Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
“You seem…I don’t know…different,” Reese said. Ry was hanging out in Cora’s cabin with all the other women. Reese was nursing Dylan, and Lara was holding Henley’s baby.
“Is that bad?” Ry asked.
“No! Not at all. It’s good. Great. It’s just…you seem more sure of yourself or something.”
Ry smiled at the other woman. She loved that she saw her that way. Ever since her walk with Tiny, and their kiss, she’d made a conscious choice to be as honest as possible with people. Instead of trying to please everyone by agreeing to anything they suggested, she only did the things she wanted to do.
Like when Robert offered her a Christmas Tree Cake that morning, she’d politely declined. Before, she would’ve accepted and eaten it, just so Robert wouldn’t feel as if she was rejecting him. Or when Cora asked if she wanted to go with her to the grocery store in Los Alamos early one morning. Instead of agreeing and disrupting her schedule— mornings were now the time Ry dedicated to scouring the dark web for anything her father might have set up the night before to mess with The Refuge—she’d told Cora that she had work to do.
Those were probably such little things to most people, but saying no, not doing something because she was afraid someone wouldn’t like her, felt liberating.
“I wouldn’t say I’m more sure,” Ry admitted. “I just got to the point where I realized here at The Refuge, around you guys, I could be myself.”
Everyone immediately agreed. Enthusiastically.
“Of course you can be you!”
“Good for you!”
“Go girl!”
“Awesome!”
Their acceptance felt great.
“Thank you for all the stuff you ordered for me and Spike when we were in the hospital, by the way,” Reese told her.
“You’re welcome. How’re you feeling?” Ry asked, done talking about herself. It was one thing to turn over a new leaf by being exactly who she was, it was another thing altogether to talk about it with her friends. She wasn’t that changed. It would never be easy for her to talk about herself. So she was more than ready to change the subject, put the focus on someone else.
“Tired,” Reese said with a crooked smile. “Dylan’s not exactly the best sleeper, and anytime he moves, I wake up because I’m paranoid something’s wrong.”
“But the doctors say he’s doing okay, right?” Alaska asked.
“Yeah. For a baby born a few weeks early, he’s doing awesome. He’s been having some issues with reflux, but overall, yes, he’s healthy.”
“He’s adorable,” Cora said, as she gazed at the infant in their friend’s arms.
“I can’t believe how close in age he and Elizabeth are,” Lara said with a smile as she rocked Henley’s daughter.
“Is it too early to hook them up?” Maisy asked. “You know, like pledge their troth or something.”
Everyone laughed at that.
“Pledge their troth? You’ve been reading too many historical romances, girlfriend,” Alaska teased.
“Nothing would make me happier than for my son to marry your daughter,” Reese told Henley with a smile. “But of course, that will be his decision. He might prefer boys. Or maybe he’ll want to stay single. Or maybe he’ll be a computer genius like Ry and move to Washington, DC, to run the world.”
Ry blushed. Once upon a time, she would’ve protested and insisted that she wasn’t a genius, not by any stretch. But the truth of the matter was, she was damn good at what she did.
A dinging noise sounded in the small room, and it was almost comical how everyone looked down at their phones to see if it was theirs. Turns out Cora had been the one to receive a message.
Since Ry was looking right at her when she read it, she instantly knew something was wrong. “Cora?” she asked. “What is it?”
When the other woman looked up, she had tears in her eyes.
“What? Is Pipe okay?” Alaska asked .
All the women were frowning now, worried about their friend.
“He’s good. But this is the second time that we were approved for a foster child and it was canceled at the last minute. I know these things happen, and it’s better if the kid can stay with relatives instead of being removed completely from their situation, but we were sure this time that it would go through.”
Uneasiness swam through Ry’s veins. It was very likely that Cora was exactly right about what happened…but she couldn’t help wondering if it was something else. Some one else who was manipulating the system.
Without a word, she stood up and went over to her bag that she’d left by the door. She didn’t go anywhere without her laptop anymore. There had been too many instances of her father fucking with The Refuge for her to feel comfortable being away from the device.
She placed it on the table behind the couch a little too hard, and sensed more than saw the other women’s heads turning her way.
“Ry?” Maisy asked.
She didn’t answer. She was too upset. The more she thought about it, the more she knew this had to be her father’s work. It had to be. Once again, her asshole of a father was doing everything to prove he was more powerful than she was. But it wasn’t power he was showing—it was pure evil. Who messed with foster children ? Her shitty dad, that’s who. He didn’t care about anyone . He was as unfeeling as a human being could possibly get.
She’d sent him messages through the dark web, but he hadn’t responded. Not yet. But maybe this latest stunt of his was response enough. He didn’t care about anything she had to say—but he would.
It had been years since she’d taken money from anyone. The day she’d left her father’s home, in fact. Well…maybe it was time.
