Chapter 16
Ronan parked his truck in the main parking lot of the shelter, then got out and walked around to the passenger side to open the door for Giada and the boys. He held her hand as she slid off the seat and to the ground, then picked up each boy and set them on their feet beside their mother.
“Thank you so much for such a great time,” Giada said.
Ronan smiled at her and nodded.
“Well, we’ll see you this week, then?” she said as she took a few steps away from him.
He looked around the parking lot and realized she was thinking she was leaving him in the parking lot. “Wait, you think I’m just going to leave you in the parking lot and drive away?”
“Well, we live just over there in the tiny houses,” she said.
“No. That’s not how it works. I don’t just drop you off and drive away. I make sure you get where you’re going.”
“You don’t have to,” Giada said.
“Yes. I do.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, and started walking up the sidewalk with Leo and Matteo right behind her.
Ronan brought up the rear, his keen eyes taking in everything as they moved toward the tiny home community on the shelter grounds. The closer they got to her tiny home, the more wrong it felt to him.
“Here we are!” she said, her voice happy and excited to be home, despite the sadness he picked up on from her. “Aren’t we happy to be home?” she asked, looking down at both boys.
“I guess,” Leo said.
“No,” Matteo said outright. “I want to go see Ruger and Lola. And I want to go back to Ronan’s house and play outside in the woods.”
“Maybe another day,” Giada said.
“Why not today?” Matteo said.
“Because it’s Sunday, and I have to get ready for work tomorrow,” Giada said.
“Why can’t you get ready at Ronan’s house?” Leo asked.
“Look, being with Ronan is lots of fun. And we’ll go see him again. But we have to make sure we do our best in our lives with our responsibilities, too. It’s part of taking care of ourselves and always being ready for tomorrow. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” Leo said defeatedly.
“No,” Matteo said defiantly.
Giada unlocked their front door and left it standing open. “You guys go ahead in and I’ll be in in a minute, okay?”
Both kids dragged their feet, their shoulders slumping as they stomped into the tiny home.
Giada took the few steps over to Ronan.
“You sure about this? There’s no reason you can’t just stay with me,” Ronan said.
“Of course, there is. One — I just met you a little more than a week ago. Two — I’ve got responsibilities here.
Three — you see how they’re already not happy to be coming back to our place.
What if something happens and our place, or one like it is the best we can do and they’re miserable?
It’s not fair to them to allow them to get used to a different way of life if there’s a chance that it won’t last.”
“Giada, the only way it won’t last is if you don’t want it to.
I’ve made it clear what I want. I’ve opened my life and everything about me to you.
You love being with me. They love being with me.
You even said you can’t sleep when you’re here because you stay awake listening to every little noise because you don’t feel safe.
You slept so good in my home. You were relaxed and felt safe and so were they.
You like it with me. I don’t understand why we can’t be together. ”
Giada looked down at her hands while he was speaking. When he stopped talking she continued looking down at her hands. “I need time.”
“For what?”
“I just, I need to make sure this is what I think it is. I need time to deal with my doubts. And… you can’t hold that against me.”
“I don’t. I’m just saying I can provide you with everything you and the boys need.”
“Okay, if you go to school, how are you going to afford a family?”
“I’ve worked construction with my family since I was a young teen. I plan to do that on the weekends and during vacations. I have some money put away, and the house is free. All I have to pay for is utilities.”
“You’re planning on building a new house. How?”
“The clan pays for it, because it’s on clan land. I pay it back over time.”
“And the land you just happened to purchase?”
“Emmalyn gifted it to me. I’m not in debt for it. Is that what you’re worried about? That I’m incurring so much debt it’ll be detrimental?”
She shook her head tiredly, not sure how she could make him understand without insulting him. “No, that’s not it. Anybody living in America today has debt. That isn’t what makes me hesitate.”
“Then what does?”
She sighed and looked off toward the trees of the park like area the tiny home community had been built in, before she looked back at him.
“Ronan, I love being with you. I don’t want to stop seeing you.
But I have so many things inside my head screaming at me to pay attention to them.
You have a family. That family takes care of their own.
That family is not afraid of anybody coming at them, because as I said, they protect their own.
That family provides for its members to the point that they can provide housing, and land, and all you have to do is continue to be a part of them, and pay them back over time. ”
He got it. It sounded like a dynasty. Like a crime family. “You know we’re not like your ex. We’re just good, honest people who have been fortunate enough to have strong familial bonds and make good decisions in business. We work hard and don’t throw our money away. We reinvest in ourselves.”
“I like your family. Everyone I’ve met so far is so nice, and selfless, even.
But you have to admit you all have a way about you of getting things done when no one else would have been able to.
There’s something about you that shouts confidence and assurance that I’ve only ever seen in the past I come from.
I’m not asking you to go away. But I need some time before I decide to make anything permanent.
I’m risking a lot, and I can’t just run into your arms blindly.
I have to take my time and work through my doubts. ”
“What if you’re not able to work through your doubts?”
“I don’t know.”
He nodded, then handed her the large bag of food they’d taken home from the steakhouse. “This is for you guys. There should be more than enough for the three of you. Give me a call if you think about it.” He turned and walked away.
