Almost Midnight (sweet contemporary romance) (Colorado Clearbrooks) Read online

  Almost Midnight

  Colorado Clearbrooks, Book 1

  Teresa McCarthy

  ALMOST MIDNIGHT

  Copyright © Teresa McCarthy, 2012

  All rights reserved

  EBook, December 2012, Teresa McCarthy

  Cover Art, LFD Designs For Authors

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, copied, or transmitted without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  You’ll find your soulmate, honey. At the stroke of midnight, on a mountain road, when all seems lost, he’ll come like a knight on his white horse.

  Twenty-eight-year-old Hannah Elliot dropped her head to the steering wheel of her old two-door coupe as she thought about her mother’s dream. Okay, it was almost midnight, and her car had just died on a mountain road. That part was right. But soulmate? Knight on a white horse? Nope, she didn’t think so. Things like that didn’t happen in the twenty-first century in the middle of Colorado.

  With a groan, she lifted her gaze and stared straight ahead as a cool June breeze rustled through the nearby pines. Shadows danced in the moonlight, giving the place an almost magical charm. She had to admit, a knight on a white horse who knew something about cars would look pretty good right now.

  Her cell phone was dead. She was going to charge it last night, but of course, she had loaned the recharger to a neighbor a few days ago, and it had never been returned. Besides, the cell reception didn’t work to well on these mountain roads anyway.

  For a moment, she pictured a white horse dashing out of the dappled darkness and onto the road. She sat back and tried to smile. It was more likely she would see a white-tailed deer jumping in front of her car. Or maybe even a white rabbit.

  She looked up and sighed. Stars twinkled in the sky, reminding her of the same sight outside her tiny balcony apartment, a place where she wished she were right now.

  The inventory at the library could have waited. But no, she’d insisted on finishing it tonight. She needed the overtime. With her mother’s past medical problems and the lady’s debts, along with her own school loans, there were too many bills left unpaid. Now, with this car, there’d be more.

  She didn’t know much about what was under the hood of her car, but knew she should take a look before she made any decisions about what to do. She had her fingers on the door handle when a pair of headlights flashed behind her. She turned in her seat. The vehicle was stopping.

  Her heart beat a little faster as she fumbled for the door locks. The driver began to exit while headlights beamed in her direction. She squinted against the light. Was that a stretched limo? A white stretched limo? Well, this was a back road to the airport, wasn’t it? Not many people took the back way, but—

  She stiffened. White limo? Knight on white horse? No, it couldn’t be.

  An owl hooted eerily in the distance, and she rolled up her window to within an inch of the top. Good Samaritan or not, she couldn’t be too careful these days. And she highly doubted some knight in full chain mail was going to save the day if anything else went wrong.

  She watched from her side view mirror, only able to see below the man’s shoulders as he walked toward her. The limo’s headlights lit his way, giving her the impression of one tall, powerfully built man. Though he seemed to be wearing a dark suit, his nicely tailored clothes didn’t ease her apprehension. She would not let down her guard.

  I can handle this, she told herself, breathing slowly, trying to relax. Just don’t do something stupid, like get out of the car. And this has nothing to do with Mom’s dream. It’s merely a coincidence. But please God, let me get home tonight, safe and sound.

  Yet no matter what she told herself, panic welled in her throat when a set of wide shoulders bent her way. This man, well, goodness, he was—

  “Are you all right, Miss?” The compassionate timbre of his voice floated through the car like a swirl of smoke.

  “W-what?”

  “I said, are you all right?” The man lowered his face.

  She blinked, not able to generate a coherent thought as a pair of liquid silver eyes pierced her senses. “I’m having trouble with my car.” Oh, good thing to say to a strange man on a mountain road when she was alone without a charged cell phone. Yeah, good thinking, girl.

  His eyes narrowed as he studied her. “Will it turn over?”

  “Turn over?”

  He smiled. “Will the engine start at all?”

  She shook her head. “No, but it clicks a little.”

  He nodded toward the front of the car. “Pop the hood. I’ll take a look.”

  Hannah did as he said, but still stayed in the car, her mother’s dream not far from her mind.

  She anxiously went over the facts. It was midnight on a mountain road. Okay, she would be the first to admit her car wasn’t in the best of shape. She also lived in Colorado where mountains were numerous. As for help, there was a fifty percent chance a man would come to her rescue. This...this person in the white limo was purely coincidence.

  “You have a flashlight?” he asked.

  She realized she had been staring at him. “I, uh, might have one in the trunk.” There was no way she was getting out of this car, knight in a white limo or not.

  He looked at her as if he could read her mind. “Do you have a trunk button you could push? See if it works.”

  Hannah almost smiled. Of course she had a trunk button. That was probably the only good thing about this tin can she owned. She pushed the button and the trunk clicked open.

  “Thanks.” His mouth curved into an irresistible smile, and the dimple in his chin only added to his charm. Tawny-gold hair gleamed against the moonlight. She blinked as if she were hypnotized. Had she seen this man in town?

