The doctor had removed her cast, but she was still required to wear a brace and be very careful. She couldn’t make coffee without pain in her arm, so she continued her stint at the cash register.
Midway through her shift, she glanced up to see someone in line wearing a state patrol uniform. It wasn’t Jake. It was a woman, but damned if her heart didn’t give a little flutter at the sight of the uniform. As the trooper and her friend got closer, she recognized them as the women Jake had gone home with that night at the bar. They were both tall, slender, and gorgeous. Of course.
They weren’t overt about it, but Hannah could tell by their body language that they were together. As in, a couple. Jake left the bar with two lesbians? Interesting, but no longer any of her concern.
When the women got to the front of the line, the trooper ordered for both of them. Her pretty, blond friend was distracted by a protein cookie in a basket near the cash register. She picked it up and then put it back, finally looking at Hannah and noticing her name tag.
“Hey, are you Jake’s Hannah?” the trooper’s friend asked, nodding to the name tag pinned to Hannah’s apron.
“Shush, Trish. That’s none of our business,” said the trooper.
“I know Jake, but I’m nothis,” said Hannah. “That’ll be eleven dollars and thirty-five cents.”
“No, of course not,” said the trooper, putting her hand gently on her friend’s arm. “That’s not what we meant. We just know Jake has a friend named Hannah who works here.”
“How would you know that?” Hannah asked.
“Jake couldn’t shut up about you the other night,” interjected the blond, totally oblivious to the effect the conversation was having on Hannah. “We had to haul him out of the bar to keep him from drinking himself stupid over you.”
“Yeah. I was there. I saw you leave together.” Hannah was tight-lipped, and her words came out as jabs. The friend didn’t catch on, but the trooper saw through her immediately.
“It’s not what you think,” she said. “My name’s Kris, and I’m in Jake’s crew at work. We’re friends. Trisha and I just wanted to make sure he got home safely. We dropped him at his place in town and left him there. Alone. I hope a misunderstanding of what happened last weekend isn’t what’s keeping you apart.”
Hannah’s world shifted. If that was true, then a misunderstandingwaswhat was keeping them apart. Her eyes welled with tears, and one slipped down her cheek. Swiping it away, she blinked furiously to clear the others.
The man behind the women cleared his throat, clearly impatient with the chitchat. The trooper shot him a look that had him taking a step back, holding up both hands. Hannah had seen Jake use that same glare.They must teach that at the trooper academy.
Kris turned back to Hannah and softly touched her hand. “It’s all fixable,” she said. “He really likes you.”
“Thanks,” Hannah muttered, her mind racing with the implications. Ben had mentioned Kris and Trisha on Halloween night at the bar, saying they might show up. Hannah had assumed Kris was a man, but obviously she’d been wrong about that. Wrong about a few things then, because she was also wrong to assume the worst of Jake. Another reason to apologize.
And did this mean Jake really had changed? That he really did want to try a relationship with her? Maybe even that he loved her? Because she already knew she loved him. Even with his ladies’ man reputation, she loved him with all her heart. The last two weeks without him had been torture.
She wanted to call him right then, but was in the middle of a shift. And she knew he was, too. Getting a hold of him while he was working was always hit and miss.
The trooper paid and stepped aside, giving Hannah a sympathetic, knowing smile.
Hannah was wiping away the last of the tears when Ashley came up behind her. “You okay?” This was the most emotion she’d ever shown at work, and it was probably freaking Ashley out.
Hannah chuckled. “I will be. Can I borrow your car again tonight?”
“Of course. I’m not going anywhere after work. Just come by whenever.”
The clock moved at a slug’s pace for the rest of her shift. And while she was tempted to blow off school, she knew Jake wouldn’t be home until later anyway, so she might as well attend classes. That turned out to be a waste of time because she didn’t retain one thing any of the professors taught anyway.
She practically skipped home from the light rail station and was so caught up in thinking about how the conversation with Jake would go, she didn’t pay attention to anything going on around her. She entered her building in a hurry to get upstairs and clean up before going to Jake’s.Time to fix this mess.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Finally, Hannah was back on a regular schedule. Zach was nearing his wit’s end. Bills were piling up, and his grandmother had taken ill again. His grandpa told him it was from the stress of dealing with Zach’s drug use, but he doubted that was the cause. A couple of weeks ago, they’d confronted him, like an intervention, he guessed, and told him, in no uncertain terms, that the drug use had to stop or he would have to find another place to live. Then they’d actually kicked him out. He’d been couch surfing ever since. Even though he hadn’t seen them lately, he still felt responsible for them.
They made getting clean sound so easy. He’d tried. Really, he had. It was after the first attempt to quit that he realized how utterly dependent he was. Now, he couldn’t go without the drugs for too long without getting physically ill. In his moments of sobriety, he thought about rehab. But what would his grandparents do without him? And how would he pay for it?
Having already sold most of what was valuable from the house—all of his grandpa’s tools and his grandma’s jewelry—he was running out of ways to make money. They’d been pretty pissed about that, but he figured they would leave him everything when they passed anyway, so why not use it while they needed it?
When he defended himself, saying he needed the money to take care of them, they laughed and said his brain must be all muddled up becausetheywere taking care of him, not the other way around. Sure, they bought and cooked the food, but they needed him to help with the bills and stuff around the house. Muddled brain or not, he was convinced Hannah’s money was still the best solution to their problems. Where else would the money come from?
Stealing things, anything from unattended bicycles to merchandise sitting outside the downtown shops, and pawning or selling them on the street had become his latest effort to make a living. A friend told him he could shoplift and then return the items for cash, but his one attempt at that hadn’t gone over too well. Being a good liar was a prerequisite, and he was a terrible liar. Plus, it seemed risky as hell and easy to get caught. The last thing he needed was jail time.
