Chapter 20
here the whole time
Rowan
Hannah
One rushed scan of the house and I regret inviting her over.
At the realtor’s suggestion, I’ve rid the entire residence of anything personal and packed it all into boxes to store at the lake house.
Even most of the furniture has been cleared out.
Photos, gone. Couch, gone. Dining table, gone.
All the personality and coziness that was once here has been eliminated.
And the handful of furniture pieces that remain are covered in drop cloths in preparation for my painting spree this weekend.
No food either other than a six-pack and some string cheese in the fridge. Maybe a box of crackers in the pantry.
I’ve got nothing but my company and redneck charcuterie to offer her.
There’s a knock at the door and I spin in place, silently reprimanding myself for not showering before she got here. She knocks again, and I’m on the move, hoping my sweatpants and T-shirt align with whatever she has on.
I open the door. Yeah, I definitely should have changed.
Hannah’s in the same red skirt I saw her in earlier today. A fitted black short-sleeved shirt is tucked into the high waistband and finished with a matching belt. Hair hangs in long waves around her shoulders. Red lace stilettos bring her nearly eye to eye with me.
“You gonna invite me in or…” she says, dragging my gaze up to hers.
I snap my jaw shut. “Yeah, sorry. Come in.”
She breezes past me with a grin, smelling like spring and the promise of something beautiful. It’s intoxicating.
Hannah stops just inside and takes off her high heels.
I look down at my outfit, then at her. “I’m underdressed. And you look…” Adequate words don’t exist to finish that sentence.
“No, I’m overdressed. I haven’t been home since this morning.”
She moves through the living room. Her eyes survey the space as if assembling a mental list of everything that’s missing.
The pin I sent her earlier was instinct, but now I realize she probably didn’t need it. She’s been here before. “I bet it looks different than you’re used to seeing it.”
“What do you mean?”
She stops in the middle of the dining room beside the step-ladder positioned under the soon-to-be-replaced light fixture and turns to face me.
“I mean, I’m assuming you’ve…been here before. To visit Pops.”
Her lips twist in an almost smile. “No, actually. I only ever visited him at the lake house or we saw each other at the VFW.”
I nod, scratching my chin. There are so many questions I want to ask about my grandfather. But I also just want to spend time with her. Make sure she’s okay since last night. Maybe kiss her. Or maybe I shouldn’t?
“I don’t have much here besides beer and crackers, but we could order something if you want.”
“I already ate, but I’ll take a beer.”
“Okay, you can um…” My words trail off when I gesture at nothing. There’s nowhere to sit. Smooth, Rowan. “Sorry, I didn’t think this through.”
Her huff of amusement is soft around the edges. The smile that accompanies it leaves me lost for words. Again.
Without preamble, she fluffs her skirt like a princess ballgown and plops directly onto the floor. “I’m good right here.”
She settles onto one hip, legs bent beneath her. Leaning on a flattened palm, she hangs her head to the side and watches me.
Words come before I can yank them back in. “You’re really pretty.” Okay, lame.
Hannah’s laugh echoes off the barren walls behind me as I head to the kitchen. For a flicker of a moment it feels like the home bursting with life that I remember from my childhood summers spent here in Colorado. All warmth and joy and full to the brim.
Beers in hand, I return and sit cross-legged in front of her. We tip back our bottles, gazes locked, for long seconds before she finally averts her eyes.
She scans the paint cans along the wall. “What color you going with?”
I shrug. “Don’t know. Something white or off-white or—”
“Not quite white,” she interjects over a sip, humor glimmering in the upturn of her mouth.
“Yeah,” I snicker. “Whatever white sells houses.”
Our smiles catch along with our eyes, the distant hum of the bedroom ceiling fan down the hall filling the silence.
We get lost somewhere in our stare, inhaling every line and curve of the other’s face.
I think it hits us both at once. We’re here.
Together, in the same room. Breathing the same air.
I never thought this would happen again.
“Hannah,” I exhale. “I don’t know where to start.”
Her whole face softens. She sets her drink aside and shifts so her back is to the wall, legs out in front, ankles crossed. Patting the space next to her, she says, “Come here.”
I sidle up beside her, my right pressed into her left from shoulder to thigh.
Her head falls to the side to meet my gaze.
“How about I start?” I swallow, nod once.
“I’m sorry. And I know you’re about to tell me I have nothing to apologize for, but I do.
I see now how much you worried about him, and I could’ve lifted some of that weight by letting you know how he was doing, and I didn’t. I’m sorry for that.”
She gives me a crooked grin, already knowing what I’m about to say. “Can I say it now?”
“Can I stop you?”
“Nope.” The roll of her eyes ends with a playful glare. “You don’t need to apologize, Hannah.”
I nudge her shoulder. She nudges back. “Okay, soldier. Ask your questions.”
“How?” I inquire simply.
Hannah takes a deep breath, fixes her attention on the opposite wall. “It was maybe a week or so after…that night. I stopped by the cabin to check on him.”
My chest grows tight. She drove an hour to see him. I ball my fists at my sides to keep from reaching for her, crashing my lips to hers. “And how was he?”
“He was…not thrilled to see me, but I charmed my way in with baked goods.” A rough laugh sputters out of me. “The cherry pie was my golden ticket.”
