Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
His actions seven years ago still filled him with shame.
Had he not had Cooper and the farm, his self-loathing would have crushed him.
How will she react?
She was like Flame this morning—striking hot one moment, drooping shoulders and sad eyes the next. That Hannah—the one who didn’t have all the answers—had always called mightily to him. He’d wanted to comfort her. Protect her. Tell her he would help her take care of things.
But you can’t turn back time, no matter how much you want to.
Like when Sarah died and the whole world seemed to go dark. No, all he’d done then was hold her and hold her some more as she cried so hard he feared she was going to break apart.
Now he was the one who’d made her cry, and his gut burned with the shame of it all.
The ride did him good, even as he kept an eye on her and Orion.
His horse would take care of her, but he could tell she hadn’t sat on one in some time.
Sure, her instincts were still good, but her leg strength wasn’t.
He didn’t care how much people “worked out.” The real stuff like riding horses and lifting hay didn’t prepare a greenhorn for anything.
Still, she kept up a good pace, heading through the grazing pasture to the open valley where Big Red stood alone.
When she pulled up, he did the same a few feet away. “My God! I can’t believe it. I heard lightning struck the day I left, but I never came out to see the damage.”
He could still smell the burnt butterscotch in the air and feel all the pain he’d carried inside him that day. “I was here. So was Flame. We were lucky we weren’t killed.”
Her shocked eyes searched his face. “You were here the moment lightning struck the tree?”
“Yeah.” He tipped his cowboy hat up, taking in some fresh air. “Later, I wondered if Sarah didn’t have anything to do with the strike.”
That gave Hannah a full-body shiver.
“Now that Will told me about his near-death experience,” Ben continued, watching her carefully, “I’ve gotten chills thinking that might have been the case.”
She shifted in her saddle. “Why would Sarah do that?”
God, he didn’t want to tell her, but there was no running from the truth. He’d never told anyone what he’d planned to do that day. “I’d come here to remove where I’d carved our initials on Big Red. I didn’t think I could stomach riding past it when we weren’t together anymore.”
“Oh, Ben.”
Tears burned her eyes, but the way she still said his name…
She might as well have killed him right then and there.
“Sometimes I thought you had it easier. Leaving. Not facing places every damn day that held memories.”
“Easier? Do you have any idea how alone I felt? Landing in a foreign country, knowing no one, facing all the adventures we’d planned on my own. Away from you and everyone I cared about. Easy! It was tough as hell.”
They were already getting riled up. Him because he’d come to realize too late that she was thousands of miles away with no one while he was facing the biggest mistake of his life.
He’d thought about going after her when he hit rock bottom with Amber, but he didn’t know how he could tell her what he’d done, how she could forgive him. Then he’d learned Amber was pregnant…
“You want to do this here or at Sarah’s place?” he asked roughly, spotting a herd of elk crossing to the south.
She nodded stiffly in their direction. “Sarah’s. It’s more private. Words carry in the valley.”
With that, she rode off toward the grassy hills rising to the tree-lined ridge. The scent of Douglas firs filled the air along with the soothing smells of summer, warm earth, and stone. Good smells. The kind that put steel into a man and made all the routine worth it.
They cut up the trail past towering ponderosas, rough-hewn rocks, and tumbled boulders lined with brightly colored wildflowers and summer native grasses.
The sun was rising over the mountains to the east, filling the sky with yellow rays and the first hint of blue.
There would be no rain today. Too bad since the cattle could use a good shower with their summer coats thick with dust.
He wondered what Hannah was thinking as they crossed Coldwater Creek and headed up still higher.
She used to prattle on about every plant and flower as they’d ride together side by side when the trail allowed.
But her back was straight in the saddle, and she hadn’t slowed Orion once to look over to a patch of pink and purple mountain lupines or those tiny yellow cinquefoil flowers.
He’d learned to live with the land and tend to it.
She’d learned to use it to heal, tending it to her own purposes.
They’d once found a shared purpose in that harmony, but now he wondered if it would be the only thing between them—if she stayed to help Will.
