Chapter Three
E ven though she was inside with the wedding planner from hell, Hannah knew the moment Collin spotted Hunter. Her son’s shriek of pure delight rang out from the front lawn, cascading over the god-awful pop music Rochelle had insisted she needed to “work.” She smiled despite the uncomfortable corset being cinched up—could she even sit down in this thing without cracking a rib? She was horrified speculating what type of dress would require this much shapewear, but it was probably just another part of her mother’s unrealistic beauty regime.
“Is it hard?” Rochelle tied off the corset and stepped around to face Hannah. She tilted her head to the side, her long, sleek black hair running over her shoulder.
“To breathe?” Hannah didn’t hold back an ounce of annoyance as she looked the other woman in the eyes. “Yeah, I can barely inflate my lungs.”
“No. To date someone so far out of your league.” Rochelle softened her voice, infusing it with false sympathy. “I’d be in a constant state of panic waiting for him to stray.” She placed her hand over her heart in a dramatic stance. “Because, Hannah, he will. Men who look like that, even as bruised and battered as he currently is, well, you can hardly blame them. I’m just trying to look out for you.”
She angled her body toward Rochelle, crossing her arms over her chest. She’d had enough of this. The other woman’s snide comments were so over-the-top and outrageous they were nearly laughable.
“I never realized you were so insecure. If Hunter cheated on me, I’d send him packing, but I have no reason to believe he ever would.” Even though her relationship with Hunter was a sham she’d have to rectify, she didn’t have to project a fake sense of confidence. There was more to self-worth than just looks. She worked damn hard, had a respectful job where she was able to help others, and a beyond wonderful son. She hadn’t had many friends, well, until recently, or boyfriends for that matter, but she was loyal and always willing to help if she could.
Hunter’s heart had been in the right place when he stalked into her bedroom and called her baby. The thrill of his words was something she’d try not to dwell on. She wasn’t sure what he was doing here or when he got discharged, but he no doubt heard Rochelle’s rude words and jumped in to help like the protector he was. The damage was done. She’d tell her family they’d split right before the wedding, as Rochelle was going to run back to Texas with the juicy piece of gossip that Hunter had unintentionally started. Everyone who frequented her parents’ country club would be informed of her new relationship.
After Rochelle finished measuring every inch of her body to fit her for various coordinated outfits, she packed her things. They stepped into the hall and the mouth-watering scent of bubbling cheese baking in the oven dominated Rochelle’s pungent perfume.
Rochelle stopped abruptly as they passed the kitchen, and Hannah nearly ran straight into the backs of her stiletto heels. Hunter and Collin were sitting at the table playing cards, grins on their faces. Warmth pulsed through her, expanding in her chest. They were so beautiful sitting their together, heads bent, Collin’s shock of red hair and Hunter’s rich brown, eyes focused on the cards in their hands.
“It was certainly a pleasure meeting you, Hunter.” Rochelle tossed her dark hair over her shoulder—a practiced move designed to draw eyes. “I’ll be sure to save you a dance at the wedding.”
Hunter glanced up, meeting her eyes, not Rochelle’s, and the intensity in his gaze made her throat go dry. Desire and something deeper radiated in the russet depths as he stared openly at her.
“No need. Not going to waste one second with someone else when my arms could be wrapped around my woman.” His gaze didn’t leave hers and his low, gruff tone chased away the annoyance that had flickered to life at Rochelle’s flirtatious words, replacing it with a long, liquid pull that heated her from the inside out. This isn’t real. He was pretending they were in a relationship, and with the way he was looking at her right now, it would be dangerous to let herself play along, no matter how briefly.
She didn’t introduce Collin—Rochelle wasn’t worth his time, and she’d spent far too much time on this woman. “I’ll show you out.” Hannah walked past Rochelle to the front of the house. The space wasn’t large, but it was hers. Something she’d sweated for and made her haven. The click of heels sounded behind her. Hannah opened the door and turned.
Rochelle spoke first. “I’ll send you the event itinerary. Your attire will be labeled and sent to your suite. The wedding room block is at the Ritz, unless you’re staying at your parents’ estate.”
She wasn’t sure which was worse, having to sell a kidney to pay for a week at a five-star hotel or offer up her sanity in exchange for accommodations at her parents’ mansion. “I’ll let you know.”
Rochelle’s chest rose with an exaggerated breath. “No later than tomorrow. The wedding is nine days away.”
“We’ll be at the Ritz.”