“Ronan!” Giada called out.
He didn’t stop walking but he did glance over his shoulder, just barely catching her eye. “Go on in, now. Lock your door. Let me know when you want some company.”
Giada just stood there, her door opened behind her, fighting with herself over everything she’d pointed out to Ronan, and everything she really wanted with him. Every concern she had made sense. It was logical. But that didn’t mean her concerns added up to the same situation she’d run from.
“Where’s Ronan going?” Leo asked, coming to stand beside her as she watched Ronan go.
“He’s going home, baby. He’s got to get ready for school tomorrow, just like I have to get ready for work.”
“I wish we could spend the night with him again,” Matteo said, walking up on her other side.
Leo didn’t answer, but when she looked down at him, the expression on his face said more than she cared to know.
She’d allowed herself and her kids to get caught up in her dreams of something more with a very desirable young man.
And now they’d had a taste of what it would be like with a real man as a father, with a real family and other kids to play with and live near.
And now what she’d managed to scrape together would never be enough.
By giving in to her own desires, she’d unintentionally allowed them to see exactly what they should have had all along.
~~~
Ronan knocked on Daniel’s door. There was no answer, so he knocked again. “It’s Ronan!” he called out, just in case they didn’t want any particular visitors they’d know it was him and he wasn’t one to linger.
“Hey, boy,” a male’s voice called from behind him.
Ronan turned to find Kaid literally hanging out of his back door, one hand on the handle of the screen door, the other curved around the door jamb and just his upper body leaning out at an angle. “Hey. Looking for Daniel.”
“I see that. He’s in here. They all in here.”
Ronan just almost visibly recoiled at that. He closed his eyes and gave a quick shake of his head as he lifted a hand and scrubbed it down his face.
Kaid’s brow creased as he straightened up and stepped outside on the porch, allowing the back door and its screen door to close gently behind him. “You good?”
“No, I’m really not. I mean, I’m not bad, but I’m not good, and I really only wanted to talk to Daniel, because I just don’t want to talk to my dad.”
“So if he’s in here, you ain’t coming,” Kaid finished for him.
“Pretty much.”
“Why?”
“Because I tried to talk to him about something that’s important to me. Changes things, but doesn’t change the outcome, and he acted like I wanted to fight him. I needed him to hear me and all he did was argue with me. That’s not what I need at the moment, and honestly I have no patience for it.”
“Can any of the rest of us help you?”
“Yeah, more than likely all of you can. But I’m not presenting it as a clan issue because it’s not. It’s a Ronan issue.”
“Ronan, if it’s got you this bad, it is a clan issue. Anything that affects our kids and their families is a clan issue.”
“I’ll just wait until Daniel is alone and talk to him later,” Ronan said, turning toward his truck.
“I got this, Kaid,” Maverik said, coming from the front of Kaid’s house.
“Daddy, just go away,” Ronan said. “Please. I mean you no disrespect, but I’m not a damn child and I resent being treated as one. Havoc got more respect when he knocked up his side piece and I’m just not in the mood for it at the moment.”
“You’re right. You are absolutely right. I’m sorry I lost my shit on you. I just, I want so much for you, and I’m so damn proud of you, and I didn’t want you to step away from your schooling when you’re so close to having it all. I reacted emotionally, and I was wrong.”
“Ronan, you want a whole bunch of advice from one time badasses that now masquerade as grandpas, you come on in here after you finish with your dad.”
“Yes, sir,” Ronan said, still not quite having addressed his father.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Thanks for apologizing, I’ll see you later,” Ronan said, turning to the side to walk around Maverik and get in his truck.
“Ronan. I can’t help you if I don’t know.”
“You won’t help me anyway.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Is it Giada? She not having it?”
“No, it’s not. We’re finding our way.”
“Tell me what I can do for you, or for her,” Maverik said.
Ronan thought about what he’d planned to say to Daniel, and just shook his head as he looked off in the distance.
“Ronan, is your woman in danger, son?”
Ronan continued to look past his father for a few seconds until he finally turned his head just enough to focus on him. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Tell me what I can do?”
“Watch her. Make sure she and the boys are safe when I can’t be here.”
“Which is on school days,” he said.
“Exactly. I’ll take nights watching over them, but if I protect her during the day, too, I have to give up school. Which I’ll do in a heartbeat if there’s no option, I’m just looking for another option.”
“I got you. I got them.”
“So do we!” Kaid shouted.
Ronan and Maverik both looked over toward Kaid’s back door to find Bane, Daniel, and Bam all standing there with Kaid.
Ronan smiled and rested his hands on his hips as he huffed a laugh.
“Want to come in and tell us all what’s going on so we know what we’re up against?” Kaid asked.
“Yeah, alright,” Ronan said.
Maverik held out his hand for Ronan to slap, but when Ronan did so, Maverik held onto his hand and pulled him into a hug. “I love you. I’m sorry I’m an ass sometimes. It’s only because I care.”
“Love you, too,” Ronan said.
“Come on, tell us what’s up,” Maverik said as they walked together toward Kaid’s house.