Hannah's Hunks

. . . . . Chance turned away from the Shelby, stuck his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and walked up the path to Hannah's home. The white house with its Georgian pillars and wrap-around verandah reminded him of Mount Vernon. He had a soft spot for George Washington's house. Particularly the grassy hills behind the gardens. He had lost his virginity on one of those fresh green patches.

An old fashioned brass school bell, green with either age or lack of polishing, stood to the right of the front door. He snapped the rope twice, the clapper clanged and mockingbirds flew from the trees to escape the noise.

He didn't need his sixth sense to know Hannah watched him through the window. The curtain fluttered and he could see movement behind the lace. He jerked the rope again.

Fine Hannah. Watch as long as you want. She couldn't know he had the patience of Job. He leaned back against the warm wooden door, folded his arms across his chest, shut his eyes and began to think of different ways he could torture Hannah for making him lose, even for that short time, the one part of him that had kept him alive. His hunches.

Only he must have been more fatigued than he had realized because somehow visions of Hannah wearing a g- string bikini bottom and no top, lapping in waist high water off the coast of Cancun superimposed itself on his brain and it was Chance whispering to her, "Torture me, Hannah, oh torture me, please."

His shoulder muscles relaxed. Other parts of him hardened. He had just come up with of the sixteenth way to entice the g-string off her when the front door swung open and he fell through, landing on the floor with a thud.

"Well, well, Chance McCoy." Hannah peered down at him, her smile sweet. Virtuous. "So nice of you to... drop in."

"Thanks." He didn't bother to hide the grimace as he leaned back on his elbows. Then his gaze rose from her shoeless feet with their pale pink toenail polish, skimmed slowly past slender ankles, up rounded calves, great knees, perfectly shaped thighs, past a starched white apron that covered her from the top of her hips and over her breasts until he reached pale topaz eyes which caught and captured his gaze.

He had been right about one thing. Hannah, not he, did the torturing. Ignoring the pains to his behind and pride, he bent one knee and patted the wooden floor next to him. "Have a seat, make yourself at home."

"I think that's supposed to be my line." She extended her arm to him. "Allow me."

Chance didn't need her help but he captured her hand anyway, forcing himself not to labor too long on the way her slender fingers and soft skin felt against his palm.

He got up from the floor, landing close enough to breathe in her vanilla fragrance and see the light dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks. He counted not one, but six different shades of red highlighted through her hair and no dark roots. All the women he knew had dark roots. But not Hannah. Then again, she hadn't yet done anything he had expected, so why should he be surprised? He let go of her hand and walked out of the house, away from the spell she seemed to have cast over him.

He stopped at the porch railing and filled his lungs with heated, humid air. Hannah closed the front door and followed him.

"Kind of hot out, isn't it?" she asked, her voice soft, lyrical.

"Yeah. Hot." Chance looked through the bushes and trees out toward where his Mustang was parked. No matter what kind of sorcerer's spell she had cast over him this morning, it wouldn't work. He was here to do a job. And nothing, or no one, would stand in the way. "Follow me," he ordered, jumping the three steps off her porch in one leap.

"Where are we going?" She hurried behind him. "Because I'm busy right now, and I was kind of hoping to just give you the key to the apartment, if you still insist on staying here, and let you bring your luggage in and --"

"I want you to see my car," Chance interrupted.

"Oooh, I don't really think that's necessary."

"You don't?" He stopped.

She missed running into him by half a toe. "Well, of course not. I've already seen it. It was a nice looking car."

"Exactly my point. Was."

"You're right. It was really nice in its day. Have you seen the new Mustangs? Very sleek. Smooth. Have you thought about buying a new one? Yours is such a wreck."

"The Shelby wasn't a wreck until you smashed it." He turned his back on her and marched down the walkway, breathing anger in, frustration out.

"Smashed it? I don't think so. I no more than tapped the fender with the Tank. Isn't that cute?" Hannah followed close on his heels. "I named my Volvo, Tank. I like Shelby better. Kind of nice. Is Shelby a boy car or a girl car?"

He reached the Mustang and spun around. She couldn't be for real. She had to be putting him on. No one made a fool out of Chance McCoy. At least not twice. His eyelids narrowed. "Shelby's not the car's name. It's the model. A 1965 Mustang Shelby. Very rare." Teeth clenched, he growled. "And you did more than tap it."

"You know I really and truly felt bad about that. I said to myself after I backed into your little fender, and it was a little fender by the way, I could hardly see it, and I said, 'Hannah, you really shouldn't have done that. Why that car doesn't even belong to Texas.'"

"You said all that, did you?"

"Yes I did. And then Officer Simmons came over and he said to me, 'Not another one, Hannah,' and I couldn't very well deny it. I mean the Tank's back end barely touched your front end, but it did touch it, just a little bit, not a lot, not enough to make the car look like that." She pointed to where the front end of his car was having sex with the dashboard. "And it's my ninth, and I told him there was no need for him to worry --"

"Wait a minute." Chance's palm went up as his brows slammed together. "I must have misunderstood something here. Did you say your ninth? As in ninth accident?"

"Yes. That's right. And well, you see, Officer Simmons has a bad heart and he doesn't like to do a lot of paper work. Dyslexia you know, which is why he guards the parking lot. Not because of the Dyslexia, but because of his heart. Nothing ever happens at the municipal building, not with my mother, the judges, councilmen, secretaries, well, just about everyone has a window and can look out into the parking lot and see what's going on - -"

As Hannah grabbed some oxygen, he cut in, "Hannah --"

"- - so I told him I'd leave my card on your windshield and that I'd take care of the whole thing."

