“Is she the fireball she always was before?”
“Times ten. She’s doing Pilates now with Martha. She says it’s taken years off her attitude and body.”
“Wait. What? We have Pilates here now? Seriously?”
I don’t miss how she used the word “we” like this is her place again, her home. The way it should be. “We do indeed, and I promise you, you’ll be recruited. Jessica now goes with Ruth and Martha.”
I crinkle my nose. “I’m not Pilates material. I don’t bend.”
I arch a brow. “Am I being goaded to comment or should I keep my mouth shut on that topic?”
“Keep your mouth shut because aside from it getting you in big trouble, the kind you know you don’t want, you’ve now made me feel like I can’t go see Snowflake. Martha and her cookies are with Jessica, and both are waiting for me.”
“They’ll give you a pass to see Snowflake.” I motion to the bed and breakfast. “Let’s get this done so you can start singing.”
She smiles at that, a warm smile, and we fall into step together. The walk is short, free of locals, thankfully, and we climb up the wide wooden steps and enter the house directly into a huge living room with a desk, just to the right of the door, where Sue is sitting. Sue, who is a robust sixty-year-old, hops to her feet, which isn’t much of a hop, since she’s barely five feet tall. “You’re here! I can’t believe you’re here, honey!”
She rounds the desk, and I watch as Hannah is embraced, followed by a head-to-toe inspection. “My God, you’re more beautiful than ever. You look like Angelina Jolie. Don’t you think so, Roarke?”
Hannah looks nothing like Angelina Jolie. For one thing, Hannah’s shorter with more curves. She’s got brown hair a shade lighter. Her green eyes brighter, sweeter. And her face isn’t long and thin, it’s heart-shaped with adorably full cheeks, but I agree on one point. “She’s more beautiful than ever, yes,” I say, glancing at Hannah. “You are.”
Those adorable cheeks heat. “Thank you, Roarke.”
Sue claps. “You two are just too perfect together.” She hands Hannah a key. “But I get it. The town is small. People talk. Staying here, instead of his place, gives you some privacy.” She winks. “I won’t tell anyone if you’re never in your room.”
“We’re not back together,” Hannah explains quickly. “We’re—” She struggles for words and looks to me for help. “We’re—”
I cross my arms in front of my chest. “Go on. We’re what?”
She scowls at me. “Not getting along.”
Sue laughs. “Oh God. I miss the way you two get on.” Her phone rings. “I better get that.” She squeezes my arm. “I’m so excited about a Christmas festival right here in our town. I have ideas. More later. You two go on up to the room if you like.” She grins. “It’s a king-size bed for a couple who’s always been into king-size fun.”
Chapter Eighteen
Roarke…
Hannah pales and turns to me, reaching for her suitcase. “I’ll go drop this in the room.”
Now both our hands are on the handle of her case. “I got it. I’ll help. I promise not to be inappropriate unless you ask. That was our deal. I’ll stick to it. Unless you’re afraid you’ll ask and you don’t have the willpower to be alone with me.”
Her eyes meet mine. “Stop teasing me.”
“Ask and I won’t have to.”
“Roarke,” she pleads softly.
“I’ll behave, Hannah. I promised. I know you don’t believe me, but my word matters. It always has. It always will.”
“I always believed you were honorable.”
“I am, and I have opinions on why you decided to forget that so easily, but I won’t share them now, here. This has to go up there.” I motion to the winding steps leading to the guest room. “I’m not watching you struggle with it. I’ll take it myself if you like, and you can stay down here.”
“No. No. It’s fine. Come with me. And thank you.” She glances at the key, and together, we head toward the stairs and then up them.
We reach the second level of the old house and turn right to stop at the door at the end of the walkway. Hannah opens the door and enters. I follow her inside, but I don’t shut the door. I’m not forcing myself on her, and the truth is, the more I think about how easily she believed the worst of me, the more I revive a big load of pissed off. I set her bag on the bed for easy access, the way I used to when we traveled, the way she likes her bag.
