12. Ryder
RYDER
I stood on my parents’ doorstep, delaying the inevitable for as long as possible.
But it was no use. They would know by now that I was here.
The sensors at the front gate would have alerted them to my presence.
And as much as I wanted to turn tail and run, I would have to see them again at some point.
I knocked on the door, then stood back and waited three point five seconds for my mother to swing the door open with a wide grin on her face.
“Ryder.” She pulled me into a hug, making it last longer than it had the first time. “I can’t believe you’re really home.”
She finally stepped back, her hands still braced on my arms like she thought I was going to run away. “Well, come in and tell me how you’ve been.”
I kicked my boots off in the doorway like always, hanging my baseball cap on the coat rack. Dad walked past just as I did so, and huffed at the sight of it.
It was just a fucking baseball hat. Not a signal of where I was going in life. Not that it mattered to him.
“Finally decided to come around, huh?” he muttered to himself.
“I’ve been taking a few days to settle in.”
“More like a couple of weeks.”
“Jack, just be glad he’s home.” She took my arm and guided me into the house, down the hall, into the family room.
Deer heads hung on the walls and hunting rifles decorated the space over the mantle.
At one time in my life, I had enjoyed hunting with my father, but then he always had to ruin it by yelling at me for how I was holding the rifle, or if I missed a buck.
There was never any pleasing him, and eventually, I just stopped trying.
“So, tell us how you’ve been,” Mom said, sitting across from me.
“Not too bad.”
“Word around town is that you got fired,” Dad snapped.
I gritted my teeth, holding back my anger for my mom’s sake. It wasn’t her fault that all I did was disappoint my father.
“So, how long are you staying?”
“I’m not sure. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do.”
“Well, you have that fancy law degree. I’d assume you’re going to run off and use it somewhere else,” Dad muttered.
“I might try to set up a law office in town.”
Dad laughed at that. “Because people out here need lawyers so much?”
“There are other cities close by.”
“And…what about that girlfriend of yours. Barbie?”
“Bianca,” I bit out.
“Is she still around?”
“Jack!” Mom hissed, but it was too late.
Dad was grinning, feeling like he had finally put me in my place. I wasn’t sure the rift between us would ever get better, and I was fucking tired of trying.
“No, she’s not still around.”
“Lost her, too, huh?”
“I’m not going into the personal details of my life with you.”
“Why not? Don’t want your parents to know what you’re up to?”
“I just don’t want you to have one more thing to criticize me for,” I snapped, losing my cool with every second that passed.
He barked out a laugh in that sarcastic way he did. “Just like when you were a kid and didn’t want to tell me why you got into trouble at school. Or on the ranch when you didn’t do your chores, and lied through your teeth about it.”
“I was a kid.”
“And nothing’s changed.”
A storm of rage was swirling in my gut, and the longer I stayed, the worse it got. What the hell was I thinking, coming home? I should have stayed in New York. With or without a job, it probably would have been better than coming home to this crap.
Why I expected him to change, I didn’t really know. The old man had always felt the need to pick on me for everything. Hell, I couldn’t remember a time in my life when he was actually proud of me. He didn’t even come to my college graduation. There was too much work on the farm to do.
And I could see now that nothing was going to change him.
“Is there anything you like about me?”
“Ryder, your father loves you!” my mother gasped.
But I didn’t look away from the man’s cold eyes. I wasn’t sure why he couldn’t just be happy for me. Why couldn’t he just tell me he was proud or ask if I needed anything?
“You ran away when things got tough, and now you’re running away again,” he said, leaning forward.
“I ran away from you and this ranch to go to college,” I said slowly. “I came home because I wanted a change of pace.”
“You wanted to leave your troubles behind!”
I laughed at the hilarity of it all. “You’re pissed when I leave, and now you’re pissed I came home. I can’t please you. I never could!”
I shoved out of my seat and headed for the door. This was a mistake. Everything about coming home was turning out to be even worse than staying in New York.
“That’s right! Run away!” my dad shouted as I stormed out of the house.
“Ryder!” my mother called after me. “Ryder, stop!”
