Chapter Thirty-Nine
“It’s been four months, Ryan,” Chloe unhappily snapped.
“I know.”
“It’s time for us to do something.”
This had been her constant refrain for the last three months.
At first Chloe had given Poppy the space she’d asked for. That lasted a month. By month two, she was texting Poppy once or twice a week. It was a fifty-fifty shot if Poppy texted back. By month three, Chloe started adding calls to go along with her weekly texts. These calls were never answered.
Now we were deep into month four, and Poppy was still ghosting everyone except Beck.
And since she was ghosting, she hadn’t been back to work.
Not that she had a job at the Vault to go back to.
After Muriel was murdered and Blackwell was arrested, as part of his plea deal, he’d talked.
And the man had a lot to say. Of course he’d blamed everything on Dex, whose real name was Daniel Tuttle.
After all, dead men can’t tell tales or defend themselves.
Not that that motherfucker had a defense for being a total piece-of-shit sick fuck, but Blackwell had pinned it all on him.
And since Daniel Tuttle owned the Vault as well as the property in Utah—something that took the feds months to unravel and only managed it because Shep kicked in—he was the face of the racket.
Muriel had been in charge of picking the girls and briefing them.
So far, Mercer was in the clear. The only service he’d provided was running background checks and processing membership dues. Neither were illegal.
But since Poppy hadn’t come back to work at the Plank either, we’d paid her rent to keep her current. Until last month. Beck told us he was moving her stuff into one of the old bunkhouses on the property and she’d remain living with him.
I still wasn’t sure if it was healthy for those two to be feeding off each other’s trauma. However, in the last few months Beck seemed different. Not better, but willing to take steps to come back to the land of the living.
“Ryan!”
I waited until I pulled into a spot close to the front door of her father’s home.
Turned my truck off before I turned and hooked her around the back of the neck.
Like I did dozens of times a day, my gaze dropped to her throat.
The bruises were long gone, but I’d memorized every mark.
And I knew if I tried, I could call them up and see the purple marks in stark relief against her creamy skin.
Seeing as I no longer called up those marks, I was considering that progress.
Maybe one day my eyes wouldn’t do that to her throat to reassure myself my woman was safe and uninjured.
Or maybe I’d need that for the rest of my life.
Either way, we’d moved on. She was mine every way she could be, and I was hers.
That was all that mattered.
“It’s not time.”
“Ryan—”
“Chloe, baby, I know you don’t want to hear this, but Poppy gets to decide when it’s time.
You know she talks to Beck. He’s working on getting her to a place where she feels she can face us.
In the meantime you got one job—love her.
That’s it, just love her, and when she’s ready, she’ll know she never lost that love, and that will make it easier for her to come back. ”
“I know you’re right, but I hate it.”
“That’s because you love her.”
Chloe nodded and lifted her sad eyes to roam my face. She did this sometimes. Just looked at me, and I knew that she found what she needed when she’d smile and look away.
“You know I love you, right?” she asked.
“I’ve never doubted it. Now what’s really on your mind?”
“Mom bought tennis rackets.”
That was such a shift in topic I wasn’t following.
“Tennis rackets?”
“She loves her new condo. Loves playing tennis. Has a ton of friends in the complex.”
“Okay.”
“I hate it.”
I knew she did. She hid it from her mother, but the sale of her childhood home had hit her hard.
The night before the closing, I’d gone with her so she could walk around one last night.
We’d been there over two hours. She told story after story, giving me her childhood memories while reliving them so she could do what her mother had suggested—lock them close to her heart so they’d always be with her.
“And I’m telling you right now, when she calls because she has a broken nose, you’re taking her to the ER.”
“I’ll take your mom to the ER for you.”
“I know you will. I know because there isn’t anything you won’t do for me. I know because you love me that fucking much.”
I let that settle deep in my chest the way I did every time she told me she knew how much I loved her—a love I knew she returned.
“If you know, then are we done with this two-house shit and you’ll finally move in, instead of using your apartment as a storage unit while you sleep in our bed next to me every night?”
“We slept at my house three weeks ago.”