Somehow, she moves for the door, and I turn at just the right moment to bring us toe-to-toe, her hand landing on my chest. My load of pissed off becomes a burn to hold her in about three seconds flat. Heat radiates from her palm straight to my cock. I’m hard. I’m hot. I’m in love with this woman, so why the hell wouldn’t I be hot and hard?
Her gaze goes to her hand on my chest and lifts, but her palm doesn’t move. “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I’m not going to kiss you or pull you down on that bed,” I say. “I’m just going to think about it, but maybe you should move your hand.”
“Right,” she says, but she doesn’t move her hand. “Roarke—”
“Hannah,” I warn. “If you don’t move your hand, I’m going to shut the door, and I’m going to kiss you again.”
“It’s just that—”
I move to shut the door. She grabs a handful of my T-shirt. “No. No. Stop.”
I turn to face her again. “What are you doing?”
She yanks her hand back. My jaw sets hard. “Let’s go see Snowflake.” I move to the door and wait for her. She stares at me for a good three seconds before she hugs herself and walks past me and into the hallway. Side by side, we walk down the stairs, and while I left her bag upstairs, our baggage is a load that hasn’t been left behind.
We manage to escape without another encounter with Sue, but of course, the one we had will carry far and wide in the town. We exit to the front of the house, and I walk with her to the passenger’s door and open it. She turns to me, and I stop her before she starts. “Don’t tell me not to get your door. My mama might be gone, but she remains with me, and she brought me up right.”
Considering she was also close to my mother, who passed when I was a freshman in college, her lips purse, but she doesn’t fight me on my manners; she climbs inside the truck. I shut her inside and round the truck. I’ve just settled in beside her when my cellphone buzzes with a text message. I pull it from my pocket and read it before I glance at Hannah. “Nick said he ate your cake pops. He was hungry. He’s not charging you for the tow, but—” I hesitate with the blow that follows, “your engine’s blown.”
“No,” she says, turning to face me. “No. Please say no. I just bought that car.” She presses her hands to her face. “This can’t be happening.”
I want to pull her to me and comfort her, but right now, I have no right to do any such thing. I can’t just touch her. I want to touch her so damn badly. “God works in mysterious ways, Hannah. There’s a reason you got that extra money for this job.”
“To pay me off. I don’t want it. I’ll handle this.”
“That money is not to pay you off,” I counter. “You have to know that.”
“I’ll suck it up and finance a car,” she says, as if I haven’t even spoken. “Thanks to this job, if I do it well, and I plan to, I’ll have a steady income.”
I have about ten questions about what went wrong in L.A., but Jessica told me enough to stave off my urge to be too pushy too soon. I turn on the engine, and my cellphone rings again. I grab it and glance down to find Martha calling. I show the caller ID to Hannah. She groans. “Let’s just go see her. I’m starving anyway. I’ll eat her baked goods and sing better for it.”
“You sure?” I ask, still cognizant of her earlier discomfort.
“I need to make this festival the best Christmas festival ever. It has to be
wonderful for everyone involved. I need to dig in, and meeting with Jessica and Martha will help.”
My phone has stopped ringing and has started again. I glance down and sigh, answering, “Hi, Grandma,” as I return my gaze to Hannah.
“Is she okay? I heard she broke down. Is she with you?”
“Yes,” I confirm. “She’s okay. She’s with me. And before you ask, yes, we’re headed to Jason’s place. We had to get her checked into her room.”
“Are you still in love with her?”
“Grandma,” I warn.
“That’s a yes. Oh, honey. I hope it works this time. Hurry. We all want to see her.”
“We’ll be there in ten minutes.” I disconnect and shove my phone back in my pocket. “Maybe we should have a little whiskey after the cookies.”
She laughs. “Then I’ll be singing something like ‘Happy Birthday’ to Snowflake. You know I don’t drink well.”
I place the truck in gear. “And that’s a problem, why? You do remember what we’re about to endure?”
“Right. Whiskey and ‘Happy Birthday’ it is.”