She understood now that her father couldn’t be reasoned with. After all, how could you reason with a psychopath?
“Ry?” Maisy repeated, but again she ignored her. Her fingers were already flying over the keyboard. Logging onto the Internet with her secure connection. She needed to hack into the Los Alamos Social Services database and make sure Cora and Pipe’s application was still correct. She wouldn’t put it past her father to have messed with it. To make them look like less than desirable candidates.
A chair next to hers was pulled out, making her finally look up. Cora sat down. She had a small frown on her face and was studying Ry intently.
“You think he did it?” she asked.
Ry didn’t have to ask who “he” was. “Yes,” she said firmly.
When Tiny asked if it was all right if the guys shared with their wives what was happening with her father, she’d willingly agreed. Was relieved she wouldn’t have to face the women herself and tell them how fucked up her childhood had been, and what a monster her own flesh-and-blood was. The next day, every single one of her friends had found her at some point to lend their support, along with much-needed hugs. Reassured her that they didn’t blame her for anything, and to offer their help. It had felt amazing…and liberating. Their actions had reaffirmed that Ry was right where she was meant to be .
“Is it wrong that I’m relieved?” Cora asked.
Ry’s brows furrowed. “You are?”
Cora nodded. “Yeah, I mean, I was beginning to think no one thought I’d be a good role model. That they saw something in our application that made them think Pipe and I wouldn’t be good parents.”
“That is not true,” Lara said heatedly. The close friendship between the two women was something Ry envied. “You and Pipe would make the best parents. Ever. Any kid would be lucky to be placed with you.”
Cora smiled at her friend. “Thanks. But I think you might be biased.”
“No, she’s not,” Reese said. “You’ve been a huge help with Dylan already. The other day when you showed up on my doorstep, when he was crying his head off, I swear I was at my wits’ end. You didn’t say a word. You just gathered him up and walked right out the door. You knew I needed a break, and you didn’t hesitate to give that to me.”
“Some people would see that as kidnapping,” Cora pointed out with a smile.
Everyone laughed.
“Not me,” Henley said. “And you’re even better with Jas. She can be a handful, but you never get tired of her questions. Of her constant babble about anything and everything. Even I have my limits on how many games of tic-tac-toe I can play. But not you. You’d sit with her for days if that’s what she wanted.”
Henley wasn’t wrong. Ry had also noticed how patient Cora was with the young teenager. Her lips pressed together and she turned back to her computer. She was going to get to the bottom of why she and Pipe had been denied fostership, or whatever it was called, at the last minute. Again.
It didn’t take long at all to find out why the latest foster had fallen through. Her dad wasn’t even trying to be sneaky anymore. Social services had received an email that was extremely damning and derogatory. It claimed Pipe was abusive toward a former girlfriend in the UK. It included a police report that said Pipe had beaten and choked the woman until she was unconscious. Ry had never seen a British police report, but even she could tell it was bogus. It looked like a form a ten-year-old had made on his computer.
To mitigate the damage her father had caused, she created her own email, a perfect replica of correspondence from a police precinct in DC—where Cora used to live—informing social services that the report they’d received was a fake, and none of the allegations about Bryson Clark were true. The email indicated an ex-boyfriend of Cora’s was attempting to sabotage her ability to foster by making false accusations against her and her husband.
“Did you find something?” Cora asked, obviously seeing Ry’s satisfied smirk.
“Yup. But I fixed it.”
“You fixed it?”
“Uh-huh?”
“What’d you do?” Cora asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Actually, I do. Wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t,” the other woman said firmly.
That stuck Ry as funny, though she didn’t know why. Cora was hardly afraid to say what she was thinking .
“What age range are you and Pipe interested in fostering?”
“Why? I thought you were going to tell me what you found and how you fixed it,” Cora said, in lieu of answering her question.
“Are you opposed to a kid who’s older, about to age out of the system? Like sixteen or seventeen? Or are you looking for someone who’s seven, eight, nine, in that age range?” Ry asked, meeting Cora’s gaze.
“It doesn’t matter. We just don’t want a baby or someone under, say, three. They’re much easier to place and have a lot of options.”
“And do you want one? Or is two or more at the same time acceptable?”
“What are you really asking?” Cora demanded, clearly exasperated.
Ry was well aware she and Cora had the attention of everyone in the room. Something that usually made Ry feel very uncomfortable. But she’d seen something else while she’d been searching the social services’ records. Something important.
“There’s a family. Their parents were killed in some sort of drug dispute. The oldest child is a girl. She’s seventeen. The youngest is four. They have no relatives willing to take them on, which isn’t surprising, since there are four of them. The seventeen-year-old quit school and is trying to get guardianship of her siblings, but it’s not going well because she can’t find a job. Not anything that would support a family of four. They were there when their parents were shot and apparently aren’t dealing well with the violence they witnessed. Social services has been able to find foster homes for the four- and eight-year-olds. But the thirteen- and seventeen-year-olds haven’t had any interest. They don’t want to be separated, which is complicating matters.”
