Claim Me Hard (Bridgewater County Book 2) Read online

  I rolled my eyes. “Says the cop.”

  She pursed her lips, then frowned. “I’m not really one for guns.”

  I shot Dec a questioning look, but he ignored me.

  He acted too casual as he added, “That’s understandable. But some women want to know how to protect themselves. Most women in Bridgewater have a handgun in their handbag.” He shrugged as if it made no difference, but his motive was plain to me. It was no secret that Hannah was scared of something…or maybe someone. This was Declan’s heavy-handed way of getting her to open up. And if she wanted to carry a gun so she wouldn’t be so skittish, we’d be first in line to teach her how to use it.

  It didn’t work. She pursed her lips in thought for a second but shook her head. “Thanks for the offer, but no.” Wrapping her arms around herself, she rubbed them to keep warm.

  I grabbed her away from Dec, tucked her against my side. “My turn.”

  She leaned her head against my shoulder, laughed.

  “You met in Kindergarten? Seems like you’re still there with this sharing thing.”

  “Some things are worth sharing,” I replied, let that sink in. “Come on, let’s walk a bit, then head back for lunch.”

  Dec dropped his attempts to get Hannah to open up, and for that I was grateful. He wasn’t a cop at the moment and had to remember she wasn’t under arrest. I was as curious as he was as to what had Hannah so closed-mouth about her life before Bridgewater, but pushing her wouldn’t get us anywhere.

  Lunch was easy going and fun. Listening to Hannah laugh with Cara and her husbands as we ate burgers on the back deck, watching as she pitched in with the clean-up and talked with Dec about his day-to-day duties at the department…the woman fit. Not just between us in bed either. In our lives. Hell, she probably fit in better than I ever had. She looked like she’d been born to be here, with us, in this perfect little corner of the world. If her easy laughter and rare chattiness were anything to go by, she was at ease here. Maybe even at home.

  All too soon the afternoon had to come to an end—a damn shame since I happened to know for a fact that the master bedroom at the cabin had a king-sized bed that would fit all three of us just fine. But Hannah had given us a night and a day and we’d promised to get her back to town in time for her dinner shift.

  As if disappointing her wasn’t bad enough, I sure as hell wouldn’t risk Jessie’s wrath if it was my fault she was late. The three of us bid our goodbyes to Cara and her men and climbed back in the truck. Hannah wasn’t nearly as talkative on the ride back to town, but she still had that relaxed air about her that was such a change from the nervous persona we’d grown used to.

  About halfway back she even relaxed enough to slink down, put her head on Declan’s shoulder and fall asleep. I shifted in my seat remembering all we’d done to wear her out.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  COLE

  It had only been a few hours since we had dropped Hannah off at her apartment so she could get ready for her dinner shift, but I was already itching to see her. She was like a drug, addictive. I needed my fix. I parked my truck next to Declan’s SUV in the diner’s small lot—it had gone without saying that we’d be having dinner here.

  I caught sight of her the moment I walked in. She was at a booth toward the back, dropping of Mr. and Mrs. Hardy’s meals. Mr. Hardy had been friends with my dad back in the day. The older man still ran his ranch, although his daughter now helped him and would take it over when he retired. Dec was sitting at the counter and I slid onto the seat next to him. We both watched as Hannah came back with a few dirty dishes, put them into a plastic tub. Turning, she noticed the coffee was low and got out the bag to start a new pot. “How’s our girl?”

  Dec glanced at me with a wolfish grin. “Pretending like the last twenty-four hours never happened.”

  “Huh.” My response was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. I couldn’t say I was surprised. We’d known from the start that she’d resist the idea of something more than a one-night-stand, but now that we knew without a doubt she was the one for us, I was a little disappointed. Last night, hell, even this morning and our time with Cara and husbands, had been incredible. There was a connection that went far beyond chemistry. I knew it. Dec knew it. Hannah knew it, too, but she was refusing to admit it.

  She hadn’t noticed my arrival and just as I went to call out a hello, plates clattered to the floor at the back of the diner.

  “Help, he’s choking,” Mrs. Hardy shouted.

