Hannah & the Dom Next Door Read Online Free

had been raised in, wasn’t made lightly or came easily, but she had begun to chafe under the strict rules and restrictions of Caleb’s community before his death and without him as a buffer, she found herself floundering. If she wasn’t destined for motherhood, then she decided there had to be something more for her, something she couldn’t get from staying. She loved her grandparents, who raised her after her parent’s death in a drunken hit and run buggy/car accident when she was but five years old. She had close friends, in-laws and a deep seated belief in her faith, all of which she swore she would retain even though she was trading the simpler life of her people for the more complicated life of modern day society. When her grandparents, and some of the elders, had started hinting, rather strongly, that it was time she consider remarrying and that she should give some consideration to widower Matthew Yoder’s pursuit, she knew it was time to act on the need that had been plaguing her since Caleb’s death to make a life for herself away from her well-meaning community. That new life she envisioned seeking had not included getting involved with another man, at least not any time soon. Meeting Mitch Burnett disabused, rather quickly and forcefully, that notion.
    Caleb had been the love of her life, her one and only, since she first met him at the age of fifteen. She had no wish to settle now for an older man and be a surrogate mother to his three children simply because she and Caleb were never blessed with children of their own and, now that she was pushing thirty-one, she was considered past her prime. Nor did she feel compelled to get involved with a man for companionship. She didn’t know if her strange, uncharacteristic response to Mitch was due to the way his tee shirt stretched tautly over his wide chest, the short sleeves snug around his thickly muscled arms; or the way his tight jeans emphasized the strength in his long legs; or the way his wavy black hair curled around his thick neck; or the way his darkly shadowed face emphasized his rugged good looks; or the way those dark chocolate eyes had looked so carnally open at her that had her body coming alive in a way she had only experienced when she made love with Caleb. Curiosity had her contemplating seeking him out again just to see if her response a few minutes ago was an anomaly or if she was ready and willing, to indulge in a physical only relationship. Her family wouldn’t understand or condone such a liaison, but since she buried her heart along with her husband, it was the only kind of relationship she would be willing to contemplate right now.
    Hannah left the car idling while she ran into the house to wash up before heading to the store. The cool, air-conditioned interior of Mary’s 1915 Tudor home was a welcome treat and just one of the things she had forgone when she married Caleb. Caleb’s roots were steeped in the Old World Amish lifestyle and he had been rigid in his beliefs. The use of electricity in her grandparent’s home had been only one of the differences between her Beachy Amish upbringing and his more restrictive lifestyle. Right now, as she felt her perspiration damp skin drying, she wondered how she endured the hot Ohio summers for all those years without this luxury, especially after having had a taste of it the year she spent with her aunt, at Caleb’s insistence, when she was sixteen. She supposed she had been so blissfully happy and in love, that she hadn’t minded the discomfort of the heat.
    Running upstairs to the hall bathroom, Hannah looked in the mirror and cringed when she noted the grease smudge on her cheek, the straggly tendrils of hair that had escaped her braid clinging to her neck and her red face. She let her gaze wander down her body, taking in the same type of clothes she has worn most of her life, wondered what Mitch had thought of her and then wondered why she cared. She was raised to look beyond the