As angry as I was, I never could deny my mother anything. And when she told me to stop, I damn well stopped. Reining in my anger, I turned around and faced the woman who was always on my side.
“Don’t leave.”
“Mom, I need to get away.”
“I mean, don’t leave again,” she whispered, her chin quivering as tears shimmered in her eyes. “I know you want to go back to New York, and I have no right to ask you to stay, but—”
“Mom,” I sighed, glancing off in the distance. “I’m not going anywhere. Not yet. I just can’t sit in that house and listen to his bullshit.”
“It’s not his fault,” she whispered.
Yeah, I had heard all this before. “You can’t keep making excuses for him, Mom.”
“You don’t know what it was like for him.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I snapped, already losing my temper. “What he went through is not an excuse for him to treat me like shit.”
“You—” She choked on a gasp. “You just look so much like him.”
I knew that. And fuck, I really hated that.
“How much longer do you want me to pretend that anything I do will ever be good enough for him? When is he going to look at me and see the person I am instead of some ghost?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly.
My gaze dropped to the ground as I struggled to say the one thing I had wanted to say to her since I was a kid. But it was past time for my father’s anger to drive all my decisions in life. If I wanted to move on, I had to stop letting my mother’s feelings get the better of me.
“I’m your son.”
“I know—”
“At some point, you have to stop protecting him and think of me.” I finally looked her in the eyes.
I needed her to know that I was done with all this.
“I took it as a kid. I put up with the way you always protected him, but I can’t do that anymore.
You can’t keep excusing the way he treats me.
He’s your husband, but I’m your son. Your flesh and blood.
I don’t need you to baby me and I don’t need you to protect me.
But I need you to be on my side. I need you to stop telling yourself that he’ll change or that he’s been through so much.
Eventually, those are just lies you tell yourself to excuse the fact that you never stood up for me when I was a kid.
So make a decision. Because I’m never coming back here again. ”
“Ryder,” she gasped, tears slipping down her cheeks.
“I love you.” I wrapped her in my arms and held her tight, knowing this might be the last time I saw her.
Was it right? No, but I had to stop putting my mother’s feelings ahead of my own. I had to quit pretending that she was ever really on my side. My dad had always and would always be her number one priority.
Sticking around and hoping that would change would be the biggest mistake of my life.
I shoved the last of my things in my bag, not caring that I was wrinkling my clothes. In the past, that would have been a real concern of mine, but tonight?
Tonight, I just wanted to leave. I had to get out of here. It was foolish of me to think that coming home would somehow make things better. I headed into the bathroom and grabbed all my toiletries, shoving them into my small black bag, but the moment I caught my reflection in the mirror, I stopped.
Brown eyes stared back at me, telling me to stop running. If there was one thing my old man was right about, it was that I ran away from my problems. Maybe I should have stuck around New York and dealt with the fallout. Maybe I should have tried to make things work with Bianca.
In the end, I was here, and I was about to leave again.
Tossing my shit on the bed, I grabbed my keys and walked out of the rental on the Parker property. I was in no state of mind to make any decisions right now. The best thing I could do was get out of the house and have a drink or two.
I was only about halfway to my truck when Jeff pulled up, honking his horn at me a little too cheerily.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
“The bar.”
“The Beaver? Hey, what about a little gambling?” he grinned. “Up for a little fun?”
“Not tonight,” I said, yanking my door open and sliding inside.
I cranked the engine on the car and shifted into reverse, just about to hit the gas when the passenger side door flew open and Jeff got in.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Getting a ride. I thought that much was obvious.”
“You just drove here in a truck.”
“Right,” he nodded. “But I’m going the same way as you. It would look weird if I followed you into town and then into the bar.”
“It would look even weirder if you walked in like you were my date.”
He burst out laughing, “That’s a good one, but I’m pretty sure everyone in town knows I’m definitely not gay.”
“And how do they know that?”
“Well, because of my prowess with the ladies.”
“You don’t have any ladies,” I pointed out.
“Not currently. That’s why I’m going to the bar. To pick up the ladies.”
Not once in all the time I had been back had I heard anything about Jeff running around with a gaggle of women on his arm.
And this town didn’t stop talking for anything.
