29. Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Twenty-nine

Hannah

Remi and I were at the diner having dinner. I was trying to be a good companion but failing miserably. There were things I wanted to talk to him about that I wasn’t sure he’d want to hear. Like how I’d caught myself picking up my phone to dial Graham several times throughout the day, and I was frustrated with myself for forgetting I couldn’t do that anymore. If it were Phoebe, I would have told her how I was feeling, but with Remi, I’d tucked it away for later.

Except…even buried, my frustration was lurking, taking my attention from him.

He chuckled. “Guess I need to choose a less boring topic.”

Startled I’d let my thoughts wander so far he’d noticed, my spine snapped straight, and I tipped toward him.

“No—it’s not you at all. It’s my damn brain.”

He glanced around the diner, taking everything in. For a Thursday evening, it was fairly busy. Teller and Brady were a few tables away, Teller throwing eye-daggers my way every few minutes. Plenty of other familiar faces were scattered around, as well as tourists passing through our pretty little town. Enough to distract me, for sure, but on a normal basis, I found Remi so compelling my focus locked on him and stayed there.

Today had just been so crummy, my need to vent was overwhelming everything else.

“Is there too much going on?” he asked gently, without judgment.

I loved that he was aware of our surroundings and understood why it might be difficult for me to give him my full attention. He’d hate to hear me say it, but in this instance, he reminded me of his dad.

“No. Not really.” I blew out a heavy breath. “One of my horses has chronic laminitis—inflammation of the tissue connecting the hoof to the bone.”

He winced. “That sounds painful.”

“It definitely is, but it’s not uncommon. I’ve treated many horses with it, but this one mare, I can’t seem to help. I’ve been working with her vet and owner to get it figured out, and it’s like we keep taking one step forward and two steps back.”

He reached across the table to squeeze my hands, and it was nice. “I wish I had some advice.” That was nice too.

But it wasn’t what I needed.

I sighed. “I do too.”

Remi watched me, a deep crevice between his brows. “That’s not it, is it?”

I shook my head. “Not all of it.”

“You need to talk about it?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think you’re the right person for me to talk to.”

Hurt rippled over his expression. He fell back against his seat, our hands losing contact. “All right. Then…uh—”

“It’s not you, Rem.”

He huffed a short laugh. “Still not me?”

“It isn’t. I just—” There was no way out of this, and honestly, we couldn’t keep dancing around the topic of his dad. I still ached for him every day, and not being able to express that to Remi was untenable.

So I told him.

“Here it is. I spent the day wishing I could call Graham and ask for his advice. And every time I wished it, grief struck me like a bolt of lightning to the chest. I’ll never be able to have his advice again. I miss him in a way I can’t explain to you because you don’t miss him. I understand why, and you have every right to those feelings, but right now, I’m thinking about him. I’m missing him, and I can’t talk to you about it.”

He blinked a few times then took a deep breath. “Why not?”

“I’m not going to do that to you. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“You can talk to me about anything. I’ll try to understand. It’d kill me knowing you had a bad day and are holding it all in to make me comfortable. You don’t need to do that, sweetheart. I sure as hell don’t want you to.”

“Oh.” I pressed my lips together, struck by the vehemence in his voice. “Okay.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, and he leaned forward again, reclaiming my hands. “You know what I’ve always wondered?”

“What?” I whispered. “What have you wondered?”

“How you ended up working with him.”

I raised my brows. “It’s a sordid tale involving me getting arrested. You sure you want to hear it?”

“You think that would deter me? I’m all the way in. Tell me how sweet Hannah Kelly got arrested.”

“I’m sweet now, but in high school, I was a bad, bad girl.”

He laughed. “I don’t believe it.”

I grinned. “I was a little thrill seeker. When I was younger, Caleb would speed with me in his little ATV, zipping over the hills so fast we went flying. I loved it. Craved it. When I got older, I spent more time testing limits than studying for actual tests. Anything dangerous, I went for it—including boys.”

He groaned. “Always the boy’s fault.”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “All the trouble I got into was absolutely my fault. I had this boyfriend, Richie Slater. You remember the Slaters?”

