All He Ever Desired (18 page)

“Is there a problem with Nick?”

“No. Nick’s doing great. It’s about Lauren, actually.”

Dean gave a dry laugh. “Since I managed to end our marriage so badly that it took a year to rebuild my relationship with my son, I’m probably not the guy to give you advice about her.”

“I guess it’s about Nick, too.” He took a sip of the soda, then decided for direct. “I want to marry Lauren.”

“Ah.” Dean picked at the edge of the wooden table. “So you want to take my son to Massachusetts.”

“That’s part of marrying Lauren, yes.”

“What does Lauren say about it?”

“I haven’t actually asked her yet.”

“What?” Dean shook his head. “You haven’t talked to her about it, but you’re talking to
me
about it? That’s not going to make her happy.”

Ryan wasn’t sure he could explain why he’d felt compelled to come here. “He’s your son. I guess I felt a need to...do it right this time. Look you in the eye, totally square, and tell you I want Nick to be my stepson and move to Brookline with his mother and me.”

“And what if I tell you to go screw yourself? I’ve got a custody agreement and you can’t take him out of the state of Maine without my permission. Might even be the county, actually. I’d have to find the paperwork. Would you still ask Lauren to marry you?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t even have to think about that. “But at least we’d know up front we’re going to have problems, and I’d remind you both that, at sixteen, if we all walk into a courtroom, Nick’s going to get to make that decision for himself.”

“And you think he’d choose you?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not about me. He’d be choosing between you and his mother and the only thing I know for sure is that it would tear him up inside. I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that.”

Dean nodded. “Jody and I have talked about this some. Doesn’t take a genius to see you and Lauren have been getting serious.”

“Since I just figured out how serious myself recently, it’s not very comforting everybody could see it but me.”

“Nick’s gotten into some trouble here.”

Ryan wasn’t sure where that left turn in the conversation came from. “Nothing bad, though. And, to be fair, there’s a good chance he’ll get in trouble anywhere. He’s sixteen.”

“I guess the difference is, when he grows out of it, there’s still not much for him in Whitford. Not even crap for jobs around here, whether he goes to college or not. Maybe he could take over the hardware store someday, but you know as well as I do that place is always on the brink. One of those box stores opens within thirty miles and it’s gone.” He swirled the soda around in his can. “You probably got some good schools down there.”

Ryan nodded. “A lot of opportunities for him, too, no matter what field he wants to go into.”

“See, there’s the difference. You talk about fields, like real careers. Around here, we just hope we can find jobs that pay the bills. He’ll have a better future down there.”

“He’ll have more doors open to him, but he needs the work ethic and the integrity to make the most of those opportunities. You and Lauren already gave him that, no matter where he lives.”

Dean was quiet for a few minutes, lost in thought, and Ryan let him be. Brookline wasn’t
that
far away, but a nine-hour round-trip meant the ability to easily see each other on a whim would be gone.

“I can’t make that drive every weekend,” Dean said, as though he’d been reading his mind.

“I’d still be coming up here on the weekends for a while, until we get the lodge sorted out. And maybe we’d have to go to every other weekend, but we’d meet you halfway. And you’d get more school holidays with him.”

He probably shouldn’t be speaking for Lauren, but he needed to know where Dean stood. The last thing he wanted to do was put Lauren in a position where she felt she had to choose between Nick and Ryan. Nick would win, obviously, but it would hurt Lauren to have to make the decision.

“That sounds fair enough.” Dean nodded. “I won’t stand in the way, if you can talk her into going with you this time.”

“Thank you.” He looked at his watch. “She should be getting home soon. She gets home before Nick on Fridays and I want to be there.”

Dean snorted. “No fancy dinner and ring in the champagne glass?”

“No. If she says yes, I’d want Nick to know before he comes here for the weekend. Word gets around fast and he doesn’t need to hear the news at the market or on the street.”

Dean stood when Ryan did and shook his hand. “Good luck.”

By the time he pulled his truck in behind Lauren’s car, Ryan was what Steph would call a hot mess, but he did his best to hide it as he got out and walked to her door.