I laugh and back us up, and it’s not long before we’re turning down the country road that leads to my place and to Jason’s. It also leads to the fork that connects to her family ranch that isn’t her family ranch anymore. That’s a dangerous emotional tightrope I lead her away from before this homecoming. “I built a veterinarian hospital.”
“What?”
“We have a full hospital now. I have three vet students at all times and another full-time vet.”
“Wow.” She turns to face me. “That’s a big operation. Just for horses?”
“The majority of what I treat personally is horses, but the vet I have on staff works for Sweetwater and other nearby locations. Plus, I don’t turn away special cases for any animal. You know that.” We pass through the Flying J entrance to Jason’s property.
“I can’t wait to see the hospital. And meet Snowflake,” she says as I pull us up to Jason’s house, where my grandmother is waiting on the porch. “And drink that whiskey.”
“She loves you,” I remind her. “You’re family.”
She turns to look at me. “If that were true, I wouldn’t be paid for my silence. If that were true—” She stops herself. “Never mind.”
She reaches for the door, and I dare to touch her, to gently catch her arm. “Wait. Please. Look at me.”
She inhales and turns those beautiful green eyes of hers on me. “I’ve been gone for a long time.”
“Too long,” I say softly. “Too damn long, Han. You are family. And time and distance didn’t wash that away. The money isn’t about paying you off. It’s about family taking care of family. I might not deserve you, but you don’t get less than everyone else. You deserve more than everyone else.” I release her arm. “You’ll feel it. I promise you. They’ll make you feel it.” I open my door and get out, willing this big family to make her see that she’s a member of it. And nothing and no one will change that, but even as I do, I feel like a damn hypocrite, because family is what drove us apart—just not this part of our family, I remind myself.
Hannah gets out of the truck, and my grandmother, all five feet one inch of her, with her long silver hair, comes flying down the stairs to greet her. In about sixty seconds, I’m at the front of the truck, watching my grandmother embrace Hannah, and I hear her say, “Welcome home, granddaughter,” only to have Hannah burst into tears.
Chapter Nineteen
Hannah…
The minute Ruth calls me granddaughter, my heart swells with emotions, the tears flowing of their own accord, and I know why. My grandmother died when I was five. Ruth was always next door; she was my other grandmother, the only one I really know at all. Marrying Roarke would have made that all the truer. Losing Roarke meant losing her, too, only right now, it doesn’t feel like I lost her at all, though I know I have. It’s not fair to put her in the middle of me and Roarke. I wouldn’t do that to her, but for now, it feels good to have her back, if only for a little while.
“Why are you crying, honey?” Ruth demands, pulling back to inspect me, her crystal-blue eyes so like Roarke’s, beautiful, intelligent, kind. They also see way too much. “This is supposed to be a happy homecoming,” she adds.
“It is,” I promise, swiping at my eyes. “It is happy. These are happy tears.”
“They better be,” she chides. “We’re thrilled you’re here and part of the festival, and if you ever go silent on me again, I’ll hunt you down. That’s a promise. Let me get a look at you.” She inches back a bit farther to give me a once-over, while I note that she’s still slender and fit. I think I need to try Pilates. She looks good.
“You are beautiful, honey,” she declares, when she’s the one who is beautiful, inside and out, her long silver hair and elegant features having aged like a fine wine. Her inner light, still so ever present. “My boy was a fool to lose you,” she declares.
My cheeks heat with that awkward comment. Roarke seems to respond, stepping to my side, the place I used to believe he’d always stand. “As you can see,” he says, “Grandma still knows how to get right to the point.”
Ruth points at him. “And how to keep you in line, boy.” She takes my hand. “Now, you go away. We’re going to do some girl talk and catch up.”
She means she wants to drill me about me and Roarke. “I’d love that,” I say, at least about the time with her, not the talk about Roarke. “But,” I add, “I need to talk to everyone about the festival, and I think Roarke needs to be a part of that talk.”
