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wasn’t going to attack her.
     But that would have scared her more, because when she handed him that fake telephone number, the moment their skin touched, he was hooked. He felt that same electricity shoot up his arm when he’d held Hannah in the hallway. It was the first time he felt like that since his wife had passed away.
    Hannah’s body was tall and willowy, the opposite of Julie’s petite frame, and her bones were like fine china, but not her spine. Hannah Elliot definitely disciplined like his mother, a duty Tanner had failed to follow through with since Julie had died.
    “She paints dinosaur nails,” Tanner said, wanting nothing more than to keep his distance from Hannah. Holding her had been like playing with fire. “What’s more nutty than that?”
    “That’s blood, Tanner! Ain’t you never seen blood before? All tyrannosauruses gotta have blood on them or they ain’t fierce looking, and your boy painted it on, not Hannah. For your information, so you’re not fuming too much under that Armani suit, I found out from Harry that Hannah and her mother go to my church and I sought them out.” 
    The walking stick thwacked the floor. “So there.”
    Everything seemed all too clear. Tanner hitched himself on the corner of his desk and sighed. When his father got involved in anything, it was worse than riding a bronco backwards.
    “Listen, Dad, I know you had good intentions, but you had no right to hire that woman.”
    “Hannah. Her name is Hannah Elliot, as you should well know since you asked her for a date through police headquarters. I’m surprised you didn’t seek out her address and phone number while you were talking to them. If you can buy and sell all those expensive companies, not to mention having all that computer stuff you got in your office, you ought to be able to do something right.”
    Tanner ground his teeth. He would never hear the end of that phone incident. Battling his emotions, he told himself he didn’t need Hannah Elliot. He didn’t need anyone but Jeremy.
    But now he understood why his father had Jeremy talk to him in at certain times in the morning and evening, on the phone and computer, when he was away. Fritz didn’t want Hannah to speak to Tanner or see him via computer in case she recognized the man on the mountain.
    “She needs the job,” Fritz went on. “Her mother has been ill. Hannah works part time here and part time at the library too. So if you boot her little you-know-what out that door, you’ll be putting her mother in the grave. Is that what you want?” 
    “You’re changing my words around,” Tanner snapped. “How do you know what kind of people Hannah and her mother are? Did you check out the woman’s references?”
    Two white brows rose in question, and Tanner knew he was sunk. “You think someone could pull the wool over these cowboy eyes? If you went to church, you heathen, you would know what’s what. I already told you that little gal and her mother attend church every Sunday, not like some people I know.”
    Tanner shot his father a cold look. “I don’t need a sermon.” 
    So Hannah was a church going female. Another strike against her. He hadn’t attended church since Julie had died. Hannah might make a good tutor, but her presence would drive him crazy. He didn’t need a Miss Perfect floating about the house, not with Fritz around. He didn’t need another wife either, and that’s what his father wanted.
    Though Tanner had wanted a date with Hannah that night, he didn’t now. After she shoved him off to police headquarters, he was appalled at his own behavior that evening.
    Women like Hannah meant trouble. Those green eyes of hers could sink like an anchor into his heart with just one blink of her lashes. After his wife passed away, he had dated the kind of woman he wouldn’t form an attachment to. Never a woman like Hannah.
    “Well, you’re about due for a sermon, sonny,” Fritz went on. “After Julie died you stopped going