“Hey,” she said as she opened the door with a smile. “I wasn’t expecting to see you until later.”

He was supposed to spend the weekend with her. “Are you busy?”

“Just mopping the floor. Are you okay? You look a little flushed.”

“I’m okay.” He followed her inside and closed the door. “So I have to leave on Sunday.”

Some of the light dimmed in her eyes. “Yes, I know.”

“I want you and Nick to come to Brookline with me.”

She frowned, tilting her head a little. “I don’t understand. You know Nick has school Monday. I have to go to work.”

“No.” Dammit, he was blowing it already, and every line he’d rehearsed in the car had been totally erased from his mind. “Not this Sunday. I mean...I want you to move there. To live with me.”

She sat down hard on the couch, looking up at him as if she didn’t quite understand what he was saying. “Ryan, I...”

“You what?” he prompted when she drifted into silence. “Let’s talk about it.”

“I have a job. A home. Nick has school and his friends. And I can’t move out of Maine without Dean’s permission.”

“He gave it.”

“What?”

“I just talked to him. He said he wouldn’t stand in our way if you and Nick want to move to Brookline.”

She didn’t look very happy about it. As a matter of fact, red splotches bloomed on her neck and cheeks as he watched, and her jaw tightened. Belatedly, he remembered planning in the car to open with the fact he loved her and wanted to marry her.

“You talked to Dean?”

“Yes. You’ve thrown so many stumbling blocks into this relationship and that was one of the biggest. I wanted to lay it to rest before I came here so we can focus on us and not Nick.”

“Why would you do that? You’ve done nothing but feed me the ‘just roll with it’ line, but you go and have a serious sit-down with my ex-husband?”

He really wanted her to understand he hadn’t done it to be pushy. “I went behind his back once and it wasn’t right. I mean, I
had
to do it because I couldn’t leave you and Nick without trying, but it was still wrong. I couldn’t do it again.”

“I’m not his wife anymore.”

He tried to stay calm, but this wasn’t going at all the way he’d thought it would. Or hoped it would. “No, but Nick’s his son.”

“I can’t believe you did that, Ryan. My relationships are none of Dean’s business.”

“Of course they are, because of Nick.” He was trying to make her see reason, but as soon as he said the words and saw the flare of temper in her eyes, he knew he made a mistake.

“You thought it was so damn funny being my
you know, whatever
, but Nick called you that because he wasn’t comfortable calling you my boyfriend. Now you’ve told Dean you want us to live with you and, when he says something to Nick, I’m going to feel pressured because you interfered with my family.”

The tight leash on his temper slipped. “Dammit, I’m trying to
be
part of your family, Lauren.”

“But you’re not. You told me we were going to roll with it and then you went behind my back to my ex-husband and had a conversation about my son. Not just about my son, but huge, life-changing events, without even telling me you were considering us moving to Massachusetts. How dare you?”

“I dare because I—”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t...I can’t believe you did that.” She pointed at the door. “You need to go now.”

“Lauren, we need to talk this out.”

“Go talk to Dean about it. I want you to leave.”

His entire body felt hot and shaky. He couldn’t believe this was happening. “Lady, I ain’t a boomerang. You throw me away again, I’m not coming back.”

“You call me lady in that tone again, it’s your balls that won’t be coming back.”

They were done. The conversation had gone so far south a GPS couldn’t pull it back now. He turned and went out her front door, resisting the urge to slam it, and got into his truck. That door he did slam.

He sat there for a minute trying to think of something—anything—he could say to make it better, but all he could hear was her voice thundering through his head, telling him he had no right to interfere with her family. Basically telling him he didn’t belong there.

So he threw his truck in reverse and left.

Chapter Eighteen

How she’d managed to keep it together until Nick had gotten home from school and then been picked up by Dean, she didn’t know. Willpower. Anger. Shock.

While Nick was grabbing his bag and trying to find the book he’d checked out of the library for a book report he needed to work on over the weekend, she’d walked out to Dean’s car.

“Don’t say anything to Nick about the conversation you had with Ryan.”

