4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Hannah

I walked into my parents’ house and took a deep breath. Home . My mother’s cooking, aged wood, the remnants of a fire in the hearth, and something that had no name but belonged only here. If this scent was the last thing I smelled before I died, I’d be at peace.

Once I kicked my shoes off and made sure the hems of my jeans weren’t muddy, I walked into the kitchen, greeted by a tableau that made me smile. My dad at the large farmhouse table, shucking corn. My mom chopping watermelon. Phoebe at the stove, stirring something in a large pot. I went straight for my dad, who put down the ear to tap his ruddy cheek. Bending, I gave him a peck, and he patted my arm.

“Good day, Han?” he gruffed gently. My father was a big man, tall and robust. Strong from manual labor and soft in the middle from genetics and the rich recipes my mom liked to test on us. He could squash a grown man’s head in his baseball-glove-sized mitts, but he had never been anything but tender and careful with us kids. In his late fifties, silver traveled through the sides of his hair and crinkles lined the corners of his eyes, but he didn’t seem old. As far as I was concerned, Lachlan Kelly was invincible and always would be.

“Weird day,” I answered.

My mom popped a piece of watermelon into her mouth and walked over to pop one in mine. “Delicious, right?”

“Mmm. Like sugar.”

She smoothed her palm over my hair and patted my cheek. “By your lack of dishevelment, I’m guessing today was a paperwork day.”

I snorted. “You guessed right.”

My mother was the girliest girl. Ultra-feminine, always wearing beautiful clothes, impeccably put together. Originally from California, she looked the part but fit in on the ranch like a fish in water. Sugar Brush River Ranch wasn’t any ol’ ranch, though. It was also a world-class resort. Our thirty-thousand acres had been in the Kelly family for generations, but the resort had only been added fifty years ago. Three presidents’ children had been married in the chapel, and many more celebrities and billionaires had vacationed here.

My mother ran the resort’s marketing department, though Dad was tempting her to retire with him sooner rather than later. Despite who she was—glamorous, fastidious with her image, a fashion maven—she’d never imposed that on me, letting me be myself. Sometimes that meant I was filthy and smelled like horse. Other times, I’d put on a dress, my best cowboy boots and add a bow in my hair. My mom might’ve teased me about it, but she’d never once made me feel like she’d disapproved of who I was and the choices I’d made.

In short, my parents were awesome. I understood enough about the world to know they were rare jewels, and I was a lucky girl to have come from this family. I certainly hadn’t done anything to earn it, but I didn’t take any of my people for granted.

Phoebe turned away from the stove, a wooden spoon poised in her hand. “What was weird about the day?”

I took a seat across from my dad and exhaled a heavy breath. “You’ll never guess who showed up at the house.”

My mom pursed her lips. “Remi Town.”

I jerked in surprised. “Okay, I stand corrected. You guessed.”

She flicked her manicured nails. “I ran into him at the grocery store last night. He acted like I should have recognized him, so of course I pretended I had no clue who he was.”

“Ellie,” Dad drawled. “Be sweet.”

She went to him, and he snagged her around the waist as soon as she was close enough. Her lips met the top of his head, her hand, his cheek. “I’m always sweet, Lachlan. But the arrogance of a man expecting to be remembered when he’s been gone without a word for more than a decade got me in a tizzy.”

Phe laughed. “You’ve never been in a tizzy.”

Mom gasped. “I can be and have been in plenty of tizzies, my darling daughter.”

I cocked my head. “You were being a mean girl, weren’t you?”

My mother had gone through a lot when she was younger, turning her into an angry teen. Fortunately for all of us, she’d worked through it in therapy then fell in love with my dad, who brought out the softness she’d had to hide behind armored spikes. At least, that was how they told it.

She tossed her pretty blonde hair behind her back. “It was instinct. That boy hurt Cay when he abandoned their friendship.”

Dad’s huge hand spanned the side of her hip. “He has his reasons. You know that as well as I do.”

She hummed, lowering herself to his thick thigh, and twined her arms around his neck. “I do. And if I see him again, I won’t be unkind. But I can’t be the only one who remembers how Caleb felt when his best friend cut him off.”

“Dad doesn’t hold grudges,” Phe said.

Mom slid her fingers through the side of his hair. “I know he doesn’t. I hold them for both of us.”

The sound of the front door opening interrupted our line of conversation, and my brothers’ voices greeted us before they appeared in the kitchen.

Caleb was Dad’s spitting image, except scruffier. That might’ve been because our parents had met in college and Dad kept himself put together for his wife. Caleb didn’t have a woman to impress—though, from what I’d heard and seen, to my chagrin, my brother didn’t have any trouble in that department. In fact, he had a ten-year-old son as a result of one of his one-night stands.

“Where’s Jesse?” I asked.

“Shelby has him this week. I would’ve brought him for dinner, but Shel’s parents are in town for a visit,” Caleb explained, pulling his thick chestnut hair into a haphazard bun at the base of his skull. When it was down, it grazed his broad shoulders, and his beard ranged from heavy stubble to biblical. Today, it was mostly the former.

He stopped to kiss Mom on her head, ruffled Phe’s hair after stealing a piece of watermelon, then slung his heavy arm around my shoulders.

I shoved him off with a fake grimace. “Dislocate my shoulder, why don’t you.”

His chuckle rumbled like rolling thunder. “You’re always reminding me how strong you are. Can’t take one brother’s arm?”

