Chapter Two
It never got easier seeing Ryker.
Knowing that he was on his way always sent the butterflies in her belly into a frenzy. She was relieved that someone was coming to help, but the fact that it was Ryker …
He was the first that she reached out to. Ryker, then Decker as the rest of the guys had settled down with partners and kids. She felt bad pulling Rob away from Skyler and the twins. Aaron had his hands full with his construction company and four kids with Isobel, and Asher and Nate had a ranch to take care of, not to mention new wives, and Asher just had a baby.
But Ryker was a nomad. And he was usually at her doorstep in roughly twenty-four hours or less after she called. Which was hardly ever. Because she knew if she called, one of them would show up. Even if she didn’t have a problem. If she called, there’d be a knock at her door a day later with one of the guys checking up on her and Sasha.
She felt blessed to have such a far-reaching community. A safe village and nine adoring and overprotective uncles that would kill and dispose of the body of any boy that dared to hurt Sasha.
There was another reason she called Ryker, first, though.
She tried to deny it, but it was impossible.
She was in love with him and had been for years.
And even though she wasn’t sure if he felt the same way since he’d never made a move or given any indication, she tortured herself by calling him, knowing he’d be on the next flight to see her.
With the pitcher of lemonade and a plate of cookies, they headed out the French doors that led to the beautiful deck the guys built her a few years ago. She had outdoor light bulbs strung up between posts, a big umbrella to shield them from the unrelenting June sun, and a small water feature burbling placidly in the corner. It was her happy place. Her place of Zen. She and Sasha both spent hours lounging on the deck, reading books, listening to music and just enjoying the peace that came with living on a dead-end road with nothing but forest behind them. Add in the nearly three-hundred-sixty -degree view of the mountains and, for a very long time, she considered herself a lucky woman to live in such a beautiful place.
At least she used to.
As beautiful as it was, Jackson Hole was losing its appeal. It was expensive, riddled with tourists and pretentious millionaires and billionaires, and the locals seemed to survive on a diet of gossip and Botox. None of those things appealed to her.
Ryker wedged his big, handsome frame into one of the deck chairs and leaned forward to grab a ginger snap. “How long were you and Adrian Michael Huber together?”
She was momentarily taken aback by his business-like question, not to mention how stoic and even-toned he was. His hawk-like amber eyes narrowed as he waited for her response. He probably wasn’t judging her, but she sure felt judged. She felt like he was interrogating her.
“A couple of months,” she said softly, avoiding his gaze and staring out at the surrounding mountains. “It wasn’t serious. Or at least, I didn’t think it was. We went out on maybe twelve dates in total. I never even slept with him. I just …” She glanced at Sasha, who rolled her eyes.
“I know people have sex, Mom. It’s fine.”
Molly grumbled. “You’re too mature for your age sometimes.” She exhaled deeply and focused back on Ryker. “I just never felt comfortable bringing him here, and he lives all the way across town. There just wasn’t ever the right moment. Or a moment where I felt like … okay, it’s time to take the relationship to the next level.”
“Then why’d you let it go on for two months?” Sasha asked. Molly could tell Ryker was thinking the same thing.
“Because he was nice. We had fun together when we went out. We have the same taste in music and movies and food and … now that I’m saying it, maybe we don’t actually have the same taste. Maybe he was just faking it, so we would seem more compatible.”
“You think?” Sasha said with a scoff.
Molly’s cheeks burned, and she shot her teenager a half-hearted, dirty look.
“Okay, so how’d you break it off with him?” Ryker asked. He scratched at his sexy, barely there dark scruff. She loved his facial hair. It was always tidy, always trimmed short, and it just gave him the most rugged, animalistic look that filled her dreams until she woke up wet and breathless.
“I just told him that I didn’t think this was working. That he was a very nice man, and it had nothing to do with him as a person. I just didn’t feel that romantic chemistry with him. Which was all true. I don’t think I ever felt that spark. I never got butterflies when I saw him, or right before I saw him. I kind of …” Even more heat erupted in her cheeks. “I always felt kind of grossed out kissing him. Almost like I was kissing my brother.”
“You didn’t tell him that, did you?” Ryker asked.
“Oh god, no. I just told him I thought we were better off friends. That I just didn’t see a future with him and I didn’t want to waste his time.”
“Then what happened?” Ryker probed.
“Guy went psycho,” Sasha replied just as Molly opened her mouth to say something.
Molly made a noise, but then pressed her lips together and nodded. “Mhmm. He did. He raged at me and in a coffee shop. We got thrown out.”
“Both of you?”
“ We were apparently making a scene.”
“Did you go to the police after that?”
She shook her head and twisted her napkin to shreds in her lap. “I should have. But he didn’t hurt me or threaten me. He just blamed me for leading him on like some feminist bitch . Said I was a cock-tease and wasted his time and money. Though I paid just as often as he did. I never exploited him. He said I owed him for the nice dinners he took me to.”
“Owed him, as in you owed him sex because he bought you coq au vin?” Ryker asked, his tone morphing from calm and cool to enraged and heated. Anger flashed in his honey-colored eyes and rather than fear igniting in her belly, it was excitement. Arousal. Compounded by the fact that he remembered how much she loved coq au vin. It was her favorite dish on the rare occasion she ate out at a restaurant that had fancy cloth napkins.
“Yeah,” she whispered.
“Okay, so then what?”
“He stomped away, got in his truck, and I didn’t see him for a few days.”
Ryker turned to Sasha. “Were you still on the soccer team at the time?”
She nodded. “Yeah. It was my next game that we saw him again.”
“And what happened then?” Ryker asked.
“He benched me the entire game,” Sasha replied bitterly. “And I’m the best starting forward on the team. I didn’t play for even a second. Nobody—and I mean nobody could understand it. Not my teammates, not the other parents. Not even the other team because we’ve played them before and they know I’m good. People were asking me if I was injured. It sucked.”
“I went up to Adrian mid-way through the game and asked him if he was punishing Sasha because I broke up with him,” Molly said, glancing at her daughter. “He refused to speak with me. Pretended I wasn’t even there.”
“The next morning, the word SLUT was keyed into the side of Mom’s car,” Sasha said.
“Did you check the security cameras we installed?” Ryker asked.
Molly nodded. “Yeah, but it was just a hooded figure, all in black, wearing a balaclava. He knows there are cameras. He saw them when he was here. So he knew to disguise himself.”
“Tell me about the cameras in the house and bathroom,” Ryker asked.
“We didn’t find them until after I broke up with him,” Molly said, shuddering at the memory of finding the small spy cams so expertly hidden in her bedroom, living room and bathroom.
“And were you able to verify that it was Adrian who put them there?”
“We don’t have a lot of guests. Besides my book club. But those are all women and we merely get together to drink wine and occasionally talk about the book we all just read. None of them would do it.”
“I’d like to speak with the members of your book club,” he said.
“They’re coming tomorrow night, so I’m sure that’s fine.”
“Tell him about the text messages and going through your phone,” Sasha encouraged, leaning forward and grabbing a ginger snap off the plate.
Molly nodded, embarrassment at getting her and her daughter tangled up in this making her nauseous. She grimaced before taking in a deep breath and pressing on. Ryker would need all the information. She couldn’t leave anything out. “That was the other reason I ended it with him. He was insanely jealous. He watched me punch in the code for my phone, then grabbed it one day when I was in the bathroom and went crazy on me when he saw that I’d been emailing with Rob. Rob had merely emailed me to thank us for the birthday gift we got the twins, then he sent a picture of him, Skyler and the girls at the beach on Moorea. Adrian accused me of cheating on him with Rob. When I explained that him taking my phone was an invasion of privacy, he tried to gaslight me by saying only a cheater would have something to hide.”
Ryker sucked in a deep breath through his nose and nodded.
“I asked him to leave. He did without a fuss, then showed up the next day to apologize. He said he was crazy about me and had been cheated on before, so it made him a little paranoid. I told him who Rob was—but I don’t think he believed me. But we made up and things seemed better. This only happened two weeks before I ended it for good, though. But after the jealousy thing and the snooping, I just … I just never felt the same way about him. He kind of gave me the creeps after that. I also never let him come back to the house again. We always had our dates in public. A walk during the day in a busy park. The movies, dinner, bowling. That kind of thing.”
“Smart,” Ryker said, sipping his lemonade.
“I should have ended it when he went through my phone. I know that.” She glanced at her daughter. “I’m sorry I brought this man into our lives.”
“He was my soccer coach. I kind of brought him into our world, too.”
Molly reached over and squeezed Sasha’s hand, offering her daughter a grim smile. “I know, but I should have kept things platonic. He should have stayed just your soccer coach.”
“Okay, so did he ever play Sasha in any more games?” Ryker asked.
“I had one more game, and he benched me after four minutes on the field. I scored and had an assist in those four minutes, then he benched me. Other parents even argued with him and when he said, ‘take it up with Molly,’ I told him I quit and walked off the field.” Sasha nibbled on her cookie. “But people are blaming Mom.”
“Who is?” Ryker asked, sitting up in his seat, his focus bouncing between Sasha and Molly.
“Some of the other players. They know I was one of the better players and now they’re saying that because of my mom—though nobody really knows why—that the team isn’t going to make it to the playoffs. Mom kept her relationship with Coach Adrian private, so people are speculating, but nobody really knows.”
Ryker’s nostrils flared. “It’s not because of Molly. It’s because that dickwad can’t take rejection and decided to make it personal.”
Molly glanced down at her lap where her napkin resembled confetti. “The cops can’t prove he installed the cameras or that he keyed my car. He shows up at just enough places where I am to make it seem like he’s following me, but he never interacts with me. So they won’t file a restraining order. The most they could do was post the cop outside the house, and that only happened after—” Her throat grew tight and she lifted her head to glance at Sasha. “After we came home and found Anthony nailed to the side of the house. But the cops can’t even confirm that Adrian did it. The cameras only showed a hooded figure again. He took great care to keep his face hidden.”
A fat tear slid down Sasha’s cheek and Molly reached over and wrapped an arm around her daughter. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
“It has to be him, Mom. I can’t think of anybody else that would do any of this. He’s lost his mind.”
Molly swept away a few of her own tears and nodded, swallowing past the hard lump in her throat.
“I already have Adrian’s address,” Ryker said, standing up. “I’m going to go scope him out. I’ll pick up pizza for dinner on my way back.”
Molly reached out when he stepped past her, and she locked her hand around his wrist. He stopped abruptly and gazed down at her in slight surprise. Those butterflies in her belly took flight again. “I know this is moot, but be careful … please.”
His smile caused those butterflies to fly around like they were on their third shot of tequila and feeling great about life. “I will be. Don’t worry.”
She gave his wrist one more squeeze, then let go.
“While I’m gone, make a list of anything you need done around here. I’ll have quite a bit of time to kill while I’m here and you’re at work and half-pint is at school.” He winked at Sasha.
“School ended Friday,” Sasha said. “I’m done. Nothing but dance until September.”
“Then you can help me with whatever your mom puts on the list.” He winked at her again and then took off, leaving Sasha and Molly on the deck in the warm early evening sun.
The front door closed, and the mechanical lock engaged.
When Molly and Sasha moved into the house, all the guys made sure the place had a state-of-the-art security system. If it wasn’t for Brendan and his love of his hometown, Molly and Sasha would have moved elsewhere a long time ago. Jackson Hole was incredibly expensive, and even though she made a decent wage as a dental hygienist, it wasn’t enough to afford the house they were in or Sasha’s dance school.
Unfortunately, the kind of life insurance Brendan had was invalid because he took his own life, so she and Sasha ended up with nothing when he passed. She received a small amount from the Navy every month, and would get his pension eventually, but even that wasn’t enough to keep them afloat.
Rob and Skyler bought the house, and she paid them rent, and Barnes and Briar paid for all of Sasha’s dance classes.
Molly stopped refusing the gifts and the help because it fell on deaf ears, so instead, she just considered herself incredibly lucky for the enormous extended family she and her daughter had.
But all this crap with Adrian was quickly causing Jackson Hole to lose its appeal. And if Sasha was serious about pursuing dance, they would have to go elsewhere. She’d outgrown the local dance studio a few years ago.
“You’ve gone quiet,” Sasha said, sipping her lemonade. “Ryker will fix this. If anybody can, it’s him.”
“I know,” Molly whispered, pressing her lips together but unable to curl up the corners into a smile. She pulled in a deep breath. “This was where Dad was from and we’ve stayed here to honor his memory. And because Gran and Gramps were here. But they’re gone now and …” Glancing up at the clouds for courage and wisdom, she took a deep breath before bringing her gaze back to her daughter. “How would you feel about relocating?”
Sasha opened her mouth and a small croaking sound came out.
“I know you have friends here and starting at a new school would be hard. But you’re already in a special online program so you can focus on dance. I’m sure they have a lot of those programs and are better in bigger cities.”
“You don’t want to leave just because of Adrian, do you?”
Molly shook her head. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while. After Gramps died last year, actually. We stayed so you could be close to your only living grandparents. To keep that connection to your dad alive. But now … what do we have here that we couldn’t find somewhere else?”
“Ryker will find him, Mom.”
“I know.”
“Then, once he’s dealt with Adrian, we can talk about this again. Once the fear isn’t so … consuming.”
Molly huffed a laugh. “How did you get so smart and logical for fourteen?”
“I have a smart and logical Mom.”
“Come on, kiddo.” She stood up and offered Sasha a hand to pull her out of her chair—not that she needed it. “That big macho lug won’t let us get away with not giving him jobs, so we need to wander around the house and see what needs fixing.”
“I can kick some holes in the walls if need be.”
That was just the splash of humor Molly’s tender heart needed. She wrapped a protective arm around her child and kissed the side of her head. “Hopefully, we can find a few things for him to do before we resort to such extreme measures. But … if we have to, we will.”