by Rachel Hanna
Tanner nodded, pursing his lips as he pretended to consider that. "Right. Because running always gives a man that just fu—"
"Do not go there."
Tanner sobered instantly. "Sorry, man. This is serious?"
Fucked if I know, Knox thought. We might really be friends who just accidentally slipped and fell into each other once.
He hoped not.
"How do you even know it's a – "
"Oh, blow me. It's a girl. Are you serious? I've known you how long?"
Knox shrugged. "We're going running." At least they'd been meant to go running. Maybe she'd have taken to the beach. It made him nervous to think she might be out in the hills alone – the same way she had been doing for years before he'd met her. Damn, he needed to chill about this.
"Is that what the kids are calling it these days?" Tanner quipped.
"Skunk ahead," Knox said and Tanner slowed the big vehicle, doing some pretty fancy driving to avoid a huge, lazy skunk. It looked less than worried about them. Neither of them let out their breath until they were well past the animal, then Knox said, "What's up with Mike? Haven't seen much of him lately," and the conversation switched, to work and the business, and his mind almost left off thinking about Hannah.
Almost.
Chapter 5
When he hadn't called by noon, Hannah had seriously considered heading out to the trails alone. There were plenty of nature trails she could take, closer to home, closer to the city, and safer because they were covered in scores of people dallying their way through butterfly collecting and bird watching and dog walking and –
Nope. So not going there. She'd contemplated a run on the beach, but didn't want to settle. Considered heading to any of the new or used book stores but she had plenty of books (never "enough" books but she had a sizable To Read pile at present). Considered taking a nap or even heading to the beach to sunbathe.
No, no, no. What she wanted was the long twisting foothills wilderness run she was supposed to have had with Knox. The same exact thing she'd stupidly let him wring a promise out of her to avoid doing on her own. And yeah, she could call Jenna and go for a short run. Or even push Jenna into seven or eight miles if she didn't mind the cloaked-in-laughter bitching.
He hadn't called. Since he'd called or texted every day during the one week total they'd known each other she didn't think there was anything wrong that way, and they'd had definite plans and Knox didn't seem the kind of guy to just run off without explanation.
Which meant his job.
Fine. She'd entertained herself before he came into her life. She could entertain herself now. It didn't have to be a run.
"Who is this?" Jenna said suspiciously. "I used to know a girl named Hannah, but she met someone hot and vanished."
"Ha, ha," Hannah said. "Want to go get lunch?"
"Yes," Jenna said thoughtfully. "But not at ten thirty. Call Alex and Molly. Let's get coffee."
"And food."
"Coffee," Jenna reiterated.
"And carbs."
"Fine, you runner sorts can have carbs."
"I'm the only runner sort amongst us," Hannah said.
"So you get all the carbs. Joe's Joe?"
Hate the name, love the coffee, Hannah thought. "Thirty minutes?"
Pause. "You're running to coffee, aren't you?" Jenna asked, sounding indulgent.
It was no secret Hannah's friends thought she was a tiny bit obsessed with running. Or crazy.
"Yes."
With a very loud, very showy and long-suffering sigh, Jenna said, "I'll give you a ride home."
"Thanks!"
Joe's Joe was beachfront shoddy, looking always like it was about to decay into the sand. Hannah had long thought keeping a building on the verge of collapse like that had to take work. Especially since it must have been inspected on a regular basis in order to stay open for business.
She arrived second, after Molly, and they both had coffees by the time Jenna and Alexa arrived.
Molly leaned across the table, all the attention on her, grinned at them and said, "So my big news for the week?"
Hannah raised her brows. Alexa and Jenna leaned forward.
"My sister's engaged."
Silence.
Jenna hazarded, "You only have one sister."
Molly nodded.
Jenna glanced at Alexa, who said, "She's your little sister."
Molly nodded.
Hannah took it upon herself to try the next interjection. "Your little sister is fifteen."
"Right on all counts," Molly said. "Maggie is engaged."
"Your parents must be thrilled," Jenna said.
"Yes, I'm sure that's what it means when a hysterical woman calls you at three a.m. sobbing 'Where did I go wrong?'" She paused. "Of course she could mean how did I get to the ripe old age of twenty-five without being the one engaged." She toyed moodily with her coffee cup, spinning it until it clattered over upside down, spilling dregs.
"Your parents trying to marry you off?" Alexa asked, taking the cup and moving it close to her own.
"But not your little sister," Hannah added.
"You're not missing anything," Molly said. "You've got the story right."
Which only led to discussions of bridesmaid's dresses they had known and friends who were married and one friend who was, notably, already divorced, and it wasn't until her legs started moving involuntarily that Hannah thought again about running and running translated to thinking about Knox and something about thinking about Knox was enough to make her friends look at her and then say, "Out with it."
It was Jenna who looked at her hardest and said, "You slept with him."
Molly and Alexa pounced. There was no stopping them.
"All right! All right! I give. I slept with him." Her eyes moved between the three of them, seeing delight for her on all three faces. She gave up all pretense and let the joy carry her along. "We slept together and he's still my friend and still my running partner and still perfect for those things and at the same time, friends with such very, very lovely benefits."
