Chapter Six

Roarke…

I manage to get away from the stadium without questions I’m not in the mood to answer, but they’re inevitable. They’re coming. Which is exactly why I enter the hotel I’m staying in and head for the bar, a cozy dim-lit spot with lots of leather and wood, otherwise known as my safe place. There’s also a staff member putting up a tree in the corner, because apparently no one believes Halloween is a holiday, like I do. It’s also Hannah’s birthday. And obviously, the Irish whiskey in my hand intended to whisper sweet nothings in my ear and calm my nerves isn’t working. Hannah’s on my mind, and the past is burning a hole in my belly. All I see is her beautiful face framed by all that long brown hair, while her bright-green eyes bleed from the pain I’ve caused her.

“Somehow I knew I’d find you here.”

At the sound of Jason’s voice, I glance to my left to find him claiming the stool next to me. “I thought you’d be with your fiancée at that fancy apartment you rented for the season.”

“It’s next door,” he says. “You didn’t really think you’d escape me by hiding out here, did you?” He motions to the bartender and points to my drink, holding up two fingers, before he adds, “I didn’t even bother to go to your room.”

“You didn’t get enough of me at the announcement?”

“Nope,” he says, accepting the drink set in front of him and taking a sip, while I down the rest of mine to be ready for the refill. “You were occupied by Hannah.” He glances over at me. “What did I miss? Because when I left for college, she was a kid, and there was nothing between you two.”

I cut my stare and sip from my whiskey. “The summer I finished med school, I came home and so did she. At that point, she was twenty-one and I was twenty-seven. She was all grown up.”

“And?”

I glance over at him. “We came together hard and fast, no looking back, or so I thought. She was trying to launch her photography career while helping me with the animals. She traveled with me. She took every opportunity to fill her portfolio with damn good work.”

“Of the horses?”

“Of everything, but the animals, the horses, they were her ticket to success, I thought. Of course, she ended up in fashion of all things.” I cut my gaze. “We were engaged.”

“Holy hell,” Jason says, knocking on the bar. “How the hell do I not know any of this?”

I shrug. “You were having that shit season you had and on the road. I would have told you when you got a break. I just never got the chance. We ended badly.”

“Define badly?”

“I loved her.”

“Holy Mother of God,” he says. “That’s not an answer, but it’s a wake-up call for me on where we’re at on this. You’ve never said that about any woman.”

“Because they weren’t Hannah.”

“And yet you let her go?”

“She thinks I cheated,” I say. “I didn’t. She wouldn’t listen.”

“Why?”

“Too hurt. Too emotional. Too ready to run.”

“Sounds about right for Hannah. She recoiled when things went badly for her. Not to mention, she was always stubborn.”

“Yeah,” I say, offering nothing more, even though there is more. There’s a reason I didn’t fight harder to prove her wrong, and Jason’s father was involved in ways Jason doesn’t know about, and I’m not telling him, either. His father is dead. His mother is dead. It’s taken him three years to get back on the mound and start living again. I take another drink.

“I didn’t know, man,” he says, “or we wouldn’t have set her up for this job, but I hate to pull it from her. I get the impression she really needs this launch for her business. Hell, I think we need her to launch this camp. She knows us. She knows our town.”

“She does and we do. I don’t want her to lose the job,” I say. “I’ll keep my personal business with Hannah personal and at a later date.”

“You’re going to have to talk this out and clear the air.”

“And I will. When the time is right. There are things I need to say to Hannah and some things I’ll never say to her, but I won’t risk making things worse. It’s waited years. It can wait a little longer. Hell, maybe it can all wait forever. She hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you. I could see that even from a distance. She’s hurt. She’s not recoiling any longer, but she’s still protecting herself. Don’t wait. Fix it.”

Fix it.

If only it were that easy, but it’s not. Because this is about more than me being set up with Hannah to look like I cheated. This is about my father’s connection to her father and how her family ended up in ruins.