Hannah & the Dom Next Door Read Online Free Page A

physical when viewing both herself and others, believing a person’s worth lies within themselves, not in their physical appearance, but she would be lying to herself if she didn’t admit it was Mitch’s physical appearance that had her body still quivering with awareness and making her wish she had been more presentable upon their first meeting.
    After cleaning her face and fixing her hair, Hannah grabbed her purse and returned to the garage as she mentally reviewed what she would need at the store to fix a casserole and dessert for Mitch as a thank you for his help. Since she just arrived late last night, she hasn’t had time to do anything except unpack her few belongings and put them away in the charming blue and white guest room that had been completely redone since she stayed here fourteen years ago. Thankfully, Aunt Mary left detailed directions to the nearest conveniences. Too much has changed in those fourteen years for her to navigate the streets without help yet. She would always be grateful to Caleb for insisting she spend that year away from him and both their communities before making the big decision to commit to him and his stricter way of life. She hadn’t wanted to be away from him for so long and, since Caleb didn’t have a phone at home, they only spoke rarely during that year, whenever he could get to a public phone. She had loved spending that time with her mother’s sister and relished attending a public school and learning more about the world outside her small community. But she had missed Caleb desperately and gladly given up all the creature comforts of modern day society she had come to appreciate and returned to marry him a year later, as soon as she turned eighteen.
    Now, sitting behind the wheel of a car again, her only regret about the past was that ten years hadn’t been enough with Caleb, despite the hardships of living within the confines of his stricter beliefs after having been raised with more progressive values. Now, having gotten just a taste of the benefits of modern society again, she knew this trip wasn’t going to be a temporary hiatus.
    An hour later, Hannah was bringing in groceries, priding herself on making her first trip out without getting lost. Mary’s kitchen had also been completely gutted and remodeled since she was here last and for someone like her who loved to cook, the dark wood cabinets, spacious granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances were a chef’s dream. A wall had been removed to open the kitchen up to the dining room as well as the den area and she liked the open concept much better. The wide, long island acted as a separation between the kitchen and other rooms and gave her ample space to spread out the ingredients to make a deep dish spaghetti pie and a batch of sugar cookies before she put away the rest of her purchases. She was still reeling from all the choices the large grocery store offered as opposed to the smaller mart she walked to whenever she needed something she couldn’t get from her garden back home. Their meat came from their own bred and raised cattle and chickens and she only knew how to fix everything from scratch. She couldn’t imagine buying pre-packaged cookies or macaroni and cheese and liking them; then again, she much preferred opening a refrigerator door and lifting out a gallon of milk and a few boxes of butter to milking cows or the hard chore of churning.
    Two hours later, Hannah stood under the warm spray of her shower trying to bolster her courage to take the freshly baked casserole and cookies over to Mitch. The longer she procrastinated, the more she questioned what she was doing. Surely she had just imagined her body’s heated response to Mitch; after all, it has been almost three years since she has been close to a man. Wasn’t it normal to want human contact after such a long dry spell? She still missed feeling Caleb’s hard body next to hers at night, missed the way he wrapped his arm around her and