Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
Every house has a smell. It might be the spices a person cooks with, an air freshener, or maybe that tiny leak in the attic feeding the black mold hidden within the walls of the guest bathroom, but it’s there.
Over time, our brains tune out the common scents of our home so we can better identify when something new and potentially dangerous enters our environment. It’s called olfactory adaptation, or nose blindness. Unfortunately for me, my hyperosmia only amplifies this phenomenon any time there’s even a slight shift in my surroundings.
It’s why I know I’m alone in bed without having to open my eyes, and how I know Ryker’s already showered and that he’s cooking Nutella pancakes in the kitchen. It’s why I can immediately conjure up an image of the cardboard boxes full of my belongings stacked in the corner, and the bottle of chemical astringent Ryker must have used to clean something.
What I can’t smell is the gnawing feeling in my stomach as snippets of the argument with my dad and brother come flooding back to me with perfect clarity, or the nervous trembling in my limbs knowing this is my last full day with Ryker for who knows how many weeks…
I can’t smell the hole in my heart or the weight on my chest that makes me want to stay in bed all day, but even if I could, I refuse to let Dad or Noah take anything else from me. I’m leaving tomorrow with or without Noah’s apology or Dad’s permission.
Not wanting to waste any more time wallowing beneath my comforter, I rise from the bed, quickly tiptoeing my way across the creaky wooden floors into the kitchen.
My steps falter when I spot Ryker at the griddle. There’s a full pot of coffee on the counter next to him and every surface of the kitchen is once again spotless. There’s also a load of laundry tumbling around in the machine down the hall, an in-progress grocery list on the fridge, and my favorite pair of cowboy boots are propped up next to Ryker’s new tactical ones, looking like they’ve been recently shined.
Overwhelmed with gratitude, I rush to him, wrapping my arms around his middle from behind and kissing a spot on his shirt where a circular scar makes a small bump in the fabric.
“How am I ever going to outgrow the princess moniker if you keep treating me like one?” I ask, pressing my cheek against his warm pine-and-rain scented T-shirt.
My body jostles with his hardy laugh. “I don’t have a problem with you being a princess, as long as I’m the one doing the spoiling.”
Stepping out of my embrace, he reaches for the biggest mug in the pantry, giving me an eyeful of the deep-purple bruise on his cheek where Noah punched him as he pours me a cup.
“Your dad stopped by this morning,” he says, quietly assessing my face for a reaction. “I’ve never seen him that worked up before. Apparently, he spent all night trying to get the mayor to cancel the reopening of Divine Mercy. Did I miss something?”
I take a gulp of my coffee before telling him about Dad’s freak-out over the spray-painted crosses at Rib Cage yesterday, making sure to leave out the part where I told him I was going to UT and he forbade me from leaving.
Ryker’s face pales, his fingers lifting to trace the scars peeking out of my shirt near my collarbone. “I never put that together…”
My body stills. I’d thought Ryker would laugh off Dad’s reaction, but the look on his face is anything but skeptical. He almost looks…scared. Which immediately has my hackles rising.
“You don’t really think Kane’s using the cross on my back as the symbol for his new church, do you?”
Ryker blinks and shakes his head. “No, of course not. Have you seen the journal he carries around?”
I bite my lip and try to think. “Maybe? He might’ve had it the day Elanor and I ran into him after the fires, but that was so long ago, it’s hard to remember.”
Ryker’s lips thin. “Our mom got him a set of journals with a red cross etched into the cover long before you had that scar. That’s probably the symbol he modeled the one on his church after, but I’m tempted to confront the fucker about it when I see him today anyway.”
“You’re going to see your brother?”
“I have to,” Ryker says with a grimace, turning away to pour the last of the pancake batter onto the griddle. “Kane is a fucking liability. If I’m going to fight for guardianship of Charlie, then I have to make sure he’s on my side when he’s interviewed by the court. And like I started telling you last night, I’ll need him to trust me if I’m going to?—”
Ryker glances over his shoulder at me, pausing like he’s still struggling to explain the new plan he’s come up with.
“Do whatever it takes,” I say with a small, unconfident smile, echoing the same words I spoke last night. “The sooner you get guardianship of Charlie, the sooner we can all get away from this hellhole.” I place my hand on his shoulder as the other details of the flyer Kane posted at Rib Cage come back to me. “Does that mean you’ll be at the open house today? ”
“Unfortunately, it does.” He takes a deep breath, his broad back expanding beneath my palm. “I stopped by last night to bury the hatchet before coming here, and he asked if I could help set up and stand behind him when he makes the announcement about his new church. I think the fucker likes the optics of having a future cop in the family,” he says with an eye roll. “But all this bullshit will be worth it if Charlie is safe.”
