for her. He knew the pain of wanting a blood relative to love you the way you needed to be loved, only to be turned away. True, his rejection had been a tad more polite. But it had been a rebuff just the same. Joe started the SUV, backed out of the space and headed for the highway.
“Sorry about that.” Hannah’s hands were shaking.
You shouldn’t be, he thought with a wave of feeling that surprised him. Resolutely, he offered what comfort he could. “I’ve been in some of those orphanages, Hannah.” Forty or more cribs sandwiched into a single large room, infants lined up, one after another—sometimes doubling up in a crib—with only one or two attendants to care for them all. “Without people like you, willing to open up their homes and their hearts,” he told her gruffly, remembering their sad little faces and haunted eyes, “those kids don’t stand a chance.”
Hannah exhaled a shaky breath. “My dad…”
“Will come around, once your baby is here,” Joe predicted, wishing he could do more to erase the vulnerability on her pretty face.
“You really think so?” She searched his eyes.
Given his own experiences? If Joe were honest, he’d have to give in to his cynical side and say…no. But that wasn’t what Hannah needed to hear.
“Sure,” he said. And left it at that.
“THERE MUST BE SOME MISTAKE,” a frustrated Hannah told the English-speaking clerk at the registration desk of the five-star Taipei hotel. After thirty-four excruciating hours of travel, she was so tired she could barely function as she held up the index and third finger on her right hand. All she wanted was a hot shower, some clean pajamas…and a comfortable bed. “I asked for two rooms. Not one.”
The clerk looked confused. He consulted the computer screen in front of him. “Two adults,” he replied in carefully enunciated English, with a slight respectful bow of his head. “Two beds.”
“Two adults, two beds, and two rooms,” Hannah stipulated as clearly as possible. She turned her hand, palm up, hoping that physical action would accomplish what words had, thus far, not. “So I need two electronic key cards.”
The clerk looked dumbfounded.
Looking as if he had half-expected in a trip of this magnitude to encounter some kind of glitch, Joe stepped forward and intervened in fluent Mandarin Chinese. Immediately, the clerk began to relax. The two conversed pleasantly for several minutes. Finally, Joe turned to Hannah. “The adoption agency here booked a single room for every ‘family’ coming in to adopt. You requested separate accommodations for two adults so they gave us a room with two king beds.”
That made sense. Sort of. “Can’t we get another room?” Hannah asked.
Joe shook his head. “The hotel is fully booked for the rest of the summer. We could try another hotel, but they don’t hold out much hope—the nice accommodations are sold out.”
She let her head fall back. After a four-hour drive to the El Paso International Airport, a two-hour preflight wait, twenty-six hours in the air to Taipei, and another three hours getting through customs and to the hotel, she was dead on her feet. Joe had napped off and on, but she had barely slept on the plane. She was too nervous and excited about her future.
“One room is fine,” Joe said.
The thought of sharing space lent an intimacy to the trip she had not expected. “But…” Hannah protested.
Exhaustion tautened the lines of his face. “We’ll survive, Hannah. Besides, everyone adopting through the agency you’re using is on the fifth floor. You’re going to need to be there when they bring the babies up tomorrow afternoon.”
Hannah knew that was true. She looked at Joe. This was not what he had signed on for, either. “I’m really sorry.”
He picked up both suitcases and strode across the spectacular marble lobby to the elevators. “All I want is a shower and a place to lay my head. Anything else, at this point, is extraneous.”
To Hannah’s relief, the accommodations were beautiful and luxurious. The room was spacious with a spectacular wall of glass windows overlooking the city. The beds were huge and made up with beautiful linens, goose down comforters and feather pillows. The suite also had a plasma TV, writing desk and chair and a high-speed Internet connection. The adjoining bathroom had twin sinks, marble shower and soaking tub.
Joe, it would appear, could have cared less about the accommodations. He headed for the complimentary fruit basket on the desk. He grabbed an apple with one hand, set his laptop on the desk with the other. “I’ve got to check my e-mail so if you want the bath, it’s all yours.”
She wanted a shower more than she could say. She dragged her suitcase into the bathroom, made good use of the free scented soaps and shampoo, then stood under the spray, letting the soothing warmth seep into her bones.
Tired enough to fall asleep standing up, she got out, wrapped her wet hair in a towel and donned one of the thick white hotel robes. Staying up only long enough to brush her teeth and run a comb through her wet hair, she emerged and stumbled wearily into the closest bed. Her head hit the pillow and she closed her eyes.
“THEY’RE NOT THAT LATE, HANNAH,” Joe chided at two the following afternoon, not sure when a night and half a day had passed with such excruciating slowness. Mainly because ever since they’d been closeted together, he’d had a hard time taking his eyes off his suite mate.
Oblivious to the errant nature of his thoughts, Hannah consulted her watch and continued to pace. “The van from the orphanage was supposed to be here nearly half an hour ago.”
And during that time she had paced back and forth in front of the windows so many times Joe had her spectacular legs—and the inherent sexiness of her feminine stride—memorized. He shifted his glance upward, past her perfectly shaped torso to the silky brown hair brushing her slender shoulders. Her arms were incredibly toned, too. “Maybe they got stuck in traffic.”
“Then why haven’t they called to let us know?” she asked in a distressed voice.
He shrugged and looked directly into her long-lashed brown eyes. “Could be any number of reasons,” he said, wishing she had chosen to wear anything but that alluring white dress. “I’m certain everything is fine,” he repeated, reminding himself this situation had no room for desire on either of their parts.
“You’re right.” Hannah bit into her lower lip. Her delicate cheeks flushed with emotion. “I’m overreacting.” Exasperated, she propped her hands on her hips. “Not that this is your problem, in any case.”
It sure wasn’t supposed to be, Joe reflected. And it wouldn’t be now if a last-minute family emergency hadn’t kept Hannah’s friend from Chicago, who had already adopted a little girl from Taiwan, from making the trip. But her friend had been forced to cancel, and the international adoption agency Hannah was using insisted all of the infants being adopted be escorted back to their new countries by two responsible adults. Which, Joe admitted, was not a bad idea given the sheer distance most of the international adoptees and their new parents were traveling.
Hannah’s only family was Gus. Even if Gus had wanted to go, his health issues would have prevented such a long journey.
So she had asked Joe if he would consider going with her. Hannah
