Free Danger in a Red Dress by Christina Dodd Page B

playing that game. I’m not going to show you my scars because you’re bored.”
    Mrs. Manly almost smiled. “How about because I showed you mine?”
    “You wouldn’t have done it if necessity hadn’t driven you to it.”
    What scars? What necessity?
    Mrs. Manly continued to rag on Hannah. “You wanted me to be interested in you.”
    “Not that kind of interested. I have found that showing my tender underbelly invariably leads to my guts being ripped out.”
    “You are a frighteningly private person. I wonder what secrets you hide.”
    Yeah, Mrs. Manly, you aren’t the only one.
    But the invalid seemed to know she’d pushed Hannah as far as she could. “So about your ideal man. You want a young man who cares for his health, hair optional. What else?” Before Hannah could answer, Mrs. Manly held up a finger. “Don’t give me that sense of humor stuff. What do you really want?”
    Hannah answered so promptly, Gabriel knew she’d given it a lot of consideration. “I want a man who doesn’t want to use me for anything—I don’t want to be a vehicle for revenge or be the pretty thing that gives a man prestige. I liked old Mr. Dresser, and I appreciate the inheritance, but I didn’t appreciate being the one who helped him teach his family a lesson, and I think he knew people were going to say I slept with him. I won’t be used like that again.”
    “What else?”
    “I want a man who doesn’t lie to me. I want to know the truth about him, and when I think I know it, then I’ll tell him the truth about me.” Hannah ran her fingers through her blond hair. “I am so sick of men and their lies. Jeff Dresser telling the nursing commission that I took the family silver and screwed his dad, while the silver’s rattling around in his car from the one time he came to visit his dad.”
    “What else ?” Mrs. Manly was insistent, curious, and Gabriel wanted to cheer her on.
    “I want a man who sticks around. Not one like my father who was there for a good time and gone when it was time to show some responsibility. Oh, and did I mention I expect him not to have a wife?” Hannah glanced at Mrs. Manly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to . . .”
    Mrs. Manly waved her explanation away. “We both have our battle scars.” She stretched out her hand to Hannah.
    Hannah took it.
    Mrs. Manly said, “I have to believe that somewhere, sometime, a woman will marry a man who’s honest and brave and loyal, and they’ll live happily ever after. If I didn’t believe that, if I didn’t believe in love, I would have ended it long ago.”
    Hannah stood looking at Mrs. Manly, obviously surprised and touched. “I suppose if you, of all people, can believe, I can believe.”
    Mrs. Manly held on to her. “You’re a good girl. Genuine. Strong. Moral in a way I don’t see anymore. I’m sorry for what’s going to happen, but it has to be you.” Mrs. Manly’s mind seemed to be wandering as she said, “There’s no one else.”
    Hannah thought so, too, for she leaned closer. “Mrs. Manly, are you all right?”
    Mrs. Manly still stared intently.
    “I don’t like these moods swings.” Hannah freed herself. “Let me check your blood sugar again.”
    Mrs. Manly seemed to snap back to the present. “For God’s sake, it’s not my blood sugar. I’m old and tired, and if everything goes as planned, I’m going to die soon. Don’t I get to brood occasionally?”
    “Yes, and I get to check your blood sugar when I wish.”
    Gabriel watched Hannah perform the task again, and thought how very well she had acted the whole farce. If he didn’t know better, he would have believed she really was disillusioned about love. If he hadn’t seen that scene downstairs, he might have believed she cared about Mrs. Manly. If Carrick hadn’t told him about her scams, and both Nelson and the state of New Hampshire hadn’t supported Carrick’s tale, he might have believed she was a bedrock of honesty and integrity.
    He would have believed