“Yes,” Cora said before Ry could add anything else. “You all know the entire reason we expanded our cabin was because we wanted to foster more than one child at a time. We’ve got plenty of room, now that we have a four-bedroom home.”
“You should probably talk to Pipe,” Alaska said hesitatingly.
“Don’t need to,” Cora said firmly. “We’ve talked about this a lot. Fostering. Who we’d be willing to accept. And we both decided that we’d take anyone who needed us. And it sounds like these kids definitely need us.”
“They need The Refuge,” Henley said with a sniff.
“You’d be wonderful with them,” Maisy told Cora.
“And I’m sure I could help find a job for the oldest,” Alaska volunteered.
Ry smiled. Her father’s plan to sabotage Cora and Pipe’s foster journey might have worked in the short-term, but in the long run, he’d done them a favor. She had a good feeling in her gut about this. “I won’t manipulate the records by approving you outright,” Ry warned Cora. “But I can put a note in that you and Pipe are very interested in fostering the entire family. Keeping them together. You’ll still have to go through another interview, meet the kids, get their approval.”
“I know how it works. And it’s fine. I’d rather do it that way, have the children want to be with us than have you rubber stamp it on the back end,” Cora said.
The excitement on the other woman’s face was clear. She wanted this. Those kids didn’t know it, but their lives were about to change for the better.
“What are their names?” Cora asked.
Ry looked back at the computer screen. “The oldest is Joyce. The thirteen-year-old is Kason. Then there’s Shannon and Max.”
“Girl, boy, girl, boy,” Cora breathed.
“Yup.”
“We want them. Definitely.”
“Good. Because it’s done. Hopefully you’ll get a call soon.”
“Ry, this isn’t a done deal yet,” Alaska warned.
“It’s not?” Ry asked, looking up with what she knew had to be a shit-eating grin on her face.
“Right. This is happening,” Alaska said with a little huff of breath. “You’re kind of scary, you know that?”
For some reason, Ry felt proud of her friend’s words. “I’m not scary. I’m efficient,” she countered.
Everyone laughed. And just like that, the mood of the room switched from one of worry and concern, to happiness once again. It felt amazing to have been the one to make that happen.
Suddenly, Ry felt very differently about her skills. She’d always been just a little ashamed of them, knowing that hacking, for the most part, was a bad thing. Something she had to keep hidden. But she wasn’t a bad person . Yes, hacking into the government website wasn’t exactly good, but her father had gone way over the line, and Ry was obligated…no, honored to help her friend.
Plus, she’d been honest with Cora. She wouldn’t rubber stamp the approval. Wouldn’t guarantee she and Pipe were automatically accepted. They’d still have to go through the steps to get the family. But was it really a bad thing, what Ry had done? When no one else had shown any interest in fostering all four kids together? Not in her eyes.
And that brought her back around to her original thought about her father. She needed to find a way to get him talking. If she didn’t, this harassment would never stop. There would be many more days of frustration and worry for The Refuge and her friends.
What she did next was easy. Almost too easy. The things her father taught her, things she hadn’t done since the day she’d left his house, came back as if by rote.
Hacking into his bank account was child’s play. As was transferring out ten thousand dollars. It wasn’t a ton of money, but it was enough to get his attention. She’d asked him to stop via the dark web. Begged. Had tried to open a line of communication, but he’d ignored her attempts to reason with him, refused to talk.
Fine. In his world, money talked. So she’d “talk” to him in a way he couldn’t ignore.
She hit the enter button harder than she meant to, and it felt amazing when she saw his money—money he’d stolen from someone else—transfer into Padres Unidos’s bank account. It was a local program that helped fathers become more engaged, committed, and responsible. Her own dad would hate that, and it felt appropriate, since he was, in her eyes, the worst father in the world. He could’ve done with a program like Padres Unidos, for sure.
“What was that?” Maisy asked.
“What was what?” Ry asked, trying to sound innocent.
“Whatever you just did.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Uh-huh,” Maisy said skeptically .
She sighed. “Okay, look—I have to end this. My dad messing with all of you. He’s mad at me , and it’s not fair that you’re getting caught in the crossfire. I need this to stop.” The last five words were whispered, and Ry realized she was on the verge of tears.
Cora reached over and closed her laptop, then grabbed Ry’s hand and pulled her up from the chair. She towed her back over to the couch and sat, pulling Ry down next to her. Maisy sat as well, scooting closer until Ry was sandwiched between the two women.
“It’s going to stop,” Cora reassured her.
“We don’t know that,” Ry whispered.