  Yes, hadn’t she’d seen him at the hospital when she had brought her mother in last week?

  Or was her mind playing tricks on her?

  She heard him moving a few things in the trunk, acting as if every day he helped a stranded woman on a two lane mountain road. The trunk snapped closed, and after returning to his limo, the man made his way toward her hood, flashlight in hand.

  She immediately noticed he had taken off his jacket. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, his tie was missing, and his collar was open at the neck.

  He disappeared beneath the hood and after several minutes, he came toward her, wiping his hands on a handkerchief he’d pulled out of his pocket. A handkerchief? Who used a handkerchief these days?

  “Okay, Hannah, I think it was a loose connector to your alternator.”

  The flashlight shone into the car. Her shocked gaze met his amused one. “Pardon me?”

  He chuckled. “Hannah Elliot. I saw the name on a notebook in the back.”

  “Oh,” she said, wanting to smack herself. Of course, she had put her name on her notebook.

  She had probably left her notes in the trunk from her last class the other day. She had been moving books from the library and must have forgotten about it.

  “Does that mean it’s fixed?” she asked.

  “No, I’ll have to bring my limo around to jump it. The battery was being drained because your connection to the alternator was loose. You had just enough juice to click your trunk open. I’m betting your lights probably dimmed before your car stopped.”
>
  She frowned. It had to be the battery. It had happened just as he said. Her lights had dimmed to nothing.

  He leaned against her car. “Once the alternator is connected, all we have to do is give the battery a little kick to get it going. If you don’t mind, I’m going to link up my battery with yours.” He cleared his throat.

  Hannah felt herself blush. “I see.” Right. She really hoped this man knew what he was doing.

  It seemed he did. Within minutes, he had jump started her car, and the engine was purring like a kitten. For some reason, she knew that wouldn’t last long. Still, she wanted to repay this man in some way.

  It had been kind of him to stop. He seemed harmless, but one never knew. He appeared to be in his early thirties, his good boy looks reminding her of Nick.

  Nick.

  Reality slapped her hard. She didn’t need any more Nicks in her life.

  After putting away his tools and asking her to open the trunk again to return the flashlight, he walked up to her window.

  She swallowed. “Um, thank you. I don’t know what to say. Can I pay you?”

  “Don’t worry your pretty head about paying me.”

  Pretty head?

  He shifted his gaze in the direction of the limousine and shook his head. “Good thing I stopped by. I usually take another route to the airport. I don’t think the police comb these areas too much after ten o’clock. You would have been left out here like a lamb in the woods.”

  “A lamb?” she murmured to herself, avoiding the man’s reaction by turning to the side.

  Lamb and a wolf maybe.

  “I didn’t hear that. You know, we could talk better if you rolled down the window a bit.”

  He didn’t seem to think she had needed to roll the window down before.

  Keeping her safety of the utmost concern, she eased the opening wider by another inch. He leaned closer, so close in fact that she detected the musky scent of cologne. She wished he would move back a few feet. His nearness was overwhelming, making it hard to think.

  “Smart girl, Hannah.” A smile lit his eyes as he inspected the sparse opening. “Doesn’t pay to be too careless.”

  Her lips parted in surprise, and she bristled, wondering if he knew the direction of her thoughts. “I don’t think that’s funny, Mr.—”

  “Tanner,” he said, his eyes still twinkling with mischief. “Just call me, Tanner. And I didn’t think it was funny at all. I think you’re smart not to get out of the car. But you should have a cell phone. Do you? It’s a stupid thing for a woman not to have a cell phone. If you were—”

  “If you don’t mind,” she said interrupting him, not wanting to hear about her stupidity from a stranger. “I’d like to get on my way. Thanks again for helping me.”

  His smile widened in what seemed to be a look of respect, and if she didn’t know better, she would have thought he’d made some deal with the moon, making it shine down on them with such pointed brightness she wished she’d put on her lipstick.

  “No need to thank me any more than you have. I always enjoy helping a lady in distress.”

  Oh, he definitely had one of those knight complexes. Maybe her mother had been right about that, but he was definitely not her soulmate.

  “But I will take down your phone number.”

  Hannah blinked. “My phone number?”

  “Yes, your phone number. Does that surprise you? It’s not like I haven’t seen you in Clearbrook Valley. But you don’t know me, do you?” He studied her intensely, as if letting her know he wouldn’t forget her face.

  Heat flew to her cheeks. So, he remembered her too. She did live in town, so perhaps he had seen her.

  Yet why in the world would he expect her to know him? She didn’t have a lot of time to socialize with her busy schedule - but what an ego!

  Clearbrook Valley wasn’t the biggest place in Colorado, but she guessed that with such a small community, many people knew everyone’s business. But not her. She didn’t have time to do much but go to work, go to school, and take care of her mother. The lady wasn’t an invalid by any means, and her mother was rather independent, but recovering from cancer had taken a toll on her. And staying off the dating scene was just fine with Hannah.

