Page 11 of See It Through

“Still here.” His eyes were pinched as he looked me over. I examined him right back. His body was tightly strung, tension making his arms rigid at his sides.

Remington had grown into a tall drink of water. In any other circumstance, I might have gotten flirty with him. It wasn’t often I came across men who were so much taller than me I had to tip my head back. But it wasn’t just his height that appealed to me. I remembered him being cute when we were kids, but I would never use that word to describe the man in front of me. His features were powerful and striking. Observant hazel eyes, a strong Roman nose, a wide mouth bracketed by dark scruff. His jaw was sharp at the hinges, chin resolute.

I liked the way he looked, but that was as far as it went. Every minute in his presence was salt in the wound left by Graham’s absence.

“I spoke to Dell Rivers today. He’s a big fan of yours,” Remi drawled.

Another strand of hair landed on my lips. I blew out a puff of air, sending it flying. “His horses like me.” I narrowed my eyes. “Did he tell you anything different than I did?”

“Nope. I hadn’t expected him to.” He rolled his lips over his teeth, staring at a spot over my shoulder. “He tell you how he was writing that will?”

“Sure. We talked about what his death would be like a lot. He’d been facing the barrel of a gun the last two years; it was hard not to.” I had to swallow down the wave of sadness, deciding to replace it with disdain for the man who hadn’t bothered showing up for his own father’s funeral. “I’m sorry he didn’t leave you everything. If you’d checked on him once or twice, all this could’ve been yours, and I could’ve been out on my ass like you want.”

His jaw rippled as he ground his poor molars to dust. “I get you don’t like me. You see me as a bad son, maybe a bad man. But I’m going to be around for the next couple months, so it’d be appreciated—”

“You’re going to be around?” I put my hands on my hips, reminding me I was still wearing my chaps. My hands went to the buckles, undoing the straps. “Why?”

It took Remi a while to answer as he watched me remove the heavy leather that protected my legs while I was working. I normally took them off when I was done for the day, but with everything else going on, it’d slipped my mind.

“Never seen a woman farrier,” he muttered. “Surprised Graham worked with you. He had a lot of old-fashioned ideas about what women should do.”

I tossed my head back and laughed. “Oh, I know he did. I quickly disabused the old man of those when I told him he was going to train me.”

He raised his brows. “Youtoldhim?”

Walking over to the wall, I hung my chaps on the sturdy metal hook, smirking at Remi.

“I did. My gumption was what had gotten him to agree.”

His mouth quirked. “That sounds like a Graham word.”

“Gumption?” I rubbed my aching chest, missing my mentor and friend like a severed limb. “I think you’re right. We spent so much time together, our speech patterns started lining up.”

Remi didn’t have a reply for that, but I could almost hear his thoughts. He was wondering how I’d been able to handle hanging around Graham for any extended period of time. I wasn’t privy to the inner workings of their relationship, but Graham had made it clear he hadn’t blamed Remi for not returning.

I didn’t have any such reservations. I fully blamed Remi for not being here when his father died. I thought he was a selfish dick, and there wasn’t anything he could say to convince me otherwise.

“Just so you know, I keep in touch with a couple instructors at the farrier school I went to in California. The last graduating class was ninety percent women.” I hooked my thumbs in my belt loops. “Your perception of who’s a farrier is a little old-fashioned too. Like father, like son, huh?”

His hazel eyes shuttered. “I’mnothinglike that man.”

I raised my chin, pissed at his vehemence. “You might be right. You’d be lucky to be half the man Graham was.”

Remi reared back so sharply, he stumbled a few steps. He shook his head like his vision was cloudy before finally focusing on me again. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You might think you know who he was, but what you got was one side. Sounds like it was a sideInever got. Guess he saved all the goodness up for you, Hannah.”

In the back of my mind, something screamed at me to pause, to take in what he was saying, but I’d been angry at this man for a long time. Their relationship might’ve been complicated, but to leave Graham alone in his final days was unconscionable.

“Not sure you deserved it with how heartless you are, Remington. You have no idea how hard Graham hung on to give you time to get here. He insisted he had to be at the house so you could find him when you came. Of course, you never did.”

I shook my head, no longer seeing the man in front of me. I was back in Graham’s room. Day after day, I’d begged him to take the morphine, to findsomecomfort, but he’d wanted to be conscious when Remi came, refusing any more than something to take the edge off, and going to the hospital had been out of the question.

“The cancer was always going to be a death sentence, but those last couple weeks were hell. He held on for you. He wanted to see you, tell you things, make sure you were okay. His body quit on him before he gave up. I can tell you without any doubt, you were his final thought, and you couldn’t even bother to show up for an entiremonthafter he was gone.”

It was impossible not to cry when I thought about how I’d seen Graham through to the other side. That experience had marked me. Not that I hadn’t been honored to be with him. Not that I wouldn’t have been there even if Remihadshown up. I just shouldn’t have had to do it alone. I had, though. I was the sole keeper of the memory of Graham’s last breath, and that pissed me off. But being pissed off was better than giving in to the aching sadness swelling in my chest.

“Hannah—” Remi started.

I held up one hand, wiping my face with the other. “You got my messages, didn’t you?”

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