Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
SAM
“I’m going to miss you so much,” I told Jay as I squeezed the life out of him. He was giving me an equally suffocating death grip.
“I know. I’m gonna miss you, too,” Jay replied. His eyes were shiny like mine probably were.
Ryker and I spent the last few days showing Jay and Ash around town. Honestly, there wasn’t much in Kither Springs, but we did show them the collection of springs the town was built near.
Of course, Jay and I carved out some time alone, mostly to catch up on each other’s lives. Even if we did chat almost every day, talking in person was a completely different vibe.
They joined me at Gramps’ for an early birthday dinner, and now we were outside sending them on their way to their next destination.
“Take care of him, okay?” I said to Ash, using my very stern voice.
Ash merely smiled and wrapped an arm around his husband.
“I will,” he said, and I knew Jay would be well taken care of.
“Tell your Uncle Jay and Uncle Ash bye ,” Lana said while waving Junior’s little hand. Junior giggled, which had Jay swooning and showering my nephew in hugs.
After one last hug, they got into their car and drove off. Gramps and Lana went back inside, while Ryker and I stayed on the lawn until I couldn’t see their car anymore.
“We can go visit them in Austin sometime,” Ryker said, wrapping an arm around me.
“You’d go with me?” I asked, completely caught off by his comment.
“Of course,” he replied, like it was the only natural answer. “I go where you go. As long as you’re happy.”
And there it was again. Him showing me the kind of man that I was really starting to fall for—or maybe I’d already fallen for.
With Ryker, he made the whole falling in love part so easy. The words of love were on the tip of my tongue, but before I could say anything, Ryker was pulling my hand.
“Come on. I have a birthday gift for you,” he said and guided me around the house to the shed in the back.
“Is that what you’ve secretly been working on for the past month?” I asked, smirking as I followed him to the back where the shed was. “Do I finally get to be let in on the secret?”
Ryker answered with only a smile and opened the door for me. The first thing that came into view was a wooden desk with a giant red bow tied around it.
“Is that…did you make this for me?” I said in awe as I ran up to the desk to examine it.
He nodded. “You’re always working on our tiny dining table, so I thought you’d like a workspace of your own.”
It was the same color as Gran’s rocking chair, so I assumed it was made of the same type of wood. The desk was a thing of beauty, a reddish brown, with some kind of luster coating the entire thing that shimmered rainbow in the sun.
Three drawers made up one side of the legs, and on each of the drawer faces was an intricate carving. The top drawer had sunflowers carved into it, and I wondered if that was because I’d told Ryker that yellow was my favorite color.
He’d made the stem of one flower flow down into the second drawer and turned it into a length of yarn, with a chubby cat loafing nearby, just staring at it. I laughed, since I could totally imagine Gray being intrigued by a toy instead of playing with it.
On the third and largest drawer face, there was a replica of the carving Gramps did for Gran of a daisy growing in weeds with a smiling sun in one corner. Except now, on the other corner, there was a smiling moon. And in between the sun and moon were three bright stars.
“I hope it’s not too cheesy, but Gramps told me about what his carving represented, and I wanted to include your entire family in that. Your mom, you, your sister, and Junior,” he said, pointing at the moon and each of the stars in order.
He was smiling brightly as he explained. When he turned to me, his smile fell, and he immediately pulled me into his arms. “I’m sorry, honey. Did I overstep? If you don’t like it, I can change it. Just don’t cry.”
I touched my cheeks to feel wetness. I hadn’t even known tears started falling. But there was no sadness inside me. Just a fierce happiness that almost hurt from how much of it I was feeling.
This man. This kind, so fucking thoughtful of a man…
I wiped my tears and sternly said to him, “Don’t you dare, Ryker West. You can’t just make me the most thoughtful gift I’ve ever received and then try to take it back.”
“I’m not taking it back, just?—”
“Hush,” I interrupted. “It’s mine now, and it’s perfect. Thank you, Ryker. I love it, and…I love you.”
