Chapter 2 #2
But these days, with so much fame living in town—did she mention that Lauchtenland’s Prince John and Princess Gemma had a home here?
—Hearts Bend embraced more modern ways. The shops stayed open until nine.
The park held a concert series year-round.
All the while clinging to the good traditions of the past, like folks sitting on their stoops and waving to the neighbors.
She slowed as she approached her car. A man leaned against the hood of her VW. Elizabeth slipped her backpack from her shoulder, ready to swing.
“You’re leaning on my car.” The man jerked upright and swerved toward her. Ryder. She lowered her backpack with a loud exhale. “You scared me.”
“Sorry. I saw you were still in the diner—” He moved toward her. “I thought I’d make sure you got in your car safely. This is your car, right?”
“Are you following me?” She tossed her backpack into the passenger seat. “I’ll have you know my cousin is a Hearts Bend police officer.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a TWRA agent with Cheatham WMA, which has way more authority than a local police officer. Also, I saved his life, so—” He shrugged and made a funny face.
Elizabeth laughed. “I think I need to hear this story.”
“I don’t know…if I tell you, then all the mystery will be gone, and what will we talk about over dinner?”
Smooth. Clever. He’d picked up some moves over the years. “Maybe,” she said, trying to sound a bit mysterious herself.
Ryder had always fascinated her a bit. Two years older, a friend of her cousins, he’d never given her more than little-sister pat-on-the-head attention.
Until the summer she was seventeen and they’d sat up all night on the high school bleachers talking about anything and everything.
Oh, Pops had been so mad when she came home with the sunrise.
Afterward, Ryder hung out with her almost every night, sitting on the back deck until the mosquitoes drove them to the basement to watch movies.
However, she wasn’t seventeen anymore. She was twenty-five and three years behind in her life plan. Which meant romance must be pushed back three years, or more. Nothing for her heart until thirty-two or -three. Maybe thirty-four.
Yet this wasn’t just any boy asking her to dinner. This was dark-haired, dark-eyed Ryder Donovan, who’d filled out his young-man skin and bones with muscle and might.
“Maybe?” Ryder said. “Is that a definitely maybe or a sort-of maybe. Perhaps a maybe, maybe?”
“More like a maybe-because-I-work-most-nights, but yeah, dinner might be nice.” There. A nice, soft out. Noncommittal without rejecting him.
“I’ll pencil that on my calendar. But for now…” He motioned to the park. “We could grab a spot on the green and listen to the last set.”
“I would love to, really, but I’m exhausted, and I have to be at Dorsey Furniture by eight. Staff meeting at nine. Will doesn’t believe in working remote. Yet.”
“Then I’ll say goodnight.”
“Good night, Ryder, and hey, it was good to see you.”
On his back porch, with the sounds and scent of summer rising from the trees, Ryder eased into his oak rocker and popped the top from a bottle of water. He set the chair into motion while his German shepherds, Fred and Ginger, slept at his feet.
From his hilly perch off South Broad between Scott’s Farm and the Cumberland River, the glow from the town center traced the treetops. He’d stayed for the last set in the park, keyed up from seeing Elizabeth.
On his way to his truck, he ran into country superstar Buck Mathews and his wife, JoJo, sitting on the tailgate of their truck, also listening to the last artist to play. They invited Ryder to join them and, for the next hour, chatted about life and love.
Buck won CMA Entertainer of the Year. Again. But he was really humble about it. The man simply loved making music.
Ryder never envied his friend’s success. He appreciated that he stayed connected to his humble roots. Ryder had grown up with wealth and knew all too well it did not buy happiness.
What he envied in Buck was his marriage. The way JoJo looked at him. The way he checked with her as he told his stories. But when Buck leaned close and said, “Keep this to yourself for a day or two, but Jo’s pregnant. Twins. We’re announcing it this week,” his heart unraveled with a bit of envy.
“Congratulations.” He slapped Buck a high five and hugged JoJo.
A family. That’s what he wanted. Ever since he was a kid. Then JoJo asked, in all sincerity, “What about you, Ryder? Anyone special? You’re such a great guy, I can’t believe no girl has snatched you up.”
“Yeah, well, so far it’s just me and the dogs up on the hill.” No offense, Fred and Ginger.
“As I recall, you liked one of the Dorsey cousins,” Buck said.
“That was a long time ago. And we were just friends.” He glanced toward the diner, where Elizabeth had tilted his world a little. “But I’m open. You know anyone looking for a WMA officer to share her life?”
