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.

“Ryan,” she said gently, walking around to join him on his side of the counter. “I worry about you. You’re so private about everything.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. You brought me this pie because you wanted to talk, and you have never wanted to talk about a woman before. So I’m saying perhaps you should consider talking to her. Sharing some of your heart,” she said.

“What would I even say?”

“Just talk to her. Tell her why you didn’t say a word. Tell her what’s on your mind. What’s in your heart. Women often like that.”

But did they? He flashed back to Sanders’s wife and her weird glances at the mention of the speeding ticket. He hardly knew how to do what his grandma was prescribing. “Is it even worth it?”

“Is it?” she echoed. “Only you know the answer to that. But Ryan, you think you have to manage everything perfectly because your life spun out of control when you were younger. All our lives did. Here’s the thing you need to see—you can’t control everything, and you also don’t have to. The only things you can take charge of are the choices you make, and if Miss Peach Pie is a choice you want to make, then you should let her in.” She paused then added, “Besides, you’ve never shown up at my house at ten p.m. to talk about a woman. So think about that, my love.”

He wasn’t sure he agreed with her.

Hell, he wasn’t sure about anything. Except tonight seemed to prove it was a good thing he generally didn’t make it beyond a third date.

Just look at the mess he’d made of the fourth one.

* * *

Sophie scrubbed the island for a third time. She would likely go for a fourth, perhaps even a fifth. John finished loading the last plate in the dishwasher. “Look, men are pigs,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

She shot him a sharp-eyed stare. “That makes you a pig, too, then.”

He nodded vigorously. “Takes one to know one. Men are horrible.”

She grabbed a dishtowel and swatted him on the shoulder with it. “Stop. You’re being ridiculous. Men aren’t pigs. Not all of them at least,” she said softly. “You’re not. Dad wasn’t. I don’t really think Ryan is either.”

John said nothing, and Sophie returned to cleaning the marble countertop of the island, making sure she scoured each section to a spit shine. She wasn’t trying to erase the evening, or the man. She was merely trying to keep her mind busy, so she’d be less apt to rely on her heart.

Her heart was a puppy, happily trotting in a field of poppies.

That was the problem.

“Does your silence mean you think he’s bad news?” she asked John. She didn’t know anybody else who’d even met Ryan. At least her brother had spoken to him.

“I don’t know enough about him to say if he’s bad news or not,” John said carefully as he poured dishwasher soap into the machine.

“You don’t trust him, though.”

“It’s not that I don’t trust him. I don’t trust anyone.”

She shoved the sponge roughly back and forth, back and forth. The repetitive motion was strangely soothing. “But is your distrust of Ryan more or less than your baseline level of distrust?” she asked in a clinical manner.

“It’s higher, but that’s because we’re talking about you, now. And I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“You think I’m foolish.”

“No,” he corrected as he shut the dishwasher. “I think you love easily. Maybe too easily for your own good.”

“I’m not in love with him,” she said quickly, dropping the sponge and meeting his eyes.

He arched a brow, questioning her with his steely stare. “It sure looked like that. Or like it was heading in that direction.”

“When? When did it look like that?”

“When I walked back out and saw you holding him.”

She shut her eyes as she slipped back in time to those few seconds that felt like a slice of possibility. Her arms around him. His cheek on her shoulder. She opened her eyes and straightened the kitchen some more, placing the clean roasting pan in a cupboard.

“Also, you believe in love so strongly because of Mom and Dad, and you think you’re going to have that,” John continued. “But most of the world isn’t like that. Some of the world is like Ryan’s parents.”

“What happened with them? Beyond the news. Beyond what I could find on the Internet,” she asked as she put more pans away. She was dying to know. Curiosity had her in its grip.

“Soph,” he said in a chiding tone. “You know I can’t say.”

“But you think he knows something that will help you in the investigation? You said that. You said that the night I went to the gala. I know you had to have been talking about him then.”

He huffed. “You’re too smart for your own good.”

“I’m just a good listener. So what do you think he knows? You don’t think he’s a suspect, do you?”

He laughed and shook his head, leaning his hip against the counter. “No. Absolutely not. But everyone has an agenda, and I think Ryan Sloan has his own, which for some reason involves protecting his mother.”

“But she’s in prison. How can he be protecting her?”

“I think he’s protecting things she won’t tell us. But the good news is he told me something that I think will be helpful, if I can just connect all the dots.”

“Can you?”

He shrugged. “That’s the million-dollar question. And you know I can’t say anymore. If I do I’ll compromise the investigation, and all investigations matter, but this one is a big one, Sophie.”

She had a sneaking suspicion John wasn’t merely looking into an eighteen-year-old murder. She had a feeling he was hunting for something that went much wider and bigger.

“And if you do? You can keep the streets safe?”

“That’s always my goal.” He nodded to the door. “I should go. Unless you want me to stay.”

She shook her head. “I’m fine. Just tell me—is there anything about him that you think I need to know? Would I be a fool to see him again?”

He tucked his finger under her chin. “Sophie, I can’t make those sorts of promises or guarantees about anyone. Let alone someone I barely know. What I do know is this—he is focused, and intense, and his mother adores him, and he loved her, too.”

Was that such a bad thing? Was there some law that said you were supposed to become a hater if someone you loved killed? Sophie shuddered at the thought. Was the world that black and white? She had no clue how she would feel in Ryan’s shoes, which was why she didn’t want to judge him.

She said goodbye to John then headed to her closet and rearranged her favorite dresses and fancy shoes.

When she woke up the next morning, her phone bleated loudly—a reminder of her meeting in a few hours with Clyde. She groaned because the man would surely ask her about her date for the fundraiser, and she didn’t know if she had one still.

Or if she wanted one anymore.