Share the Darkness

Now, he needed to figure out why. And do it again. Was it because he challenged her job performance? Or because he questioned how outsiders were able to access computers? Time to rattle her some more.

“Tell me how—”

The lights flickered again. A grinding, mechanical screech wrenched through the office. Then complete darkness.

For a moment the entire floor housing Protter and Lane lay silent. Then a few chuckles and squeals drifted in from the outer office. Hannah released a soft sigh, and the tension strung between them slackened.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Sure.”

Her voice vibrated with a loose quality he hadn’t heard from her since they’d first met. Weird. Instead of making her more nervous, the darkness almost seemed to make Hannah more relaxed. At least the tapping pencil had stopped.

Peeps and chirps sounded outside his window. The power failure had not affected the bird family who’d nested on his ledge. At least his sliver of a window provided a little light.

He stood and felt his way around the corners of his desk. A shrill siren sounded and the emergency security light beamed red in her face.

Ward reached for her. She wrenched away from his touch. “Hey, I’m just taking you to the window.”

With an abrupt, almost violent lurch, she stood. “No. Don’t touch me.”

He raised his hands and stepped away. Her notepad slid to the floor, and they both hunkered down to retrieve it.

Her fingers wrapped around the steel spiral of the notebook just as his hand met hers. The soft smooth skin beneath his fingers warmed him. Her shoulders shook as she sucked in a breath.

Then, with a determination that radiated from her to him, he felt her fortify her strength. The unease he’d sensed when the light had glared into her face vanished. She was completely under control.

The siren stopped as the lights flickered back on. They remained crouched by his desk. She, holding the notepad. He, holding her hand.

He gazed into her eyes. Although her back stretched strong and firm, her green eyes still held the uneasiness she’d shown moments ago. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Her green eyes flashed, a hint of gold burned like a bursting ember. He sensed something in the fiery depths. An unflinching vulnerability. Those two descriptions countered each other so completely that he stiffened like a man who realized he’d stopped making sense. A condition usually brought on by a woman.

The flash in her eyes disappeared, but the damage was done. Her brief yield had stirred up a primeval response. Shocked by the heat of his reaction, his hand dropped from the satiny skin of her hand.

Hannah stood and smoothed her skirt into place. Total concealment. He sat back on his heels and watched her race away.

Now more than ever he needed to know her secrets.

He could afford to bide his time. In two days it would be Saturday. He’d have her in the office all to himself.

HANNAH PADDED barefoot into her kitchen and spooned coffee into the basket. Her mind drifted to work as she waited for the coffee to brew.

She smelled a setup. Since her disastrous meeting with the security head on Thursday, it seemed she couldn’t evade him. The last thing she wanted was to be anywhere near the watchful gaze of Ward Coleman. Wherever she went…there he was. All six foot plus of outstanding male.

A delicious shiver went down her back. It had been so long. So long since she’d felt the steady warmth of a man’s hand. So long since she’d felt the mind-numbing pleasure of a man’s touch. So long since she’d hungered for a man. And she hungered for Ward Coleman.

And he wasn’t doing much to help her out. She couldn’t get a pencil out of the supply closet without him retrieving a pen. Forget about the break room. She hadn’t been there since the beginning of the week. And Friday was doughnut day, and the boss had sprung for Krispy Kreme. Coleman was gonna pay for that one.

The only place she could find any peace was in the ladies’ room, and Friday afternoon she could have sworn she saw him skulking by the men’s room across the hall.

But today was Saturday. Her special time alone in the office. No one asking for their password, no one complaining about the server being too slow. No one. In an hour, it would be just her, blank disks and a computer to back up.

She leaned against the counter and took in her tiny kitchen. She loved it. It was the first one she’d had with a dishwasher. Why she’d stupidly avoided having one until this point she didn’t know. Her foster mother’s hands had always been rough and red from soapy water. A woman’s hands were meant for something other than cleaning. Her mind always knew it, but she’d only recently put it into practice when she spotted the box of dishwasher detergent the landlord’s wife had left.

She tugged the lapels of her green terry cloth robe tighter. The blistering heat wave passing through Gallem hadn’t reached full strength yet, so she could relax fully covered. Saturday morning always seemed to start out right with a cup of coffee and the newspaper in her kitchen.

The apartment had practically rented itself after she saw it. The previous tenants had been a couple of college kids. They’d sponge painted the walls black, and the elderly landlord had knocked off twenty bucks a month so he wouldn’t have to repaint. She kind of liked it. The front room reminded her of a dark, moonless night. She’d placed a few stick-on stars on the ceiling for effect.

Furniture remained a luxury. She didn’t have much left, leaving almost everything she’d accumulated behind in the last town she’d been relocated to. It was bad to get attached to stuff anyway. She’d found a few good pieces for this new place—a sturdy couch; she’d fashioned a slipcover for it with a navy flat sheet covered with yellow moons and suns. It kept with the space theme. Maybe she should have stuck with plain navy, but then a voice in her head said it was time to delve into the light.

She hadn’t yet found a reasonable kitchen table, but she had unearthed two bar stools, badly needing attention. She’d spent an entire weekend sanding and staining, then proudly placed them before the nice, neutral Formica dining bar.

Hannah slid onto the bar stool and tucked her legs beneath her. She reached for her coffee, inhaled the warm, toasty aroma and took a sip. Ahhh. With lazy fingers she folded the newspaper flat on the countertop.

The date lurched. Bold and warning.

Her breath left her body with a whoosh.

June twenty-first. The longest day of the year. How could she have forgotten?

She gulped down some more coffee, coughing as it slid down into her lungs instead of her throat.

How she hated this date. When light seemed to take over the night. The calendar explained it all. The impending sense of doom, the anxiety, her paranoia of Ward.

It wasn’t Ward Coleman and the exciting yet dangerous promise she’d glimpsed in his eyes at all. It was the date that had her jangly with nerves.

The longest day of the year had been the last day of her normal life.

Hannah drew in a calming breath the way the counselors had taught her to four years ago. She would beat this. She was beating this. Nothing special lay in the date. It was no different from the twentieth. Or the first. Or the thirteenth.

No. The date held no meaning for her. Not anymore.

She slammed the paper to the table and marched into her bedroom. She nearly tripped on the inflatable mattress. Not that it would have been too great a loss if she’d popped it. But she would be kind of sad. The convenient mattress was one of her few possessions to last through two moves.

The accordion door of her closet slapped against the wall. She’d yanked it harder than she’d intended. With a jerk, she grabbed a long skirt and blouse. No way would she crumble under the weight of the date. Hannah Garrett was made of stronger stuff, and she would go to the office as usual. Maybe the next time Ward Coleman got in her way, she’d smile at him.

“YOU GOTTA SEE THIS, WARD. Some reporter is actually out there trying to see if the sidewalk is hot enough to fry an egg.”

Ward looked up from his review of the three suspect files and at his best friend, Brett Haynes, gaping out the fourteenth-story window. “Don’t they have any real news?”

“This is the only news,” Brett pointed out. “Sixtyeight days of no rain coupled with this unbearable heat—it’s a disaster waiting to happen. A local news channel’s dream.”

“Speaking of unbearable, isn’t it about time for you to call home again?” Ward asked.

Brett glanced at his watch. “No, I’m not supposed to call until—” His friend wore the expression that indicated he just realized he was the butt of a joke. “Hey, we’re not that bad.”

Ward laughed. “No, what was bad was when she put the baby on the phone.”