“Not when it’s the size of a tree trunk,” I shot back.

Cormac clapped once. “All right, children. Don’t get started, or we’ll be hearing the two of you snipe all night.”

“Hey…” Mom grabbed Maccie’s hand and held it between both of hers. “Isn’t parenting my job?”

He offered her a crooked grin. “I thought you could use a break after trying to keep Cay in line for thirty-one years.”

Mom kissed the back of his hand. “My sweet baby, always looking out for your mom. Don’t worry about me, honey. I’m giving free-range parenting a try. They can learn from their mistakes while I get to cease worrying about them killing each other.”

I waved my hand. “Hello, I’m right here.” Then I picked up Cay’s arm and made it wave too, though it took a lot of strength to do it. “Cay’s here too. His feelings are hurt.”

“They’re not,” he added wryly, tucking his hands in his pockets so I couldn’t use him as my puppet anymore.

Cormac cocked his head, exchanging a glance with our parents. “Are you sure about the free-range thing?”

At twenty-four, Mac was the youngest, and he was pretty wonderful. As much as we all doted on Phoebe, Mac was the baby, and even though it pained him, we all saw him that way.

In his finely-tailored suit, however, he didn’t look like a baby. Maccie was as tall as Caleb and our dad but lean and rangy. His hair was similar to Cay’s but slightly shorter and more refined, and he kept his light beard neatly trimmed. He was the only one who had Mom’s icy blue eyes, and they were gorgeous. In fact, in looks and interests, he took after our mother more than the rest of us.

Maccie had gone to college for hospitality management and was now the assistant manager of the resort with plans to take over entirely in a few years. While I would be bored to tears working inside day in, day out, Mac was good at it. Empathetic to his core, people loved him because he was good to them. In that way, he was very much like our dad. Not that our mom lacked empathy, but she was sharper with a bark and a bite.

I folded my arms over my chest, putting on an offended pout, though I wasn’t in the least. “I’ve been free range since I moved out of this house. Somehow, I manage to feed and clothe myself.”

Phe nodded. “She hasn’t even burned down her apartment.”

I raised a finger. “Not even once.”

Cay’s huge hand landed firmly on my back. “Pretty sure the fire department has you blacklisted, so it’s good you haven’t needed their services.”

I rolled my eyes, muttering, “Forget you’re cooking noodles one time, and no one lets you live it down…”

“You started a fire,” he stated.

I held my fingers an inch apart. “A small one, and that was at least a decade ago. You need to let it go.”

Mom hopped up from Dad’s lap and swept around us to return to cutting the melon. “Speaking of a decade, guess who rolled into town last night? Hannah was just about to tell us about it.”

Caleb’s head cocked. “A decade? What’s that about?”

I blew out a heavy breath. “Remington is back.”

He flinched like he’d taken a blow. “Back where? In Sugar Brush?”

“Yep.”

Cay scrubbed his bearded cheek and turned away. His normally loose limbs were drawn tight, and his jaw moved back and forth as he processed this bit of news.

Remi leaving hadn’t impacted me much. I wasn’t one of those girls who’d paid a lot of attention to the boys my brothers hung around. For me, Remi had been here one day, gone the next. I moved on easily. But Caleb had moped around the ranch for months. He’d checked the mail for letters or postcards, his phone for texts or missed calls. Then, one day, he just stopped and never brought up his old friend again.

I’d thought he’d gotten over it.

Looked like I was wrong.

“What’s he doing back now?” he asked lowly.

“We didn’t share a heart-to-heart.” I wasn’t about to tell my family a buck-naked Remi had burst in on me. They wouldn’t have taken too kindly to that, and it wasn’t like the naked part had been a big deal. It was his existence in a house where he no longer belonged that had gotten under my skin.

“What’d he say?” he pressed.

“He was under the impression the house was his. I guess he came to sell it and collect his payday. I relieved him of that idea, though.”

Mom huffed. “What did he think about that?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not sure he believed me. Said he’s going to talk to Graham’s lawyer.”

“He doesn’t even know who that is, does he?” Cay asked.

“Doubt it.” I shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll head right back out of town once he figures out he won’t be getting a dime.”

“I really doubt he needs money,” Phoebe said.

When Caleb and I whirled around to stare at her, she raised her hands. “I’m not claiming to know his motives, and while I don’t know what a successful photojournalist makes, I have a feeling it isn’t pocket change.”

“I don’t care about his motives,” Caleb grumbled. “Long as he gets outta this town as quickly as he arrived.”

The corner of my mouth hitched. “He’s certainly not going to like coexisting in that house with me.”

“You’re barely ever there,” Phoebe reminded me.

“Well, things change,” I stated. “I might need to make more appearances to check on my property. Since he’s basically a stranger, you never know what he might be up to.”

A rumble came from my father as he rose. Passing by me on the way to my mom, he touched my shoulder.

“Be sweet, Han. You don’t remember how Graham was when you were younger, but I do. He wasn’t always the man you came to admire. Must be difficult for Remi to be back here.”

I wasn’t one to argue with my dad, mostly because he was always right, but I wasn’t too sure I agreed with him now. This was one of those instances where I’d have to wait and see.

Maybe Remi would be gone in the morning and I’d never see him again.

Maybe he’d stick around like a thorn in my side.

If he chose the latter, he’d better make sure he kept his clothes on.

After all, there were a lot more muffins where that first had come from.