Hunter’s voice sounded behind her, and a moment later, the comforting weight of his hands rested on her shoulders. Hunter might mean well but he was making things increasingly difficult for her. She fought the urge to let out her own exaggerated breath and turned to face him. “We haven’t made any final decisions.”
“Unless you’d like to stay with your parents, I’d feel more comfortable at the hotel. We can get a connecting room so Collin can have his space.”
She wasn’t sure if she wanted to scream or cry. The last two hours with Rochelle had been unexpected and draining. She’d only just finished mowing the lawn and had a thousand other chores she’d needed to accomplish when the designer car had rolled into the driveway. Now, Hunter had showed up, and while she appreciated and was even touched by his initial support, he was taking it too far. The tighter he wove this story, the more difficult it was going to be to unravel. Not to mention she couldn’t afford to reserve two rooms at the Ritz. She didn’t even know if she could scrape up the money for one. If he kept pushing it, she was going to be on the hook for the payments. She wasn’t sure if Rochelle had sensed her panic or was just doing her part as a wedding planner, but a slow smile spread across her face.
“Consider it done. I’ll have the connecting rooms added to the wedding block. Who should I send the confirmation to?”
“Send it to me. Hannah’s already juggling far too much to accommodate her family.” His fingers tightened almost possessively on her shoulders. Not painful, but firm. His voice was harsher than she’d ever heard it.
Rochelle jerked back, face puckering. “Well, there’s nothing more important than her little sister’s wedding.”
“I think you really believe that.”
Hannah opened her mouth to stop him. It wasn’t worth his breath to argue with Rochelle. Since their boarding school days, she’d always had the last say. Her influence stretched far and wide. If she had a new pair of shoes, half a dozen girls would have the same style the next day.
“But you’re wrong.” Hunter’s voice was steel. “You clearly don’t know who Hannah is. Her importance in the community, to her friends. This woman is on the front lines every day. She is literally the one thing standing between life and death. If you don’t think her career as a flight medic, as a mother, is as important as the wedding you’re planning, imagine being the person trapped inside a burning vehicle, or someone who has a severed artery and is moments from bleeding out. Someone who has a gunshot wound to the chest. How much would a wedding dress or shoes matter if shit hit the fan?”
“I—I, ah—” Rochelle sputtered.
Hunter’s hands slid down from her shoulders as he wrapped his arms tightly around her, pulling her in to his body. “Who’s going to be more important to you in a life-or-death situation? A wedding planner?” he said with a sneer. “Or a highly trained medic?”
Hannah’s heartbeat quickened. Was that what he really thought of her? She liked his praise a heck of a lot. That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to give him an earful about overstepping the moment the Mercedes backed out of the driveway. Rochelle had the decency to look ashamed, then cleared her throat. “Of course. My apologies. I’ll send you the information you need for the rooms.” Her jaw almost dropped at the cowed expression on Rochelle’s face. Hunter had either thoroughly put her in her place or she was going to regroup and strike at Hannah with a new strategy.
When the door shut, Hannah pinched the bridge of her nose. Between the overpowering perfume Rochelle wore and the warring emotions of how she was going to handle her life for the next few weeks, there was a throbbing sensation across her forehead.
“Let me get you some aspirin.” Hunter’s voice was a soothing whisper, as though he’d read her mind and was trying not to worsen the headache.
“No.” She held up her hands, palms facing him, and winced at the sharpness in her tone. “I appreciate what you tried to do there, but my head is spinning with the excuses I’m going to have to make when I show up in Texas dateless, then have to beg the hotel concierge to let me wash dishes because my imaginary boyfriend booked two suites I can’t begin to pay for.”
“Who made pizza?” Collin bounced into the room. “Collin and who else?”
In all the craziness, she’d forgotten this man had gotten her son off of the bus, entertained him for an hour, and cooked dinner. Damn, now she was torn between feeling like a raging bitch and wanting to continue the tirade of said raging bitch. She switched it off and found her patience. This predicament wasn’t Collin’s fault. The whole event was going to mean a change in his routine, new sensory stimuli to process, and trying to self-regulate during an overstimulating event filled with people who didn’t have the first clue how to communicate with him. No, she wasn’t about to let Collin witness her freaking out at his hero. One who just got out of the hospital after getting hurt risking his life for someone else. Double damn.
“Let me guess.” She glanced at her son and a smile spread over her face. He tended to have that effect on her. He had Hannah’s red hair, freckles, and light brown eyes, but he’d gotten his height from Russell. “Collin and Hunter made pizza?”
