliot? The soft-spoken words, together with his grin, transformed him into a man with a heart, a man who loved his son.
    A wave of frustration rippled through her. What was he doing? Like the night on the mountain, he was like a powerful magnet, pulling her towards him.
    Leave me alone Tanner Clearbrook. You make me remember. You make me want to forget. You make me want to love again.
    “Miss Elliot, would you come here, please?” 
    Hannah started when Mrs. Gould’s domineering voice broke into her thoughts. The old grouch stood three feet from her, angling her blue hair toward the back room.
    “I would like a word with you in private.” The lady pushed her glasses up her pointed little nose and gave Tanner a good once over. “That is, if you can possibly tear yourself away.” 
    Hannah’s heart sank. She took one last look at Tanner’s frowning face and gave him a weak smile before she followed Mrs. Gould on the death march behind the reference desk.
    No doubt she was going to be fired. She fingered the black embossed business card in her hands, and the frightening thought came to her that maybe Reach Medicals might not come through after all.
    A nervous sweat began to break out on her forehead. She hoped Candy’s brother had meant what he’d said about the job in Chicago, because if things didn’t work out in Clearbrook Valley, Alex Richards would be her next contact.

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Tanner parked his black Jaguar at the far end of the library parking lot and stared out the windshield. A row of fluorescent street lamps shone down on the cracked blacktop directly outside the library’s doors, the lights seeming to attract every insect known to mankind.
    Tanner immediately thought of Hannah and her pull over him. If he got too close he’d be zapped, too. He couldn’t believe he’d almost kissed her there in the library, as if he were some seventeen-year-old kid running on hormones.
    Those insects had no idea they would be branded the closer they flew, but he knew. The closer he moved to Hannah, the more chance he would begin to feel again for another woman, and that wasn’t about to happen, not after Julie had died. He needed Hannah as a tutor, and also as a positive female influence on his son. That was all.
    Tanner checked his Rolex and grimaced. The library closed fifteen minutes ago and neither Hannah nor that blue-haired monster had left.
    He had driven his father and Jeremy home over half an hour ago, giving strict orders for Fritz to put Jeremy to bed. Late night poker games had become a habit between grandfather and grandson, and it seemed to Tanner that a mother, Fritz was not.
    When Julie died, Fritz insisted that Tanner hire a cook and housekeeper, while Fritz offered to fill in for Tanner when he was gone. They had hired an older lady named Mable to take over the housework. She showed up a few times a week and did her job well, but when she was done, she went home to her own family.
    Guilt filled Tanner’s mind. Jeremy needed a woman’s touch, and right now that woman was Hannah. The boy didn’t have an aunt. Tanner’s brothers were bachelors with no sight of them getting married in the near future, or ever for that matter, and Julie had been an only child, her parents having died two years before she had