Chapter 9

Chapter

Nine

Ryan pulled up to the house and killed the engine. Amaya was already unbuckled and halfway out the door before he had a chance to say anything. He stepped out and grabbed her overnight bag from the back seat, then walked it up to the front porch of his in-laws' home.

Laura opened the door, her face lighting up the way it always did when she saw Amaya. "There's my girl!" She pushed the screen door to the side, and Amaya bolted into her arms.

Ryan waited for them to move past the threshold, then set the bag on the tile floor just inside the entry. "Thanks for watching her, Laura."

"Of course. We love having her here. I just finished up some banana bread and Russ is home from the garden centre, so we have plenty of time to devote to this precious one." She pressed a kiss to Amaya's head.

Russ joined them from the back porch, wiping his hands on a cloth. "Ryan, good to see you."

"You too, Russ." Ryan extended a hand, and Russ gave it a firm shake.

Laura smiled. "Do you want some bread?"

Ryan shook his head. "I appreciate it, but I should get going. "

Laura's eyes brightened. "Any fun plans?"

He shoved a hand in his pocket. "I'm picking up some friends from the team. Going out for a bit."

Russ gave him a pat on the back. "Don't get home before midnight." He turned to Amaya. "Ready to help me with the garden? The tomatoes are getting big."

Amaya's eyes lit up. "Can we pick some?"

Russ chuckled. "Not quite yet, but I'll show you how to prune the vines."

Ryan gave Amaya a hug, then went back out to the car and drove down the winding country road with the window down. The air smelled of fresh hay.

He turned off onto a gravel road, and Country's ranch came into view. He turned into the driveway of the first house on the road with Country's truck out in front of the garage. He walked up the steps and found Jenna already opening the door for him.

"Glad you could make it," Country called out from the kitchen. He leaned out and waved. In a flannel shirt and jeans, he looked every bit the cowboy he was, complete with a ten-gallon hat. Jenna, on the other hand, looked like she'd stepped out of a magazine, her blond hair pulled back in a loose bun and a strappy dress flowing around her legs.

Ryan gave Jenna a quick hug.

She grinned. "You ready to get your dance on?"

"Yeah, I'm not dancing."

She rolled her eyes. "Country, he says he's not dancing!"

"He's dancing!" Country yelled back, then walked into the front room. "You know she only agreed to come because you and Polk were going to be there, right?"

Ryan smirked. "And here I thought it was because she loved you sloppy drunk."

Jenna snorted. "Mmm. Yes. Give me more groping please."

Country scoffed. "Maybe I'm playing hard to get tonight."

"You'll definitely be playing hard." Jenna gave him a look, then seemed to remember Ryan was still standing there .

Ryan chuckled, but the sight of them together hit him in the gut. He'd accepted that his marriage and the relationship he'd had with Kara died the night she collapsed on the living room floor, but sometimes a kernel of grief popped out of nowhere. He cleared his throat. "Wedding plans coming along?"

Jenna twisted the ring on her finger. "Not much to plan since Polk has taken over."

Ryan raised an eyebrow. "He's planning things?"

Country slung an arm over Jenna's shoulder. "I asked him to take over building a dance floor, and that's extended into patio lighting, a new arbour, seating, and menu planning. He says they all contribute to the ambiance, and the floor won't work unless they're right."

Ryan laughed. "He realizes he only has a month, right?"

"August twentieth. The shotgun wedding we always dreamed about." Country grabbed his keys off the coffee table, and Jenna snatched them from his hand.

"If I'm the DD, I get to drive both ways. So you have to endure me driving your truck sober." She grinned.

Country ground his teeth, and Jenna's smile grew wider.

Ryan followed them down the steps, his mind drifting back to his wedding. Or lack thereof. He'd been the one pushing to elope, and Kara had been only too happy to go along with it. Would he have done it differently if he'd known they'd only get eleven years?

Polk appeared through the back gate just as Jenna opened the truck doors.

"Ryan." Polk tipped his hat, and Ryan saluted him. They all piled into the truck, Ryan and Polk taking the backseat.

"Careful back there. Polk's in a dry spell." Country waggled an eyebrow.

Polk leaned back. "That's all changing tonight."

