Chapter 27
Justin gently placed Josie on her bed and removed her shoes. His mom came in, dressed in her nightgown and robe. "I'll get her tucked in," she said, shooing him out of the way. "You go on and get in bed."
Justin brushed Josie's hair from her forehead. "I still need to take Hannah home."
His mom paused in taking out some of Josie’s p.j.s from the dresser. She eyed her son carefully, and he could only guess what she was thinking. "Mom...it's not like that--"
She turned away and said, "You're both adults--"
"Mom, really..."
"No, I don't need explanations or excuses, Justin,” she said, setting the clothes on the bed next to her sleeping granddaughter and refusing to look at him. “I only hope you remember what happened the last time you couldn’t keep it in your pants -- not that I think Hannah is anything like Beth, quite the opposite, actually--”
“Mom!” Justin urged as quietly as he could, not wanting to wake up Josie. “Hannah saw her mother today.”
Mary Alice blinked wide eyes at her son...and dropped to the edge of the bed. “Oh, dear...Lawna is back?”
“Yeah, it wasn’t pretty,” Justin said, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyeballs. He could still see Hannah’s glazed expression in his mind. “What happened to her? Why did she leave her family, Mom? What makes a woman leave her only child?”
“I don’t know, son,” she said, getting misty-eyed. “I don’t understand those types of women either.”
“She told Hannah she was dying...she came back to tell her she was dying,” Justin said, choking out the words. “You should have seen Hannah’s face, Mom. I don’t...I don’t know what...how...”
His mother surged to her feet and rushed over to hold him. “Oh, honey...you care for her...I’m so happy!”
“Happy?” he grunted. “How can you be happy? I’m miserable about this...I don’t know what’s going on.”
His mother wiped her cheeks on his shirt and patted his shoulders, swatting him out of the room. “Go...take her home, talk to her...she needs you now...”
He looked back at her and frowned. “Mom...don’t get any ideas here. Hannah and I...”
She ushered him down the hall and to the stairs. “No, no...I’m not thinking anything at all...now, go on. And be careful...and I mean, careful-careful.”
Groaning, because he knew exactly what she meant, Justin trotted down the stairway and out of the front door. Just in time to see Hannah exit his truck at a mad dash and head out into the closest field.
“Hannah?...Hannah!” He dug the toes of his boots into the boards of the porch and ran after her. “Hannah! What are you doing? Get back here!”
“Leave me alone!” she shouted back, the words catching in the middle. Dammit! Where the hell did she think she was going? The moon was high and bright, making it easy to keep sight of her as she tripped and sprinted over rows of soybeans plants. Justin, stronger and faster, quickly started to close the gap between them.
“Hannah! For crying out loud! Stop!”
She glanced over her shoulder, teardrops flying off her cheeks...and stumbled into an irrigation ditch. The gasp that left her mouth was suddenly muffled by the undeniable squishing sound of mud.
Justin slowed to a panting stop as he reached the ditch. He dropped his hands to his knees and stared at her. “Are you crazy?” he asked, fighting the grin created by the spectacle before him. Though they had not received a lot of rain in the last few weeks, this particular ditch ran off from a nearby stream, and Hannah was on her hands and knees in red-brown mud.
YOU ARE READING
Promise Me (Book One of the Kirkland Family)
General FictionHannah Baker cannot stand to breathe the same air as Justin Kirkland...but she adores his daughter, and his parents, and she even dated his younger brother back in high school. So what will it take for those two to fall in love? A screwy family tr...