She wasn’t wrong. But that wasn’t by choice. Or at least not my choice.
“Chloe, can we be done with this two-house shit, please?”
I saw her lips twitch. “Fine. My lease is up this month.”
“Are you shitting me?” I growled.
“What? It was cheaper for me just to pay rent on the last four months than pay the fine to break the lease, and I knew if I told you, you’d pay it. I didn’t want you to pay it, so instead of arguing, I just paid my rent while living with you in your house.”
I was opening my mouth to tell her what I thought of that bullshit when she pressed her fingers against my lips.
“I know you’ll do anything for me. I know you paying to break my lease wouldn’t be a handout, but it would be an unnecessary expense.
And I know you wouldn’t have minded paying.
But I’ll remind you, you paid my insurance copay to fix my Mustang and I didn’t hand you any lip.
At least not the bad kind of lip.” Her lips curved up again, and I knew she was thinking about the blow job she’d given me to show her gratitude.
Something I’d readily accepted. “So here we are. My lease is up. I’m moving in with you.
I’m going to offer to pay rent. You’re going to lose your mind.
I’m going to give in. Then you’re going to let me pay part of the utilities and all the streaming services.
In exchange, I won’t bitch about you and Gavin buying groceries, though I’ll be chipping in with that when I go to the store. There, done. Worked out.”
“Can I say something now?” I asked from behind her fingers. She gave me a big, bright smile and dropped her hand. A smile I’d never seen her smile while we were anywhere near Leisure Village. “You forgot something?”
“What?”
“Tomorrow while you’re doing payroll, me and the guys are moving your shit. No arguing. No lip.”
She shrugged. “Fine by me. Moving sucks.”
“Good we worked that out. Now kiss me so we can visit with your dad before your mom gets here.”
She leaned deep over the center console but didn’t kiss me. “Do you know how much I love that you come and visit my dad with me?”
“Seeing as you tell me every time we come, and I remind you I like spending time with your dad, so I figure I get more out of it than you—yeah, I know.”
“And that’s why I love it. Because you like spending time with him.
Because you get parts of him. But mostly I love knowing, even if he doesn’t remember, I get to give the man who loves and protects his daughter to him.
I get to give him you, and I know if he was here, really here, he’d be grateful you love me the way you do.
He wouldn’t worry about me anymore because he’d know you’d never let anything touch me. ”
Good Christ.
“Chloe,” I whispered on a tortured breath.
“Love the fuck out of you, Ryan Strong.”
“Love the fuck out of you, Chloe Baughman.”
I hustled my woman out of my truck and took her inside so we could play a game of checkers with her dad.
“You’re a darn good strategist,” Hank told me from his side of the table while staring at the checkerboard.
Chloe was sitting next to me, with her hand on my thigh, and it was flexing over the material of my jeans. That was because Hank had said that same thing to me since our first game of checkers months ago.
“Appreciate it, Hank.”
His gaze came up, and like it always did when it landed on his wife and daughter, his eyes gentled. He might not remember who they were with his head, but there was no doubt he remembered with his heart.
“You did good, cupcake,” Hank said with a smile. “I approve.”
I felt Chloe go solid next to me. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Besides, any man who sits next to my girl and looks at her like she’s the very breath in his lungs is a man who knows the goodness he has, and because he does, he’ll have a care.
” Hank looked at his daughter, clear eyed and beaming.
“All I ever wanted for you, Chloe. A good man at your side who knows he’s struck gold. ”
Jesus.
His attention came back to me. “You take good care of my girl, Ryan.”
“You have my promise, Hank.”
I watched it fade until it extinguished. His gaze fell back to the board, and he asked, “What were you saying?”
I heard Chloe make a tortured sound that bubbled up from the place where the pain of losing her father to the horrific disease lived.
I covered her hand on my thigh with mine, thinking Hank Baughman’s mind did not remember but his soul did.
I glanced over at Chloe smiling at her dad with tears swimming in her eyes. She glanced at me, and I knew. I loved Chloe from the same place Hank loved his wife.
And that kind of love was eternal.