Jenna rolled her eyes. "You know we're going to Dusty Rose, right?"

The conversation shifted to replacing the shingles on the barn and the accidental double booking in the VRBO in the back. Ryan learned they were almost done with retrofitting the second silo, and they already had a month-long stay booked in September.

He was happy to sit back and listen since the only thing interesting to talk about in his life left him feeling unsettled. In just under two weeks, he'd locked a woman out of her house, done voluntary electrical work at her house, and hired her to be his nanny for the summer. He'd seen Aelin Tomlison more than anyone else in his life and had an email from her in his inbox.

The offer at the choir concert earlier that week had been unexpected but a massive relief. Aelin had looked like she might be sick at Amaya's bold declaration at the trampoline place, so it hadn't occurred to him that she'd been considering it. He couldn't decide if she was hard to read or if he was rusty after living as a bachelor for the past three years. If Polk was having a dry spell, he was living in a desert.

Jenna parked the truck, and they walked into the Dusty Rose, the scent of stale beer and wood smoke hitting him like a pressure wave. The place was already packed. Country music pulsed through the air, and the bass reached through his chest and buzzed along his spine.

"There they are." Country nodded toward a set of round tables near the edge of the dance floor where André, Boyd, Sean, and Kelty already settled in.

"About damn time." Boyd grinned, his hockey mullet swaying as he leaned back in his chair.

"It's seven thirty, bud." Country clapped him on the shoulder. "Has your bedtime moved up to ten o'clock?"

"Only if she's setting it." Boyd pointed to a pretty blond in Daisy Dukes.

"Show her your flipper. That'll seal the deal." Kelty winked, and Boyd flipped out his front right tooth, giving a goofy smile.

Rhonda and Anne walked over from the bar, setting their beers next to Jenna. "Boys, you better be on your best behaviour tonight." Rhonda gave a meaningful look at Boyd and André.

"Always." André narrowed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. "Who am I working to impress?"

"Nobody. My friend Megan is bringing her sister-in-law tonight, and she hasn't been out in a hot minute, so don't scare her off."

"Single?"

Rhonda scoffed. "She wishes." Then took a long drink from her glass.

Country nudged Ryan, and they went to the bar. Dusty Rose wasn't high-class by any stretch of the imagination, but they had a hell of a selection of craft brews. They both ordered a Village Blonde and walked back to the tables.

". . . and it's such bullshit. She's trying to do the right thing, and he's using women like napkins." Rhonda adjusted the strap of her tank top. "I saw him at this random charity event, and he had his hand literally up his date's dress under the table while he was flirting with the girl across from him. That was while they were still together."

Anne looked disgusted.

Jenna shook her head. "Good for her for staying friends with her. Does her brother know?"

Rhonda shrugged. "I don't think she talks with him much."

Ryan turned toward Country, Polk, and Sean, pretending he wasn't eavesdropping and wishing he could punch whatever guy they were talking about in the balls.

"Catch the news about Brodie's suspension?" André leaned over the table. "Third one this year. He's got a loyalty card for the penalty box."

Ryan shook his head. "That cross-check was filthy." He tilted his head as another piece of the women's conversation hit his ears.

". . . I told her Colin's a good guy," Rhonda was saying. "She says she wants to wait until the divorce is final, but Megan's wearing her down."

He didn't know why he was so distracted. Possibly because dating again sounded like his own personal hell.

Sean tapped his glass on the table. "Hastings is what, 220? Shouldn't have chirped him."

"Still. He dialed the gooney up to eleven," Polk added.

"Did you see the CCHL got Richards?" Country asked.

Boyd nursed his beer. "That kid is one to watch. Speaking of, how's the camp looking? Starts in July?"

Ryan nodded. "We're all set over at Carpenter's. We—" He paused when Sean's face went stoney and turned to the door of the bar.

Jordan, the captain of Pucks Deep, strolled into the Dusty Rose.

Sean muttered something under his breath just as Kelty sidled up next to him.

"We're not going to have a problem tonight, are we?" She fluttered her eyelids.

Sean's jaw worked. "As long as he doesn't start something."

Rhonda's voice raised in pitch behind them. "We should dance, right? Why are we still standing here."

