Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The growing conviction that she would stay led Hannah to one of her most unpleasant tasks: sorting through her old clothes at her parents’ house.
Before she’d left Edinburgh, she’d gotten rid of most of her meager belongings from her one-bedroom flat, keeping only one-of-a-kind treasures and her favorite clothes, shoes, and the like.
Three suitcases’ worth for seven years. But she needed ranch clothes.
Especially if she decided to go on a picnic with Ben, an invitation she was still both delighted and surprised about.
Face it. You’re in trouble.
Her father opened the door when she and Neil knocked, not her mother.
He was wearing his usual casual doctor’s attire with a white lab coat and already had a sour look on his face.
Terrific. For a moment, she thought about giving her father the screw Ben had offered her and tell him he could take a lesson from the man.
“Aren’t you working today?” she asked casually.
“Your mother said you were coming,” he replied in a voice filled with displeasure, “and this kind of disruption upsets her. Besides, I had something I wanted to say to you.”
She knew her testiness was going to filter into her voice, but she found she didn’t care. “What is it?”
“Stop filling the townspeople’s heads with all your nonsense about magic herbs and their power,” he snapped bitterly. “I swear, if I have one more of my patients ask me if I could give them something like that salve you used on Dylan Prentice’s injury, I’ll—”
“You’ll do what?” she leveled back, aware that Neil was doing his best to make himself invisible.
“Father, I’m a certified herbalist with six years of clinical experience.
If I can help someone, I damn well will, and if that bothers you, then you should ask yourself why.
We have the same goal. Providing professional advice to result in healing. ”
Her father threw back his shoulders and glared at her. “I am a medical doctor, young lady. Don’t you dare suggest we have anything in common. Not after you threw everything away when you didn’t go to med school.”
God, another person harping on the past. Was this how she’d sounded before she and Ben had talked things out?
If so, she was glad they were finished. “Forget it. You’ll never understand me, and honestly, Dad, I don’t think you care enough to even try anymore.
I won’t inconvenience you any more than I have to. I need to go through my old clothes—”
“I had the Prentice boys put the boxes with your old clothes and shoes in their garage this morning,” he informed her, “so you could sort through them there and out of the way.”
She couldn’t help but blink at the scorn in his voice. Throwing me out, Father? “Fine. I still have other boxes in my old room to go through.”
Ones that included memories and keepsakes of Ben she now found she wasn’t as afraid to face.
“I’ll have the Prentice boys haul all of your things over to their house. You can go through them without bothering your mother. She’s upset you’re back, and I won’t have it. Now, I’d best get back to work.”
Stunned, she watched as he closed the door in their faces. Turning to Neil, she shook her head. “Unbelievable! I have half a mind to charge in there and tell him I demand to see Mother.”
Neil took her arm and started leading her down the sidewalk away from the house. “Going a few more rounds will only make you angrier. How badly do you want to keep having a good day?”
Yeah, she’d told him on the way about how wonderfully hopeful her morning had been down to making him chortle when she showed him the screw. “Good point. All right. If Dad wants me to sort through my clothing in the neighbor’s garage, I can do that.”
She practically stomped over to the Prentice house, glancing over to the shuttered windows on the front of the house where her parents’ room was—right next to Sarah’s old one. No light could enter the top floor with the curtains. Then again, there was no light in that house anymore.
When Sarah had died, they’d let her death take everything good, in themselves and with their relationships.
Thank heavens she’d committed to healing her hurts.
After last night with Ben, she almost wanted to hug him for stepping up to the plate, so to speak, and mending fences.
It was certainly more than her father could ever do, proving Ben McAllister was a bigger man than her father would ever be.
Because honest to God, how could a father be so cruel to his only remaining child? Then again, her father blamed everything and everybody for Sarah dying. Even knowing he probably blamed himself as a doctor didn’t lessen her anger.
She turned back toward the house. It’s not my fault that I lived. It’s not my fault you’re disappointed in my choices regarding med school. And it’s certainly not my fault that I’m healing people in this town. Father, you are a small, petty man.
“Hannah!” Dylan hollered, coming onto the front porch. “We’ve got your stuff over here.”
“I heard,” she yelled back, mostly because she was feeling testy and knew it would make their busybody little neighbor, Kitty Combs, appear and chew her out. “Coming.”
