“Not good for business.”
“So, you were thinking about business.”
“It’s a factor.” Maybe minuscule in the big picture, but a factor. “A bigger one is they—neither of them—deserve any shot of getting off easy. Kicking his ass? Owen’s always worried about arrests for assault and criminal trials.”
“It’s a factor,” she said dryly.
“But to my way of thinking, it’s mostly worth it, until you think about how bruises and broken bones heal. And some people knee-jerk toward feeling bad for the ass that’s been kicked, no matter how it’s earned. So I liked the idea of longer-term benefits. The asshole’s dickless. Plus, you take one good look at him, and the one he married, you can see what drives them is money and show and status. You’ve got to have money and opportunities for the show and the status. Old man Wickham’s still running things, so he’s the power source. He could cut off the money—or channels leading to it, and shut down opportunities.”
She’d come to all the same conclusions, but could admit—a little shamefully now—she hadn’t given Ryder credit for doing the same. “You thought of all this?”
“It’s a long freaking drive down there in a lot of freaking traffic. Plenty of time to work it out. Anyway. It’s a good-looking hotel.”
“Yes, it is.”
“I could see you there.”
“Could you?”
“Suits you, all the shine of it.”
“It did. Once.”
He studied her in silence a moment. “I guess you could say I looked a little out of place, going straight from the job. They were polite, I’ll give them that, and probably would’ve politely booted me out if I hadn’t suggested pending charges of assault if Wickham didn’t see me.”
“Assault?”
“She slapped you.”
“Yes, but—”
“It’s fucking assault. If I’d’ve punched the asshole, you can take it to the bank there’d have been cops and lawyers. Maybe we don’t handle things around here by running to cops and lawyers over a slap or punch, but I figured those kind do. Owen’s got that right.”
“You did a lot of thinking in freaking traffic.”
“It’s that or buy a gun and shoot somebody. He had his security guy bring me up to his office.”
“Jerald?”
“Yeah, that’s what Wickham called him. Once I started laying it out, Wickham gave Jerald the signal to step out. I figured it was going to take a while, a lot of moves, countermoves, defense, offense. But it didn’t, not really.”
“What did you tell him, Ryder?”
“That Jonathan came here, uninvited, unexpected, and unwelcome, claimed his father had an offer to make you if you came back to work. And that Jonathan made one of his own, if you’d hook up with him again. And that you weren’t interested. He wasn’t happy to hear it, Wickham. That’s when I got the sense he had some guilt where you were concerned. Some regrets. But when I got to the second act, told him about the blonde coming here—that’s when he sent security out of the room,” Ryder remembered.
“I imagine so,” Hope concurred.
“He got the picture, and we came to terms.”
“What terms?”
“He makes sure they leave you the hell alone, and that includes spreading lies. Then we’re square. Either of them comes here, takes any kind of hit at you, they’ll pay for it. That’s it.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah. He gave me a card with some private number on it. Asked if I’d let him know if either of them didn’t hold the deal.”
“Wait.” Stupefied, she held up a hand. “Baxter Wickham gave you his private number?”
“Yeah, so? He’s not God. He’s just some guy, an embarrassed and pissed-off guy who’s got an asshole for a son. Now it’s done, like I said.” He took a long swallow because, Jesus, he felt like he’d been talking straight for an hour. “You’re the one big on communicating, expressing. Talk, talk, talk. Maybe you should’ve done some communicating, expressing, talking to him when the asshole showed up here. The old man strikes me as a pretty reasonable guy.”
Reasonable wasn’t the word most used to describe Baxter Wickham, Hope thought. Powerful, private, occasionally pugnacious. “He was my employer for a long time. And I believed he’d be my father-in-law. But you’re right. I should’ve gone to him. I guess I was still carrying some hurt and anger in that area—plus, blood’s thicker.”
“Maybe, and maybe he’d have shrugged off his son’s offer. You were free to say yes or no. But the daughter-in-law bit? No. The dickless asshole may not be able to keep her in line, but Wickham will.”