I run a hand down my face. “He always loved how Nana put cinnamon in the crust. It was his favorite.”
She nods thoughtfully, finally meeting my gaze. “Yeah. He told me.”
Pops kept his grief over Nana’s death pretty locked down, even with me. “Did he talk about her?”
Her forehead pinches and she pops a shoulder. “Not much, but sometimes. It never seemed like a subject I should press, so I didn’t.”
“Yeah,” I choke out, the response lodged in my throat until I push past it. “He didn’t talk about her much with me either.”
A heavy silence expands between us. So help me, I can’t look away from her.
“Anyway, I bribed him with food to get in the door and told him I’d never come empty handed if he promised to never turn down a game of chess with me.”
There’s barely enough air in my lungs to support my reply. “You made the lasagna.”
She holds my gaze unapologetically. One cheek rises. “I couldn’t have him living off canned goods and whiskey seven days a week.”
The grip her confession has around my heart sends a rush of emotion barreling out of me faster than I can contain it, and I drop eye contact for the first time in minutes.
I try to press back the tears with the heels of my hands, but it’s too late.
Feet flat, I rest my forearms on my knees, head hung between them while I try to compose myself.
But Hannah shifts closer. Her hand runs slow strokes up and down my arm, around my neck. I don’t know which one of us initiates it, but my head lands on her shoulder.
“He wasn’t alone, Rowan,” she whispers. “I was here the whole time.” A barrage of tears I’ve held in for far too long spills out.
Hannah. The woman who’s been the godsend in my dreams for the past five years was here playing the real life thing to the most important man in my life the whole damn time. Right under my nose yet thousands of miles away. Entirely untouchable.
Exactly like that night.
And now, with her arms around me, my lips close enough to taste the perfume on her neck, nothing has changed.
Her life is here. And mine is in North Carolina.
Hannah holds me for the next few minutes.
No words, just the lazy drag of her fingers through my hair with one hand, the other draped over my shoulder.
When my pulse settles enough, I sit up to look at her.
Her hands fall away, but I catch one in mine.
She dips her eyes to where I lace our fingers together.
“I know thank you isn’t enough for what you did, but—”
“Rowan, stop. You don’t have to—”
“I do.”
She just stares. Her expression pleads with me to not make this a big deal. But how can I not?
“Thank you, Hannah.”
A sigh. “If I say you’re welcome will you promise never to thank me again?”
I laugh. “Deal.”
“Good,” she says through a smile. “You’re welcome.”
More questions blare in my mind, but they all go quiet when I look down to find our hands still entwined.
Her voice is soft when she asks, “You said you leave in two weeks?”
I stroke my thumb over hers, unable to let go. “I have to get back to North Carolina.”
“Oh.” Her confused tone has me lifting my gaze. “Did you change posts?”
“No,” I start, then clear my throat. “I had to take an early discharge a few months ago.” My jaw clenches as I try to suppress another round of emotions. “My mom was in a car accident and I had to move home to take care of her.”
She sucks in a breath. “Oh my gosh, is she okay?”
“Yeah,” I rush out. The dip of her chin to meet my eyes is a warm blanket around my heart. She tightens her grip on my hand. “It’s been a lot of surgeries and physical therapy and she still has a long way to go, but she’s getting better.”
“She’s lucky to have you.”
A stretch of silence pulls the air between us until something shifts.
Something tangible. This push and pull that I—we—have felt since the night we met doesn’t fade under the harsh lights of grief or bad timing or sound logic.
What I feel when I’m with her goes beyond attraction, beyond lust, beyond curiosity.
Because, in some bizarre way I can’t explain, this thing feels bigger than either of us.
Like some guardian angel found her first and gifted her to me at the exact right time.
And even though by every other definition it’s always been the wrong time, having her here now, hand in mine, on my team—it’s the most right thing I’ve ever felt.
I know she feels it too by the way her gaze tethers to mine so effortlessly. How she holds my hand like it’s the easiest thing in the world. And in the permanent tender tilt of her smile when she looks at me the way she is now.
If I kissed her, she’d kiss me back. I’m certain of it. But I don’t want it on the heels of a sad conversation about my grandfather or my mom. Because when I kiss her, there will be no misunderstanding my intentions. It won’t be a thank-you kiss or a pity kiss or even a damn the consequences kiss.
There’s only one way I’ve ever planned to kiss Hannah James and that’s with forever in mind.
When the time is right, it’ll happen. For now, I’m content to sit in the quiet with her. Ask questions and trade memories, find comfort in one another.
“Can I ask why?”
She cocks her head. “Why what?”
“Why’d you go back?”
Her lips twist into an embarrassed wince as she blinks up at the ceiling, then turns back to me. The tiny smile she’s sporting is a little bashful and a lot adorable.
“Do you remember what you said to me when we got to the lake house?”
Of course. I remember everything about that night. “I warned you about Pops.”
“Yeah, but do you remember my response?”
A wry grin breaks across my face in slow motion until I completely lose it. I laugh so loud she slaps me on the shoulder.
“Shut up, it’s not funny,” she pleads as if she’s not laughing as hard as I am.
“Sore loser much?”
“Hey,” she declares, leveling her face in a pitiful attempt at looking serious. “In my defense, I told you this might happen.”
She did tell me, I remember. I just wasn’t aware she actually meant it.
But I’m really, really glad she did.