  Everyone in the place rushed into action at once, me and Dec included. Even though he wasn’t on duty, he had his radio. I heard him calling for an ambulance as we reached the back booth where Mr. Hardy stood and clutched his throat, his face turning a horrific shade of purple. Panic was in his eyes and he was frantic to breathe, but not a sound escaped. Sam Kane was already behind him attempting to give him the Heimlich, his clenched hands about the older man’s middle, pulling back hard as the maneuver required. Sam was strong and even his actions weren’t dislodging the obstruction. All at once he passed out, slumping in Sam’s hold. He lowered the man to the floor, but we stood around, not knowing what to do now.

  Shit, I’d never felt more useless in my life and I was sure everyone else felt the same way. I ran my hand over my hair as I stared down at a family friend in trouble. There was nothing we could do until the ambulance arrived except pray that it wasn’t too late. I knew CPR and the Heimlich, and if the airway wasn’t open, there was no way to save him.

  Mrs. Hardy had her fingers over her lips. She wasn’t crying, but she appeared too stunned to do anything but stare.

  “Out of my way.” I barely recognized Hannah’s voice as she pushed me to the side and forced her way through the crowd of patrons who were hovering.

  I reached a hand out reflexively to keep her out of the fray. “Hannah, what are you—”

  She shot me a glare as she shook me off. “Let me get to him. I can help.”

  It was shock that had me dropping me hand from her arm. I barely recognized the woman in front of me. Gone was the skittish waitress. In her place was a woman with so much confidence, I swear to god she stood a foot taller. She was the epitome of calm as she kept moving toward the man, not so gently pushing people out of her way like she’d been a bouncer in her former life.

  She ordered Sam out of the way and dropped to her knees directly beside the unconscious man’s head. She placed a few things on the unmoving man’s chest. A straw…and a knife. A sharp little paring knife used to cut fruit.

  What the hell?

  That was enough to break me out of my frozen stupor and I followed Hannah’s path through the bystanders and to Mr. Hardy, Dec right behind me. By the time we reached her side, she had her fingers on his carotid, then slid them up to feel the front of his throat near his Adam’s apple.

  “Hannah,” Dec said. If she heard him, there was no sign of it. Her expression was focused on her task, her lips set in a thin line.

  Apparently she’d found what she was looking for. Keeping one finger on his throat, she reached for the knife. I moved forward, ready to grab her arm if need be. “Hannah, what the hell are you doing?”

  When she looked up, she was calm—calmer than anyone else in the diner. Her gaze met mine. “I’m saving this man’s life. If you don’t want him to die, you’ll back off.”

  She was serious. I found myself taking a step back as her words sank in. I glanced over at Dec and saw the same shock on his face, but he didn’t try to stop her. We watched wordlessly as she slowly but confidently put the knife to his neck, pressed down and cut a slit.

  She didn’t seem to notice the gasps and little shrieks of horror from the those who were crowded around her. Calmly and with steady hands, she used a finger to open the cut, grabbed the straw and inserted it in the small hole.

  Leaning over she breathed into the straw, and the effect was immediate. Through his plaid shirt, I could see his chest rising, just a touch, enough to prove air was getting into
his lungs. Hannah placed bloody fingers on his neck, felt for a pulse. He must have had one because she didn’t start CPR, just continued her rescue breathing.

  Paramedics hurried into the diner with a stretcher as those damn bells over the front door jingled wildly, breaking the tense silence that had descended over the crowd as they’d watched the new waitress save a man’s life.

  “All right everyone,” Dec said, his voice loud. “Let them through. Hurry, please.”

  The crowd backed away, allowing the paramedics to get to Mr. Hardy. Seeing her giving him breaths through the straw, one of them pulled a piece of flexible tubing from their bag. Hannah slid back on her knees to let the woman swap the drink straw for the sturdier version as the other paramedic hooked up the oxygen and began using the familiar squeeze bag to give him the air he needed. I listened as Hannah gave a report to the male/female EMS team. She didn’t sound like a First Responder. Hell, she didn’t even sound like a paramedic. She sounded like a doctor. Acted like one, too.