Hell, my name was brought up when I was in the diner the other day, and I was only one booth over.
That didn’t stop the old biddies from gossiping about me.
“Look, I’m kind of on my own tonight.”
“Right,” he nodded. “Flying solo. Don’t worry. I won’t try to snatch any ladies from you.”
Rolling my eyes, I hit the gas and backed out of the drive, then headed into town, all the while Jeff rambled on about his plans for the night.
“And then, when I have her right where I want her, I’ll make my move.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Dude, have you been listening at all?”
I hadn’t.
“Delilah. Dude, haven’t you been listening to a word I said?”
“Isn’t she with Remi?”
He snorted at that. “Remi couldn’t get her if he was the last man on earth.”
“I don’t know. That day she kissed me—”
“Whoa,” he chuckled. “She kissed you?”
“Only to get a reaction out of Remi.”
“I think you must be mistaken because Delilah is most definitely into me. I took her home the other night, and she squeezed my hand before she got out of my truck.”
I glanced over at me, sure I had heard him wrong. “She squeezed your hand.”
“Yep, like this.” He took my hand and lightly squeezed it. “See? That definitely means something.”
“Um…I guess?”
“What, you don’t believe me? Cuz, trust me, there was more meaning to that single squeeze than if she had tongue-fucked me.”
“I think you might be reading too much into that.”
“Not at all. See, she was at the diner for dinner, and her car wouldn’t start, so I drove her home. She was in tears, and I was there, rescuing her from the situation she was in.”
“Why was she in tears?”
“Well, clearly, she was upset that her car wouldn’t start.”
That didn’t sound right at all. “She has a brother who’s perfectly capable of fixing her car. Doesn’t that seem like a bit of an overreaction?”
“In what way?”
“In the way that I don’t see her crying over a car,” I said slowly. “Wouldn’t it make more sense that she was crying over something else?”
“Like what?”
Frustrated, I shook my head. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there! I didn’t see what happened.”
“Well, I was there, and the only thing that was the least bit significant was that Remi walked into the diner with Caroline and—”
“Caroline?”
“Yeah, Caroline Porter. She’s a nurse now,” he grinned. “Fucking sexy in scrubs.”
This guy was giving me a headache. Was there anyone he didn’t want to fuck?
“Anyway, she walked in with Remi, and then they were practically having sex in the booth. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. Everyone in town was talking about it.”
“Believe it or not, what everyone else in town does is not something I care about.”
He cocked a grin at me, lounging against the door. “I bet I can prove you wrong about that.”
“Sure.”
“No, I’m serious. I bet I can tell you something right now that will not only interest you, but make you drive even faster to get to The Beaver.”
“Highly unlikely.”
“Even if I told you that a certain lady is going to meet a date there tonight?” he asked, grinning at me.
I knew immediately who he was talking about, but I didn’t take the bait. It didn’t matter if Ellie was at the bar. She could meet whoever she wanted there.
“Good for her.”
“Really?” he asked, surprised by my answer.
It surprised the hell out of me, too, especially after seeing her in those skimpy running shorts. I’d been hard from the moment I dropped her off and watched her run up to her house and lock herself inside.
Not that I would ever admit that to anyone.
Ellie fucking hated me, and there was no way on God’s green earth that she would ever look at me as anything other than the shithead who tormented her as a kid. Besides, it was just an attraction. I wasn’t actually interested in Ellie.
“Wait, so what’s all this back and forth between the two of you?”
“Not sure what you’re talking about.”
He chuckled, staring at me, waiting for me to admit it. “Oh, come on! Everyone can see it. You flirt with her!”
“When?” I asked, looking over at him as I pulled into The Beaver’s parking lot.
“That first night in the bar. Everyone said you two were flirting. You even walked out together.”
“Because we were both going to our cars, and I wasn’t flirting with her. See, Jeff, some people have conversations with no intentions other than to have a conversation.”
“Hmm, that doesn’t sound right.”
“Get over it, Jeff. It was just a conversation,” I said, getting out of the car.
“Yeah? That’s what they all say!” he shouted. “And then someone ends up in a dark alley with their panties around their ankles!”