Hope Against Hope: The Hope Brothers Series Read Online Free PDF Page B

surrounded by my family. I knew what it felt like to lose someone close to you, but I couldn’t imagine how it would feel to lose your parents.
    We had tried to help out as much as possible, with Mom delivering casseroles and Dad volunteering to mow their fields or help out with their crops. Finn was good friends with George, since they had always been in the same class together before she went off to college, so he tried to spend as much time as he could with her.
    I tried to help Crit out with the horses, but the truth of the matter was that the Hopes had trained their kids so well in the family business, that they knew everything that needed to be done and exactly how to do it.
    As time passed, they needed less and less help. I admired the way Crit stepped up and took charge. He was a good man. His parents would have been proud of him.
    It was just as well, anyway. There was more than a little animosity between us. Not only were we competitors, but now our parents had turned into the ones that had survived instead of theirs. It was awkward, to say the least.
    Because of all of that, I hated having to compete against Crit in the rodeo so soon after his parent’s death, but that was just how everything fell. There’s something about having a heart full of grief that drives a man to be able to break through any limitations, and Crit did just that. I fully expected him to do it again at State, when I’d have to compete against him once more.
    And yet, he had accepted his win with perfect humility and grace. It was hard not to admire the man.
    “Finn, I heard you on the phone with George earlier,” my mother said as she passed a platter of biscuits to my little brother.
    “Yeah, I’m going over and helping her with her chores today and we’re gonna hang out afterwards,” Finn said. Finn was a quiet boy, sensitive and kind to everyone he met. He was so different from the boisterous and rebellious Lee and I was incredibly grateful for that. Our family couldn’t handle two Lee’s, or two of the younger Beau’s for that matter. We were known as the bad boys of Sugar Hill, much to our chagrin. I was happy Finn saw right through our bullshit and had learned to be kind and respectful.
    He was the youngest, and therefore, my mother’s favorite. I knew it, but I didn’t care. They were close and loved spending time together.
    “That’s very nice of you, sweetheart,” my Mom said, the love shining in her eyes as she looked at him.
    I looked around at my family again, my heart filling with gratitude for everything I still had in my life. Marisa’s face would always haunt me, but we all had to go on.

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    There’s no smell in the world like hay and horse shit. As I cleaned up the stalls of our six horses, I inhaled as much of it as I could. It was my favorite thing to smell in the world, right next to burying my nose in one of the horse’s fur.
    Renegade and Rusty were Mom and Dad’s horses, and they were both huge chestnut quarterhorses. Black Jack is a sixteen hand black mustang, and he’s Crit’s. Blue is Jesse’s blue roan and Shiloh is a buckskin Arabian that belongs to Seth. And the prettiest, most awesome horse in the barn belongs to me - Cherokee. He’s a fifteen-hand, black and white tobiano paint, and I’ve had him since he was born ten years ago. He was the coolest thing I had ever seen then, and he’s only gotten better. Besides Ruby and Finn, he’s my next closest friend.
    I was finishing his stall when Finn walked in.
    “Hey, George,” he said, his southern drawl always present. All of the Haggard boy’s accents were so thick, you wouldn’t be able to understand them if you weren’t from around these parts.
    “Hey, Finn,” I replied.
    “How you holding up today?” he asked. And that’s what I loved about Finn - he never asked me how I was, because obviously, I was fucking awful, but instead he added the word ‘today’ to his question, which made it so much more