Holding Her Hand (Reed Brothers Book 15) (22 page)

“Maybe she’s going crazy in her old age,”
Ryan replies.

His mom scowls. Then she pulls the dishtowel from her back pocket and starts to slap them both with it. They
howl and cover their asses, jumping to their feet so they can run around the room with her chasing them. Someone who looks a lot like Ryan grabs him and holds him in a headlock, while she proceeds to slap him with the towel. He pretends like it hurts, but you can tell it doesn’t. Finally, he lets Ryan go and Ryan introduces me to his dad.

Mrs. Shepherd looks at me and smiles.
“Would you like
to help me in the kitchen?”
she asks.

Relief washes over me.
“I’d love to.”

“Send her back to me one piece,”
Ryan jokes.

“You are not funny,”
she says, and she shakes her finger at him.

“Not at all,”
I say and I shoot him a look. My security guy follows us and I tell him, “You can go to the car. I’m fine.”

He shakes his head and stares straight ahead. “I’ll wait right here.”

“Really, it’s
okay.”

His eyes linger on Mrs. Shepherd and he finds a place in the corner, out of the way, where he can wait. “Nope.”

“You know most of these people can’t hear, don’t listen to music, and have no idea who I am, right?”

“I’ll wait,” he says.

“Suit yourself.”

Suddenly, a familiar face bustles around the corner, wearing an apron. “
What else can I do
,” the girl asks.

Mrs. Shepherd smiles at
her. “
You can talk to Lark while I take these outside.”

Mrs. Shepherd leaves the room, and Ryan’s ex-girlfriend stares hard at me.
“What are you doing here?”

“Ryan invited me. And you?”
I stare back just as hard.

“Molly invited me. His mom.”

“It’s nice to meet you.”
I hold out a hand. She slaps it instead of shaking it, and my security guy gets up to come toward us. “It’s okay,” I tell him
out loud. “I got this.”

Samantha rolls her eyes and picks up the cookie box, shaking it as she peers through the little plastic window.
“What kind of cookies are these?”

“I think they’re pecan something,”
I say.
“I’m not sure. My mother made them.”

She gets a gleam in her eye that I don’t quite understand, but I let it slide.
“Molly will love them.”

“Hope so.”

Ryan’s mom bustles back into
the room, and pulls out a tray and some vegetables. She hands them to me, and then gives me a knife. I chop and arrange vegetables in the completely silent room, until Ryan comes in and holds his mouth open like a baby bird, and waits for me to pop a carrot in. He chews loudly as he signs.
“Dad says it’s time to eat.”

Mrs. Shepherd motions for everyone to follow her. We all end up on the deck,
where there are picnic tables set up. Ryan makes a plate for me and one for him, and we sit down at a table with Mick, Samantha, and a few other people. Samantha sits down on Ryan’s other side and he scoots closer to me. He’s so close that I’m going to slide right off the bench.

I get up and motion for him to take my spot, and he looks up at me quizzically, but he does it. Then I squeeze between
Samantha and him. I look at her and grin.
“There,”
I say.
“That’s so much better.”

Mick tosses his head back and laughs out loud. “I like you, Lark,” he says.

I grin. “I like you too, Mick.”

“You must have balls this big,” he says as he mimics palming a baseball with two hands.

Ryan must have read our lips, because he chimes in. “
She doesn’t
,” Ryan says. “
I checked
.” He kisses me on my hot
cheek. It’s a loud smack and it’s awesome.

Mrs. Shepherd walks over and holds out her hand.
“My presents, please?”
she says to Mick and Ryan. Ryan reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a sheet of paper. He wasn’t kidding. It’s the spiral notebook kind and everything. She unfolds it, and then she leans over and presses a lingering kiss to his forehead.

She shows it to me.
“I used to tell
him this story every night before he went to bed,”
she tells me. Ryan has drawn a moon and some cows and sheep jumping over it. It’s really beautiful.
“I’m going to put it on the wall with the others.”

Mick hands her the same kind of note.

“He writes stupid poetry,”
Ryan says. Then he rolls his eyes.

“She loves my stupid poetry, thank you very much,”
Mick replies.

She reads it, gets a little
tear in her eye, and blinks it back. Then she kisses his forehead too, the same way she did Ryan’s.

“Ha!” Mick cries.
“She liked mine better than yours.”

“
She did not. Take it back
!” Ryan cries. Then he picks up a forkful of potato salad and hooks the end of it with his finger, like he’s readying it to launch it at Mick.

Mrs. Shepherd pops him on the back of his head and he drops the makeshift
weapon.

“Mom loves me more than you,”
Mick tells him.

Ryan holds up a middle finger. His mom sees that and slaps at it to scold him.
“Be nice!”
she warns, pointing at them both.

“Should I give her the present I got her, or should I just leave it for her?”
I ask Ryan.

“Where is it?”

“In my pocket.”

He holds out his hand and I lay the tiny box in it. He tugs his mom’s sleeve and she looks
at the box.
“What’s that?”
she asks.

“From Lark,”
he says.

“Is it handmade?”
she asks.

Ryan starts to say, “
Does it matter?”
but I cut him off.
“It is, actually. I made it myself.”
My face heats again. I wish I could curtail some of the blushing.

She smiles and starts to open it. Then she stops and takes in a breath, covering her chest with her palm. She pulls the silver barrettes out of the
box and holds them up.
“You made these?”