Buck laughed, but JoJo squeezed his hand. “She’ll come, Ryder. She will. Have faith.”
Have faith? That was his lifeline. And the hope he’d find someone to share the house he’d spent every waking minute and free dollar restoring. Someone to laugh with, to talk things over. Someone to love and give love.
In the end, all the talk of love made him restless. And Ryder didn’t like being restless.
At his feet, the dogs stirred, reminding him he was home. “So, what’d y’all do today, Fred? Ginger?” It was down to this—talking to the dogs. “Jeff Simmons said I saved his life, but it’s more like the other way around. I think he wanted me to look cool in front of his cousin.”
The Dorsey clan had been the closest thing Ryder ever had to a real family. Then he went off to Vanderbilt, worked out west for a while, and let hometown relationships slip until he decided Hearts Bend was where he wanted to be.
He’d thought of reaching out to Jeff and other Dorsey folk in the past two years, but staying to himself had seemed safer. Easier.
“Your master is an idiot, Fred.”
The big boy lifted his head with a single bark in protest. Not wanting to be left out, Ginger echoed. Ryder reached down to scratch behind her ears.
“You’re my one and only girl, aren’t you?” To which Fred responded by nosing Ryder’s hand away from his girl. “Okay, Fred, I see how you roll.”
He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his contacts, finding a seven-year-old number for Elizabeth Dorsey.
Did it still work? Should he send her a message just to see?
It was too late to call. While he wandered the land of indecision, his phone rang, igniting a barking frenzy.
The screen displayed the goofy face of one of his Colorado ranger friends, Enzo Holder.
“You know it’s after midnight here,” he said.
“I figured it was my best chance of getting you to answer.”
Ryder laughed. “What’s up? Fred, Ginger, hush, it’s okay. Lay down.”
“How’re Fred and Ginger?”
“Still in love.”
“And your only companions?”
“Enzo, you did not call me up in the middle of the night to see if I had a love life.”
“I’m hoping you don’t. Skinner is leaving. I’m being promoted, and I want you to take my place. A lot of rangers remember your composure during the Grizzly Creek Fire.”
Five years ago, the fire broke out in Glenwood Canyon in August and took almost four months to get fully contained.
“So, you call in the dead of night, praise me for a past job, and think I’ll say, ‘Absolutely. You’re offering me my dream job.’”
“That’s one angle, yes.”
Tempting. Ryder had loved the Aspen office of the White River National Forest. “I don’t know, Enz. Hearts Bend is home. I feel like I just got here. I’ve remodeled my house. Everything is good except my boss trying to pin weird expenses on me. But it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“You’re still an outsider, Ryder. He hired you, but he’s putting you in your place. I’ve seen it before. I say quit. Come work for me.”
Ryder rocked back in his chair, listening, as Enzo pitched the job.
“…great experience. All the skiing you can handle. Housing. Pathway to promotion. Promise me you’ll think about it.”
“I promise. Can you give me the summer?”
“You’re killing me, Ryder, but yes, I’ll give you the summer. Why? You think this boss of yours will suddenly like you?”
“Probably not, but there is—”
“A girl? I knew it. She’s going to make my life difficult, isn’t she?”
“I didn’t even know she was in town, Enzo. I’ve not seen her in years. She used to come down in the summers, stay with family, and work at the local diner. I was friends with her cousins.”
“Does she want to live in Colorado?”
“She wants to go to grad school in Pennsylvania.”
“You think she’s going to fall for you and give up her dreams?”
“More like I’d fall for her and give up mine. They need rangers in Pennsylvania, don’t they?”
“No, I hear all those jobs are filled.” Enzo laughed. “But hey, you promised to think about my offer. I’ll be in touch.”
When he hung up, Ryder collected the dogs and went inside.
His place in the country was sort of a gift from his parents.
Once they realized he wasn’t going to law school with his eye on politics, they handed him the equivalent of four years’ tuition at an Ivy League school and told him to use it for a house.
Or investments. He’d spent almost half on this place and put the rest in the bank.
Flipping on the kitchen light, he retrieved last night’s chicken cordon bleu from the fridge and warmed it in the air fryer. Growing up with workaholic parents, he learned to cook from the housekeeper and his Italian nanny. Besides the cordon bleu, he made a mean homemade ravioli.
So…Enzo wanted him back in Colorado? His “I want you here. I believe in you” was hard to resist.
The air fryer beeped. Ryder plated his dinner and headed for the living room. Sitting in the quiet, watching the stars peek through the skylights, he thought Elizabeth and her blue eyes were a far better sight than the Rockies of Colorado.