“You…do?”
His look of shock had me laughing out loud. I cupped his cheek, scooted closer to him, and said, “How could I not when every single one of your actions is set to make me fall for you?”
“I love you, too,” Ryker said, voice rough and full of emotion. He gave me round eyes, eerily similar to the ones Gray did when he wanted something.
I laughed and kissed the man who filled my heart fuller than I knew possible.
“How did you like your gift?” Lana asked when we returned to the house. She had Junior on her hip, bouncing him as he tried to reach for her hair. Gramps had gone off to use the bathroom.
“So, you knew what they were up to in there this entire time? What happened to no secrets between us, liar, liar pants on fire?” I accused and stole my nephew from her. Liars didn’t get the privilege of holding such a cute baby.
Lana rolled her eyes but still handed me Junior. She ran her finger through my birthday cake, then dotted the frosting on my nose. “You’re supposed to be a year older, yet you’re still so childish.”
I gently shook her off me, glaring at her as she wiped her finger with a smug smile. I turned to Ryker with a pitiful expression, and he had a look of indulgence as he wiped the cream off with his thumb and then licked it clean.
Looking away, I reminded myself to tell Ryker to stop flirting with me and working me up when we were around my family. Though that might be a tall order because everything he did might as well be foreplay to me.
Junior babbled and giggled again, then he waved his arm out in front of him and made a sound that vaguely sounded like “Ma”.
The entire room went silent as three pairs of eyes stared at the oblivious baby in my arms.
“Did he just…” I said, gobsmacked.
“I think he did…” Ryker answered.
Lana squealed, which had Gramps rushing into the room, asking, “What? What’s wrong?”
“Junior just said his first word! He said Ma !” Lana gushed, taking Junior and lifting him into the air. My nephew giggled like it was the best thing in the world.
Gramps laughed a full-bellied laugh. “As expected of my great-grandson! He’s a genius, I tell ya!”
He crowded around the baby too, and they both tried to get Junior to speak again, but Junior just continued giggling.
“No, no, no. Junior’s still too young to speak, see? That wasn’t his first word,” I insisted.
Lana shot me a look of disdain. “Give it up, birthday boy. His first word isn’t going to be ‘ unckie ’ no matter how much you try,” she said triumphantly, with her nose pointed into the air.
I gasped and turned to Ryker. He was the only one I’d told about my nefarious plan, but he quickly shook his head to indicate that he hadn’t spilled the beans.
“You’re a hundred birthdays too early if you think you can hide anything from me,” she said with a laugh evil enough to rival every movie villain—ever.
She handed Junior to Gramps, who was still cooing and singing the baby’s praises, then rested her hand on her hip and looked at me with an expression that clearly said, ‘ what are you gonna do about it ?’
I growled—legit growled—then strode over to give her the tickling of a lifetime. She squirmed, being particularly weak against this form of attack, and tried to dart out of my reach. She even dared to use my giant of a partner as a barrier.
Ryker was frozen stiff as we ran a few circles around him. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gramps shake his head as he cooed to Junior, “Those two are more childish than you, aren’t they, my genius boy?”
While glancing Gramps’ way, my feet fumbled, and I felt myself falling. Thankfully, Ryker caught me before I could face-plant.
“That’s what you get,” Lana said, always needing to get the last word in.
Ryker set me back on my feet, and I turned to retort back at Lana, but before I could, the doorbell rang.
“Are we expecting anyone?” I asked, and the other three shook their heads.
“Maybe Jay and Ash forgot something and came back to get it?” Lana suggested.
It’d been a while since they left, and I hadn’t gotten any messages from them, so I thought it was unlikely.
“I’ll go check,” I said and headed to the front door. Ryker was right on my heels, and he swooped my hand into his large paw on the short walk there.
“Can’t bear the short time apart, huh?” I teased, which was only met with a soft grunt.
