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.