He looked up at her through the open window, reading her face. They’d been married so long he didn’t miss much. “I told him you wouldn’t be happy he’d talked to me first.”

“He shouldn’t have done that.”

“Nick’s my son, Lauren. How I feel about my kid going to live in a different state matters.”

“I know it does. But
we
hadn’t had that conversation yet. He should have talked to me and let me talk to Nick first.”

“Maybe. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

But she wasn’t and, once her son was safely out of the emotional fallout zone, the wall of willpower, anger and shock imploded and she crumpled into a sobbing mess. It hurt so much, and all she wanted to do was crawl into her bed and cry until Sunday afternoon.

She might have done just that if the phone hadn’t rung. For one heart-stopping, hope-filled moment, she’d thought it was Ryan. But the number on the caller ID was her mother’s and she didn’t answer it. Her mother would know something was wrong and push until she got the whole story. Then she’d tell her father and there would be yelling and swearing in a mix of English and Polish and Lauren wasn’t in the mood for it.

But she also couldn’t totally fall apart, so she called Hailey. Hailey would be a good shoulder to lean on until she got her own strength back.

“Are you busy tonight?” she asked when Hailey answered.

“I was going to paint my toenails. You sound stuffy. Have you been crying or are you getting that cold again?”

“Ryan and I are done.” Saying the words out loud took her breath away.

“Oh, shit. I’ll be right there, okay? Do you want me to call Paige?”

“No. She said it was already awkward because he’s her brother-in-law now. And she’s always so reasonable. I don’t want reasonable. I want you to tell me what an awful bastard Ryan Kowalski is and how lucky I am to be rid of him now instead of later.”

Hailey was quiet for a few seconds. “I’ll try my best. Give me fifteen or twenty minutes and I’ll be there.”

It was closer to twenty-five, but since Lauren spent most of them curled up on the couch, sobbing into a massive wad of tissues, she wasn’t really counting. Hailey let herself in, holding up a brown paper bag.

“Is that booze?” As crappy as her head felt already, Lauren was pretty sure alcohol was the last thing she needed.

Hailey tipped the paper bag over the coffee table and let the contents spill out. A whole pile of individually wrapped cream-filled chocolate snack cakes. “Tell me everything.”

She managed to get through the story with a minimum of tears. Crying would seriously interfere with her ability to console herself with junk food.

“I can’t believe he went to Dean like that,” Hailey said. “What an awful bastard.”

Lauren almost choked on her mouthful of cream and chocolate. “You’re not very good at that.”

“Sorry. I’m trying because I love you and I’m heartbroken for you, but he’s a pretty great guy, so this isn’t easy. Although, he should have talked to you first and let you handle Dean.”

“He also thinks I can just up and leave everything. This is my home. I have a job.”

“I get the home part.”

“If I move to Brookline I’ll have to find a new job in a strange city in this economy.”

“Remembering the part where I said I love you, I have to point out that you’re the secretary at a one-man insurance company and Ryan owns a multimillion-dollar construction company.”

“So? Does that make him more important than me?”

“Of course not. But in terms of practicality, logic and common sense, it makes his
job
more important than yours.”

“If I wanted practicality, logic and common sense, I would have called Paige.”

“Fine. He’s a horrible bastard. He loves you, wants to marry you, cares about your son and wants to take you both to live in his big, shiny house in a city that has a real mall close enough so you don’t have to stop for lunch halfway there.”

“Go away.” She didn’t want to hear it. “He should have told
me
he loves me and wants to marry me, not Dean. It made me mad and now he’s gone and I want to feel sorry for myself. If you’re going to be the voice of reason, go home.”

“If I go home, I’m taking the snack cakes with me.”

Lauren looked at the pile on the table. She’d barely put a dent in it. “Fine, you can stay, but you can only refer to him as
that jerk
.”

“I’ll try.” Hailey picked up the television remote and turned the set on. “Now, we’re going to find something really hideous to watch. I’m going to spend the night and we’re going to eat snack cakes until we puke and feel so tired and shitty tomorrow you don’t even care about that jerk anymore.”