  Dec and Sam helped lift Mr. Hardy onto the stretcher as the paramedic continued to bag him. They didn’t linger, quickly wheeling him out of the restaurant with a stoic Mrs. Hardy right with them, but my eyes never left Hannah as she stood and watched them leave. Dec went with the paramedics, too busy now in cop mode to figure out what the hell was going on with our woman.

  After they left and the patrons started filing back to their tables, Hannah bent down to retrieve the knife and start cleaning the blood off the floor with a rag that Jessie gave her. Her fingers were stained, too.

  Seeing this other side of Hannah—it threw me. She was either a paramedic or a fucking doctor. No way some average person knew how to do what she just did. She’d said she’d gone to Stanford, but nothing more. Obviously, there was a whole lot more.

  I didn’t know what to make of it, just that she’d been hiding this part of herself from us. A very big part. Why would she do that? What had she done to make her want to keep it a secret? What was her agenda? She’d lied, or at least lied by omission and I couldn’t stand that. Just like Courtney, my bitch of a stepmother, this woman had been faking it with us from the start, pretending to be something she wasn’t.

  She’d been playing us for fools.

  I joined her on the ground, my hand on her arm, the grip firm. She looked down at where I touched her and then back up at me, her eyes wide with surprise. I couldn’t have kept the anger out of my voice if I’d tried. “You’re no waitress,” I said. “So who the hell are you?”

  She jerked back, scrambling to her feet, the bloody knife limp in one hand, the red stained rag in the other. I stood, too, and she backed away from me so quickly, she bumped into an empty table, scattering silverware. “I—I’m Hannah Lauren.”

  Her eyes were wide and slightly pleading, as if she could get out of answering questions by playing the damsel in distress. She may have saved the man’s life, but she’d messed up. Given herself away. I’d known women like Hannah—beautiful and too smart for their own good. Clearly, she had a plan—she was playing some sort of game with us. Why else would she be keeping so many secrets and lying to us about her past? “What are you up to? What do you want from us?”

  My worst fears threatened to consume me. This was exactly what I’d been trying to avoid since my father got taken for a ride by my stepmother. I should have seen it coming. Hannah seemed too good to be true—sweet, smart, gorgeous. Of course, she was up to something.

  A new thought ripped through me, making me see red. Maybe she’d been screwing with us all along. She could be a grifter, for all we knew. Hell, she could have fucked us just to get her hands on our money. On my ranch. “Is that why you slept with us last night? Did you think you could get something out of it? Ride my dick and get me to give you whatever you want?”

  Her eyes grew wide and she wiped her still-bloody hands on her white apron, leaving red streaks in her wake. “I don’t want anything.”

  Liar. She’d been evading the truth from the start, so how the hell could I trust her word now? I took a step closer and leaned down so she had to look me in the eyes. I saw the flare of fear in her green gaze. “I can’t condone liars, Hannah. I don’t know what you’re up to or why you’re really in Bridgewater, but you’re not going to get away with it, whatever your game is.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  HANNAH

  I hadn’t heard from Declan or Cole in the twenty-four hours since the emergency. What should have been a great moment—someone had called Jessie and let her know the man was going to be fine—had rapidly turned into something terrible. I was glad I’d saved the man’s life, of course, and for a moment there it had been nice to feel that rush of adrenaline again, the knowledge that I was in the perfect position to help someone. That’s what I’d been trained to do, to help people. But that fleeting sense of euphoria had come crashing down after my run-in with Cole.

  I hadn’t expected his harsh reaction but, at the same time, I couldn’t entirely blame him. He and Declan had been straightforward with me from the start. Honest. They’d made it clear that they wanted me, and not just for one night. They’d wanted me to be the one. Their wife.

  I’d known it, known the depth of their intentions, but I’d still assumed it was just a roll in the hay. A quick, hot romp with two cowboys. Or, for them, a wild night with the new waitress. Nothing more. But Cole had been angry. No, furious. If he’d just wanted a quick fuck and nothing more, he wouldn’t have cared, wouldn’t have hated me so much now.

  And if I didn’t care for the two of them more than I ever imagined, I wouldn’t be so upset. I’d hurt him. Not intentionally, but I had. He thought me conniving or a gold digger. Or worse. I’d ruined something really good all because of Brad.

