Page 6 of Sworn to Defend
“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.