Collin let out a brief squeal and clapped his hands together. “Hunter Branch Green,” he responded using his given name and nickname from the Teams, but he was already loping out of the room.
She leveled her gaze at Hunter, trying not to get pulled into the softness of his expression. “We’ll talk later,” she said, and followed her son into the kitchen. While they were trying to get Rochelle out of the house, Collin had set the table with three plates and three glasses of water. She did her best to promote independence, and that meant giving him responsibilities around the house. Showing him how to use the dishwasher, do laundry, and other tasks that might take him a bit longer to master. She wanted him to live a life of his choosing and give him the skills to live on his own someday, if that was what he wanted.
“Smells incredible in here.” Hannah pulled out a chair at the small kitchen table. “What combination did you decide on today?” Making pizza or talking about making pizza with Hunter had become Collin’s latest obsession.
“Mushrooms and green peppers.” Collin’s back was toward her, but she could still hear the smile in his voice.
“Okay, buddy. Slice it up.” Hunter rooted through the drawer by the oven, pulled out a pizza wheel, and passed it to her son. He counted the slices he was making as he rolled the sharp edge through the crust, and when he got stuck, Hunter encouraged him but didn’t take over the job. She appreciated that. Once the pizza was plated, Collin and Hunter sat on either side of her. Her stomach let out a loud groan just as she picked up the first slice.
“Guess we made this at just the right time.” Hunter shot her a smile that made her stomach go weightless.
When he looked at her like that, forming intelligible words wasn’t an option, so she stuffed a far too big bite into her mouth and sighed. She had to hand it to them. They pair had never made a bad pie. “This is amazing.” She washed down the bite with a sip of water and grinned at Collin. He smiled back, but his eyes were miles away.
“You can stay with your parents. I’ll be comfortable at the hotel. Connecting room so Collin can have his space,” her son muttered to himself as he ate. She hadn’t realized he’d been listening to their conversation, but she should know better by now that even if Collin appeared to be in his own world, he was still picking up his surroundings.
She glanced at Hunter, who didn’t look the least bit fazed that her son was repeating their conversation with Rochelle nearly verbatim.
“I read scripting was a common stim for people who have autism.” Hunter looked over to Collin, who was happily eating and repeating what he’d heard earlier. “I did some research after I first met Collin. That’s how I knew to make a sensory room for Jacob’s Halloween party.”
“Yes, echolalia.” There was a sinking sensation in her gut. Of course Hunter had been introduced to Collin before ever meeting her, which meant he’d already formed a bond with him before she stepped into the picture. Part of her already knew, but Hunter had never used Collin to get closer to her. She’d avoided this man for several days, not even returning the intermittent text messages he sent because she was afraid of her feelings. She’d told herself Hunter could be using his relationship with Collin to influence her feelings, when in retrospect, it was her doing the using. Inadvertently, she’d used Collin as a barrier to keep Hunter from getting close to her. Hannah didn’t have time for self-pity and today was no exception, but that didn’t stop the guilt from tumbling through her. She needed to apologize for icing him out, while simultaneously letting him know he’d overstepped his boundaries with the faux relationship.
“What were you just thinking about?” Hunter’s eyes narrowed.
“How good this pizza is.” She took another enormous, borderline impolite bite in an effort to stall the conversation. Hunter saw too much when he looked at her.
“It is, but that’s not what you were thinking about. You can tell me later.” Hunter turned his attention toward Collin and asked him a question about school. Hunter was kind and funny, but like her friends’ men, Ransom and Joker, there were parts of themselves they kept concealed. The only side she’d truly seen of Hunter was the jovial, easygoing man, but after witnessing how he’d put Rochelle in her place and called Hannah out for lying in a matter-of-fact way, she wanted to learn more about the layers he kept deep. Of course, after ignoring him for days and the snit she’d had, he probably was rethinking his stance on a relationship with her, let alone a friendship.
After they cleared up dinner, Hunter said goodnight to Collin. She still read with him every night. The best part of her day was lying on his bed, alternating between reading and listening to chapters from his favorite books, the I Survived series. After a half hour of reading about a deadly avalanche, she got up to lock down the house. She hadn’t been this drained in a very long time. Hannah turned the kitchen light off, then locked the front door, and the glass slider. When she switched off the living room lights, a soft chuckle made her screech.
“I’m still here.” Hunter’s tone rumbled through her, echoing in places left unsated for a very long time.
“I didn’t think you’d wait.” She pressed her hand over her pounding heart.