  Even though it seemed obvious that she and this man Tanner had seen each other from afar, he was still a stranger. And though a helpful stranger, she didn’t want to give him her phone number. There were too many crazies out there.

  He leaned in further and cleared his throat. “Thought I could give you a call sometime and we could go out to dinner.”

  Dinner? In your dreams, buddy.

  So, there was a price to be paid, just not in money. Though there was a slight vulnerability in his voice that was there for only a second or two, she wasn’t about to let that sway her.

  But what if she said no? Would he get mad?

  Despite his handsome looks, her past had taught her well. Maybe he wasn’t crazy, but she would never make the mistake of falling for a man like him again. Good looking, sure of himself, and acting like he owned the world. No, he was Nick all over again.

  She forced the corners of her mouth to curl upwards. His silver gaze was trance-like, and she almost gave in to his request.

  “So, you want my phone number to ask me out on a date?”

  That irresistible dimple almost made her forget where and who she was.

  “That’s usually how it goes. I know it seems a bit crazy, but I’d like to give you a call some time. It seems fate was with me tonight.”

  Crazy? He got that right. The nerve of the man, asking her for a date in the middle of the night.

  And fate? She knew all about that.

  At twenty-eight, she had known enough men like Mr. Limo to last a lifetime. Why couldn’t they be nice, just for the heck of it, and not ask for anything in return?

  She dropped her gaze and searched through her purse for a pen and paper. “And this has nothing to do with paying you back?” She wanted to make sure she understood his intentions.

  “Hannah, Hannah, Hannah.” Despite the unorthodox situation, the way he said her name sent goosebumps down her arm. This man was more dangerous than she had first thought.

  “I already told you, I’m not going to ask you for anything, but your phone number.”

  Hannah pulled out her three-inch day planner and threw it onto her lap. It was loaded with more receipts, grocery lists, and medical bills. Finally, she found what she was looking for, a small flyer from her landlord with all the information she needed for emergency and non-emergency information. She found a hotel pen in her cup holder and wrote down a phone number on another scrap of paper, handing it to him.

  “To tell you the truth,” she said, batting her eyelids. “I thought I remembered your face from somewhere too, but I just can’t place where.”

  He took the paper and touched her fingers at the same time. “Hannah...I like that name.”

  She gave him a sweet smile and watched him leave, sighing as his long legs swaggered back to the limousine. He may have been a Good Samaritan, and her mother’s dream may have been somewhat true, but no dream was perfect.

  Hannah really did appreciate his help. But someone should let this man know that not all women were going to fall at his feet because he gave a finger to help. It was common decency to do the right thing. Too bad he was so full of himself because he did seem like a kind man, however skewed his intentions. And though she might run into him in such a small town, she wouldn’t worry. He would probably forget about her and move on to the next woman.

  She felt bad about doing what she did, but he hadn’t given her much choice. Of course she could always have said no. But then where would she be?

  Frowning, she realized she was probably the tenth in a long line of Hannahs. Her phone number was unlisted, but if he wanted it, he could obviously get it. This man could probably get anything he wanted. Anything but her.

  With a small sense of regret she wondered how long it woul
d take for him to figure out that the phone number he had in his pocket was the direct line to the Clearbrook Valley Police Department.

  John Tanner Clearbrook pressed the cell phone harder against his ear as he walked toward the Chicago terminal for his flight back to Colorado. Drained from the string of trade shows he’d attended and multiple late night dinners, the last thing he needed was his father’s help in finding a tutor for his eight-year-old son.

  “Found the perfect one,” Fritz said. “You won’t have to do a thing.”

  Tanner groaned. He should have cut his trip short, knowing his father was going to pull something like this. He didn’t need his father’s matchmaking skills, nor did he need any gold-digging women walking about his house, the very creatures his father seemed to be securing lately. After Julie died, Tanner hadn’t been truly interested in any woman until the night on that mountain road. And that had been a total disaster.

  “It’s not your job to find a tutor, Dad. Jeremy’s my responsibility. I forbid you to hire anyone before I return. Is that clear?”

  “What’d ya say? All I can hear is a crackling sound.”

  Tanner glanced toward the terminal window where the jet sat waiting to be filled with passengers. “I’m warning you, Dad. I choose the tutor this time. I want the best for my son.”

  “Dang it, I always get the best.”

  Best floozies, Tanner thought with a scowl. At thirty-two, he still had his father interfering in his life, and there wasn’t a darn thing he could do about it. “I want a disciplined tutor. A man with some backbone. Jeremy’s grades have been diving for too long. I want the best this time.”

  Something in Tanner’s heart twisted. He didn’t say his son’s declining marks at school were probably a result of his mother’s unexpected death, but he didn’t have to. It wasn’t the grades that bothered Tanner so much, it was his relationship with his son. For two years, Jeremy had been slowly drifting away from him, and the boy’s attitude toward learning seemed to be a direct correlation.