The Trouble with Temptation by Shiloh Walker Page B

asked, the words low and soft in her ear. He cupped a hand over her shoulder as he eased in closer.
    That light, casual touch sent heat sliding through her and she turned her head, staring at his face, his mouth. Just a breath away.
    He was so close, she could have kissed him. The idea of it sent a wash of heat rushing through her and her nipples went tight just thinking of it. “I … um.” She looked down at the roll of silverware she still clutched.
    The knife was still wrapped up in the napkin and abruptly, she felt foolish.
    What had she been planning to do? Beat the guy with a set of silverware?
    Brannon took it away and she watched as he put it down.
    Behind them, Ian was still speaking although the man—Hansen—was no longer exactly talking . Yelling was more like it.
    “I just wanted to have a word with that high-and-mighty bitch—thinks she can go around poking her nose in other people’s business!” he snapped.
    Hannah looked back at him.
    Voices emerged from the gray fog of her memory.
    “You need to keep your nose out of my fucking business, you crazy bitch!”
    “Femi-Nazi.”
    She looked past him and saw the woman who was all but cringing in the background. His wife.
    Joanie. The name popped into her head, just like that.
    Hannah said, “When are you going to leave him, Joanie? When Lloyd kills you?”
    The words shocked the hell out of her.
    They infuriated the man— Lloyd .
    She remembered that and pieces of a puzzle fell into place.
    His name was Lloyd and he beat his wife.
    As if she’d pulled out a crucial support, a stream of memory tumbled free.
    She could see this skinny, evil bastard bent over his wife, holding her down with his hands hooked and cruel, biting into soft flesh. Like Hannah’s stepfather had done to her mama.
    Lloyd went to lunge to for her—Brannon protectively blocked her even as Ian caught the miserable little man, but Hannah dodged to the side.
    Her body—still weak, still tired, didn’t want to cooperate, but she forced it to move. “Leave him alone,” she said, sneering at Lloyd. “The coward wouldn’t put his hands on me anyway—not here. He might come after me in the dark or when I’m not looking. That’s his idea of real fight. His targets are always women anyway.”
    “No man goes after a woman in my place,” Ian said.
    “Lloyd, please, don’t,” the woman with him whispered.
    And abruptly, Hannah felt ashamed.
    This woman, Joanie, she’d pay the price.
    Because they always did—the victim always paid. Shaking her head, she looked at Joanie again. “I helped you leave him, didn’t I?” She rubbed her temple, shaken by the memory she could almost see. “I did … I know I did.”
    Ian was dragging Lloyd to the door—it wasn’t much of fight. Lloyd was snarling and tearing at Ian’s hands and arms, but he might as well have been a gnat butting up against a stone wall.
    “Joanie! You stupid bitch, get out here!” Lloyd yelled.
    She flinched, unable to look at Hannah. “I have … I have to go,” she whispered.
    “Why?”
    The question came from a slim redhead.
    Hannah blinked in surprise as Neve McKay moved in to block Joanie’s view of Lloyd Hansen and then, as Ian wrested him outside, the man’s furious bellows were muted as well.
    “He’s my…” Joanie frowned. “We’re married.”
    “The man beats you,” Brannon said, shaking his head. “You didn’t sign up for that when you said your vows, did you?”
    “I made a promise.”
    “So did he,” Neve said, speaking before anybody else could. “It looks to me like he breaks that promise all the time. Are you going to stay until he puts you in the ground?”
    *   *   *
    “Eat.”
    Hannah stared at the shrimp po’boy on her plate.
    “I’ve kind of lost my appetite.”
    “If anybody can talk sense into Joanie right now, it’s Neve,” Brannon said quietly.
    “I tried to, I think.” Dispirited, Hannah picked up a French fry and popped it into her mouth. It was