“It shouldn’t have gotten this far. And it should never have caused trouble between you and me. I’m sorry it did.”
“Makeup sex ought to balance it out.”
When she laughed, he reached out without thinking, stroked his fingers down her cheek in a way that stilled the laughter.
“I missed your face,” he told her.
Moved, she closed her hand around his wrist. “I missed yours.”
He rose, smooth and quick, lifting her from the stool, wrapping her against him. She expected urgency and demand, a prelude to that makeup sex. Instead, the kiss floated over her senses, dreamy and sweet. It shimmered over her heart, then into it before she understood, before she could prepare.
Even when he drew away it held there, beating like a pulse inside her.
His thumb brushed over her cheekbone. Calloused skin; a gentle stroke. “I’ll pick up some food and be back later.”
“All right. I have—”
“Guests. I know. I keep up. I’ll wait.” His eyes, green and searching, stayed on hers another moment. “We’ll wait,” he amended. “D.A. missed you, too.”
He walked out, left her weak and wondering.
Is this what she’d thought she’d felt for Jonathan? Stupid, stupid to have mistaken contentment, habit, what had proven to be a foolish affection and loyalty for this overwhelming, undermining, dazzling emotion.
She had to sit, wait to get her breath back, wait for her knees to stop trembling. She hadn’t understood, had never understood love caused such a staggering physical reaction. She felt feverish, unsteady, and, she had to admit as she closed her eyes, frightened.
She had a plan. Falling in love hadn’t been part of it.
“Adjust,” she ordered herself, and laid her cheek on the cool granite. “Adjust.”
Some people never felt what she felt now. Right at the moment she didn’t know whether to envy or pity them. But realities had to be faced. She was in love with Ryder Montgomery.
She just had to figure out what the hell to do about it.
“Is this what you felt?” Hope stayed where she was, breathing in honeysuckle, struggling to find her balance. “No wonder you’ve waited. What else could you do? He loved you, too. You knew. You didn’t wonder or worry or doubt. If you’d wait, if you could, so could he. I’ll find him.”
Billy.
Hope heard the joy in the name, the life in it.
Ryder.
“Yeah.” On a long breath, she pushed herself up to sit again. “It looks that way. It looks as if I started moving here, to this, from that first minute. Dizzy, hot, overwhelmed, dazzled, scared. Just like now. It shouldn’t be, but it is. It shouldn’t have been for you either, considering. It must run in the family.”
Billy. Ryder.
“And I’ll bet Billy had that same cocky nature. It shouldn’t be so appealing. Swept you off your feet. I can see it. I can see it now. It didn’t matter who your father was, what your station was. He loved you. He saw you, and that was all that mattered. I wonder what that’s like. To have someone so strong and confident see you, look at you, and you’re all that matters.”
She sighed now, got to her feet. “I can’t think about that right now. I can’t expect that. I need to finish my list, and I should bake some muffins before the guests arrive.”
The cupboard door where she kept her baking supplies flew open, slammed shut.
“There’s no reason to be annoyed with me. Billy loved you, I understand. He wanted to marry you. Ryder doesn’t …”
She stepped back instinctively as the door slammed again. She heard the names clearly.
Billy. Ryder.
“All right, Eliza. Enough. If I say I wished Ryder felt for me what Billy did for you, will you be satisfied? But Billy and Ryder aren’t …”
She stopped, braced a hand on the counter as it sprang up in her. “Oh God, is that it? Was it always that simple. Billy Ryder? Joseph William Ryder. Is that it? Is that his name?”
The lights came on in a brilliant glow, pulsed like a heartbeat.
“Billy Ryder. Yours, and apparently mine. His ancestor? Could that be? His, like you’re mine. Wait.”
She grabbed the kitchen phone, punched in Ryder’s cell.
“What?”
She ignored the automatic annoyance. He hated being interrupted, but that was too damn bad. “Ryder’s a family name, isn’t it?”
“Huh? Jesus. So what?”
She pitched her voice up, compensating for the hammering on his end. “It’s your mother’s maiden name? Her family name?”