After he figured out it was Kane who broke into my house and after basically accusing him of sabotaging the sale price of the ranch, I thought Ryker was finally done with his brother for good.
I frown and draw my lower lip between my teeth.
Ryker might not be able to verbalize the full extent of the plan he’s come up with, but the fact that he’s willing to make peace with Kane at all and is so clearly torn up about it tells me all I need to know: In order to stop Beau Blackthorne from getting custody of Charlie, he needs to convince Kane to press charges against their stepfather.
That seems like too much pressure for one man to bear alone, especially when Kane might not be ready to revisit his trauma, but at this point, what other choice does Ryker have but to try?
Still, something about this has me feeling on edge.
“Please be careful. I know Kane’s been through hell, but he’s the one who should be bending over backward to get on your good side. I just don’t trust the guy,” I say, changing my tone as Ryker’s mouth tugs into a deep frown and it dawns on me that I’m not making this any easier on him. “Want me to break his nose for you? I’m getting pretty good at the whole punching thing.” I ball my fist and wiggle my eyebrows.
“That’s a tempting offer.” Ryker turns and kisses my forehead, the shit-eating grin spreading over his lips my only warning before he smacks my butt and gives it a rough squeeze. “But no matter how much I’d love to see you knock Kane out cold, if I’m going to pacify my brother, then we can’t keep rubbing this in his face. Even if he does deserve it. ”
A stabbing sensation in my chest momentarily takes my breath away. He’s talking about his own brother…but he might as well have said the same thing for me and Noah.
Not wanting to go down that rabbit hole, I hop onto the counter, biting my lip and choosing my next words carefully. “Just to clarify…what are we not rubbing in Kane’s face?”
The low sizzle of the griddle in the otherwise quiet kitchen feels ten times louder when Ryker stiffens. “That you’re mine.”
My heart gives a stupid little flutter. “Which makes you…”
“Which makes me your goddamn boyfriend.” He flips a pancake, shaking his head as he grumbles to himself. “The only one you’ll ever have if I have anything to say about it.”
Giddy, I kick my feet. “Sounds good to me.”
I catch the tiniest hint of a smile on his side profile while he finishes stacking the last of the pancakes onto a plate. “It’s that simple, Princess?”
“ Mm-hmm .” I set my coffee aside and make a gimme motion with my hands. “Breakfast will definitely seal the deal, though.”
With a devilish grin, he scoops out a heaping dollop of Nutella onto the stack of fluffy pancakes and hands me the plate. “Do you have any deal-breakers or rules? Because I do.”
I almost crack a joke, but Ryker’s flat expression quickly makes me realize he’s serious. I’ve never thought about what boundaries I’d have in a relationship, but I can see the value in laying out clear expectations early. I’m just not sure where to begin. “Can you go first?”
“Sure. For starters, I don’t share well. I hate the idea of another man touching you for any reason. Ever .” His eyes darken as he says it, and even though my rational brain knows that level of possessiveness is probably a massive red flag, it feels like this is Ryker’s way of laying claim to me…which has the pulse between my legs throbbing.
I’ve been reading too many of Isabel’s books if the alpha male “ mine ” thing is suddenly a turn on. Even so, I can’t help but admit that it most definitely is .
“Okay, I can live with that. But I’d like that rule to go both ways. I don’t want you touching other girls or them touching you.”
“That won’t be an issue, but I’m glad you said it. Is there anything else? Anything you’re worried about that we can address now?”
I blink a few times, thrown slightly by this side of Ryker and even more surprised to find that I like it. He’s trying to take the guesswork out of things, which will hopefully keep my ever-active mind from dwelling over these issues later.
I take a chocolaty, delicious bite, using my chew time to think over my answer. “You’re going to be busy, and even though I know that, I’m going to overthink whether or not I’m bothering you by texting too much…”
My face scrunches up because that’s not really a rule, it’s more of a problem without a solution.
Ryker shakes his head. “You can’t text me too much. But since we’re not allowed to use our phones during training, I don’t want you to think I’m blowing you off when I’m slow to respond. What if I send you my schedule for the week ahead of time? That way you’ll know when I’m in class and won’t have my phone. I can also text when I’m back at the hotel?”