"Let me get you another beer." Ryan took Sean's empty glass and wound his way to the bar.

"Get in line, bud." Tyler moved in front of him, and Ryan put his hand up, threatening to mess up his perfectly styled hair.

"Ooh, he'll chop off your hand for that." Emma slid in next to him.

Ryan laughed and set Sean's glass on the bar. "I didn't see you two come in."

"We've been waiting for a bit." Tyler nodded to the slammed bartender, then noticed Jordan leaning in to talk to someone across the bar. "Where's Sean?"

"Being corralled by Kelty."

Emma grinned. "I call next." She leaned in and patted his messy bun. "How long is your hair these days? That bun is looking thick."

Ryan pulled out the elastic. "Amaya won't let me cut it. She says I have to be her hair model."

Emma's eyes lit up. "Please tell me she tries TikTok trends on you."

"YouTube shorts."

She laughed, and he tied his hair back up just as the bartender set Tyler and Emma's drinks in front of them.

Ryan ordered another beer for Sean. "You two go ahead, I'll wait."

Tyler and Emma made their way to the table, and Ryan surveyed the room, mentally calculating how late they were likely to be there. He liked driving with Country and Polk because they usually had something at the ranch to wake up for the next morning.

He was making a strategy for passing the time when the door to the bar swung open again, and Ryan's nervous system slammed on the emergency break. It was so out of context, for a moment, he couldn't compute what he was seeing.

Aelin walked in with another woman. She wore a black, strapless shirt tucked into light jeans that sat perfectly at her waist, accentuating her curves. The image of her towel splitting over her thigh sent a jolt straight to his crotch, and he turned back to the bar only to see her walking toward their table in his peripheral vision.

The two of them cut through the crowd like a hot knife through butter. Men turned their heads, their eyes dropping low as they passed. Ryan had the urge to throat-punch every last one of them.

His shoulders tensed as Rhonda's comments from earlier locked into place. Clark Moses. Text message guy. Camping mats guy. That was who she'd been talking about?

The bartender set Sean's beer on the counter, and Ryan momentarily froze. He shouldn't care that Aelin was at the Dusty Rose. She was an acquaintance. A hired employee. A member of the community who happened to play a role in Amaya's life, like her teacher or librarian.

Not the best analogy since he was then imagining Aelin wearing that outfit with glasses and a pencil between her lips.

Take the beer back to Sean. Say hello. That was the normal thing to do.

He felt like a robot following lines of code as he found his way back to the table. Aelin looked up from the girls' table behind them the second he set the beer down. Her lips parted, and she blinked three times before closing them.

He gave a small nod, then became very invested in André's retelling of the World Junior's draft even though the only thing he could hear was the ringing in his ears.

Before he'd driven to Laura and Russ's house, he'd looked over the contract she sent to his email. It was exactly what he'd expected. He'd sent an email to his boss to switch his vacation week since Aelin listed the third week in July as the only time she would be gone during the summer. It was an easy enough change. He'd signed it and spent an embarrassingly long time trying to decide what to say when he sent it back. In the end, he'd settled on, "Thanks. Ryan."

He'd felt like an idiot the second he pressed send. Something about her made him second-guess everything, and right then, standing in the Dusty Rose, he knew what it was. He was attracted to her, and he wasn't supposed to be. He had a wife that he'd promised his life to, and he was imagining another woman's thighs.

As much as he pretended it didn't exist, his body knew otherwise. He was like a forward trying so hard to fake out the defence that he overskated and bungled the play. He couldn't be himself around her. He was trying so damn hard not to look at that puck.

The girls' table erupted in laughter, and Rhonda dragged Aelin and her friend—sister-in-law?—to the dance floor .

"Sounds like she's got more baggage than Patrick Roy in ‘95." Boyd nudged his shoulder. "Don't blame you for wanting to try, though."

Ryan dropped his eyes. "I was—" He cleared his throat. "Just thinking."

Boyd laughed. "Bud, this isn't the inquisition." His expression sobered when he saw Ryan wasn't laughing. He changed the subject to their summer practice schedule.

It didn't last long. In less than two minutes, Rhonda, Aelin, and her friend were approaching their table.