21. Hannah
21
HANNAH
“ Y ou made it.” Jeremiah stretched his arm out to keep the shotgun safely away from me, his finger nowhere near the trigger, and wrapped me in a one-armed hug.
“What’s the gun for, Jay?” I asked. “Put it down.”
“Wasn’t sure if I was going to need it.” His gaze shifted to Zack just long enough to make a point before he set it down. “Mateo saw a grizzly. I wanted to make sure it didn’t come for the herd or the horses. Fired a few shots to scare it off.”
“You get grizzlies this far from Yellowstone?” Zack asked.
“Not usually, but we’re starting to see an uptick. Mostly we have black bears in this part of Wyoming. Like what you have in Colorado, but bigger.”
I ignored their dick-measuring competition in favor of more important things. “Mateo is here?” I asked excitedly. He hadn’t left the army yet, and our visits to Mercy River rarely overlapped, but I always loved seeing him.
Like I had summoned him with his name, the door opened and there he was. He grinned, all dimples and white teeth that gleamed against his brown skin.
“She’s here!” he hollered over his shoulder before crossing the threshold and hauling off my feet in a big hug.
A second later there was a stampede of tier-one operators and Mateo’s hug became a group project.
I laughed as they jostled me around. “Put me down so I can introduce you to Zack.”
Immediately, they formed a line with their backs to me, facing Zack like a high-stakes game of Red Rover. I rolled my eyes and elbowed my way through them to stand next to Zack.
“This is Zack Hale.” The wall of scowls was not for the faint of heart, so I added, “Zack is helping me with the charity rodeo for the library. Zack, this is Liam Cole, Sebastian—Seb—Ashcroft, Mateo Alvarez, and Holly Delaney.” As I pointed to each one in turn, they shook Zack’s hand. He didn’t flinch, but I noticed he flexed his hand, stretching out the muscles, after Holly was done with him. “And, of course, my brother, Jeremiah. But we call him Jay.”
“My friends call me Jay.” He eyed Zack doubtfully. “You can call me Jeremiah.”
I narrowed my eyes, but Zack remained unfazed.
“Sure thing.” That easy, charming grin of his was firmly in place. “Where can I put my horse? He’s been around a thousand other horses from all over the place, so if you have something isolated, that would be best.”
Jeremiah jerked his head at Liam, who stepped forward.
“We’ve got the quarantine stall ready for him, but he’d probably prefer the pasture for the night to stretch his legs. I’ll take you there,” Liam offered.
Zack squeezed my bicep—Jeremiah’s gaze zeroed in on the contact—and followed Liam down the steps. The second they were out of ear shot, I whirled on my big brother. “Seriously, Jay?” I lowered my voice in imitation of Jeremiah’s deep growl. “ You can call me Jeremiah . What was that?”
He shrugged. “He needed to know.”
“Know what?” I demanded.
“That you have friends.”
I blinked.
“Highly trained friends with a very particular set of skills,” Seb put in.
“Don’t quote that movie at me. Zack isn’t going to sell me into sex slavery,” I said, but I was oddly touched.
“Well, he’s not now ,” Mateo deadpanned. “You’re welcome.”
I shook my head. “Zack is a good guy. And I think you’re going to like him most of all, Mateo. You’re like two peas in a pod.”
Holly snorted. “That’s not the ringing endorsement you think it is.”
Mateo smirked at her. “Yeah? Because that’s not?—”
“You’re wearing jeans,” Jeremiah cut in. I had the feeling he wasn’t just now realizing it, but had been waiting for the moment to say it. “That’s different. Is this Zack’s doing?”
“Not Zack. Necessity. We went straight from the auction to the feedlot in Shelby, and I didn’t have anything with me.”
I knew Jeremiah didn’t care what I wore. He hadn’t fussed when I asked for new, modern clothes when I left the compound, and he hadn’t fussed when I stopped wearing those clothes in favor of my old prairie-style dresses. Eventually I had outgrown those clothes and settled into what I wore now: long skirts paired with long-sleeved sweaters. Jeremiah hadn’t said a word about any of that. He was fine with all that.
What he wasn’t fine with was a man telling me what to wear.
Life outside the compound had been…an adjustment. I had been raised to believe that a man’s word was the final authority, regardless of who that man was. Jeremiah had been raised the same way, but he’d been out for years at that point, and several women had already knocked some sense into him.
But for the first year I lived with him, he didn’t realize that I acquiesced so easily—to him, to my boyfriend, to male teachers, to random men on the street—not because I wanted to, but because I didn’t know how not to. And when he finally saw the pattern, whew. Was that ever a hard reckoning for both of us.
I pulled anxiously at the hem of my cropped t-shirt. I wasn’t wearing this for Zack, but I had to admit, I liked seeing his reaction when I put it on. What did that mean? I didn’t want to fall into old, unhealthy patterns. I had spent years brainwashed into believing that my body was entirely created to be of service to men. Their whims, their lust, their needs. I was to bring them pleasure, feed their bellies, bear their children. I was not entitled to my own body.
And even though I knew Zack didn’t feel that way about it, I wondered if part of me still did. If maybe the misogynistic call was coming from inside the house.
“You look great,” Holly said, sending Jeremiah a stern look. “And if you want to throw your dirty clothes in with mine, I’ll do a load tonight.”
Holly was two years younger than me, but she had clucked over me like a mother hen from our very first meeting. Well, no, not a mother hen. More like a Canada goose. Either way, it was maternal. Murderous, but maternal.
“Thank you,” I said. But I was still feeling off kilter.
Jeremiah was watching me keenly, but whatever he was thinking, he kept to himself. “Come inside for dinner.”