Chapter 4

Hannah

About half an hour later, we pull off onto a small gravel road and drive through a thick line of trees until we emerge into a large clearing. Acres of lawn surround a large, sprawling house, completely hidden from the road behind a dense thicket of trees. 

I think we passed maybe two houses on our way here, and I briefly wonder if all the houses in Haven are hidden away like this. A town scattered throughout a forest.

The driveway cuts a swath across a wide lawn, passing by a freestanding two-car garage before circling in front of the great stone house.

We pull up in front of the garage, and I can see that the terrain slopes sharply off the back of the house, where the house splits into two levels and looks over a sweeping view.

Micah hops out first, followed by Luke, who gives me his hand again to help me down, and I have to admit I like the excuse to slip my hand into his warm grasp.

“I like your tats,” he says, his eyes flashing heat as they run over the tattoos on my arms and chest.

“I like yours, too,” I reply with a smile.

He’s still holding my hand and I’m so preoccupied with the energy I’m feeling between us that it takes me by surprise when I hear a voice call,

“What’s happening here?”

I tear my eyes from Luke, who drops my hand, and look over to see the man who fathered these two studs, and…

Yup. It checks out.

The man walking towards us from the house is Luke in twenty years—the Calvin Klein version.

He wears his silver hair slicked back, in the same style as Micah’s, and he’s dressed in a long-sleeve shirt, but the shirt is clinging to arm muscles that look every bit as built as his son’s.

Even though he has the same deep, brown eyes as Luke, though, he doesn’t have the same warm, friendly, puppy-dog look.

He’s frowning at me.

“Who’s this?” he asks, looking right at me but obviously not speaking to me.

Luke turns to me.

“Wait. What is your name?”

“It’s Hannah,” I answer, holding the old man’s stare. I’m not going to be intimidated by him, even if he does look like he should be on the cover of a J. Crew catalogue.

He gives me a look, like,  doesn’t explain anything, and says, “your car, Hannah?”

“Uh-huh,” I nod, while Micah snickers from the other side of the truck.

“Hers now,” he clarifies, and his dad flashes him a look.

“Nice car,” is all he says, and I nod again, not sure what else to say.

“Hannah’s stranded,” Luke explains.

“Engine’s dead. Think you can have a look?”

Micah walks around to the back of the truck while their dad folds his big arms across a taut, muscular chest.

“Are we a body shop now, son?”

“C’mon.” Luke cocks his head and flashes his dad a warm, irresistible grin.

“Just trying to help a lady out, as you taught me to do. You wouldn’t want us to leave Hannah out by the side of the road, would you?”

Dad purses his lips, looking unimpressed, but he shakes his head in resignation and says,

“Fine. Push the car into the garage and I’ll have a look.” He turns around and starts walking towards the garage.

Micah unhooks the car while Luke throws an arm around my shoulder and mutters,

“Don’t mind my dad. He’s just an old school prick—he’s like that with everyone.”

“I heard that,” calls his dad ahead of us, unlocking a side door to the garage.

Luke laughs and pulls me in tighter. It feels totally natural, after sitting so close to him in the car, and from the flirtatious way he keeps looking at me. I have to remind myself that it was only this morning that I woke up beside my boyfriend.

But Dane never felt this easy. Luke has a sincere warmth to him, and I already trust him way more than his smirking brother and hard-as-nails father. I lean into him, enjoying the feel of his body against mine—the warmth of his arm and the heady laundry soap/motor oil smell of him. Why shouldn’t I be under his arm? It’s my life now. I’m free to do whatever I want.

We wait for a moment in front of the garage. Like the house, it’s big, and freshly painted in the same shade of pale gray. One of the doors starts to roll up with a mechanical whirr, and when it’s high enough, Luke leads me through. Standing inside, his father raises an eyebrow at him.

“You think he’s going to get that car in here by himself?” he asks.

Luke laughs, not at all intimidated by his dad’s grouchy manner, and I miss the feel of his arm as he lifts it off my shoulder.

“Be back in a minute,” he says to me, turning around to help Micah push the car.

“You two know each other?” the old man asks, nodding his head towards Luke’s retreating figure.

“I broke down outside The Rusty Horseshoe,” I explained.

“Your boys were inside.”