“You said you wanted to talk. I thought you meant after Collin fell asleep. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“Hunter, you just got out of the hospital. You should be home resting. I didn’t mean for you to wait.” She turned the lights back on. Hunter was leaned back on the couch, feet planted wide, hands clasped over his flat stomach in a relaxed posture.
Heat raced up her cheeks as she moved toward the couch and sat at the opposite side. Hunter had been in her house this whole time, listening to the exaggerated voices she made as she read and went about their nightly routine. “I wanted to talk about the things you told Rochelle, to let you know it wasn’t cool to pretend you were actually going to the wedding, let alone book two rooms at the Ritz. It’s going to add some uncomfortable conversations to my trip that I don’t care to have. I also wanted to apologize for leaving the hospital how I did and ignoring you for three days. That wasn’t okay, and you didn’t deserve that. When you said, well, when you mentioned being interested in me, I was worried your relationship with Collin was to get close to me. I never believed it, but I kept telling myself the lie anyway.”
“Why?” He angled his body so he was fully facing her. With his sheer size, the movement brought them closer just because of the amount of space he took up on the couch.
“Fear.” The breath rushed out of her. “When you asked me what I was thinking at dinner, it was me recognizing that you weren’t the one using Collin. It was me, creating a barrier between us. That makes me feel like a horrible mom and a horrible human. I was trying to convince myself you haven’t been totally genuine so I didn’t have to worry about something growing between us, because I’m afraid to let you in.”
There was a long pause, and she fought to keep still beneath his gaze. “I get it, Hannah,” he said finally, shifting so one knee was bent up on the couch and his body was angled toward her.
The breath rushed out of her lungs. “Don’t let me off the hook that easy.”
“I won’t sit here and pretend it doesn’t sting that you thought I was using Collin to get close to you, but that doesn’t mean for a second that I blame you. Collin is your son, and you look out for him the way a mother should. You’re a fucking fantastic parent. Don’t ever doubt that.” Hunter held out his palm faceup. A peace offering and maybe something more. She scooted closer, mirroring the way he sat with one leg bent on the couch and the other on the floor. His grip was strong and safe. There were healed-over nicks and scrapes over his hands and arm. Bruising inside the crook of his elbow where his IV had been placed in the hospital.
“It’s hard to explain, but when I spend time with Collin, it’s easy to forget the heavy stuff. The way he sees things, his laugh, his exuberance for all things pizza. Shit. I just love him. What I feel for you, though, is separate from my friendship with Collin. The fact that you’re a package deal is just the icing on the cake.” He rubbed his thumb over her knuckles and the simple gesture sent sparks glittering up her arm. “I won’t ever intentionally let you down. And the wedding? What makes you think I’m not prepared to back up everything I told Rochelle and more?”
“You—Hunter, you can’t actually come to the wedding. That’s crazy. You were shot multiple times. Had a head injury from your fall. You can’t be traveling now.”
“Three grazes and one hit. I was lucky, and the bullet didn’t hit bone or any major arteries. My recovery overseas was long enough as it was.”
“It’s going to be awful. I don’t even want to go.” She was pretty sure her mouth was hanging open, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Who offered themselves up to venture into the wolf den?
“Of course I’m coming. I’m your plus-one. I have your back and Collin’s, and I never would put you in an uncomfortable position where you had to explain yourself or pay for a hotel room you had no intention of booking. I’ve got the rooms. You tell me the airport and I’ve got the flights, too. But mostly, I’ve got you.” He squeezed her hand and there was a burning sensation behind her lids. She didn’t let herself cry. Never. Funny how all it took were a few gentle words and she was ready to come undone. “So let me in, Hannah. You have nothing to be afraid of. Not from me.”
Holy shit. She wasn’t used to someone being so open and honest. He had no clue what he was asking. When she first left Southlake, Texas, she’d worn her independence like a coat of armor. Telling herself over and over that nothing could break her. That she could depend on herself and no one else. That mantra got her through the scary, lonely nights, the pain of labor, sitting at her kitchen table with tears of exhaustion running down her cheeks and a crying Collin on her lap as she tried to finish her college assignments.
Now Hunter was here, offering her a chance at something she’d denied herself for so long. She wanted to reach out and grab the companionship he was offering. If she didn’t, she had a feeling she’d regret it for the rest of her life. At the same time, she knew with unquestionable certainty that Hunter would change her. If she let him in, she’d never be able to slip back into the isolated armor that had protected her for over a decade.