“Well, I added the jewels,”
I admit. I bought the silver barrettes and then I added two gemstones, one for Ryan’s birthstone and one for Mick’s.
“It’s their birthstones,”
I tell her.

“How did you know my birthday?” Mick asks.

I roll my eyes. “Facebook,” I say. “Duh…”

He grins. “Well played.”

Mrs. Shepherd pulls the barrettes she’s already wearing from
her hair and replaces them with mine.
“How do they look?”
she asks the boys.

“Beautiful,”
they both say at the same time.
“And you don’t look a day older,”
Ryan adds.
“In fact, I think you look a day younger with those on.”

She pulls the dishtowel from her pocket again and slings it at him. He ducks and laughs.

“They don’t even look cheap,”
Samantha says.

“They’re not,”
I tell her, though
she can’t hear the growl in my voice.

Mrs. Shepherd makes me very happy when she hugs me, and then she goes to show off her new barrettes. Ryan kisses me on the cheek and says, “
She likes you
.”

“
You think so
?” My heart is still racing a mile a minute.

“
Yes
,” Mick says. “
You’re in
.”

I heave out a relieved breath. “Whew!” I wipe my hand across my forehead and pretend to sling off sweat.

But
suddenly, Mrs. Shepherd starts to gasp. She holds her throat and her lips begin to turn blue. “Mom!” Mick calls out, and Ryan runs to the house and comes back immediately with an injectable pen. She falls to the ground and they stick her with the pen, but her breathing doesn’t improve. Someone calls for an ambulance, and Ryan, Mick, and their dad try to keep her stable, but it’s not working.

“Oh, my God!”
Samantha says.
“Were there nuts in the cookies you brought?”

“Mom is allergic to nuts,”
Ryan says. He’s frantically trying to keep her awake, and she’s struggling to breathe.

“You knew there were nuts in the cookies!”
I tell Samantha.

“How would I know that?”
she asks, standing up taller in mock outrage.

“Because I told you!”

“
You might have thought you did, but your signing
isn’t very good,”
she says.

I hear the sirens outside and I wait with the others as they load her into the ambulance. Ryan and Mick leave together in Mick’s car to go to the hospital, and I go to my car with my security guard. “You told her,” he says to me.

“I know I did.”

“Conniving little bitch,” he mutters.

“Yep.”

“You want to go to the hospital?”

“Yes, please.”

I text my family with
a group text.

Me:
I think I just killed Ryan’s mom. We’re on our way to the hospital.

When we arrive, I find Ryan pacing in a hallway with Mick and his dad. Samantha is with him, and every time he stops walking, she starts to rub his arm. He lifts her fingers and pushes her away. Then he sees me.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,”
I rush to say.

He wraps me up in a hug, burying my face in his chest.
I look up.
“I didn’t know she was allergic, I swear it. I told Samantha there were nuts in them and she just said your mom would love them.”

“I didn’t understand her signing,”
Samantha protests, and then she begins to pick at her cuticles.
“She’s not very good at it.”

“You’re a liar, Samantha!”
Mick cries out loud as he signs it too.
“You did this on purpose and you know you did!”

Her face
flushes.
“I did not!”

“Your left eye twitches when you lie,”
Ryan tells her.

She stamps her foot.
“Does not!”

“It does,”
Mick says.
“It always has. You’re lying now and you were lying then.”
He points toward the door.
“You should go.”

“I won’t.”

“Oh yes you will,” four female voices say from behind me, and I look around to find all four of my sisters, along with Emilio and Marta.
“You do
not want to fuck with my daughter,”
Marta says, pointing a finger at Samantha. I have seen Marta get all mama-bear-like before, but I have never seen her quite so forceful. She points to the door.
“Out!”

Samantha turns and runs down the hallway.

“She could have killed her,”
Ryan says. His face is so pale we could light a dark room with it.

“She didn’t,”
Marta says.
“Your mother will be fine.”

“You don’t know that,”
Ryan says.

“I do. I’m a mother, Ryan. We know everything.”

“What do we do now?”
Mick asks.

“Now we wait,”
Emilio says.

Everyone sits down, and Mick and Ryan don’t say a word about my sisters and my parents waiting with us.

“Do you want me to ask them to leave?”
I ask.

He shakes his head.
“They can stay.”

“Marta,” Emilio jokes, “I haven’t seen you be that forceful
in a really long time. It’s kind of turning me on.”

“Someone had to do it,” Marta says. She points to my sisters. “Two of you are pregnant, and therefore incapable of fighting. I couldn’t let you get hurt.”

Wren freezes as Emilio looks at each of them in turn. “Wait.
Two
of you? What the fuck?” His eyes skip from one of us to the other. “I know Star’s pregnant, because she’s blowing up like
a basketball all of a sudden.”

Star presses a hand to her belly. “I am not,” she mutters.

“Who else is it?
Who’s pregnant?
” Emilio demands.

Wren tentatively raises her hand. “It’s me,” she squeaks out. But Peck and Finny raise their hands too.

“Oh, shit,” I whisper.

“I just found out yesterday,” Finny says.

“Sam and I were waiting to tell everybody,” Peck adds.

Wait! All four of my sisters
are pregnant at the same time? My brain struggles to catch up.

Emilio heaves a sigh. “You girls are going to kill me. I’m going to die of a heart attack and it’ll be because of you.”