"Oh, my," Molly said, fanning herself ineffectually with a napkin.
Alexa looked avid. Jenna looked delighted.
"Details!" Alexa said.
"I told you what he looks like, right? I mean, the coloring, that light sandy hair and the brown eyes, and his body, god, he's so lean, so muscled and not huge, except, I can't believe I'm blushing, but he is huge, perfect, really – "
"Hannah!" that was all three of them, even if they did look delighted. The story unspooled and the hours passed and she didn't have to stop herself from thinking about Knox because she was thinking about him the whole time.
On Sunday Knox had another call, so she ran alone through beach neighborhood streets and tried not to feel sulky about it.
On Monday they ran a twenty miler after their respective jobs and then had dinner and then had something they could have called dessert that left Hannah even more conflicted than she had been. Were friends with benefits supposed to benefit from the friendship quite so often?
On Tuesday Knox challenged her to a fast seven miles that left endurance freak Hannah thinking she might die and feeling challenged enough to know she'd work on it until the next time she beat him at speed, too.
On Wednesday she was supposed to take a rest day but she ran trails alone. Safe trails, she told herself, nature trails where there could be lots of foot traffic.
On Thursday they had dinner. As friends, of course.
"I have something for you," Knox said, fumbling in the pocket of his hoodie even as Hannah froze over her spaghetti, fearing what he was going to come up with.
She was relieved when it turned out to be a canister of pepper spray. The canister fit neatly in her hand and would fit nicely on her belt. "Is this legal in California?"
Knox said easily, "You're not a convicted felon or a minor, not modifying the canister or using it for anything other than self-defense. Totally legal. Though I've also
made you this – " he pulled a small piece of orange-painted doweling out of the same pocket, and Hannah could see it was detailed with permanent marker – "So after dinner we can practice."
Aww, gee, how sweet, Jenna said in Hannah's mind.
Hannah herself thought it was a weird but totally awesome gift and she cheerfully worked scenario after self-defense scenario with Knox after dinner until the spaghetti had settled enough it made sense to let the big bad brute overpower the helpless maid.
How else was she going to take her benefits tonight?
On Friday Knox worked. They had planned a long, long, easily start run for Saturday and didn't see each other Friday night.
And on Saturday at dawn he texted her about the search and rescue and Hannah let her head drop back on the pillow with an oath.
The next time she woke, the sun was up and her alarm was going off. Six o'clock on a Saturday and it wasn't like she had to go to work.
Normal people would call this masochism.
Hannah called it Saturday except she didn't start this early even when she wanted to run. Which was every Saturday unless she had plans with her girls or a date in the evening and thought maybe she should get home and get ready for it with more than twenty minutes to spare. She'd get up when she woke, have coffee and oatmeal and fruit and bread, carbing up no matter how often various naysayers wrote that runners didn't need extra carbs or extra protein or whatever such people were finding it necessary to write about that week. She'd dress, grab her gear and head out and that was it for being home until the running ran out. Sometimes she'd even finish a loop and still want to run and head out from wherever her car was again, setting an alarm on her phone so she didn't go too far that time.
Only difference this week was she was up way earlier.
And that she'd been meant to have that tall, lean, fucking hot running partner and maybe some after-running reward.
"Hrmph." She stacked her dishes in the sink, put on one of her favorite pairs of trail runners, thinking about some of her favorite off-the-beaten-path paths, grabbed her keys.
And froze. She'd promised she wouldn't.
OK, it wasn't exactly a promise. More that she'd told Knox she wouldn't intentionally head to deserted trails and run them alone. She'd take someone, and whether or not he knew it, Knox was the only runner Hannah knew who could keep up with her.
Standing there in her apartment with the brilliant sunlight outside, the carbs revving her up on the inside, and her keys in her hand, she bargained.
"I have the pepper spray," she said aloud. She didn't actually, but it only took a minute to find it in the kitchen junk drawer and clip it to her belt. "I'll call Knox's voice mail and I'll call Jen's voice mail and I'll let them both know where I'm going. As soon as I get there."
Because she didn't know which of the lovely trails was beckoning the hardest and she wouldn't know until she got out to the canyons edging the outskirts of the city and chose. Then again, Jen knew where Hannah loved to run, and Jenna would definitely be asleep, phone off, so she could call her now without fear of waking her best friend at seven-something a.m. Saturday morning.
Less than five minutes later she was in her Jeep, voice mail left, pepper spray clipped, phone charging as she drove, the band for it already on her arm, big clunky man's watch on her wrist so she'd come back to reality someday.
Sunlight blinding and hot.
Day a promise spreading out in front of her.
At seven-something a.m. Saturday, Knox slipped into the always-icy waters of the Pacific in a wet suit. The stranded family was going to be a piece of cake. They weren't panicked, not overly, though he could see some obvious anxiety on their faces. No surprise – there were four adults, two different families, and seven kids, mostly of rug rat age. When the boat had been running it had been fine. He doubted there'd even been anyone more than the two 'tween-aged kids watching the littles. Everyone was wearing life vests and at this hour everyone still seemed to be drinking coffee. Good. Alcohol always made everything so much harder. So it had been family day on the water when something went clunk and the boat stopped working and a fire broke out and one of the kids shoved another and broke his arm.
