Unfinished Hero - Raid Part 15

Raid made a move, but her arms tightened around him.

Then, suddenly, she dipped her chin and planted her forehead in his chest.

"I know you think I'm an idiot and this is ridiculous and I understand why you were angry I didn't discuss things with you when I overheard you talking. But I heard you say I was clueless and you were going to end this tonight. I obviously mistook what you said, but what you said didn't sound good," she explained in a hesitant, hushed voice.

He pulled her closer and dropped his lips to the top of her hair.

Finally, he got it.

She hadn't heard it all.

Not even most of it.

Just the part she could misinterpret.

"You missed the part when my partner was givin' me s.h.i.+t about my new babe takin' my mind off the job, how I needed to get my head back in the game and how you were distracting me from doing that."

"Oh," she whispered into his chest, her arms around him going even tighter. She dropped her head back and he lifted his up to catch her eyes. "I should have told you I overheard. Let you explain. I'm sorry."

Straight up apology.

It took b.a.l.l.s to do s.h.i.+t like that, even for sweet, cute, shy women.

His f.u.c.king reward.

"It's done, baby," he told her.

Hanna nodded, then again tipped her chin down and planted her forehead in his chest.

"Do you think I'm a crazy, creepy stalker lady, hanging at Rach.e.l.le's just to see you walk in?"

"Absolutely not," he replied immediately, his voice steely, and her head jerked back so her eyes could scan his face to ascertain the veracity of his words.

He let his expression do the talking because he didn't think her crush was crazy or creepy.

It was like everything about her, sweet and cute.

He just wished like f.u.c.k he'd been paying more attention, so instead of spending the next however long it took coaxing her into his bed she'd already be there.

Finally, she said, "I think I actually believe you."

Raid smiled. "Good, *cause I'm not lyin'."

Hanna's body melted into his and she gave him a smile back.

f.u.c.k, he had to get out of there.

"Now let me go unless you want me to stay," he ordered.

He was gratified at the lengthy hesitation before she let him go.

He leaned in, kissed her forehead and moved to the door.

He had it open when something occurred to him and he turned back.

"You thought you were ending this earlier," he noted. She tipped her head to the side, but then righted it and nodded. "So why did you give me the afghan?"

Her brows drew together in confusion, he sensed not at his question, but at her actions. Then she laid it out honestly.

"I don't know. Maybe I was being my usual idiot and wanted to give you something to remember me. Maybe, even with what I thought you were doing, I knew you were a partial good guy, what with offering to take care of Grams's yard and all, and I wanted to give something back. The only thing I had to give. Something that would keep you warm. But really, I don't know. I just..." she shrugged, "did it."

"Glad you did, honey," he replied.

"Me too," she said.

He gave her a grin. Hers was shy, but she returned it.

"Lock this after me," he commanded.

Hanna nodded and he jerked up his chin.

Then he walked out the door, closing it behind him. He was on the steps when he heard it lock.

Raid sat in his Jeep and didn't pull away until the downstairs lights were off and he saw her shadow moving behind the filmy curtains of her bedroom.

He drove to his place. He tagged the afghan and walked up the side stairs, unlocked his door and moved in.

He pulled off his clothes, yanked the comforter off his mattress, untied the satin ribbons around the afghan and threw it out on his bed.

Then he climbed under it.

He'd been right when he first touched it.

She'd been right when she said it would keep him warm.

Heaven.

Then Raiden Miller fell asleep under the warmth of Hanna's cashmere, and for the first time in a long time he didn't have a nightmare.

Not even one.

Chapter Eight.

Double Feature.

The next evening...

"Leave it to you, when I'm lookin' forward to my plans for after the f.u.c.kin' movie, you find a double feature," Raiden grumbled.

I threw a nervous smile over my shoulder at Raiden, who was carrying a big bucket of popcorn in the crook of his arm and two huge sodas in his hands. He was following me down the aisle of the Willow Deluxe, our theater in town that, against the odds of compet.i.tion from the huge cineplexes only forty-five minutes away in Denver, stayed in business.

This was mostly because the town liked it. Then again, the citizens of Willow just liked Willow.

Our town was one of those strange exceptions to every rule. We had not gone the way of one-stop convenience and bulk buying economy.

We had a butcher. We had a fruit and veggie shop. We had a non-chain hardware store. We had a grocery store that everyone went to that was family owned and had been for over fifty years. We had a florist, a craft shop, three gift shops, a coffee house, Rach.e.l.le's Cafe, a pizza joint that did great Italian on the whole, a biker bar, a cowboy bar, a Broncos fans only bar and more.

Including the Deluxe, which was a not-for-profit and stayed in business as well as continued renovations due to the generosity of a town that wanted to keep its old-fas.h.i.+oned, hometown feel.

I loved the Deluxe.

I loved my town.

But my smile was nervous because of what I suspected Raiden's plans were for after the movie, not because I was still worried and wondering if he was really into me.

