Chapter Twenty-two: Sad Songs for Sad People

Gia

SAD SONGS FOR SAD PEOPLE

Performed by Megan Moroney

I fought to get my angerunder control as Ryder and I drove in silence back to the ranch. I was pissed at Leland for telling Enrique about Addy and sending him here as if I couldn’t handle the situation. I was angry at Ryder for tossing my brother’s trauma in my face and assuming the same would happen just because my last name was Kent. What happened hadn’t been Holden’s fault. He hadn’t done anything wrong. There was no way he could have known Leya Singh was wearing a bracelet with a tracker on it that had allowed the psychopath chasing her to find them.

But that singular thought had the swirl in my mind coming to a sharp halt.

What didn’t I know about Addy?

We needed to go through everything she’d brought with her again. If there was a tracking device, we’d remove it and lead it away from her and the Hatleys. I wouldn’t let anything happen to any of them. They’d been through enough already. Too much.

At the ranch, Ryder slammed out of the car, and I barely caught up with him before he stormed into the farmhouse.

I put a hand on his arm, holding him back. “Stop. You go in there like this, and you’re going to scare the shit out of her.”

He stared down at me, eyes simmering. “What else haven’t you told me?”

My jaw dropped. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t protect her if I don’t know who is coming for her. Who do you have on your list? More of the West Gears?”

“No. They aren’t involved.”

“Then who?”

“No one locally. Whoever it is will stand out.”

“Like you and Enrique.”

“Enrique is not working for the Lovatos.”

“How do you know that for sure?”

“Because his brother was undercover when he was gutted by the cartel, just like Ravyn. No way in hell he’d work for them after that.”

Ryder’s jaw worked, and I could tell he didn’t agree with me, and the distrust in his eyes hurt worse than it should have. I thought we’d started to work past it, but I should’ve known better than to assume a heated kiss and a shopping spree would change the deep-seated mistrust Ryder felt for anyone who wasn’t his family.

He rubbed his beard, tucked his hands into his pockets, and let out a slow breath, as if trying to calm himself down. Then, he turned and opened the back door. Addy and Mila were in the kitchen with Rianne, elbows deep in brown cookie dough they were rolling in powdered sugar.

Addy’s eyes lit up on seeing us, and it landed in my heart.

“Hey,” Ryder said.

Addy full-on smiled. “We are making chocolate cookies.” The complete sentence dug further into my soul.

“Chocolate crinkles,” Mila corrected.

“Where’s Mama?” Ryder asked, looking around.

Rianne’s eyes turned sad, and she scooted around the counter, motioning us farther away. “Sadie called from the bar.” She lowered her voice to keep the girls from hearing. “It seems like your Uncle Phil had a heart attack. Your mama went to meet them at the hospital.”

My heart skipped a beat. Not even a minute ago, I’d been thinking about how this family had already been through too much. Now, they had one more family member to be concerned about. Ryder’s shoulders sagged slightly, and I had to fight the urge to wrap him in my arms and hold him tight.

He yanked out his phone and shot off a text before stuffing it back into his pocket.

“I need to get to the hospital. I’ll take Addy with me,” he said to Rianne.

When Rianne didn’t react to his possessive growl over a little girl who was supposedly attached to me and not him, my chest fell. Someone in the Hatley family had spilled the beans to her. It would be practically impossible to keep the truth hidden in this tiny town.

“I don’t think taking her to the hospital is a good idea,” I whispered, and he immediately scowled at me. “Ryder, think about how she reacted sitting in the car outside the mall. There’s no way she’s going to go into a hospital without freaking out.”

“I’m not leaving her.”

Rianne patted his arm. “Your mama has Sadie with her. McKenna was on call when they arrived in the ER. He’s in good hands, and there’s nothing you can do there. This is the last set of cookies to go in the oven. Let them finish, and then maybe you can take Mila home with you. Maddox and you can switch off at your house.”

“We’re all done!” Mila called. Rianne turned back to the girls, helping them add the tray of cookies to the oven and supervising them while they cleaned up.

The silence between Ryder and me continued, taut and full of tension that made me want to strangle him or kiss him or…I wasn’t sure what. Anything that would take the beast of an attitude Sadie had claimed he was carrying around and turn it into something different.

Outside, a dark-brown, 1970 Oldsmobile Toronado that was tricked out lowrider-style pulled up beside the Escalade. Enrique’s dark hair was visible in the driver’s seat. The car wasn’t meant to blend in like most undercover vehicles. No, this stood out in a way that would make him recognizable by the low-level street soldiers of the Lovatos he’d worked himself into in Lexington.