She crinkles her nose. “Fine, then. He stays for cookies and coffee and leaves for the girl talk. I’ll take you to my little cabin behind Roarke’s house if that’s what it takes to get some alone time.”
“You’re still there?”
“You betcha, honey,” she says. “Till the day I die. A perfect girl hideout.”
In other words, I’m not getting out of that girl talk, even if I dodge it today. She wants to know what happened between me and Roarke, and she won’t stop until she gets answers, a conversation I’d avoided years before, and with reason. What do I say? Do I tell her he cheated? No. No, I discard that idea immediately. I won’t do that to Roarke. I loved Roarke. God, I still do. I won’t hurt him or talk badly about him ever. “I’d love to have some time with you and Martha, Ruth. It’s been a long time.”
“I’m really not sure how I feel about being left out of the girl talk,” Roarke comments, “but Hannah promised to help me with Snowflake. You know how good she is with the forlorn animals.”
“Oh my, yes,” Ruth says, looking at me. “You used to sing to the sick animals, and you just have this way with them that soothed them, like another Horse Wrangler! You two were going to be Mr. and Mrs.—”
“Ruth,” I say softly, warning her to stop, and it’s enough. She gives me an understanding look, purses her lips, and wraps her arm around me. “Let’s get you inside and get you fed. What have you eaten today? You look thin.”
“Today? Coffee and two cake pops, since Nick ate the other two. I’d get mad at him, but he towed my car. I owe him a million cake pops.”
“I’ll have Martha bake him some goodies for helping. We need to get you some real food before we feed you cookies.”
“No, that’s okay. I’ll take the cookies. Last night I ate most of a pizza by myself. I feel like I’m having theme days. Yesterday, I lived on pizza. Today, I live on cookies. It’s really a fantasy feast to be envied. Tomorrow, however, I’ll live on vegetables. It all evens out. It’s all about balance.”
Roarke laughs and opens the door to the house for us, his eyes lighting with mischief. “Vegetables make everything better, right, Han?” he teases, and it’s an inside joke that has my cheeks heating. It’s about me and him in a field of vegetables. It was after a fight. We were no longer fighting once
we left that field. It’s not the kind of story you share with anyone, but it is one that you remember.
“The problem is that vegetables come with a short shelf life,” I reply. “The benefits only last so long.”
“It’s true,” Ruth says. “You have to feed your body with good things every single day.” She nudges me. “And cookies and cake pops.”
“And pizza,” I add, and as she tugs me forward into the house, my gaze catches Roarke’s with a warning in my stare, one that I forget as soon as I enter the living room of Jason’s house; only when I was here before, it belonged to his parents. This realization, the finality of their deaths, steals my joy at the scent of Martha’s baked goods permeating the air.
“I can’t believe they’re gone,” I whisper.
“I know,” Ruth says, squeezing my arm. “It never feels right, but Jessica has brought new life to the place and to Martha.”
Roarke steps behind us, and I can feel his presence pressing against me, the past that is lost, heavy in the room, in every possible way. “Come,” Ruth says, taking my hand and leading me forward, down a hallway.
It’s not long before I’m walking inside a large, beautiful kitchen where Martha and Jessica stand behind the center rectangular island with icing bags in hands and cookies in front of them. “Oh my God!” Martha exclaims, dropping her bag to run toward me, spry like she’s years younger than her seventy-something years, her gray hair much shorter and more old-fashioned than Ruth’s.
I’m swept into a hug by my “other grandma,” and this time, it’s Martha who cries, and her emotion pounds into me. She’s still living with the loss of Jason’s parents and her daughter. I’m a piece of the past connected to them, and suddenly, any past I have to overcome feels like nothing.
Before long, I’m hugging Jessica, too, and hearing all about the Flying J bakery that Martha and Jessica have made hugely successful with cookies in a major restaurant chain and a series of cookbooks.
I’m also recruited to help ice their new carrot cake cookies, as is Roarke, and the two of us end up at opposite endcaps, facing each other with icing bags in hand. “Is Jason around to talk about the festival?” I ask.
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