“You’re a true friend, Hailey.”

“Always here for you, babe.”

* * *

Twenty-four hours, Ryan thought. Twenty-four hours since he’d walked out of Lauren’s life and he still felt like shit.

He should have gone home. He’d still feel like shit, but at least he wouldn’t have a damn audience. But when he got home last night, he’d cracked a beer. Anger, heartbreak and alcohol weren’t the way to start a four-and-a-half-hour drive. And today he’d kept hoping some way to fix things would magically occur to him, or that she’d call.

Nothing. All he had was his chair on the porch, a beer that had gone warm and flat some time ago and a younger brother who’d probably been sicced on him by Rose. He knew she was struggling to give him space, but Rose was Rose. If he’d truly wanted to be left alone, he should have skipped the beer and hit the highway.

“Are you really going to just sit there and stare at the trees all day?” he asked Josh, who was parked in a nearby chair.

“I’m just being here if you need me.”

“Bullshit. Rosie told you to come talk to me and you don’t have the first fucking clue what to say.”

“That, too.”

Ryan sighed and wished he’d downed the beer when he opened it. He’d taken it out of the fridge, but after opening it, decided he didn’t really want it. Now he did. “Tell her I’m fine.”

“Yeah, but you’re not.”

“And none of us have ever fibbed to Rosie. Sure.”

Josh sat up straighter in his chair. “It’s not all about Rosie. I’m your brother, stupid, and you’re hurting. I care and I’m going to sit here until I think of something to say that might help, goddammit.”

After about five minutes, Ryan looked over at him. “Anything yet?”

“Nope.”

They went back to staring down the driveway.

“Everything that pops into my head would only make you feel worse,” Josh said a few minutes later. “But I’m trying.”

“Like what, not that I think it’s possible for me to feel worse.”

“I watched you guys together. Made me a little jealous, to be honest, because it really looked like the real deal.”

“Guess not.”

“I may not be as very, very old and somewhat wise as you, but even I know couples fight. If two people really never fight, then secretly neither of them give a shit enough to bother.”

“Someday, when you grow up and maybe find a girl who likes you, you’ll find out that going to ask a woman to marry you and having her throw you out of her house is different from a fight.”

“She loves you.”

And that was the real kick in the balls. He was pretty sure she did. “Not enough.”

“I get why you talked to Dean first, but I can also see why it pissed her off.”

Ryan shook his head. “She made my place in her life perfectly clear and it’s
not
as part of her family.”

“Jesus, no wonder Rosie bakes so much. This support shit is hard.”

“Good. Go bake some cookies and leave me alone.”

Before Josh could move—assuming he was going to go inside, rather than stay and annoy him some more—a vehicle pulled into the driveway. Ryan groaned. It was Paige’s car, but as it drew closer, he could see Mitch was driving it. When he’d parked and gotten out, Ryan could tell by the look on his face his older brother knew the whole story.

“Hey,” he said, taking a seat in another porch chair. “Had some free time, so I thought I’d stop by.”

“Where’s Paige? Is she with Lauren?” As shitty as he felt about the whole mess, he really hoped she’d reached out to her friends. He didn’t like to imagine her hurting and upset, alone in the house.

“No. Lauren thought Paige might try to defend you because she’s your sister-in-law and she was in the mood for somebody one hundred percent in her corner. Hailey’s been with her since last night. Didn’t even open the library today, which is going over as well as you can imagine.”

“So she and Hailey are sitting around talking about what an asshole I am.”

Josh snorted. “And that’s what we were doing, too. See how much you guys have in common?”

Mitch managed to get Ryan by the collar before Ryan’s fist could make contact with Josh’s face, and Mitch hauled Ryan backward into his chair. “Enough. Josh, this isn’t really the time for that whole breaking tension with humor thing.”

“Why not?” Ryan rested his head back against the chair with a thump. “That’s what we do, isn’t it? Don’t know what to say or how to say it? Be funny and change the subject while they’re laughing. That’s what I did to her. You’re uncertain about the future? Hey, just roll with it. No worries. It’s only your entire fucking life I’m asking you to turn upside down, but look into my pretty blue eyes and think about it later.”