No, even if last night, or more accurately, super-early this morning he had not made that very clear, earlier that evening he'd made it even clearer.

Needless to say, Raiden's idea of "slowing this down" clashed with mine.

In other words, before the movie he took me to Rach.e.l.le's for dinner, and even before that, he'd told me to call his sister to get his number, which, of course, I did not.

He had to know, since Rach.e.l.le was at the cafe a lot even in the evenings, that she might be there and see us together.

And she'd been there.

I'd been at that cafe a lot and never seen Raiden there with a woman.

Making out with one outside, yes.

Inside, never.

And neither had anyone else, like KC or my other friends, all of whom followed Raiden's actions like, well, what we were: crazy, creepy Raiden Ulysses Miller stalkers.

So it was not lost on Rach.e.l.le (or me) what Raiden taking me to her cafe meant.

However, this was the least of my worries, when, after she saw us together and her eyes bugged right out of her head, she came rus.h.i.+ng to us, exclaiming, "OhmiG.o.d! Hanna! I haven't seen you in forever! Look at your hair! I love those highlights! They look great! And it's so long! I barely recognized you."

Raiden gave me a brows raised look as he pulled out my seat, and I belatedly avoided his eyes as I sat.

"And you're so tan!" Rach.e.l.le went on, stopping at our table. She put two fingers to her cheek, tilted her head and gave me a once over before enquiring, "Have you lost weight?" Then she answered her own question, "No. But definitely toned up. I am so getting my own Schwinn if that's what it can do."

I tucked my hair behind my ear and chanced a glance at Raiden to see his lips quirking and his eyes on me.

Rach.e.l.le seemed not to notice the looks Raiden and I were giving each other or the fact that neither of us spoke.

Instead, she cried, "Don't order! You're both getting the special. Tonight's special kicks a.s.s, if I do say so myself." She turned to her brother. "Beer for you, bro." She turned to me. "Hanna, white wine or diet root beer?"

"Root beer," I answered.

"On its way," she replied.

She then bounced off, Raiden's burnished highlights s.h.i.+ning in her long, swinging, brunette hair.

Unfortunately, albeit a gentleman (at times, when he wasn't cursing or angry and backing me up against walls), Raiden didn't let this pa.s.s.

"So I didn't notice you or I didn't recognize you?"

"Whatever," I mumbled to my knife and fork, which were rolled in a pink paper napkin and rounded with a sticky tabbed slip of paper in robin's egg blue; one of Rach.e.l.le's Cafe's many signatures.

Raiden roared with laughter.

I quit avoiding him, lifted my head to watch and my discomfiture fled because I enjoyed the show. So much I ended up grinning at him.

He ended his laughter with his face getting soft when he saw my grin, his lips ordering, "Come here," but his body not giving me the chance to comply (or not).

He stretched a long arm across the table and hooked me at the back of the neck. He pulled me across, met me halfway and touched his lips to mine before he let me go.

This was not lost on the many patrons or Raiden's sister. I felt it and saw it.

So much for going slow.

That was the only thing uncomfortable about dinner, except Raiden told me he'd share about the "job" he was working in town "later", and he did this in a way I didn't question at the time, but made me slightly troubled.

Mostly we talked about what went down with Bodhi and Heather. Or more to the point, Raiden quizzed me about my less-than-stress-free day after the police arrested my friends and raided my kitchen warehouse, a large part of that day being taken up with the police escorting me through my warehouse and asking me questions then taking me to the station to ask more and giving me updates in return.

"They found ice?" Raiden asked, his mouth still full of Rach.e.l.le's delicious (she was not wrong) grilled turkey and swiss sandwich with a thin coating of French dressing and chili oil infused cream cheese.

I nodded. "Apparently lots of it. Though, they didn't share how much."

"And Joe was cool with you?"

Joe was Sherriff Joe who had been Sherriff Joe since I was about twelve.

I nodded again. "He asked me not to leave town, but he told me he knows I'm not involved."

"Did he explain the operation?" Raiden went on.

Another nod from me.

"He said the dogs found little baggies of crystal meth at both the bike shop and my place, most of it at my place hidden under the floorboards, but apparently they bagged the drugs at the bike shop. Evidently, Heather packed it with my afghans and s.h.i.+pped it to drug people that were around my boutiques. They got their drugs and hand delivered my s.h.i.+pments to the local shops so no one would be the wiser. Though if the USPS sniffed it out, which thank G.o.d they didn't, they'd trace it back to me and I'd have uncomfortable questions to answer, but Heather and Bodhi would be long gone. Sherriff Joe said Bodhi told the police all this when they interrogated him. They s.h.i.+pped it everywhere, all over the country. Some of my s.h.i.+pments were drug free because they didn't have a dealer to s.h.i.+p to in that area, but a lot of them were tainted. "

None of this made me happy, most especially my friends duping me and putting me in danger of being arrested for a felony I had no knowledge of, but also me being such an idiot. Heck, I actually paid Heather to do it. But there was nothing I could do about it except feel relief it was over.