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As Josh fought tears, he heard a masculine cough coming from within the room, and he lifted his head and stepped back from Hannah’s mom. Mr. McIntyre walked toward him, but stalled before he was halfway across the room, and the man wore a tortured expression on his face. “What do you want?” The words weren’t exactly unkind, but they were brisk enough that Janet McIntyre whirled around and gave her husband a quelling stare.
Josh bowed his head briefly and then looked up again and met the other man’s eyes. “Hannah. Just Hannah.”
From his peripheral vision, Josh saw Hannah come from the hallway that led to the bedrooms and stand completely still in the entrance of the living room. He didn’t take his eyes from her father, because the second he did, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand still and just look at her. Already, the need to hold her was causing him to grip his hands into fists at his sides.
Hannah’s father looked at his daughter and then back to Josh with an anguished expression on his face. “We lost our grandchild tonight.” The words were dry and caustic, and if they’d been meant to hurt, they’d succeeded as Josh felt another jolt of both fury at his father and pain for the despair he could see in the other man’s eyes.
Josh stiffened his spine and lifted his chin. Hannah had been his for six months now, ever since that first kiss, and by God, he needed her now. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m sorry for your loss.” Josh knew it couldn’t help that he looked exactly as his father had twenty years ago; he’d seen the pictures. And Mr. McIntyre had always been in the county; he had to be registering the resemblance even now.
Josh’s heart banged heavily in his chest as he waited for a reply. “It’s after one o’clock. You should come back in the morning.”
“Daddy!” Hannah’s angry shout came from across the room, and after an abbreviated look of horror at her father, she ran across the room and threw herself at Josh’s chest.
His arms reached out and enclosed her, and he dropped his head into the crook of her shoulder. He held tight and then rocked her, to and fro, and let the essence of Hannah spread through him and calm his stretched nerves.
In the back of his brain, he was aware of Mrs. McIntyre closing the front door, and then moving toward her husband. As he shut his eyes and held Hannah, Mr. McIntyre grunted, “Stay in this room.” He cleared his throat. “Hannah … you hear me? He can stay, but you two have to stay in here, understand?”
Hannah nodded her head and mumbled an affirmative answer, and then she took Josh by the hand and they went to sit on the sofa. He was aware of her parents walking out of the room and into the kitchen, and when they were out of sight, he picked Hannah up until she straddled him and then he wrapped his arms around her and held on tightly.
He squeezed her to him, and in that instant, the deeper feelings he’d been holding back came to the surface. He’d never said it before, had never said it to any girl. But he’d been feeling it for months now, and he couldn’t hold back any longer. Josh lifted her chin and looked into her eyes. “I love you, Hannah.”
Her eyes flared and became brilliant with unshed tears. “I love you, too.”
As they stared at each other, Josh memorized every detail of her face. He was keenly aware of the connection that pulsed between them; it was so strong it seemed to be almost tangible. He ran his fingers through her hair and she blinked, and after a moment, laid her head on his shoulder.
Josh didn’t know how long he held her, but finally, she lifted her head and put her hands to his cheeks and examined him carefully. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered softly.
His vision blurred and he viciously fought for control. He hadn’t cried since he was ten years old, and he wasn’t about to start now, at least, not for someone as worthless as his father. He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”
Her gaze left his and her eyes wandered over his face and she pressed a delicate finger over the scar that separated his eyebrow and gently smoothed it down the side of his face until her touch landed on another scar. It was one of the most atrocious scars on his face, one of the cigarette burns his father had inflicted, and as Hannah’s finger landed there her eyes hardened. “I’m glad he’s dead. I hate him for what he did to you. He deserved to die. I hope he suffered.”
Shocked at the utter rage he recognized in her eyes, Josh’s lips flattened into a sort of twisted smile. He smoothed his hand down her long hair and played with the tips that curled at her spine. “Let it go, baby. Let the anger go; you can’t dwell on it. The last thing I want is that motherfucker spoiling your sweetness.”
She exhaled a deep sigh. “How do you do it, Josh?”
He shook his head while he thought about it. “I don’t know. It’s just something I decided a long time ago. We only have one life, you know? I could either let him ruin mine entirely, or I could focus on the good stuff and try to move past it. I could have ended up dead years ago, or in an orphanage or something. But I didn’t. I was given a great family who love me, we have the land that’s been in the family for years, and I feel part of that, you know?”
“Yeah,” she agreed softly.
“I know what we have isn’t comparable to what your family has, but the feeling is the same. Maybe you don’t feel it, because you’re not a real McIntyre, I don’t know. But it’s a feeling of belonging to something, and as fucked up as my father treated me, he couldn’t take that sense of belonging away from me. I’m sure I’ve got my aunt and uncle to thank for that, and I’m grateful.”
Hannah was quiet for a long moment. “You don’t see me as a real McIntyre?”
Their eyes tangled. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
“You didn’t. I just want to know why you feel that way.”
“Because you’re a Smith. Your last name is Smith-McIntyre, at least technically, right?”
“Yeah, legally. But my dad adopted me, you know that right?”
Unease slid in a twisted river and settled in Josh’s gut. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“A long time ago.”
“Why is the ‘Smith’ still attached to your name?”
“My mom always wanted me to remember that my birth father loved me.”
Josh had the feeling that now that he knew the truth about his own mother, he and
Hannah had something else in common as well. They each had a parent who had died when they were infants. But something else was uppermost in his mind. He’d always assumed that Hannah wouldn’t inherit anything from her family, because she wasn’t blood-related. But that probably wasn’t true. He absolutely didn’t want her to inherit a thing, but he wouldn’t get a choice, obviously. He didn’t care for the car she drove because it underlined the difference in her family’s money and his family’s lack of it, and he damn sure didn’t like the idea of her inheriting tons and tons of cash. Was that selfish? Obviously, he could recognize that it was. And again, there wasn’t anything he could really do about it. But he wanted only Hannah, without any encumbrances at all. It was bad enough they had this bullshit situation between their families, but he could deal with it because he had to. Hell, he had no choice in any of it. He mostly didn’t want anyone to think he wanted Hannah for any reason other than herself. That’s all he really wanted, but he’d put up with anything to have her.
That was a given.
Josh put it out of his brain and hoped for her sake, her parents would live for a long time anyway. He didn’t have to deal with any of that shit for now. He ran his hands up and down her spine. He was sure that the fact that she’d been adopted into the family gave her even more continuity, and that pleased him. “I’m glad, Hannah.”
“Are you?”
“I’m glad about anything that makes you happy.”
“You make me happy, Josh Turner.”
At the look of truth shining from her eyes, for the first time in a long time, Josh smiled, while he let go of the guilt he was feeling over the pure, unmitigated relief he felt over the death of his father.
Relief might be wrong, but that’s what he felt and he couldn’t change it.
He deserved something positive in his life, right? With both hands, he reached out and took it, as he wrapped Hannah’s face in his palms and lifted her lips to his.
