Chapter Twenty-Four

Hannah…

I reach the hospital, and Roarke is waiting on me. “I’m short an assistant,” he says. “I called in staff, but I can’t wait. Are you up to scrubbing in for me?”

“Yes. Yes. Of course.” It’s something I’ve done in the past, to the point that it was once second nature. To the point that he wanted me to go to vet school, but the idea of failing an animal was just too much for me. “What’s the situation?”

“Bella’s a prize-winning racehorse who now has what is likely a career-ending fracture.” His lips thin. “But I could give a shit about her career. I care about her life and her pain.”

And he does. Like his father before him, he hates horses being used for sport, but rather than that driving him away from caring for them, it pushes him to want to be there to ensure someone takes proper care of them. “I know you do. I’m here to help. Let’s do this.”

He turns for the door and holds it open, and in a matter of minutes, I’m standing with Roarke and several people from the helicopter crew who’ve graciously stayed to offer us aid, watching as they further sedate the horse, a beautiful black beauty. Once the horse is stable and prepped for surgery, it’s just me and Roarke in the operating room.

For the first time in years, I stand beside him, handing him any tool he needs, when he needs it, and watching him work. I’m once again in awe of his skills, his calmness, his focus. It’s a good half hour into surgery when two of his crew, both unknowns to me, quietly join us, but I hold my position. Roarke is focused. We all work to help him, not to distract him.

This animal is his life and his world when she’s in front of him. There is nothing else, and this surgery is an example of at least part of my reasoning for staying behind in Dallas when he returned for Snowflake. I was emotional, and I would have delayed his return, distracted his attention, even, and being here for Snowflake when she needed him was what mattered.

It’s hours later when the surgery is complete and I’ve officially met the staff that helped us with surgery, while Roarke works through a care rotation for Bella and Snowflake, taking the first shift himself. While he’s talking with his team, I join Bella in the stable where she’s resting.

Easing down beside her, I sit, stroking her nose, singing to her softly. Roarke joins me and sits down next to me, and this is not an unfamiliar scene. Even in our youth, we’d nurse the animals his father cared for. We look at each other, and there is a world of history and love between us right now. All the bad is gone. Funny how animals heal us, even if it’s only for a short while. We sink lower against the wall, and somehow, at some point, my head settles on his shoulder, my lashes heavy. I don’t even remember when I fall asleep.

The next thing I know, Roarke is kneeling beside me, caressing my cheek. “Hey,” he says softly.

“Hey.” I sit up and check on Bella, who’s sedated and sound asleep. “She’s okay?”

“Yes. One of my crew is going to take over. Let’s let her rest. It’s almost four in the morning.” He stands and pulls me to my feet. “Let’s get you to a bed.”

Realization comes hard and fast. “I have no car. I have to get a rental tomorrow but right now—”

“Stay here.” His hand comes down on my hip, and he steps into me. “Stay with me, Hannah. We’re both exhausted, and I want you to stay.”

There are so many reasons to say no, but none of them seem to matter. Not tonight. Not now. “Yes, but—”

“Don’t finish that sentence.” His hand settles on my face. “Ask me,” he says, and somehow it’s both an order and a question, which is so Roarke. He’s strong, demanding, even, but in the right ways, at the right times.

But I don’t ask, not with words. I push to my toes and press my lips to his. He leans into the connection, and his tongue presses past my lips. The taste of him isn’t sex or demand; it’s tenderness, it’s love. It’s friendship. It’s all the things we once were and so much of me wants us to be again.

He draws back, strokes my hair behind my ear, and then, wordlessly, laces the fingers of one hand with mine. Together, side by side, we walk toward the main house. “I heard your father had a stroke and moved away.”

“Yes to both. I took over the house about a year ago. My old place is now where the interns stay.”

His place being a much smaller house on the other side of the property. “I can’t believe your father left. Why? Where is he? I’m confused. He loved this place.”

“He officially retired and moved to Georgetown with some woman he met.”

I glance up at him in disbelief. “Some woman he met? You didn’t know her?” They were close, too close for that statement to make sense.

His lips thin, and he wraps his arm around me. “As I said, he had a stroke, and therein lies the answers you’re asking for. He wasn’t the same afterward.”

“That still tells me nothing.”

“He couldn’t operate. His hand wasn’t steady, and he just got angrier and angrier. He rented a place in Dallas, and the next thing I knew, he was buying a house with some woman he met.”

Some woman he met. Those words again, and they say so much. Roarke is not pleased by this development.

We reach the giant winding porch of the blue ranch house and head up the stairs. I want to ask more about his father, about how this makes him feel, but there is a weariness about him tonight. He’s exhausted from the surgery. I know him. Now is not the time. Will there ever be a time that it’s right for me to ask? Do I want there to be? I think yes. I think it’s time I admit that this man is still important to me. He’s still so very important to me.

We enter the house that was remodeled not long before I left for college, and it’s as beautiful and modern as I remember, with hardwood floors and leather furniture and towering ceilings. We walk the stairs toward the upper level and then down a long walkway toward the master bedroom that had once been his father’s.

Entering the large room with a steepled ceiling, it’s odd for me to be in Roarke’s space. He sits down on the end of a massive oak bed with huge posts, which wasn’t here before, that exhaustion I’d sensed downstairs now radiating off him. I sit next to him, and he falls back on the mattress. “We both need showers, but holy hell, I need to just lay here a moment.”

I lie back with him, and we both stare up at the ceiling for several long minutes before, in unison, we look at each other. His fingers brush my cheek. “It was good having you here tonight and not hating me.”

I catch his hand, emotion welling in my chest. “I don’t hate you.”

“No, tonight you didn’t, but tomorrow’s a new day.”

I curl up next to him, on his shoulder, and he folds me close. “I don’t hate you, Roarke,” I whisper. I can’t hate you, I add silently. I love him too damn much.

He doesn’t reply. We just lay there, and I know we have to get up and clean up, but right now, it’s us, it’s right. He’s warm and wonderful and holding me when I thought he’d never hold me again. For now, I just want to live right here in his arms, and I silently will him to wait a little longer to get up. He gives me that wish, and I snuggle in closer to him, my hand on his chest, his heart steady beneath my palm, my eyes heavy, my lashes lowering. And for the time being, I block out the bad, and all is perfect in my world; having Roarke in my life again is perfect.