Ryder glared at the car and the outline of Enrique inside it.

I stepped closer to him, my hand settling on his arm where Rianne’s had been, and the zap of awareness wafting between us settled over me again. He looked down at where I was touching him, and his throat bobbed.

“Look, Rianne’s idea is a good one,” I said. “We’ll go back to your house with both girls. When you need to go to the hospital, Enrique and I will stay at the house. If you want Maddox to show up too, I’m fine with that, but Enrique and I have this covered. I swear on all I hold holy, I’m not letting anything happen to her.”

“What exactly is that?” he asked quietly, voice deep and raw as his gaze bored into my soul.

“What?”

“What exactly do you hold holy, Gia?”

My breath caught at the simple challenge. “I love my family just as much as you love yours.”

“You run around the globe, lying to them about what you do. That doesn’t exactly scream love.”

I was determined not to let him rile me up. He was hurting and frustrated, and I was an easy target. “I don’t tell them about my job because it protects them and me. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be at their side in a heartbeat if they needed me. It doesn’t mean I’d stand by and just watch if they were under fire. Hell, I used a bunch of my CIA contacts to help Holden from behind the scenes when shit went down with The Painted Daisies in Colombia, even if he didn’t know I did.”

“Somehow, that isn’t the reassurance you think it is,” Ryder said darkly.

I let out a frustrated sigh. “Bottom line, asshole, is I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Enrique is here, and he isn’t going anywhere. You do what you gotta do. Whether that’s staying with Addy or going to check on your mama and your uncle, that’s up to you.”

I spun on my heel and moved around the counter to where the little girls were putting some of the finished cookies into a Tupperware container. “Looks like Mila is coming back to Ryder’s with us.”

“Yes!” Mila cheered, doing a little dance. “Sleepover!” She looked at Ryder and asked, “Does that mean I get ice cream for breakfast again?”

“After the way you sold me out to your dad, no way,” Ryder said, forcing his voice lighter. “Go grab your things, and I’ll get the spare booster seat from the mudroom.”

“Come on, Addy!” Mila grabbed Addy’s hand, and the two girls went running out of the room, their feet pounding on the stairs.

? ? ?

After gorging on pizza and chocolate crinkles and playing more board games than I had in over a decade, Ryder and I tucked the girls into the queen-sized bed in Addy’s room. Even with the comforter pulled over her, Mila still chattered away. I thought she’d probably talk until she fell asleep mid-sentence, but Addy seemed comforted by having the other child with her. She’d still put her backpack on the floor by the bed with her shoes next to it, ready to run, but at least she hadn’t disappeared under the bed or flattened herself under the covers. Instead, she’d rolled on her side, her stuffed animal touching Mila’s unicorns.

It was the sweetest image I’d seen in a really long time, tugging at pieces of me I hadn’t known existed. I still didn’t think I wanted to have kids. Babies and diapers and breastfeeding didn’t appeal to me, but taking care of little kids this age who could walk and talk and use the bathroom on their own…I didn’t mind it so much. The hug Mila had given me, unbidden and unasked, had felt like pure love.

Addy had watched the hug, eyes turning shadowy, and then she’d offered both Ryder and me each a one-armed loose hug. It was tentative and brief, but it had still been a hug. Tears had pricked my eyes, and when I’d looked over at Ryder, his jaw had been clenched tight with his eyes blinking fast.

After we left them, he made his way down to the game room, and I followed. We slowly picked up the empty pizza boxes, cups, and game pieces that were scattered around. Enrique had taken the first shift outside, and I was going to switch places with him in a few hours. Knowing Addy’s existence wasn’t being kept as secret as I’d hoped it was, none of the team would just rely on Ryder’s top-of-the-line alarm system to protect her.

While we cleaned up, I told Ryder what Rianne had explained about selective mutism and Addy needing therapy.

“I know it’s not possible right now, but I just thought you should be aware.”

Before he could reply, his phone buzzed, and he looked down at it with a frown.

“If you need to go, we’ll be okay,” I said.

He did that thing he and Maddox both did when thinking or upset—he rubbed a hand over his beard. “Uncle Phil isn’t doing well. He hasn’t regained consciousness, and McKenna says he might not.”

I stuffed the last of the boxes into the green garbage bag he was holding. “I’m sorry. Were you close to him?”

“Uncle Phil is actually my mama’s uncle. But you probably knew that from investigating us.”