His eyes narrowed. “The Slaters? You mean the meth heads who lived on that broken-down compound outside town? One of them was your boyfriend? How did your dad let that happen?”

I flipped his hand over to follow the lines on his palm with my fingertips. “My dad didn’t know. Keeping my bad, bad boyfriend a secret was even more thrilling. I was good at being sneaky. My parents didn’t catch me. Well, not until I was arrested. I was the passenger in a car Ritchie stole. We were both high as kites when he crashed into a fence in front of a state trooper.”

Remi flinched like the news of my delinquency was a slap to the face. “Jesus, Hannah. Were you hurt?”

“Luckily, I’d had the wherewithal to put on my seat belt and only got a little bruised. What hurt more was seeing how disappointed my parents were.”

“Can’t even imagine the ride home with Lock and Elena.”

I snorted. “They didn’t have to say a word. I wanted to shrivel up and die from the look in their eyes.”

“I bet.” His brow quirked. “How’d this lead you to Graham?”

“I got probation and was ordered to go to five AA meetings in addition to seeing a psychiatrist. Graham was at my first meeting. He’d been sober for over two years by then.” My eyes flicked to his, gauging his reaction. “For what it's worth, he stayed sober until the day he died.”

He nodded, his jaw working back and forth. “Good for him. Wish it didn’t take me leaving for him to care about anything but the bottle.”

“Believe me, he wished it too. I think that’s why he took me under his wing in the first place. He never said it, but he knew I had a connection to you. I guess he felt if he couldn’t do right by you, he’d try to help me.”

“He succeeded in that, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, he did. He had me assisting him at Town Hoofcare, going on client visits, taking care of the tools. Around that same time, I got my ADHD diagnosis and was put on meds. They were absolutely life changing. I finally understood why I’d been behaving the way I had and why some aspects of life were just so damn hard for me. Everything came into focus. Graham encouraged me to go to farrier school. I’d been this floating feather, going wherever the wind blew me, and he gave me direction.”

My parents had been pretty devastated they hadn’t known how badly I’d struggled, but I’d been a master at hiding it. It took me crashing and burning for all of us to wake up to how badly I had needed help.

That felt so long ago now. I wasn’t that lost girl anymore.

I threaded my fingers through Remi’s. He’d missed everything Graham had freely given me. Graham had made no bones about what a shitty father he’d been to his son. He knew he’d turned himself around too late. But he did turn himself around.

“I feel like I’m rubbing the way he was with me in your face, and I don’t want to do that. I just miss my friend a lot, and days like today are even worse. But I don’t want you to feel bad, and I—”

“No, Hannah. You’re not rubbing anything in my face. The man you just told me about…it’s like hearing about a stranger. I'm glad as hell you ended up where you did, and I’ll never begrudge you the support he gave you just because I never had that.” He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles. “I understand what you’re missing now, sweetheart— someone who was an integral part of shaping who you are. And who you are is incredible.”

My heart, which was already a tender little thing, softened even more. It shouldn’t have been possible, but there was really no way for me not to fall for Remington Town, and it terrified the hell out of me.

I waved him off. “You can’t say things like that to me in public.”

“Fine.” He huffed a laugh. “I’ll say it again in private.”

Once we paid the check, we walked to my place hand in hand. Remi pulled me to a stop at the bottom of my steps, cupping my jaw in his warm hand. His eyes darted between mine for long moments before he leaned in to place a sweet kiss on my lips. Then he wrapped his arms around me and planted more kisses in my hair. And I melted, the tension I’d been holding on to falling away as I took the comfort and care he was offering—that I needed after my hell of a day.

The loud rumbling of an engine interrupted our peace. Both of us turned to see the source, but the street was relatively empty. Seconds later, the rumbling grew closer, and an oversized dark-colored truck came into view, the beam of bright lights approaching. They were going much too fast.

“Someone needs to—”

What I’d been about to say was cut off when the truck veered toward the sidewalk. Remi yanked me backward, practically throwing me onto my porch steps. A scream lodged in my throat when I landed. Remi stood in front of me, blocking my view, but the truck’s lights spread around him as it continued toward us.