“Yeah, and so what?”
“Billy. It was his family name, too. He’s Joseph William Ryder.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Do you recognize the name? Is it familiar?”
“Why would it be? He was dead a couple hundred years before I was born. Ask my mother. Ask Carolee. Call Owen. Any one of them would know more than I do.”
“All right. Thanks.”
“Congratulations.”
“I haven’t found him yet. But yeah, it’s worth a high five. I’ll talk to you later.”
She hung up before he could, immediately dialed Carolee. No time to bake muffins, she decided. She’d get something from the bakery instead.
Whatever time she had to spare, she’d spend looking for Joseph William Ryder.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
IT TOOK SOME TIME AND SCHEDULE SHUFFLING BEFORE everyone could get together at one time, in one place. At Justine’s request, they met in her home. There, she felt, everyone could talk and speculate freely.
And if she had everyone who mattered to her most under one roof, they might as well make a party out of it.
She knew her men, so she marinated flank steaks, picked up corn at her favorite roadside stand, harvested tomatoes and peppers fresh from her garden.
“You don’t have to fuss so much.” Willy B sat at the counter, snapping beans, his contribution from his own little garden. His pug curled devotedly under his stool.
“It feels good to fuss some. This summer’s flown by, and we’ve hardly managed to all get together like this. And it keeps my mind settled.” She sprinkled paprika on a platter of eggs she’d deviled—one of Owen’s favorites. “When I think about it all, Willy B, how I just had to have that inn, felt that pull in my heart for it. Now it turns out there’s this connection. Billy Ryder. All this time.”
She sighed. “I never asked questions about my people, or not many. Never bothered to find out much at all.”
“You lived your life, Justine. You had Tommy and your boys, and Carolee.”
“I know it, and it’s always been about the now and the next for me. And still, aren’t I the one for buying up these old places? So there’s something. Anyway, Carolee doesn’t know any more than I do. Daddy, either. When we find out whatever we find, I’m going to make more of an effort to learn about who came before me. You looked into yours. I remember.”
“It was kind of interesting to find out.” He paused his snapping to scratch through his red beard. “Where they came from in Scotland, how they came here—those who did. And I thought Avery should know. Maybe I thought she didn’t have much on her mama’s side, so she should have as much as I could give her on mine.”
“You’re the best daddy there is. Nobody could’ve done better.”
“Well, I had the best girl to work with.” He smiled over the beans, then shifted, cleared his throat. “Justine, you don’t want to get married or anything, do you?”
“Why, Willy B MacTavish.” She fluttered her lashes. The question may have come out of left field, but she knew how to catch. “That’s the most romantic proposal ever uttered.”
“Oh now, Justine.”
She laughed, the sound full of amused affection. “What makes you ask?”
“I don’t know, exactly. All this talk about families, I guess, and your boy, my girl—wedding talk. You’re here alone, and don’t give me that look. I know you can take care of yourself, and whatever else needs it. But we’ve been … you know, for a while now.”
“I like ‘you know.’ You’re the sweetest man I know, and if I wanted or needed marriage, I wouldn’t look at anyone else. We’re good as we are, aren’t we, Willy B?”
As answer, he took her hand. “You mean the world to me, Justine. I just want you to know it.”
“I do know it, and I’m grateful you’d ask. Maybe, down the road some, I’ll ask you.”
“Oh now, Justine.” He pinked up at the idea, made her laugh again as she came around the counter to hug him hard. “I love you to pieces, Willy B.” She eased back enough to plant her lips on his.
And Ryder walked in, D.A. behind him.
“Man.” He gave them a wide berth, went straight to the refrigerator for a beer. “Man,” he said again and popped the top.
Tyrone leaped up, shivered a little as D.A. walked over to sniff him.
“Oh now, Tyrone, D.A. won’t hurt you.” But Willy B got off the stool, crouched down to soothe the puppy and scratch D.A.’s ears.
“Where’s Hope?” Justine asked him.
“She had stuff. She’ll be here.” Lightning quick—a man had to be quick in his mother’s kitchen—he snagged a deviled egg.