“Hannah Montgomery!” Mrs. Combs called as she came out on the front porch moments later. “Stop yelling like a banshee. Some people are taking naps.”
She gave a dismissive wave as she crossed the freshly cut grass to the Prentices’ porch with Neil, who was trying to hide his laughter.
“Hey, Dylan!” She grabbed him around the bony shoulders in a half hug. “Your forehead looks pretty good, considering.”
“I know! Everyone in town keeps wanting to see my Frankenstein noggin. The whole town saw me get nailed by that baseball. You’re the best!
Of course, Dr. Montgomery got all tight-faced when he came over about your stuff.
His mouth puckered up when he glanced at my head.
He muttered something about ‘quacks.’ I swear, if Mom hadn’t made us swear not to prank him, I’d put honey on his car seat. ”
She gave a shallow laugh. “Speaking of honey…you’d better not have poured honey in my underwear.”
He started gagging as Ford and Luke came out the screen door. “Hannah’s gone crazy. She thinks we’d dare touch her underwear. Ugh—that’s so gross.”
“I said pour honey on my undies, Dylan, not touch them.” Neil and the other two boys were trying not to laugh. “If I find a frog in my shoes, you’re all dead meat, do you hear?”
“Venison or beef?” Ford quipped back.
She gave him a playful swat as Neil greeted the other boys. “Ha ha. Your mother working like usual?”
Ford smirked. “When doesn’t she? Mom said to come for dinner after you finish your girl stuff.”
“Girl stuff?” She made a show of trying to tackle Ford, which had him dancing backward in the old game they used to play. “You’d better watch your manners.”
Luke gave a low whistle. “Did you say manners? I think yours are about to be tested. Ben Montgomery is coming down the street.”
She spun around, her heart doing a little cartwheel in her chest. Sure enough, there he was cruising toward them in Gramps’ old truck, his hand hanging out the open window. What was he doing here? She’d just seen him at the ranch.
“I wonder if he misses his truck,” Dylan commented, straddling the porch railing.
“I would if I were him,” Ford commented.
“It was mighty nice of him, though,” Luke observed. “I would have done it if I could have.”
Hannah turned to the boys. “What are you muttering about?”
Dylan’s eyes widened. “That you’re driving Ben’s brand-new truck.”
She clutched the porch railing. No wonder his scent had been so strong inside the cab. “What? I thought he was driving Gramps’ truck out of sentiment.”
Ford hooted and slapped his knee. “In what universe? Maybe for a Sunday drive down a dirt road, but not for real ranch stuff. Come on, Hannah. How long have you been gone?”
“Long enough to forget what a man’s truck means to him obviously,” Dylan quipped before Luke whacked him on the back of the head.
“Hey!” He rubbed it. “I’m healing here.”
She watched as Ben parked his truck in the Prentice driveway and swung out, all tantalizing man from the top of his Stetson to his boots.
Tantalizing, Hannah? Yeah, she realized she’d be lying if she tried to use another word.
Ben McAllister still looked hot as hell.
Wasn’t it a little uncomfortable to still feel this potent attraction to him?
The way he’d talked last night had been a scene she’d played over and over again. She put her hand in her pocket, fingering the screw there. Today, he’d been so like the man who’d stolen her heart as he’d asked her on a picnic.
I was only hoping spending some time together would help you see the man I am now, one I want you to believe you can count on.
Those words had thrilled her, and after he’d walked away, she’d told herself to calm down. Her heart had been pounding, and she’d felt the pull of being with him again.
You better believe she’d gone and sniffed some lavender.
Only it hadn’t worked.
As she watched him stride up to the house in that powerful, no-nonsense gait, no wonder. His masculine presence was undeniable, and combined with his thoughtfulness and vulnerability, she feared she was starting to feel things for him again.
Her inner responses were tangled up.
Shit.
Oh boy…
And ah…
A burgeoning attraction would muddy the waters of their developing trust.
Wouldn’t it?
He greeted them with a finger to his cowboy hat. “I was coming into town and heard you were going through your clothes at your parents’ house this morning, Hannah. I thought you might need some backup.”
Backup? Gosh. Her heart did another flip. How many times had Ben been at her side when facing her parents? More than she’d ever wanted, that’s for sure. “How did you know that?”
He gave her an amused wink as the Prentice boys looked on. “Reba.”