“When I was in that basement,” Lara said from the other side of Maisy, “I thought that was it. That I would die there. No one would ever find me. But I was wrong. Cora found me. Got me out of there…with your help.”
“And when I was in that car on my way to Mexico, I had no idea how in the world it could ever end any way but badly,” Reese added. “Even when I fell into that river, I thought I was a goner. But then Gus was there. The man I’d loved for what seemed like forever, and suddenly we were safe on the bank.”
“Same for me. When I was shoved into that train car in Russia? I was sure I was a goner,” Alaska added.
“And I was positive when Jack regained his memory, he’d hate me forever,” Maisy said softly.
“Point is, we all survived our worst ordeals. And you will too. This is gonna end,” Cora said firmly. “It’ll work out. One way or another.”
“And if you think Tiny is gonna let anything happen to you, or The Refuge, you’re so wrong,” Henley said. “That man is totally gone for you. Has been for months. ”
“Um, I’m not sure we’re talking about the same Tiny,” Ry protested, even though deep down, a blossom of hope bloomed at her friend’s words.
“Yes, we are,” Henley said. “Look, I get it. He’s struggled with everything. But even when he was being…overly protective of The Refuge, he couldn’t hide his concern for you. And lately, now that he knows your whole story? That concern is out in full force.”
Ry couldn’t deny it. “He’s way out of my league,” she said, admitting out loud something she’d been thinking for a while now.
“No, he’s not.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Are you kidding me?”
The immediate protests from her friends felt undeniably good.
“I don’t know anything about having a relationship. I’ve spent my entire life as the weirdo. The outcast. The introvert. I’ve never had a boyfriend. Sex makes me nervous, and I literally just had my first kiss the other day…at thirty-one . It’s ridiculous and pathetic.”
“I got this, ladies,” Alaska said, as she got up and came over to the couch. She knelt in front of Ry and put her hands on her calves. “I know a little about being an outcast. I didn’t have many friends, spent all my time on the outside looking in. And here I am. With a man I’ve loved all my life. Engaged. Living a life I never could’ve imagined. Tiny is not out of your league, Ry. In fact, I’m willing to bet he thinks you’re out of his league. You’re a freaking genius, girl. Could probably take out Russia, China, and North Korea’s nuclear programs with a few taps on your keyboard. So what if you haven’t had a relationship before? If I’m interpreting what you said correctly, you just had your first kiss with Tiny. I bet he’s thrilled, excited, and over-the-moon proud that he was your first. Was it awful?”
“Our kiss? No!” Ry exclaimed. “It was…amazing. I always thought touching tongues with someone would be gross. It was anything but.”
Alaska was grinning from ear to ear. “My advice? Go with the flow. Continue doing what you’re doing. Open up to Tiny, he needs that honesty probably more than any of our guys. Tell him what you’re thinking, feeling. If something makes you nervous, tell him. He’ll treat you good, Ry. I have no doubt.”
“And he looks like Jake-freaking-Ryan. He was my first boy-crush,” Reese admitted.
“I really don’t think he looks much like him,” Ry said, glancing at Reese.
“What? Seriously?” Lara asked with a gasp.
“Seriously.”
“You need to watch Sixteen Candles again, my friend. And I dare you to tell me afterward that Tiny doesn’t remind you of him,” Reese ordered.
“The movie hasn’t aged well, it’s pretty misogynistic but…at the end…when he says, ‘Yeah, you,’ I melt every time,” Maisy admitted.
Alaska squeezed Ry’s legs a little. “In a year, we’ll be sitting here, Lara with her baby, Maisy with hers, Elizabeth and Dylan toddling around getting into trouble, all of us reminiscing about how crazy things were, but how well they worked out.”
“Promise?” Ry whispered. She wanted that. Oh, how she wanted that. If she could fast-forward time and have everything going on just be done and over with, she’d do it. In a heartbeat.
“Promise,” Alaska said firmly.
Dylan began to fuss at that moment, and hearing the other baby’s cries, Elizabeth joined in.
“I think this is our cue to head out,” Henley said dryly.
“Same,” Reese agreed.
Cora helped Reese to her feet, since she was still healing from giving birth, and walked her to the door, holding her arm. Henley headed out with Alaska at her heels.
Ry hugged everyone and walked toward the lodge. She wasn’t ready to go back to the cabin yet. As much as an introvert as she was, at the moment, she didn’t want to be alone. Tiny was helping Tonka with the animals in the barn, so she headed for the laundry room. Carly, Jess, and Joshua would most likely be there, folding towels and sheets.
The Refuge wasn’t where she thought she’d end up, not in a million years. Living and working at a retreat that was in the middle of the woods, miles and miles from any kind of big city? No. But deciding to hole up here for a few months had been the best decision she’d ever made. It was now her home. And Ry would do whatever it took to protect it…and the people who lived and worked here.