If they could heal what festered between them…
She wasn’t wrong to use the lancing-a-boil metaphor, although he would have said losing her was like losing a limb. Something more vital, something more permanent, something everyone could see when they looked at you.
Because he knew the people around him could see that he walked around with half a heart since she’d left.
And Cooper deserved more from him… So did Will. The thought of his promise gave him renewed strength to face what he must.
He followed her up the hill to where the ridge leveled out. A cliff rose to the right before opening to a field of wildflowers. They headed to the end, to the lookout, as a golden eagle flew high overhead, calling for its mate.
The sight caused his heart to tremble.
Hannah had dismounted and was tying Orion’s reins to the single pine growing out of well-worn rock when he pulled up and swung off Flame. Securing her a fair distance away, he turned and let his eyes follow Hannah.
There was a great and powerful silence on this ridge.
He’d looked for weeks to find it after Sarah died when Hannah had sobbed on his shoulder, telling him brokenly how she’d hated her sister being buried in the dark, shadowed cemetery in town.
They’d brought her hope box here, the one with her treasures and wishes, and they’d buried it under the great pine.
When Hannah knelt beside the tree and put her hand on the ground where her sister’s memories rested, he took his hat off and held a moment of silence.
Sarah had been special to him growing up too, like an older sister he would have wished for.
Losing her had been hard for him to understand.
Still was, he realized. Whether he was twelve or twenty-nine, he didn’t understand why a sweet little girl had to be taken away like that.
Taken from the people who loved her, especially when she had her whole life ahead of her.
Seeing Hannah wipe hard-fought tears from her eyes while shielding her face from view had pretty much done him in.
Her tears usually meant the end of the world, and his defenses against her were thin enough.
Seeing her pain—knowing he’d caused plenty—had him closing the distance and pulling her upright.
“She wouldn’t want you to keep crying like this,” he whispered, aching at the sight of her tearstained cheeks.
“I still miss her.” Her hoarse voice tore a hole in him. “When I saw Mom yesterday, she said she sees me and wonders what Sarah would have grown up looking like. I look in the mirror and wonder too.”
He fought the urge to bring her to his chest and hold her. God, maybe coming here had been a mistake.
She gave a shaky breath and pulled away. “I’m all right. It’s an old pain, you know, and a familiar one at that.”
“Doesn’t make it hurt less.” He stared at her. “It’s been seven years since you left, and it still hurts to think about you, least of all see you.”
Her throat moved before she stalked off. Swinging around, she planted her feet and put her hands on her hips. He braced himself. He’d always thought a man had to measure himself against the land. Now he had to measure himself against his own mettle.
“Then how could you turn to Amber? Barely a month after I’d left.”
His legs turned downright rubbery, so he went over and sat on the edge of a boulder.
“It was one night. I was drunk. She was probably too. God knows she was aggressive. You know how much she’d always hated you.
Well, she went at me, over and over again, about how you’d up and left me.
She was in tune with all the whispers in my head. ”
Hannah didn’t say anything, her tortured eyes reading his soul.
Now for the toughest part. He gripped his knees, holding her gaze. “It was over in moments. I didn’t have a rubber on me, and she didn’t care. I’m not proud of any of it. I didn’t see her again until she told me she was pregnant, and even then, I didn’t believe her.”
She sank down with her back against the pine tree like her legs had given out on her too.
“When Amber brought proof—and believe me, I asked—it was clear she was and that the baby was mine. I couldn’t turn away then. He was my son.”
She hiked up her knees and set her chin on top. “I’ve spent many nights wondering why she wanted to keep the baby, especially while people knew all she wanted was to land you and beat me.”
He laughed darkly. “When I said I’d marry her, she thought she’d have an in.
That was her mistake. I never touched her again, Hannah.
I swear to you. Hand to heart. Not even on our sham of a wedding night, with all her kicking, screaming, and pleading.
When she realized it wasn’t going to be a real marriage, things got worse.
A lot worse. I’ve paid in ways you’ll never imagine. ”
Silent tears were falling down her cheeks, tearing him in two.
God, he was still paying.