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“I heard,” she said, holding baby Mae in her arms. “Dad got into an accident.” Tears quivered in her eyes.
Hannah rushed over to her, but Emma thrust Mae into her arms and ran out of the room, crying.
Mae started fussing, and Olivia took her as Hannah ran out to look for Emma. She caught sight of her running through the pastures, up the hill to where the horses grazed. She flung her arms around Midnight and sobbed into his mane. Hannah slowed her steps, watching her daughter break down, hearing her cries from across the field.
As she approached, Emma lifted her face from the horse. “He said he wanted a family.” Tears streamed down Emma’s face.
Hannah approached her daughter and began rubbing her back. She didn’t speak, because what was there to say?
* * *
Jake stood with Sam and Ryan as the new pastor gave Troy’s eulogy at the gravesite. He kept an eye on Hannah, but there was really no need. The Boudreau clan had closed ranks around her, protecting her like a horde of mama bears.
Troy’s mother was up front with Hannah and Emma, acting hysterical and milking the occasion for everything it was worth, Jake thought coldly. The crowd did not hold back their sideways looks and whispers, but Hannah held her head high. She kept her cool, but he could see that the woman’s theatrics were starting to wear on her.
As people started trickling away from the gravesite, Jake and Ryan headed back to the parking lot.
He wished the women had let him get within arm’s reach of her, but he knew that would just have caused more gossip. The way Hannah stared off into the distance, even while maintaining her composure, worried him. He wished he could hold her in his arms and comfort her. Tell her it would be alright and protect her from anything else that could ever hurt her.
But instead, he went back to the ranch and gave her some space.
“Well, Millie, it’s me and you today,” he said to the pig, as he let her out the back door. She trotted to her favorite spot in the yard, the mud pit he had created for her. Millie loved to dig.
He waited on the porch as a pot of coffee brewed inside. He couldn’t shake his worry. Hannah had looked so sad, so lost, so defeated, Emma confused, and Marie a clown.
I’m here. If you need anything, let me know.He hesitated, then sent the text.
He changed out of his suit and into regular clothes, then worked in the barn as Millie lay in a patch of sunlight. He checked his phone every once in a while, but there were no messages.
By the next morning, he still hadn’t heard from Hannah, and he wondered if he should text her again. But no, he’d wait. He decided to head into town and meet Josh at the diner. When he did, he almost lost his mind.
“Apparently, people are saying you were sleeping with Troy’s wife,” Josh told him.
“What? Who said that?”
“Troy.” Josh leaned over the table and whispered, “Were you?”
“No!” The urge to pick up the table and throw it across the room came over him. Instead, he gripped the leather booth’s edges and squeezed. “Troy said that?”
“Yeah, the night he died. He was pretty loud about it all.”
“He left his wife and baby to fend for themselves years ago, and even dead, he’s still torturing Hannah.” He spoke loudly, so that the other customers who were not so subtly shooting glances at him would hear. He pushed away his plate of eggs. “Everybody in this town knows how that guy treated hiswife. Nobody is going to miss that piece of trash.”
“Shhh!” Josh flung out a cautioning hand. “People are listening.”
“Good! It’s about time!” Let them hear it. The old timers at the counter, the blue-haired ladies gathered together in booths, and all the other busybodies. “Hannah is a great mother, and she’s had to do it all on her own. He hasn’t been a husband or father since Emma was born, and to think he’d try to ruin her reputation because she was finally moving on is disgusting. It’s even more disgusting that certain people are buying into his sob story for the sake of some juicy gossip.”
He slammed his hand down on the table.
Josh didn’t say anything for a moment, just looked at him like he had gone crazy. “Tell us all how youreallyfeel about it.”
Jake pulled out his wallet and threw down enough to cover the tab.
“Jake, stop being so dramatic.”
He wished he could grab hold of Troy one last time. “The guy left a mess behind, but it’s only dumb luck that he didn’t kill someone.”
He had heard that Troy had been three times over the legal limit. And there was no question in his mind where he had been headed. “He was only a couple miles from the farm.”
