Page 74 of See It Through
“What?” I whispered. “What have you wondered?”
“How you ended up working with him.”
I raised my brows. “It’s a sordid tale involving me getting arrested. You sure you want to hear it?”
“You think that would deter me? I’m all the way in. Tell me how sweet Hannah Kelly got arrested.”
“I’m sweet now, but in high school, I was a bad, bad girl.”
He laughed. “I don’t believe it.”
I grinned. “I was a little thrill seeker. When I was younger, Caleb would speed with me in his little ATV, zipping over the hills so fast we went flying. I loved it. Craved it. When I got older, I spent more time testing limits than studying for actual tests. Anything dangerous, I went for it—including boys.”
He groaned. “Always the boy’s fault.”
“Nope.” I shook my head. “All the trouble I got into was absolutely my fault. I had this boyfriend, Richie Slater. You remember the Slaters?”
His eyes narrowed. “The Slaters? You mean the meth heads who lived on that broken-down compound outside town? One of them was your boyfriend? How did your dad let that happen?”
I flipped his hand over to follow the lines on his palm with my fingertips. “My dad didn’t know. Keeping my bad, bad boyfriend a secret was even more thrilling. I was good at being sneaky. My parents didn’t catch me. Well, not until I was arrested. I was the passenger in a car Ritchie stole. We were both high as kites when he crashed into a fence in front of a state trooper.”
Remi flinched like the news of my delinquency was a slap to the face. “Jesus, Hannah. Were you hurt?”
“Luckily, I’d had the wherewithal to put on my seat belt and only got a little bruised. What hurt more was seeing how disappointed my parents were.”
“Can’t even imagine the ride home with Lock and Elena.”
I snorted. “They didn’t have to say a word. I wanted to shrivel up and die from the look in their eyes.”
“I bet.” His brow quirked. “How’d this lead you to Graham?”
“I got probation and was ordered to go to five AA meetings in addition to seeing a psychiatrist. Graham was at my first meeting. He’d been sober for over two years by then.” My eyes flicked to his, gauging his reaction. “For what it's worth, he stayed sober until the day he died.”
He nodded, his jaw working back and forth. “Good for him. Wish it didn’t take me leaving for him to care about anything but the bottle.”
“Believe me, he wished it too. I think that’s why he took me under his wing in the first place. He never said it, but he knew I had a connection to you. I guess he felt if he couldn’t do right by you, he’d try to help me.”
“He succeeded in that, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, he did. He had me assisting him at Town Hoofcare, going on client visits, taking care of the tools. Around that same time, I got my ADHD diagnosis and was put on meds. They were absolutely life changing. I finally understood why I’d been behaving the way I had and why some aspects of life were just so damn hard for me. Everything came into focus. Graham encouraged me to go to farrier school. I’d been this floating feather, going wherever the wind blew me, and he gave me direction.”
My parents had been pretty devastated they hadn’t known how badly I’d struggled, but I’d been a master at hiding it. It took me crashing and burning for all of us to wake up to how badly I had needed help.
That felt so long ago now. I wasn’t that lost girl anymore.
I threaded my fingers through Remi’s. He’d missed everything Graham had freely given me. Graham had made no bones about what a shitty father he’d been to his son. He knew he’d turned himself around too late. But hedidturn himself around.
“I feel like I’m rubbing the way he was with me in your face, and I don’t want to do that. I just miss my friend a lot, and days like today are even worse. But I don’t want you to feel bad, and I—”
“No, Hannah. You’re not rubbing anything in my face. The man you just told me about…it’s like hearing about a stranger. I'm glad as hell you ended up where you did, and I’ll never begrudge you the support he gave you just because I never had that.” He lifted my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles. “I understand what you’re missing now, sweetheart— someone who was an integral part of shaping who you are. And who you are is incredible.”
My heart, which was already a tender little thing, softened even more. It shouldn’t have been possible, but there was really no way for me not to fall for Remington Town, and it terrified the hell out of me.
I waved him off. “You can’t say things like that to me in public.”
“Fine.” He huffed a laugh. “I’ll say it again in private.”
Once we paid the check, we walked to my place hand in hand. Remi pulled me to a stop at the bottom of my steps, cupping my jaw in his warm hand. His eyes darted between mine for long moments before he leaned in to place a sweet kiss on my lips. Then he wrapped his arms around me and planted more kisses in my hair. And I melted, the tension I’d been holding on to falling away as I took the comfort and care he was offering—that I needed after my hell of a day.