He makes a noise like hmph, and I feel like he’s judging how flirtatious Luke is being with me, but I don’t care.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

“Sean,” he answers, looking up at me with those dark brown eyes, so like his son’s, but with a hard edge that tells me this is not a man who puts up with any bullshit.

“Nice to meet you,” I say, crossing my arms and leaning back against a metal work station. His eyes drop to my legs and travel up over my party dress before meeting my eyes again, and I feel myself flush under the frankness of his gaze. He’s so clearly checking me out, and he doesn’t even try to hide it.

His attention is drawn away by the two boys steering the car into the garage. They roll it into the available space between the work station against the wall and a covered vehicle on the other side of the garage with practiced ease, one man pushing, one man steering. Once it’s parked, Sean takes the glasses tucked into the collar of his shirt and puts them on for a closer look, and I have to admit it’s fucking sexy the way he looks with glasses on.

He pops open the hood and has to turn his head away from the burning smell that wafts out.

“Your engine overheated?” he asks, as if I know what happened to the car and I just haven’t mentioned it.

I shrug.

“I guess so?”

“I’d say yeah, by the looks of it. Didn’t get any warning indications beforehand?”

No, I shake my head.

“You’d usually hear something in the car.”

Okay.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” is all I can think of to say, and he looks up at me over the tops of his glasses as if he doesn’t appreciate my attitude or something.

He gets in the driver’s seat and tries to turn on the car. The engine starts banging loudly as if it’s rocking back and forth inside and then quits. Sean shakes his head.

“This probably isn’t something we can fix. You live nearby?”

“No,” interjects Luke.

“She needs a safe place to stay, Dad.”

Sean rolls his eyes.

It takes everything in me not to interrupt and say I’ll find somewhere else to stay, because the truth is, I can’t. I have four hundred dollars to my name and no way of even leaving this property without the Porsche, so I bite my tongue, hoping that Luke can make a case for me, even though it’s pretty obvious that Daddy Sean doesn’t want me there.

“This car isn’t going anywhere, sweetheart,” he says.

“The engine’s completely dead. You’re gonna need a new one.”

“A new engine?” I repeat. Shit, that sounds expensive.

“Any idea how much that will cost?”

Sean shrugs his powerful shoulders.

“For a new Porsche? You’d have to ask the guys in Riverdown to know for sure but I think you’re looking at least ten or fifteen thousand dollars.”

My heart actually sinks. I can feel it drop down my rib cage and land in my stomach. I have four hundred dollars, and that took me more than six months to skim off the spending money Dane gave me. He cut up my credit cards and closed my bank account. There is no way I can get my hands on ten thousand dollars.

“She looks pale,” observes Micah, and Luke chuckles in a way that’s meant to be reassuring.

“It’s okay, baby,” he coos, and I’m so upset I almost—almost—don’t catch that he’s called me baby.

“We’ll help you. We’ll figure something out.”

He wraps an arm around me and squeezes me against him and I manage a small smile. I have to admit, his hug is comforting.

“Well, you’re gonna have to figure something out,” says Sean, taking his glasses off and hooking them over the collar of his shirt.

“You can’t leave it here—even if it is a $200,000 car.”

Two hundred thousand dollars? I knew the car was valuable—I mean, Dane treated it like it was the fucking Hope diamond, for Christ’s sake—but I had no idea it was that valuable.

Suddenly, I feel lighter. There’s a solution in all this!

“Maybe I could sell the car,” I say brightly.

Micah and Sean both look back at me skeptically.

“How’re you gonna sell a stolen car, darlin’?” asks Micah, his blue eyes flashing playfully, and Sean smirks. It’s the closest thing to a smile I’ve seen him give yet.

“That’s another reason you’re gonna need to get this car out of here,” he says to me, sounding a bit disapproving but really not as concerned as you’d expect.

“I don’t want anything hot on my property.”

But surprisingly, after he’s done rolling his eyes, he says,

“You can stay here tonight while you figure things out. Luke will show you to the guest room.”

“Really?” I don’t know anything about these guys but at this point, it’s either staying with them, or setting up a tent in the forest around their house. And I’d have to borrow a tent.

“You’re welcome to stay,” says Sean, flicking his eyes over to Luke.

“For tonight,” he adds.

“C’mon,” says Luke, popping the trunk of the car and pulling out my suitcase.

“I’ll show you to your room.”

And before I know it, he’s leading me across the yard to the big house, holding my hand as we go.

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