“Ryan, I—” Josh started to say.

“And you still want to talk about the future? Well, how about I go talk to your ex-husband instead. You know, the guy who treated you like shit and cheated on you in your own goddamned bed, but you still have to deal with for the rest of your life because you have a kid together? Yeah, I’ll give that guy more respect than I gave you.”

“Son of a bitch.” He picked up the warm can of beer and chucked it as hard as he could, but he didn’t see where it landed because the tears blurred his vision. “How did I fuck this up so bad?”

“You can fix it,” Mitch said. “I fucked up and walked away from Paige, too.”

“How the hell am I supposed to get in my truck tomorrow and leave her behind?
Again?
I can’t do it.”

“Then go tell her that.”

“Tomorrow,” Josh put in. “You’re the emotional equivalent of totally shit-faced right now, and Lauren and Hailey are probably riding high on a Ryan hatefest. Sleep on it. Let her sleep on it, too, and think about where she might have overreacted or screwed up, same as you. Tomorrow, when you’re both more sad and regretful than pissed off, then go talk to her. Tell her how you feel straight up.”

When Ryan and Mitch both stared at him with almost identical expressions of disbelief, Josh shrugged. “Unlike you two, I’ve been trapped in this house with Rosie my entire life. You pick up shit along the way.”

Mitch nodded. “He’s right. Unbelievably.”

Ryan knew it, too. As much as he wanted to go over there and make her understand, he was too raw. She would be too, and they’d end up in each other’s faces again. Now that he had a plan, maybe he could settle himself. Maybe even sleep a little, which he hadn’t done last night.

For now he needed to settle himself and not think about his entire future hinging on one conversation tomorrow. “I bet all this has Rosie baking up a storm. I really need a fucking cookie.”

* * *

Lauren had the worst sugar hangover of her life. She’d finally convinced Hailey to go home and had taken a shower, but she didn’t feel much better.

It couldn’t have been easy for Ryan to go to Dean, given the history between them. And although she really wished Ryan had talked to her first, instead of her ex-husband, time and an unhealthy amount of snack cakes had made her admit to herself he hadn’t done it out of disrespect for her. He’d done it because he thought it was the right thing to do. He’d done it because he loved her, and she’d kicked him in the balls for it.

Even though he’d probably meant it when he said he wouldn’t come back, she at least had to apologize—to try to make him understand why she’d reacted so badly. She couldn’t live with such an ugly ending between them.

Before she could chicken out, she pulled up his number on her phone and hit Call. By the time she heard the third ring, she thought he was going to ignore it, but then she heard his voice—quiet and tense—saying hello.

“I’d like to talk,” she said. “I want to apologize and I’d drive over and do it in person, but I don’t really want to do it in front of Rose and Josh. Though I will if you don’t want to talk on the phone.”

He was quiet for so long, any hope he might forgive her started fading, and then he cleared his throat. “I don’t want to talk on the phone. I’ll drive over to your place if Nick’s not home yet.”

“He’s not.”

“Then I’ll be right over.”

Her stomach was in knots by the time his truck pulled into her driveway and her hands wouldn’t stop shaking as she opened the door. He looked almost as rough as she did. His eyes were bruised from lack of sleep and his expression was grim.

“I’m sorry,” she told him, and stepped back to let him in.

“You were taking the easy way out,” he said in a low voice.

“Oh yeah, because this is so easy. Fun, even.”

“It’s easier to make me out to be the asshole and walk away, and when I overstepped with Dean, you had your excuse.” He stepped inside and kicked the door closed behind him. “It’s harder to have a future together, because we’ll have to work at it and compromise.”

“You’re right that I overreacted about you going to Dean, but not about it being easy. I got scared, Ryan. Leaving Whitford and my parents and my friends behind is huge, but you and I hadn’t talked about it yet. And it’ll be hard on Nick, even though he likes you. It’s so much to wrap my head around.”