Travis glanced at her and added quietly, “I don’t mean to pry. You don’t have t—”
“He’s my ex-husband.”
She didn’t offer more. She stared ahead as the paved road unfurled in front of them, looping around the steep mountain.
Travis rubbed his palms over his jeans, knowing it was none of his business and that he shouldn’t ask, but the thought of someone deliberately hurting Hannah . . .
“Red said the story behind this bruise was better than the ones you’ve told him in the past.” Travis studied Hannah’s delicate profile, watched fiery color bloom in her cheeks and spread down her neck. “What did he mean by that?”
Hannah navigated a sharp turn, then accelerated as they reached a steep incline. “Bryan liked to put his hands on me”—she flashed a tight smile at Travis—“and not in a husbandly way.” She shifted gears and the engine rumbled. “No,” she said, her voice softening, “that’s not true. Bryan never liked hurting me—at least, when he was healthy and sober. When he was high or short on pills, he either didn’t know or didn’t care.”
Travis turned away. The truck had climbed again, and they’d reached a clearing. The tree line receded, the smell of smoke grew heavier, and the dark clouds loomed so low, they enveloped the road ahead, looking as though they’d swallow the truck whole.
He thought of the first time he’d had a drink: whiskey gulped straight from the bottle as he’d sat on a rocky bank, overlooking the river. He’d been thirteen at the time; his older brother Kyle, sixteen, had smiled as he’d coughed from the burn, told him he could have that bottle (Kyle had his own), and they’d stayed there for hours, drinking, talking, laughing.
The stars had been bright that night, he and Kyle had forgotten all about the empty trailer they’d left behind and the mother who rarely remembered they existed (much less knew when they were gone), and Travis had soaked up the blissful numbness that let him float above it all, have fun with his brother, and not worry about going home. He’d emptied that bottle over the course of a week, then another, and the bigger he grew, the more he drank, until he couldn’t remember what life had been like without it.
Travis flinched, shame searing his skin. “Bryan was an addict?”
“Yes.” Her tone thickened. “Painkillers. He played football in high school and went pro when he turned twenty-one. Three years into his career he took a bad hit and injured his back and knee.” A rueful laugh escaped her. “I guess that’s the irony of it all. He didn’t get drugs on the street; a doctor wrote a prescription in his office, a pharmacist filled it in a drugstore a block from our house, and Bryan took them with a glass of water in front of me every night at dinner. It was all very professional and routine. Until it became something more.”
Travis nodded stiffly. “How long did you stay with him?”
“We married at twenty, had five good years, then five bad ones. I left him five years ago.” She slowed the truck as they passed a familiar wooden sign etched with PARADISE PEAK, then took a right onto a wider road. “I tried to stay, but I wasn’t a priority for him anymore. And he wasn’t the man I married.”
“He wasn’t a man at all to put his hands on you.” Travis clenched his fists, hating the person Hannah described, and hating the person he used to be. “Couldn’t have been if he had no regard for your needs or your life.”
The traffic light ahead turned red and Hannah stopped the truck. She faced him then, her eyes peering into his, examining his expression. “He used to be. Bryan was more than a good man; he was one of the best. That’s why it was so difficult for me to accept that he’d changed. That he’d never be the same. He had a disease that was stronger than him. After I left, I could see that clearly. I understood.”
Several questions hovered on Travis’s tongue, but he asked only one. “Did you forgive him?”
Her mouth parted and she looked down, her brow creasing. “I tried,” she whispered. “I’m still trying.”
A horn honked, startling them both. Hannah glanced at the traffic light—now green—and pressed the pedal, moving the truck and trailer forward.
Travis watched as she turned on the blinker and moved into the left lane. He eyed the way her fingers trembled against the steering wheel, and he wanted to entwine her hands with his own, apologize for the pain she’d endured, and reassure her that she wasn’t wrong in being unable to forgive. That forgiveness was a mercy a man like Bryan—or he, himself—might not deserve.
Only the earnestness in Hannah’s quiet words, the patient kindness of Red and Margaret, and the sheer beauty of the land that surrounded Travis made him wonder if Paradise Peak might be a place where a man could be forgiven. A place where a man could be embraced for who he was now rather than who he used to be.
“You strong, silent types are good at coaxing confessions out of people,” Hannah said, turning into a small parking lot. “Red does it to me all the time.” She smiled as she parked the truck and trailer, taking up two parking spaces. “May I ask you a question in return?”
Travis nodded, aching for a chance to forget his past and show Hannah the man he was now. “Anything you want.”
“Why do you no longer drive?”
* * *
Hannah frowned as Travis’s face turned pale. His jaw hardened and his fingers curled tighter around his knees.
Clearly, her question was an uncomfortable one for him and she almost told him he didn’t have to answer. But she stopped, pulled the keys from the ignition, held them in her lap, and waited patiently instead.
Heck, she’d opened up a mile wide for him—her cheeks still burned at the thought of the intimate details she’d shared—so it was only fair that Travis reciprocate at least a tad.
For the record, her curiosity had absolutely nothing to do with how protected she felt, having his warm, steady bulk at her side. And it was in no way a result of her wanting to hear the low, steady throb of his voice again and savor the pleasurable thrills his words stirred in her belly—especially when he spoke in her defense.
She glanced at Travis again, watched the slow rise and fall of his wide chest, and acknowledged that maybe this attraction he awakened inside her—one she hadn’t felt in years—was why she remained in the truck, waiting for his response, rather than politely ending the conversation along with the tense atmosphere that had descended between them.
He was such a contradiction—this tall, brawny man who possessed such a gentle voice and looked at her with something akin to adoration in the dark depths of his eyes. To be honest, she did want to hear his voice again. Over and over. She wanted his eyes on her, and she wanted to prolong the calming comfort his quiet strength provided.