My body locked, and my eyes slammed shut. I needed to see. I had to know. But my eyes refused to open. I braced myself for impact, and when it came, I finally moved, flinging my arms out and screeching in terror.

Except it wasn’t a truck on top of me. Remi cradled me with his body, his cheek against mine, his arms around me.

“Hannah, baby, it’s okay. You’re safe. They’re gone. You’re safe, sweetheart,” he chanted next to my ear.

My eyes finally fluttered open, and Remi was there, above me. “What was that?” I croaked.

“Someone being a dick and trying to scare us. They got close, but if they meant to hit us, they could have.” He stroked my hair away from my face. “Ready to stand up?”

“I think—” I wiggled my toes and bent my legs. “Yeah, I’m ready.”

Remi got me up to my apartment. Once he closed the door and locked it, he had me in his arms again, holding tighter. His breath was heavy in my ear, chest rising and falling in rapid waves against mine.

“ Fuck ,” he gritted out. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. That was too fucking close.”

“But we’re okay. We’re not hurt. It was probably just some idiot kids entertaining themselves.”

He drew back, a scowl pulling at his features. “What color’s Cleve’s truck?”

My eyes flared in realization. “Navy blue.”

“What color was that truck just now?”

“Dark. It might’ve been navy, but it could’ve been black or gray.”

I didn’t know why I was trying to explain this away, only that Cleve had been quiet since my dad, brothers, and Remi had paid him a visit. I’d been hoping that had been the end of it.

He strode to my windows, peering out as he took his cell from his pocket. “I’m calling it in. We’re not letting this go, Hannah.”

Swallowing hard, I nodded. “Okay. Do what you think is right.”

After everything that had happened today—the mare, missing Graham, making a police report for the third time this summer—sleep eluded me. Remi was crashed out hard beside me, but it was two in the morning, and I was still staring at the ceiling. I considered getting up and doing some exercises in the living room to rid myself of the excess energy, but I knew myself well enough to know that wouldn’t work. Besides, the last thing I wanted was to wake Remi.

So I lay beside him, a ticker tape of endless thoughts scrolling through my brain. That was why I noticed when the nightmare started. Remi twitched and released a deep, guttural groan. His hands flew up beside his face, balled into tight fists.

“No,” he moaned. “Oh no.”

I laid my hand on his heaving chest, rubbing in gentle circles. “Remi,” I said softly. “Wake up, baby.”

He shook his head, thrashing back and forth against his pillow. “No,” he cried. “I can’t— stay . Stay!”

I moved closer, patting his cheek. “Wake up, Remi. You’re having a nightmare. Come back to me.”

With a sharp gasp, his eyes opened. At first, they were unfocused and wild, but the more I stroked his cheek and murmured reassurances, the haze cleared.

“Hannah,” he rasped. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

He reached for me, his fingers threading through the side of my hair. “I woke you up and now you have to deal with my shit in the middle of the night.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.” I rubbed my nose back and forth along his. “I was wide awake, dealing with my own shit.”

“Dammit,” he breathed. “Then I’m sorry for falling asleep and not being with you while you were struggling.”

My mouth twitched. “You’re apologizing for falling asleep now, Remington? Come on. We don’t need to be so formal with each other, do we?”

“Not formal, no. But I need you to know I care about you, and if I fall down on the job, I’m going to make up for it.” He pulled me down to his chest, tucking me snug against him. His fingers trailed up and down my spine in a slow, rhythmic motion. “What were you thinking about, sweetheart?”

“A lot.”

“Give it to me. I want it.”

He didn’t know what he was asking for, but I took a deep breath anyway and laid out the wild roller coaster that was my mind. “The mare, Graham, my clients I’m seeing tomorrow—well, today…the cowboys who drool over Phoebe, my grandparents getting older, worry about Jesse having enough resources for his big brain in this small town, trying to remember when I changed my sheets, the tag in my shirt, the blueberry muffin I’m going to have for breakfast, how long you’re going to be in town, why Cleve hates me so much, what snack I’m going to pack to eat while I’m on the road, the contents of my pantry, if this winter will be as bitter as the last, and…well, I think you get the picture.”

