She’d heard the story when she was finishing junior high. It was one of the biggest news stories in town at the time. It was pure prime-time scandal. It had even been covered by Dateline-type shows, reenacting it. “That’s you?”
He nodded. “Yes. That’s us.”
He’d lost so much. So incredibly much. A father. A mother. A normal childhood. Everything. Her need for self-protection took a backseat to compassion, and she tried once more. She wrapped her arms around him, and hugged him. “I am so sorry for what happened to your family, Ryan. I’m sorry for what happened to your dad, and to your mom, and to you and your brothers and your sister,” she said softly. He said nothing, but he let her hold him, even leaning into her. He sighed softly, and that sound, that vulnerable sound from this strong, sometimes standoffish man infiltrated her heart and soul. Somehow, in that brief exhalation, she felt him inching toward her.
Not physically. But emotionally. She wanted to be the one for him. She ran her hands through his hair, wishing she could erase the tragedy.
John’s footsteps echoed across the hardwood, breaking the moment. He cleared his throat. “Sophie,” he said, and she separated from Ryan. “Is everything okay?”
She nodded. “It’s fine.”
“Do you want me to stay?”
She shrugged. She didn’t know what she wanted anymore. Everything that had felt so certain before John knocked on her door had been uprooted in seconds. “No. Yes. I don’t know,” she said helplessly.
He pointed his thumb at the door. “I’m going to go wait in the hall. Give you some privacy, but I’ll be nearby if you need me.”
After he left, Sophie looked at the man she’d been falling for. He had the same brown hair, the same blue eyes, the same strong build as an hour ago, but he wasn’t the same because she didn’t know how to see him the same way. “I feel like I barely know you. I don’t even know where you live.”
In a monotone, he said his address.
But it didn’t change anything. Knowing the numbers and the street name didn’t give her any greater insight.
Confusion reigned this Friday night. Maybe she was overreacting to this news. Or maybe she was under-reacting. She didn’t know what to make of this revelation. Was she supposed to be hurt? Or outraged? Feel sympathetic? Care for him?
She had no notion of what to do next.
This new wrinkle was so strange, and her chest was knotted up, her head fuzzy. “I like you, Ryan. I like you so much, and I am falling for you. And I understand it’s not easy to say what happened to your family. I get that, and I wish I could take away the horrors of what you’ve gone though. But aside from that, when I analyze what’s happening with you and me, the reality is this—I’ve been completely open. I told you at the diner about my marriage. I didn’t wait for you to uncover it. I put it all on the table. I told you about my parents, and my brother, and myself. I can’t help but wonder what else you didn’t share, or didn’t say, or didn’t want to deal with when I’ve tried to be forthright with you.”
“Look, Sophie. I don’t tell anyone. I don’t get close enough to tell anyone. But I knew I needed to tell you, and it’s not the kind of thing I wanted to tell you on the phone, so I was planning to tell you tonight. I was starting to at the table.” He waved his hand in the direction of the dining room.
Maybe he had been planning on opening up. But she had no way of knowing if he was being truthful now. She tried a new tactic. “Why was the case reopened?”
“I don’t know. He won’t tell me. I think he thinks there were others involved.”
His words sent her back to the night she left for the gala, and her conversation with John beforehand.
“Talked to some guy today who I’m sure knows something, but he won’t let on what it is.”
“What do you think he knows?”
“Something that would help me find the other guys I think were involved.”
John was her brother, her flesh and blood. He was the man who’d supported her and helped her build her business, who would take a bullet for her. He had a reason to suspect Ryan was hiding something, and she’d be a foolish woman to wave this off and carry on as if nothing had changed.
“I need you to believe me. I wanted to tell you,” he added, and she desperately wanted to trust in his words.
But she’d relied on her instincts before, in her marriage with Holden, and those instincts had been wrong.
Maybe she needed to use her head more. Not her heart. Not her body. “I don’t really know what to think. I want to believe you, but I need to sort this out. I’ve been letting my heart lead instead of my head, and my heart feels pretty foolish and stupid right now.” She walked over to the dining room table, picked up the peach pie, returned to her kitchen, and covered it in tinfoil. Then she handed it to him.
He shook his head. “I can’t take the pie.”
“I need you to. I made it for you. I need some space to think, and I can’t do it if I’m surrounded by this fruit I wanted to give you.”
She showed him to the door.
Chapter Twenty-Three
His grandmother dug her fork into the pie on her plate. She rolled her eyes in pleasure. Moonlight shone through the kitchen window in her home. The clock next to the refrigerator ticked near ten.
“Let me tell you something. You don’t give up a woman who cooks like this.”
“Yeah? That’s the bottom line, Nana? How she cooks?” he asked, and grabbed a fork from a utensil drawer and stole a bite from his grandma’s plate.
She smacked his hand then eyed the pie tin. “Serve your own, young man. This is all mine.”
“That’s all I wanted. One bite,” he said, thinking the sentiment might be apropos for Sophie, too. Maybe all he’d take of her would be the one bite he’d had. Then he’d walk away. It was better like that, wasn’t it? Leave before your heart gets mangled. Enjoy it while it lasts, like this dessert. This absolutely scrumptious, amazing, incredible dessert.
His grandma scooped another forkful then answered his question. “When she bakes like this, yes. You don’t give her up. This pie is divine.”
Funny, Ryan had used that same word to describe Sophie.
Divine.
As well as exquisite. Not to mention delicious.
Sophie was peach pie.
He wanted the whole damn pie.
He wanted all of Sophie.
But what was the point? Tonight’s argument was further proof that intimacy was too dangerous. He had to protect the secrets he’d locked up. When secrets were cracked wide open, you were left far too vulnerable. And when you were vulnerable you could wind up dead in your own driveway.
“Yeah, it is, but…” he said, letting his voice trail off.
“You like her,” his grandma said.
He shrugged. “What does it matter?”
She set her fork down and parked her hands on the counter. “It matters because this is all we have,” she said, tapping her chest.
“It’s not like that.” He tried valiantly to deny that there was anything more to the empty ache he felt right now than missing great sex. “We were just having a good time. Honestly, there’s nothing more to it.”
She screwed up the corner of her mouth. “If it was just a good time, then why are you here?”
“I wanted to bring you the pie.”
“You could have eaten it yourself.”
“Nah, I can’t finish that,” he said.
“Sure you could. You’re a sturdy man. You can handle a peach pie.”
He patted his flat stomach. “Gotta watch my boyish figure.”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You’re not fooling me.”
He held out his hands wide as if to say he was an open book, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth.