IF HANNAH HADN’T PACKED twenty-seven cans of tuna in her suitcase, she would have taken the bus from JFK.

She’d researched it, and the bus stopped a mere two blocks from her hotel. Her hotel. Just knowing she had a room reserved in a New York City hotel almost gave her an orgasm. She’d flown in on a red-eye, which had two things going for it-the el cheapo price and the 7:00 a.m. arrival, which meant she wouldn’t have to worry about muggers.

Besides, muggers weren’t a problem if you walked with purpose and didn’t wear your hair in a ponytail they could grab hold of. She’d left her hair loose and she always walked with purpose, so she wasn’t the least bit afraid. But the flowered suitcase weighed close to fifty pounds thanks to the tuna, and wrestling it on and off a bus didn’t fit her picture of how she wanted to make her Big Apple entrance.

Logically she should be exhausted after being up all night, but she was wired and ready for the adventure of a lifetime. She, Hannah Robertson, was lining up at the taxi stand outside JFK, waiting for a bright yellow cab to take her to the place she’d dreamed about ever since reading the Eloise books as a kid.

She’d finally made it! So what if she wasn’t staying at the Plaza? Her hotel was in Manhattan, and that was all that mattered. So what if her first deep breath of genuine New York air made her cough? She wasn’t expecting clean, dry Arizona air. She’d had her fill of clean, dry Arizona air.

She wanted this place, gasoline fumes and all. She wanted Times Square, Central Park, the Empire State Building, Fifth Avenue, the Statue of frickin’ Liberty! It was all she could do not to spread her arms wide and shout Hey, New York! Hannah’s here!