6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Hannah

I was bent in half, ass in the air, when Remington Town showed up. He’d made a lot of noise walking up the driveway to the detached garage where I was, kicking up gravel and clearing his throat. Maybe he thought a warning of his presence would have me position myself in a more ladylike manner, but I had things I needed to do. If he got a look at my ass in my Wranglers, he was welcome to it.

“Hannah,” he gruffed, coming to a stop next to where I was putting tools away in my rolling cabinet.

I took my time finishing the task before turning to face him. Some strands of my hair had come loose from my braid, so I brushed them off my face then tucked my hands in my rear jean pockets.

“You’re still here?” I asked.

“Still here.” His eyes were pinched as he looked me over. I examined him right back. His body was tightly strung, tension making his arms rigid at his sides.

Remington had grown into a tall drink of water. In any other circumstance, I might have gotten flirty with him. It wasn’t often I came across men who were so much taller than me I had to tip my head back. But it wasn’t just his height that appealed to me. I remembered him being cute when we were kids, but I would never use that word to describe the man in front of me. His features were powerful and striking. Observant hazel eyes, a strong Roman nose, a wide mouth bracketed by dark scruff. His jaw was sharp at the hinges, chin resolute.

I liked the way he looked, but that was as far as it went. Every minute in his presence was salt in the wound left by Graham’s absence.

“I spoke to Dell Rivers today. He’s a big fan of yours,” Remi drawled.

Another strand of hair landed on my lips. I blew out a puff of air, sending it flying. “His horses like me.” I narrowed my eyes. “Did he tell you anything different than I did?”

“Nope. I hadn’t expected him to.” He rolled his lips over his teeth, staring at a spot over my shoulder. “He tell you how he was writing that will?”

“Sure. We talked about what his death would be like a lot. He’d been facing the barrel of a gun the last two years; it was hard not to.” I had to swallow down the wave of sadness, deciding to replace it with disdain for the man who hadn’t bothered showing up for his own father’s funeral. “I’m sorry he didn’t leave you everything. If you’d checked on him once or twice, all this could’ve been yours, and I could’ve been out on my ass like you want.”

His jaw rippled as he ground his poor molars to dust. “I get you don’t like me. You see me as a bad son, maybe a bad man. But I’m going to be around for the next couple months, so it’d be appreciated—”

“You’re going to be around?” I put my hands on my hips, reminding me I was still wearing my chaps. My hands went to the buckles, undoing the straps. “Why?”

It took Remi a while to answer as he watched me remove the heavy leather that protected my legs while I was working. I normally took them off when I was done for the day, but with everything else going on, it’d slipped my mind.

“Never seen a woman farrier,” he muttered. “Surprised Graham worked with you. He had a lot of old-fashioned ideas about what women should do.”

I tossed my head back and laughed. “Oh, I know he did. I quickly disabused the old man of those when I told him he was going to train me.”

He raised his brows. “You told him?”

Walking over to the wall, I hung my chaps on the sturdy metal hook, smirking at Remi.

“I did. My gumption was what had gotten him to agree.”

His mouth quirked. “That sounds like a Graham word.”

“Gumption?” I rubbed my aching chest, missing my mentor and friend like a severed limb. “I think you’re right. We spent so much time together, our speech patterns started lining up.”

Remi didn’t have a reply for that, but I could almost hear his thoughts. He was wondering how I’d been able to handle hanging around Graham for any extended period of time. I wasn’t privy to the inner workings of their relationship, but Graham had made it clear he hadn’t blamed Remi for not returning.

I didn’t have any such reservations. I fully blamed Remi for not being here when his father died. I thought he was a selfish dick, and there wasn’t anything he could say to convince me otherwise.

“Just so you know, I keep in touch with a couple instructors at the farrier school I went to in California. The last graduating class was ninety percent women.” I hooked my thumbs in my belt loops. “Your perception of who’s a farrier is a little old-fashioned too. Like father, like son, huh?”

His hazel eyes shuttered. “I’m nothing like that man.”

I raised my chin, pissed at his vehemence. “You might be right. You’d be lucky to be half the man Graham was.”

Remi reared back so sharply, he stumbled a few steps. He shook his head like his vision was cloudy before finally focusing on me again. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You might think you know who he was, but what you got was one side. Sounds like it was a side I never got. Guess he saved all the goodness up for you, Hannah.”

In the back of my mind, something screamed at me to pause, to take in what he was saying, but I’d been angry at this man for a long time. Their relationship might’ve been complicated, but to leave Graham alone in his final days was unconscionable.

“Not sure you deserved it with how heartless you are, Remington. You have no idea how hard Graham hung on to give you time to get here. He insisted he had to be at the house so you could find him when you came. Of course, you never did.”