“Has she had any more trouble from down in the city?”
“No, and I don’t see that happening. Book’s closed.”
“Good. Go on and let those dogs outside now. Tyrone’s fine with Finch and Cus. He’ll be fine with D.A. before long.”
Ryder obeyed, nudging the still reluctant pug out with the toe of his boot. “Beckett and his brood just pulled up. Dogs, too.”
“Oh, well, maybe I should—”
“Willy B, you let that pug socialize,” Justine ordered. “You’re going to make a neurotic out of him otherwise.”
“Everybody’s bigger than he is.”
“And you’re bigger than anybody else. You don’t hurt anyone.” She opened a cupboard, took out three bubble-shooting guns she’d already loaded, and took them out to the boys.
Seconds later Clare came in with a bowl.
“Whatcha got?” Ryder asked as he took it from her. “Potato salad? You’re my favorite sister-in-law.”
“I’m your only, but not for much longer. Avery and Owen are right behind us.” She stepped over to kiss Willy B’s cheek.
“You sit right down here, get off your feet.”
“I’ll do that, and snap the rest of these beans.”
“Okay then. I’m going to go out and …”
Clare lifted her eyebrows as Willy B hurried out the door.
“He’s worried the other dogs will traumatize that bug-eyed rat of his.”
“They won’t, and Tyrone is adorable.”
“He looks like a dog from Mars.”
“Maybe a little.” She snapped beans while boys shouted, dogs barked. Male laughter rolled over it all. “Go on outside. You know you want to. I’m fine here. It’s like a small sanity break.”
“If you say so.”
He did want to go out, especially since he’d stowed the old Super Soaker in the shed for just such an occasion.
When Hope pulled in, a war raged. Kids, dogs, grown men, all soaked to the skin, battled with a variety of water shooting weapons.
She eyed the combatants warily. She could probably trust the boys not to aim in her direction. The dogs simply had to be avoided. But she knew very well grown men could rarely resist a fresh target.
She got out carefully, using the car door as a shield as she reached in the back.
And caught the gleam in Ryder’s eye through his dripping hair.
“I have pies!” she called out. “If I get wet, the pies get wet. Think about it.”
He lowered his weapon. “What kind—” And, vulnerable, took a shot in the back from the youngest water warrior.
“I got you good!” Murphy shouted, then screamed in hysterical delight as Ryder gave chase.
Hope took advantage of the distraction, and her cherry pie shield, to make a beeline for the house.
“Everyone out there’s soaked,” Hope announced, then spotted Avery, wineglass in hand, a man’s work shirt draped to her knees. “Casualty?”
“I gave as good as I got, but they ganged up on me. Men can’t be trusted.”
“Now everybody’s here.” Justine gave Hope a quick hug. “Willy B, why don’t you start the grill?”
“Well …” The pug curled in his lap, Willy B gave the door a dubious look.
“Oh, I’ll fix that. Hope, get yourself a drink.” So saying, Justine walked out. Curious, Hope walked over, looked out. Watched Justine turn on her garden hose.
She fired without warning or mercy as cries of Mom! and Gran! echoed.
“Time for a truce. Y’all dig up some dry clothes and clean up. We’re eating in a half hour or so.”
WARDROBE MIGHT HAVE leaned toward eccentric, but the food struck a perfect note. There was restaurant talk as Avery was counting down in days now. Construction talk, town talk, baby talk, and wedding talk.
Plates cleared, the kids and dogs raced back for the yard restricted by female decree to bubbles and balls.
“Now then.” Justine leaned back. “I’ll let you know where things stand on my end. There’s an old family Bible.” She patted her sister’s hand. “Carolee managed to track it down to our uncle. Our father’s brother Henry. Uncle Hank. When my daddy’s daddy passed, Uncle Hank and his wife loaded up. Some people are just that way. God knows what he wanted with all that stuff, but he filled a damn U-Haul. Twice. And the Bible was in there. It goes back a ways so if Billy’s ours, he’d be listed. All we have to do is get it back.”