He stared at the slightly sunburned tip of her small freckled nose. He took in her happy smile and her straight, white teeth. She looked as if she expected to be rewarded. Or at least given a treat for good behavior. She may think she deserved a reward, but she sure wouldn't get it from him. No way, no how. "You're telling me Officer Simmons let you go?" Chance snapped his fingers like Ada had done earlier. "Just like that?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't he?"

"Nine accidents, that's why."

"But I'm Hannah Hart." Her eyes widened. "Everyone know I don't do these things on purpose. They just happen to me."

"How nice." Sarcasm dripped. "You're Hannah Hart, the mayor's daughter, and everyone knows you didn't do it on purpose, so you get off Scot free. Nine accidents and no one does a damn thing about it. This," he spread his arms out expansively, "could only happen in America."

"I resent your implication." She raised the tip of her red nose aristocratically in the air. "It could happen anywhere."

He swore. Her nose stuck up even higher. Chance unlocked the trunk and lifted the lid which still worked great since she hadn't damaged his rear, unless he wanted to count the fall through the doorway.

He reached inside, brought out a black athletic bag and threw it on the grass between the curb and sidewalk. Next he pulled out his suit bag and slammed down the trunk lid. "Forget it."

"Well I really can't forget it. You brought it up so it must be bothering you. And if it's bothering you and I forgot it, then it wouldn't be neighborly. And I always believed in the good neighbor policy. So much so that I called my good friend, Ed Gilead who happens to own the best body shop in town, and I know this from personal experience, and he'll be here to pick up your car this afternoon."

"Thanks. And while I really appreciate you going through all this trouble for me, there's still the little matter of paying for the damage. Did you call your insurance agent yet?"

"You know, Chance, that's really a good question. You're very logical. I can tell you're going to make a wonderful parks director. Logic is something most people don't have. Now I'm very logical so I can recognize that quality in you. But you just don't know the problems I have trying to get my clients to see logic. Why just the other day--"

"Hannah."

"What?" She looked at him, lips slightly parted, slightly moist. And she waited.

Oh, she was good all right. Changing the subject, trying to throw him off track. Talking about clients? Logic? It wouldn't work. After all, she may be Hannah Hart, but he was still the one and only Chance McCoy. She may be charming, but since his body had already hardened to her charms, he could certainly get his mind to follow suit. "Insurance. The car."

"I'm getting to that."

"In this century?"

"You're in Texas now, Mr. Yankee. We don't rush things here." Hannah picked up the black bag then dropped it back on the grass and walked away from him and his luggage. "Really," she called over her shoulder. "What have you got in that thing?"

With a drawn-out sigh of pent-up exasperation, he lifted the bag in his free hand and followed her up the path, around the big house and onto an old red-brick driveway. She held her head high, her back straight, and swayed her way toward the garage.

Amazing movement in her walk, he thought. Sure did explain a lot about the way she drove, since she didn't walk in a straight line either.

Hannah climbed the staircase to the second floor apartment and opened the door. He followed behind, enjoying the view. Well, a man could look, even admire. As long as he didn't touch while on the job.

Hannah turned on the window air-conditioning unit and dropped the key on the dinette table. "It'll take a couple of minutes before the room cools down."

He set the bags on the double bed and looked around. A small kitchen had been built along one wall divided from the rest of the room by a counter.

He gestured toward a dinette chair. "Sit down a minute will you? I'd like to ask you something."

She sat. And crossed her leg. Then swung it, slowly, up and down, up and down. He watched and forgot what he wanted to ask.

"May I say something first?" Hannah's hands were folded quietly in her lap, in contrast to her ankle and foot which turned in rapid circles off her swaying leg.

"Go ahead." He moved into the kitchen, away from her distracting legs and tried to remember what his question had been. He glanced out the large window above the sink. The view overlooked the backyard of her house. Flowers had been planted in no apparent order along pathways, fences and walls. Scattered, fragrant and pretty. Like Hannah.

Turning away from the view that only reminded him of her, he opened one of the drawers under the counter, glanced at the silverware lined up inside, closed it, then opened the next one.

The moment he stopped looking at her he realized that whatever effect she had had on him this morning was gone because right now his hunches were bombarding him, telling him all he needed to know about Miss Hannah Hart and what she did with those Hunks she had boldly advertised on her pink business card.

He slammed the last drawer shut and turned back to the window. Dispersed images began to come together, to take form inside his brain until suddenly it hit him. Like a bolt of lightening. And he knew exactly what she did for a living.

Hannah's Hunks. She ran a prostitution ring for women. She sold hunk-toys. Oh, yeah, baby, his hunches were working now.

What a perfect racket for the mayor's daughter. Who would suspect her? Certainly not the police. Look at that Officer Simmons. The picture in his mind was coming in clearer. Innocent looking Hannah, with freckles and copper-penny hair, made it a business to crash cars in parking lots. She looked for Janes instead of Johns. Now that he figured out how she made her living, he'd do a little investigating on his own. Find out if the insurance agent, who she didn't seem to want to call, was in on it, too.

She almost had a perfect crime going. Ingenious. Only she hadn't counted on Chance McCoy coming to town. . . . . .