I hate how nice that sounds. But if I had that knowledge ahead of time, I think it’d help quiet the voice in my head when I don’t hear from him for a while and assume the worst—like I did when he was at the Cartwright Estate for three days.
“That won’t be an inconvenience for you?”
“Would it give you peace of mind so you can concentrate on school?” He takes one look at my face and nods, apparently seeing my answer without me needing to verbalize it. “Then it’s no trouble. It’s going to be hard enough doing the long-distance thing right off the bat. Anything I can do to make it easier on us is a no-brainer. I’m not willing to let anything fuck this up, Princess.”
He grabs a steaming mug off the counter and takes a long sip of his coffee before resurfacing. “That does bring me to my next rule, though. If and when a misunderstanding occurs, we have to promise to keep a cool head and hear the other person out. I can’t lose you the same way I lost…”
My gut twists when his head drops. “Of course. I can do that.”
“Thank you.” Jaw hardening, he glances down the hall toward Noah’s room, and a wave of guilt washes over me for the rift I caused between him and my brother.
“You guys will patch this up, even if he and I never do.”
Ryker shakes his head and sets down his coffee. “No. Noah did exactly what my last boss did. He wrote me off without giving me a chance to explain. If someone can do that, then they never really valued or respected you in the first place. Besides, I don’t like the way he handled the Cooper situation. Your battles are mine now, and that’s beyond fucked up. Shit , that reminds me.” He pulls out my bucket list from his back pocket, unfolding it before spreading it out on the counter.
He slides the pad of his pointer finger over number ten before returning to the top of the list.
“I took the liberty of crossing off a few more for you. The last one on the list is my responsibility, and I think we both know I more than took care of number nine.” He winks, and my stomach flip-flops with a flood of heat. “So that leaves number two. Did you get a chance to tell your dad about UT?”
And now the heat is gone…
“I did, and it didn’t go well. Honestly, after Noah’s fun visit this morning, I don’t want to talk about anything involving my family…” I run my foot up the inside seam of his pants. “Especially when there are much better ways for us to spend my last full day in Deadwood.”
Ryker’s answering grin does all sorts of things to my insides. “Easy now, Princess. Don’t start something we don’t have time to finish.”
“But I’m leaving tomorrow. Who knows when we’ll?—”
“That’s another thing I wanted to talk to you about,” he says, squeezing my thigh. “Can we meet up in Buffalo for your birthday? I’ll have a four-day weekend over Labor Day and it’s about halfway for the both of us. I’d offer to make the whole trip, but if Charlie is back with Beau by then, I don’t want to be too far away.”
“Halfway will be perfect. Oh, wait!” I hop off the counter and scurry to my room, returning a minute later with a sparkly pink parcel in tow. “I never gave you your birthday present.”
“You didn’t have to…” Ryker peels open the ridiculous glittery princess wrapping paper and looks up at me, utter confusion etched into his wrinkled brow.
“They’re two-way radios,” I explain with a hesitant smile, suddenly far less confident in the awesomeness of this present than I was when I bought it at an Army surplus store. “They’re for you and Charlie.” I point to the description on the packaging. “They connect to Wi-Fi, so you can send texts even when you’re out of town for training. And you also need a code to access them, so Beau won’t be able to see what you’re saying even if he finds them. They work like regular walkie talkies, too, with a range of up to ten miles for when you are in town.”
Ryker makes a choking noise. “God, I love you.” He grabs me by the neck, dragging me in for a rough kiss. “These are perfect. Thank you.”
Fisting his shirt to keep him from pulling away, I tug him down for another kiss, running my tongue along his lips until he deepens the kiss and we’re both breathless.
A buzzing sounds from the counter, and he reluctantly checks his phone. “Shit, I’ve gotta get to the estate to meet my brother. I’ll clean the griddle and do the dishes when I get back tonight.”
“I’ll do them.”
“Don’t you dare touch a fucking thing,” he warns, roughly palming my ass while nipping at my nose. “I know I said we shouldn’t rub our relationship in Kane’s face, but will I see you there?”
“I don’t think so.” However curious I am about the open house, I’m not ready to go back to Divine Mercy just yet. Even so, I can’t shake the tugging feeling of unease that ripples through me at the thought of Ryker going alone.
Especially considering what happened last time.
Ryker places my hand on his cheek and turns to kiss my wrist before heading for the door. I open my mouth to remind him to be careful, but he’s gone before I get the words out.