I didn’t reply. Yes, I knew the basics, but it wasn’t the same as knowing the emotions and connections that went with the dotted lines connecting people. I didn’t say anything, and Ryder turned away, tying the knot on the green bag, setting it aside, and moving on to putting the board games away. Addy’s Switch was on the coffee table, and I piled it in the cupboard with the other gaming devices.

“Mama never knew her dad, so Phil was the only man in her life as a kid. He and Granny ran the bar together right up until she died. Uncle Phil can do and say some pretty inappropriate things, and I think Maddox has had to talk to him a few times about complaints lobbed his way. Mama says Granny was the only one who could keep him in check, and once she was gone, there was no one holding him to a higher standard, you know?”

“But you all still liked him,” I said because I’d never sensed any hostility or tension between the Hatleys and their great uncle.

“He was always good to us. When we were little, and things got tight at the ranch, Mama would help out at the bar, and he’d give her more money than she’d earned. He was always sliding cash to us kids too. We spent hours playing in the shed out back of the bar. McFlannigan’s wasn’t quite a second home to us, but it was comfortable. Still is.”

While I hadn’t lived in one place longer than five years growing up, I’d spent many holidays and summer vacations with my grandparents on their farm in upstate New York. It wasn’t home, but just like Ryder said, it had been comfortable. And even though it hadn’t been in our family for generations, it was still a place Holden and I had felt loved and safe.

“Your family has been in Willow Creek a long time. I’m not sure what that’s like. The longest my family has been anywhere is my grandparents’ apple farm in Grand Orchard, and they bought that early in their marriage. The Kents have always been nomads.”

“The Hatleys have been here since the 1800s, and the McFlannigans since 1910. When my parents got married, it was like the town’s opposing royalty joining together. Not quite a Hatfield and McCoy situation, but definitely white and dark knights. Half the town thought Mama got pregnant just to trap Dad, but the other half could see they were soulmates. No matter what they believed, everyone showed up when they got married the summer after high school.”

I hadn’t done the math on his parents’ marriage and his birth. It surprised me that he’d been an unplanned baby. Maybe it was why he worked so hard to lift the burdens from their shoulders, feeling responsible for things he obviously couldn’t have controlled.

He sank onto the couch, sliding until his head hit the back, eyes closing. He looked as exhausted as I felt. I joined him, careful to keep distance between us, even though the all-too-familiar awareness was flowing like an ocean wave around us.

He turned his head, blue eyes turning dark and moody in the dim lighting. “Don’t get me wrong. My parents have loved each other for as long as they can remember. They would have gotten married no matter what. I just rushed it along for them.”

It was strange hearing a man like Ryder talk about soulmates and love. He was so gruff, so unforgiving, it was hard to imagine him believing in any of it, even when I knew he’d felt strongly for Ravyn. Strong enough for her to have all but destroyed him.

I had a thousand questions to ask, but instead, I bit the inside of my cheek, waiting to see what else he’d offer up. It was a solid interrogation technique, and yet I wasn’t stupid enough to think my interest in what he had to say was work related. No. There was something deep inside me yearning to uncover all the nooks and crannies of Ryder’s soul. Things I’d never wanted to know about another person. The stories Eva had told Addy and me while sifting through old albums hadn’t been nearly enough. Those had been her version of him. They hadn’t been what was going on inside his heart and mind while he’d grown up. Hadn’t been his hopes and dreams and the future he’d seen when he’d proposed to Ravyn.

“Mama was determined to break the cycle with us kids, so when Ravyn got pregnant without us being married, I knew it was a blow. But she never once made Ravyn or me feel that way. She was happy as a raccoon before trash day to be a grandma. Just like I was happy to be a father.”

I swallowed hard. “You wanted children?”

“I wanted a dozen, but Ravyn laughed me off.” His jaw worked as he said her name, throat bobbing, and I felt a spike of jealousy for a dead woman.

“I’m sorry she hurt you,” I said softly.

He sat up, hands clenching. “Hurt? Hurt doesn’t even come close to what she did to me. She took my soul and ripped it to shreds, ensuring I’d never be able to fix it. Never be able to give it to someone else.”

Those words knifed through me—the fact that he thought he no longer had a soul to share. I hated it more than I’d hated anything in a long time, because I knew with a certainty I couldn’t shake that Ryder Hatley had more than enough love left inside him. He had so much it would surround the person he chose like a fuzzy blanket, full of comfort and safety and home. A place you’d want to stay tucked forever—which was dangerous to a nomad like me.