I shook my head, no longer seeing the man in front of me. I was back in Graham’s room. Day after day, I’d begged him to take the morphine, to find some comfort, but he’d wanted to be conscious when Remi came, refusing any more than something to take the edge off, and going to the hospital had been out of the question.

“The cancer was always going to be a death sentence, but those last couple weeks were hell. He held on for you. He wanted to see you, tell you things, make sure you were okay. His body quit on him before he gave up. I can tell you without any doubt, you were his final thought, and you couldn’t even bother to show up for an entire month after he was gone.”

It was impossible not to cry when I thought about how I’d seen Graham through to the other side. That experience had marked me. Not that I hadn’t been honored to be with him. Not that I wouldn’t have been there even if Remi had shown up. I just shouldn’t have had to do it alone. I had, though. I was the sole keeper of the memory of Graham’s last breath, and that pissed me off. But being pissed off was better than giving in to the aching sadness swelling in my chest.

“Hannah—” Remi started.

I held up one hand, wiping my face with the other. “You got my messages, didn’t you?”

After a pause, he huffed. “Got a lot of messages. It was Henry’s that brought me here.”

“You don’t know how difficult it was for me to track down your phone number. It took me weeks, or I would have called you sooner.” I shoved more hair off my forehead. “Maybe if I’d gotten it sooner, you would have come. That’s what I think about. If I’d tried harder, started searching earlier, you would have made it in time.”

“You don’t need to worry about that anymore,” he gruffed.

I looked up at him through bleary eyes. “It’s not something I can help.”

He shook his head, not meeting my gaze. “I mean, I wouldn’t have been here. Nothing you can do to change what happened.”

“Oh.”

I’d sort of lied when I’d said I hadn’t paid attention to Remi’s career. The moment Graham had brought it to my attention, I’d looked him up on my own, becoming enthralled with the evocative and emotional images.

Remi had traveled all over the world, taking pictures during political coups, famines, uprisings, wars. He had a special talent for capturing heartbreak, showing the world the horrors other human beings were capable of inflicting on each other. A child covered in dust, tears carving paths down their face. A husband bent over the body of his broken, bloody wife. Soldiers who didn’t look old enough to even touch a gun, let alone use one. His work was utterly haunting yet filled with empathy for the people and tragedy he’d witnessed.

The man standing before me, expressionless and indifferent after I’d poured my damn heart out, didn’t seem capable of caring for anyone but himself. Maybe the empathy I thought I’d detected in his work had just been me projecting.

Remi took a step toward me. “What I mean is—”

“Nope.” I swerved around him, done with this man. “I get what you mean. I don’t need to hear anything else.”

His heavy sigh was followed by his footsteps nipping at my heels. He let me get to my truck but put his hand on the door so I couldn’t leave, pissing me right off.

“Hannah, listen to me.” His voice dropped to something low and soothing. Not that I could have been soothed. Had I been looking for that, though, his soft tenor would have done it.

“It’s fine, really. You’re here for an indeterminate amount of time. I work out of the house. But we don’t have to mingle. You stay out of my way, and I’ll gladly stay out of yours. I don’t have anything else to say to you, so…”

He dipped his head, trying to catch my eyes, but I wasn’t having it. I gave the shoulder of his Henley more attention than a square inch of a shirt had ever received.

“I’m sorry you had to face that on your own. That shouldn’t have been on you. I can only imagine it must’ve been incredibly hard. I know, without a doubt, you did right by Graham. His last thought might’ve been of me, but I bet his second-to-last one was of you.”

He reached toward me, for my hair or face, maybe, but I flinched before he could touch me, and his hand fell to his side.

He sighed. “If I could change how things played out, I would, but there’s no going back.”

I swallowed hard, and his boot scuffed the gravel. I was done, but he wasn’t.

“Like I said, I’ll be here for a while, but not forever. You want me to stay out of your way, I’ll do that. Just know, no matter what you think of me and my absence, I’m grateful you were the one who was here for Graham.”

My eyes flicked to his, there and back. He was hurting me, being tender when all I wanted was a brick wall to wail on. I shouldn’t have started this conversation at all, but I had a big mouth and didn’t always clue in on when I should stop.

“If you want me to buy you out, I can get the money.” I shifted on my feet. “My parents will help me. It won’t be instant, but I can do it.”

“Ah. Dell mentioned that.”

“Think about it,” I said. “It’ll be easier for all of us, but especially you. You won’t have a reason to stay or come back. Isn’t that what you want?”

His boot scuffed the gravel again before he slapped the door of my truck. “I’m not gonna keep you any longer. Get on your way.”

He stepped back just enough for me to squeeze by him. My back brushed his front, but he didn’t shift away. I didn’t know what he thought he was doing, but it wasn’t working on me.

He lifted his chin, and I slammed the door.

I’d never driven away from Graham’s house quicker.