He heaved a sigh. “You’re right. That is a lot.”

“Once I get going, it’s difficult to stop.” I shoved my face into the side of his throat, feeling the stress of the day slowly dissipating. “What were you dreaming about?”

“I think…I think it was about my dad. Me chasing him and him walking away. I kept getting close, trying to reach out, but every time I did, he’d slip away.” He cleared his throat. “Sometimes my brain’s a little on the nose. I don’t need Freud to analyze the meaning of that dream.”

“You said you work things out in your dreams. Did you? Work something out, I mean?”

“I don’t know.” His arms tightened around me. “Seems like it’s too late to work out what I needed to with my old man. He’s gone now, and the way we left it is the way it’ll always be. Maybe that’s what I need to be working to accept.”

He rolled me onto my back, his hands bracketing either side of my head as he loomed over me. “I want to help you fall asleep. Can I make you come—ease some of those thoughts out of your head?”

I reached for his face, dragging my fingers along his rough scruff. “Please, Rem. And let me ease some of those thoughts out of yours.”

Remi undressed me slowly, gently, then himself. His mouth trailed down my body, stopping at my breast to taste then roaming lower, leaving wet, warm kisses as he went. He settled between my legs, stroking my inner thighs and belly as he lowered his mouth to my flesh.

I slid my fingers through his hair, sinking into his touch. My eyes fluttered shut. In the dark, the silence, my senses were pared down to the basics, and he was what filled them. Remi’s sunshine scent on my sheets. The wet sounds his tongue made against my sex. My light, feathery breaths. His palms on the backs of my legs. His rough stubble rubbing my inner thighs. The silk of his thick hair running between my fingers.

I sighed out my pleasure, my exhale expelling the harsh awareness of everything outside these walls. With Remi, I did not have to think about any of that. He made it impossible to. There was only us, Remi giving me pleasure, me allowing my tendrils to curl around him just a little.

He rose over me, sliding his length into my body. For once, he took his time sinking all the way inside. Inch by inch until we were deeply connected. Our hands intertwined above my head. Our eyes locked in a span of time that was so stretched, it was like gossamer. I could have stayed like this with Remi forever. There was no grief, no troubles, and the impossibility of us didn’t exist. It was just us, ebbing and flowing in time with each other.

Remi watched me with soft intensity. I freed one hand to trace his expression with my fingertips. His starbursts were mere echoes, only faintly visible, but I knew them. In one summer, I’d grown to know the planes and lines of this man’s face like no one’s before him. I dragged my knuckle along his cheekbone and the pad of his chin. Lifting my head, I kissed along his jaw and the tip of his nose.

“Hannah,” he murmured. “You feel so good. My beautiful girl.”

This thing between us was special and quiet and carnal. I was so drawn to him, I wondered how it was possible we’d known one another most of our lives yet had only just discovered us . We’d filled in the cavity left by a great loss with tender knowing and tentative, delicate feeling.

I reached for Remi. Reached and reached and reached. He answered with deeper slides and open hands. Focused eyes and soft lips on my skin. We lapped and receded, again and again, until there was nothing but pleasure spilling like lava over and around us.

When it was all over, our legs tangled, with me tucked snugly against Remi’s broad, smooth chest; I closed my eyes and inhaled his scent mingled with mine.

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

“For what?” I whispered.

“Mmm.” His chest vibrated my cheek. “For being mine tonight.”

Tonight. Tonight, tonight, tonight.

I didn’t have to think about the limits of that one word. Not now. Not when it was three in the morning and sleep was so close I could taste it.

I snuggled closer, winding my arm around his middle. “Good night, Remington.”

He kissed my forehead, lingering there for several moments. “Night, Hannah.”

There was more to say. So much more. But not now.

Not now.

Letting myself have this, exactly what I wanted right now, I gave in to the pull and fell asleep to the steady beat of Remi’s heart.