Smiling, I opened the door and my face immediately fell when I saw who’d come a-knockin’.
I glanced over my shoulder to make sure the other two hadn’t followed, dragged Ryker out of the house with me, and shut the door.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Cade?” I growled.
I immediately felt Ryker’s hand tense in mine as he reacted to my anger. Of all the people I least wanted to see on my birthday, my sister’s ex-boyfriend was high on the list.
“Happy to see you again, Sam,” Cade started.
“That makes one of us,” I snapped back. “What the hell do you want?”
“I just want to talk to Lana. She hasn’t replied to any of my texts or answered any of my calls,” he replied.
I snorted. “And you thought the best idea after her ignoring you was to show up here? Leave. You’re not welcome here.”
I didn’t want to waste any more of my energy and turned to head back inside the house, but Cade grabbed my arm to stop me.
“Do not touch him!” Ryker hissed as he slapped the hand off me.
Fuck, angry Ryker was sexy. If I didn’t have this asshole to shoo off, I would have dragged Ryker to a dark corner and kissed the life out of him.
“This doesn’t concern you. Who the hell are you, anyway?” Cade questioned Ryker with a cautious glance up and down his body.
While Cade was tall, Ryker was taller and bulkier. Cade should be on guard, not just from Ryker, but from me as well, because after that fucker just up and left Lana like that, I wasn’t in a very forgiving mood.
Before I could kick this bastard off our property, the door opened again, Lana’s voice sounding before she appeared, “Where are your manners, Sam? Why are you keeping our guest out?—”
Her teasing tone turned stony when she saw Cade.
“Go back inside, Lana. I’ll deal with him,” I said and tried to use my body to shield her from him.
“Lana, baby. I missed you,” Cade said. There was a hint of desperation in his voice I didn’t like.
Desperate people did desperate things, and I was not about to put my family at risk.
I tried shuffling Lana back into the house, but Cade’s pleading voice continued, making her pause, “Baby, please. I messed up. You know we belong together.”
Lana was stiff, and I wondered if she was feeling nostalgic. Before she got pregnant, she’d been happy with him. She told me he treated her well enough, and then as soon as she told him she was pregnant, he bounced.
It gave me chills knowing happiness could evaporate so quickly. How could someone just leave someone they claimed to love in a pinch like that?
“We can be together again. Leave with me. You and me can leave town and start over somewhere new,” Cade pleaded, his eyes frantic as they searched Lana’s expression.
“And where does our child fit in this little delusion of yours?” Lana said, her voice cold and glare deadly.
Cade seemed surprised by the question, which was ridiculous, considering Junior was biologically his. But it seemed he was planning to live up to his name as a deadbeat dad.
“Can’t you leave him here with your gramps? He raised you and your brother. I’m sure he can handle raising another.”
I couldn’t have held back the snort even if I’d wanted to. As I thought, trash deserved to be left at the curb.
Lana seemed to be on the same wavelength as me as she scowled and crossed her arms. “We’re done. Get out of my sight and don’t come back.”
With that sentence, she turned and entered the house without a second glance. I’d never seen Lana look cooler than at that moment.
“Baby, wait?—”
Cade reached out to grab her, but Ryker and I blocked his path.
“She said to leave.” Ryker’s voice was a degree deeper and definitely carried a threatening tone. I could take care of someone like Cade myself, but I wasn’t opposed to seeing Ryker get all protective like this.
“Are you her new boy-toy? Are you the reason she refuses to make up with me?” Cade accused.
He looked up at Ryker, hesitant, but didn’t back down despite Ryker giving him the stare down.
“Nope, I belong to this Monroe,” Ryker simply stated and nudged toward my direction while keeping his eyes hawk-focused on Cade.
“Aw, honey. That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me,” I said, and some of my anger at seeing this very unwelcome guest melted as I soaked up my partner’s words.
I was definitely a possessive person, and I absolutely loved hearing Ryker proclaim himself as mine.