Page 35 of Soft Flannel Hank

“So what if I do? What does that have to do with you?”

He debated how much of his hand to reveal. Until he remembered that they would be here within the hour. There was no long game to play.

“Everything.”

* * *

Esther could feelher heartbeat pounding in her ears, the blood rushing and sounding far more like crashing ocean waves than a steady pulse like it should. Her body was alive with panic, her intuition screaming at her, but she forced herself to take a deep breath. And then another. Her life depended on information.

Her phone was ringing on the kitchen counter where it was plugged in. She heard the vibrations buzzing against the tile surface. She knew it was Shannon—there was no one else it could be—but she couldn’t answer the call now. She’d have to get her information straight from the source.

“How doyouknow Callum MacLeod, Hank?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

He bit the inside of his cheek, clearly deliberating, and she watched him while he did. His hair was pulled back into a tiny bun at the back of his head, and Esther was honest enough with herself to admit that when she’d first seen him like that, she’d felt all of her most intimate spaces pulse to life.

He’d trimmed his beard, keeping it full but cleaning up the edges and the scraggly length. Hank looked good.So good.And yet he sat in front of her speaking the name of the man who had been hunting her for months.

He sighed. “I don’t know him. But he asked for my help. Indirectly.”

“What kind of help?” she asked. But she knew. She knew.

“Finding you.”

Her terror was momentarily overwhelmed by fury. She’d been a mark? Everything had been a lie? The shyness, the magnetism, the passion? All of it a lie? She’d been so sure of him. Her intuition had been so very drawn to him and his quiet, broken steadiness.I’ve never been wrong before.

Months of running, of feeling like a rabbit just escaping the gaping maw of a hungry, violent wolf only to be brought to this moment, this feeling of betrayal that was so tightly wrapped around the sinews and pumping arteries of her heart that she couldn’t have found rationality if she’d had a map and was standing right on top of it.

“I was a fucking mark? That’s all I was?” She flew to her feet, the blanket dropping to the floor and pooling around her feet. Her magic heated her blood.

“So was fucking me just a bonus for you? Making me think that you actually wanted to see me again? I guess that part wasn’t actually a lie. You did want to see me again. To turn me in to that fuckingmonster.” She was shouting through her tears, which clouded her vision and clung heavily to her lashes.

He didn’t look at her. He was looking at his hands. Those big hands that had been the centerpieces of her every waking fantasy for the last two days.

“You’re a very good liar, Hank Dove. Convincing as fuck. I would never have known how easily it came to you,” she sobbed, stepping back quickly.

But her feet were caught in the blanket wrapped around her ankles. She stumbled and fell backwards. Hank shot out of his seat, and in a series of movements that felt like they happened in slow motion, he gripped her wrist, pulled her forward out of her fall, and hauled her to his chest.

As she stood just in front of him, her chest just barelynottouching his, Esther felt small for the first time in her life. She was a tall woman, curvy with swimmer’s shoulders, broad hips, and an ass that gave her nothing but grief when buying blue jeans. But with Hank’s huge hand wrapped around her wrist, his broad chest filling her vision, the tension custard-thick between them, she felt almost delicate. She’d never once felt delicate before.

She wasn’t at all sure she liked it.

Esther stared at the buttons of his shirt, and in her periphery, she could see his head tipped down to look at her face. His grip on her wrist was firm but not painful. The sounds of their breath heaving in tandem overwhelmed the space.

“It wasn’t a lie,” he rasped, as if his voice was as trapped in his throat as she was in his thrall.

She tipped her face up to look at his.

“It wasn’t a lie,” he repeated, sounding even more ragged than before. “That night I—it was just me. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know you. I didn’t know what you’d done.”

“What have I done?”

“Hurt people, Esther. You hurt people.”

Esther’s stomach lurched.

“I didn’t, Hank. I didn’t.” Her voice was quiet now. Pleading. Tears hovered behind her eyes, causing her throat to feel like her neck was two sizes too small. “I don’t know what he told you, but I didn’t hurt anyone who hadn’t been hurting someone else first. I tried to save them.”

His eyebrows pressed together tightly.