I hadn’t responded—couldn’t—but I wasn’t sure he’d even realized. He stood, pacing in front of the coffee table, his eyes distant, as if he were back in the past instead of in the room with me, and heartache dripped from him. “She stole from us. From the people who’d loved on her and made her feel safe when she’d told me she never felt that way growing up. She said her dad was abusive—corporal punishment he liked to mete out to her and her brother for minor offenses. She said it had gotten worse after their mother died. I suspected he might have done more to her, but she never said. I’d thought maybe she’d blocked it out, but now, I think she had more secrets than she’d ever planned on sharing with me.”

Those truths caused my wheels to turn, puzzle pieces sliding together. It was clear Ravyn Clark wasn’t her real name any more than Anna Smith was, which also made it clear that she’d already been on the run when she’d shown up at the Hatley ranch. She’d said as much in her letter. She’d said that “they” had found her. Maybe it wasn’t just the Lovatos chasing after her for her technical skills. Maybe she was a Lovato, and her father had come to drag his runaway daughter home.

When I said as much, Ryder stopped his pacing and stared at me, eyes flashing again.

“You think… That means… Addy might be related to…” His eyes went to the ceiling. “Fuck.”

I couldn’t stand it any longer. I went to him, wrapping my arms around his waist. He held himself stiff at first, and then after a deep inhale and exhale, he let his arms slide around me too.

“I don’t have any proof. It’s just supposition.”

My cheek was pressed against his chest, and the smell of him flooded my senses—hay and grass and masculinity—sending my endorphins into a tailspin. He rested his chin on the top of my head. It was a tender move that squeezed my already squished heart until I thought it was going to turn to liquid and slide out of my body. I would no longer own it. It would belong somewhere else…to someone else…to him.

That scared the shit out of me.

And yet, I didn’t move. I didn’t want to. I wanted to stay encased in that warm blanket I’d imagined, the beat of attraction hammering like a conga drum through my veins. The rhythm strong and heady. Intoxicating.

His large hands slid up my back, the heat of them burning through my flannel shirt. His palms were spread wide in a way that allowed his thumbs to caress my sides, coming desperately close to my breasts. He hesitated there for a second then grazed two long, gentle strokes before his hands moved to my back so he was pressing me into him ever so slightly more.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “About what I said earlier. About your brother and you. You brought me Addy… You’re here trying to help us… I was angry and cruel.”

I twisted my head so my gaze met his.

The burning there—the desire—it was like stepping into a full-fledged fire. A furnace that would melt skin and bone and leave me as nothing but ash to be spread over the earth.

He’d removed his flannel overshirt almost as soon as we’d walked through the door this afternoon, leaving him in only his Henley. I slipped my hands underneath it. When my fingers hit bare skin, he sucked in a breath, as if the touch hurt him. But his eyes never wavered. Instead, a question rang through them. A question about how far I’d let this go. Or maybe he was asking himself that question. Maybe we both were.

His head lowered, and my toes automatically responded, raising so our mouths met in the middle. Both our previous kisses had been punishing, merciless. This was so soft and tender and light it felt like the whisper of a breeze on a hot day. A hint of relief. A hint of soothing. But it wasn’t nearly enough.

Neither of us had closed our eyes. Our shared gaze was as sensual as the kiss, as if we were learning not only the contours of our mouths but the shape of our souls.

I glided the tip of my tongue along the seam of his lips, and he groaned, but he refused me access. Instead, he pulled back from the kiss, fisting my braid and dragging it backward so I was forced to expose my neck where my pulse beat as frantically as a hummingbird’s wings. With hooded eyes, he lowered his mouth until it landed on that erratic rhythm, sucking gently.

My core ignited. My legs wobbled. Hunger consumed me.

I squeezed his sides, fingernails digging into flesh, and my hips slammed into his.

His lips glided down along my neck to the base of my shoulder, nipping softly.

I gasped.

He pushed us closer, muscled thighs widening to pull me in between them.

“Why the fuck do you taste so good?” he muttered, and I heard, in every syllable, his anger and frustration that it was me he was attracted to. The woman he couldn’t trust. Who lied. Who would leave. And I suddenly hated that all those things about me were true. I wanted to give him something solid. Something he could count on. To prove to him he still had a soul to share. That he could give it to someone else.

To me.

That scary thought almost had me pushing him away. But then, as if feeling I was about to retreat, he claimed my mouth again, tongue sliding inside, stroking along the soft recesses, and any thoughts of self-preservation, of right and wrong, of my job, evaporated.

There was only him and me and an endless sea of longing and desire I wasn’t sure would ever be sated.