Not a hard rescue. Coast Guard had some other call they were tied up on and gave Tanner a call. No big deal. There was an ambulance on shore, waiting for the little boy with the broken arm. There was more than enough room on the boat he'd taken out with Tanner, and the only reason he'd had to cancel on Hannah was Michael was off dealing with ex- and visitation and shit again, Jake was out of town for some bodybuilding event, and Angel was out of town for the weekend. That left him and Tanner and unless there was an emergency, just them.
Only reason he was in the water was to make certain everything went right with the plank put across the water for the family to follow. Then he'd heave himself into the boat and see what he could do to get it going again. If he didn't have it running by the time Tanner made the trip back to shore with the family, Tanner would come get Knox off the boat. Otherwise he'd take it back to dock.
Easy peasey, it was just going to take some time. By the time they finished with the family, and probably more so with the boat, and then with the paperwork because they'd all agreed to fill out insurance reports and log everything with photos and reports as soon as the rescues ended, it would be late morning. He'd call Hannah, apologize, ask if she was up for an abbreviated run or wanted to try again on Sunday, and then call Karen to tell her Saturday night was back on.
He ignored the twinge there even as he hit the water. Karen was from the way back machine, more memory than reality. They'd been first year of college sweethearts, Karen tall, beautiful, buff, badass and a sweetheart and when her work for a state senator brought her out of DC and into his neighborhood, they usually got together and had the kind of nights people wrote to Penthouse Forum to pretend they'd had.
Only for the first time Knox was rethinking his night with Karen. Because even if he and Hannah were just friends – very friendly running buddies and all the rest of it was just boys being boys? It felt like more.
More was a bad idea. More was trouble. Their SEArch & Rescue was still new, technically still a startup company grateful for jobs like this. Despite that, Knox obviously had a lot of calls that dragged him away from scheduled downtime. He was still SEAL reserve. All really good reasons to stay casual in his relationships until things settled down.
Hannah didn't feel casual.
He was afraid she didn't feel like a running buddy with benefits, either.
She felt like more. Knox just had to decide if he wanted more. Or cut her loose before he hurt her.
So when he slipped into the water and heard his phone shrilling back up on deck in the holder where they docked them, he paused, holding the edge of the craft, while Tanner checked.
"Who's Hannah?" Tanner asked.
"Running buddy," Knox said.
"Oh, riiiiiiiight," Tanner said, with impressive sarcasm.
"Shut up."
"Want it?"
"Nope!" She already knew he was MIA for the day. This wasn't the time to discuss it. Once the mission was over and he knew how much day was left, that would be the time.
Once he'd decided whether or not to see Karen and what to tell her if he didn't.
Knox pushed off the craft and swam toward the stranded family.
* * *
Perfect day.
Hannah parked off the side of the road, leaving the Jeep mostly hidden from the road behind overgrown foliage in the deep gravel turnout. No point advertising to anyone that she was up there. She left a note on the antenna – she always did, so CHP wouldn't tow her. Jenna said it took them weeks to tow apparently abandoned cars, even those that looked like they'd caught on fire and it was totally unlikely anybody was ever coming back for them, but Hannah didn't want to come back and find the Jeep gone. The note said we're on a hike rather than single woman whose friends think she's batshit crazy for doing this on a solo run.
Yeah, she was sure that was going to keep her safe. She grinned at herself. Whatever, she'd taken steps. She'd called, she'd left voice messages, she could reach down and pat the canister of pepper spray, she had her phone cozy on her arm, her watch, her keys, her water bottle annoyingly Velcro-strapped to her hand. Carb blocks in her fanny pack along with one Ace bandage in case something got sprained and needed reinforcing. Little packets to dump into water if she needed extra water and had to clean up some from a natural source. Extra socks.
Ready. She stood at the head of the trail that led up the hills surrounding the canyon, looking into the underbrush where the sun became patterns of lace on the pale dirt glimpsed through the leaves, and grinned.
Going to be a great day.
All told, it took just over an hour to get the families back on board a ship that hadn't caught on fire and wasn't leaking. Then there was all the stuff they'd had to have with them for the day. When asked why they hadn't contacted the rental company to come get them it turned out the boat was borrowed from a friend. Whatever. By the time the hour was up the kid with the broken arm was en route to emergency with his parents and the rest of the happy Saturday crew were dispersing in vehicles after obligatory breath tests proved there wasn't anyone unfit to drive no matter what time o'clock it was. Random bad luck, could happen to anyone.
Much like Knox's plans being derailed. Happened. Now it was over, though, he felt bad about bailing on Hannah and pulled out his phone to call her first. He'd decide the rest of the day from there. If she could run, he'd run. If she had a date, he'd go out with Karen.
Only thing he didn't know for certain was what he'd do if she could run and didn't have anything planned for the evening.
Probably best to not keep his options open. Truth be told, he was pretty much over Karen. He thought she was over him, too. That relationship needed a clear-cut finish.