  Damn him!

  My chest ached and I fought back bitter tears. I’d wanted to tell Cole the truth yesterday, but how could I? If word got out that I was here and Brad found me…it wouldn’t just be me in danger. He’d target Declan and Cole, too. Jessie, even.

  I wiped off an empty table with shaking hands. The unfairness of it all made me want to scream, but I had to keep my emotions under wraps. I was the object of enough scrutiny as it was, thanks to that impromptu tracheotomy. Jessie had been giving me odd looks ever since, not to mention the gawking stares from my customers.

  Word spread quickly in Bridgewater, and a makeshift operation on the floor of the town’s favorite diner? I was pretty sure the news of what had happened spread across the entire town before the ambulance had left the scene.

  I’d barely slept a wink, reliving everything. The wild night, the following morning, the picnic, the trach, the harsh look on Cole’s face. Even in my dark bedroom with my eyes closed, I saw it all clearly. Heard his harsh words.

  Is that why you slept with us last night? Did you think you could get something out of it? Ride my dick and get me to give you whatever you want?

  Exhausted, I tried to keep a smile on my face during the lunch rush but it had gotten harder and harder as the hours passed. It became increasingly clear that Declan and Cole wouldn’t be coming, wouldn’t be smiling and flirting with me. Wouldn’t be asking me out again. I’d been dreading seeing Cole again…but I was eager to see him at the same time, to see him wink at me and give me that wry smile.

  No. I wasn’t going to see that again. He’d been so angry—and so sure that I’d had ulterior motives. I felt sick just knowing he thought I’d slept with them as some sort of game. Did Declan think that, too? I had no way of knowing and much as I wanted to explain everything, I couldn’t. I needed to keep them safe. My hands were tied.

  I lingered over the tabletop, scrubbing at the surface well after it was clean. I couldn’t bring myself to face the other patrons until I’d gotten my emotions under control. I shouldn’t have been this upset over losing the affection of two men I barely knew. It was supposed to have been a one-night stand, after all.

  Except that it hadn’t been. Oh, I could tell myself I’d just been in it for
fun—for the novelty of it—but I’d have been lying to myself. Because I’d grown to like those guys. More than just like them, if I was being totally honest. There had been a connection between the three of us from the start and sleeping with them had made it that much more real. It had solidified what I’d already been feeling. That what we had was more than a fling…or at least, I’d started to hope it was.

  Those two men had been kinder to me than anyone I’d ever known. The way they looked at me, cared for me…it was so different from my relationship with Brad, there was no comparison. It could have been the real deal.

  But, now I’d lost their trust. Clearly, whatever connection we had was broken. Maybe that was for the best. I had to focus on staying hidden from Brad—that was all that mattered. Once he was out of my life for good and I knew I was safe, that everyone around me would be too, then I could focus on finding a new relationship. But in the meantime, I couldn’t drag anyone else into my mess. No one deserved that, least of all Cole and Declan.

  “Girl, if you scrub any harder you’ll ruin the finish.” Jessie was laughing as she said it and I turned to give her my best imitation of a smile.

  “Sorry, guess I was a little distracted.”

  Jessie’s smile was understanding, as if she had some idea of what I was going through. She patted one of the bar stools in front of the counter as she went behind it to restock the sugar packets for the dinner crowd. “Have a seat. Your shift is almost over and you look exhausted.”

  I couldn’t argue there. I wanted to throw the covers over my head and sleep for a week, but knew the problems would linger.

  “What you did yesterday…” Jessie shook her head and placed a glass of water in front of me. “That was incredible.”

  I looked down at the glass, unable to meet her eyes. She hadn’t outright asked me how I’d known how to perform a tracheotomy on-the-fly but the question was hanging out there and I knew she was dying to know. That was the funny thing about this town—while they lived for gossip, they still respected a person’s privacy. But I supposed I owed it to her to give her something. After all, she’d taken a chance on me with the job and the apartment. Vouched for Cole and Declan. Still staring down at the water glass, I mumbled, “I’ve had some medical training.”