CHAPTER 14
GRACE

I was rushing around the house trying to get Harper ready for lunch. I had woken up to the sound of Ryan’s voice over the phone telling me he wanted to take us out. I was ecstatic that he wanted to spend more time with Harper. Especially after the step we took in our—whatever it was we were doing.

A knock came at my door and I furrowed my brow. Ryan was thirty minutes early. My hair was still a mess and I hadn’t gotten myself dressed, and I rushed to the door as Harper continued to try and take her shoes off.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Are you going to open the door? Or are you naked?” my mother asked.

Shit. What was she doing here?

I opened the door as Harper threw her shoe at the wall. She was screaming about how she didn’t want to wear her tennis shoes. My mother took one look at me and sighed before she headed over to my daughter.

“Going out with Ryan again?” she asked.

“He’s taking us out for lunch, yes,” I said.

“Well go get yourself dressed. I’ll get Harper ready.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Really,” she said. “Now go. When’s he supposed to be here?”

“Thirty minutes,” I said.

“You look terrible. Go.”

I hurried into the bathroom as my mother fought with Harper. I knew she was excited about seeing Ryan, but she was being combative every step of the way. I took my hair down and straightened it, then hooked some earrings into my ears. I cringed at the way Harper was screaming as I applied some makeup.

I was glad my mother was here, because if Harper kept up these antics, I wasn’t taking her.

Slipping into my room, a knock came at the front door. Shit. That was probably Ryan, and Harper was having a grade-A meltdown in the kitchen. I heard Ryan’s gravelly voice rumbling up the stairs as I slid into the clothes I’d picked out, and I heard Harper finally tapering down from her tantrum. Her voice was exhausted, but she was no longer screaming and crying.

I could hear Ryan and my mother talking, but I had no idea what they were saying.

“How’s Harper?” I asked, as I came down the stairs.

“She has something she wants to say,” my mother said. “Go ahead, sweetie.”

“Sorry, Mommy,” Harper said.

“For what?” I asked.

“For not putting my shoes on and throwing one at your head.”

I saw a glimmer of a grin twitch Ryan’s cheek.

“Are you ready to go to lunch? Or do you need to stay behind and take a nap?” I asked.

“No, no. Please let me go. I’ll be good. I promise!”

“Come on. She said she promised,” Ryan said.

“I’ll stay here in case you need to drop her back off,” my mother said.

I eyed my mother carefully, but I liked that idea. If Harper started acting up, I could drop her off and still enjoy my time with Ryan. I nodded my head as I scooped Harper into my arms, then we headed out to the car.

“My mother didn’t play twenty questions with you, did she?” I asked.

“She did, but it wasn’t bad,” Ryan said.

“What did she ask you about?”

“The usual things like how work was going, how the job site was. And, did I plan to do construction my whole life. Oh, and what are my intentions with you.”

“Please tell me you didn’t answer that.”

“Yeah, I told her my intention was to pin you to the wall and make you mine,” he said with a rakish grin.

“Ryan Park! Shut that nonsense up. Harper’s in the car.”

“The door is closed. She can’t hear a thing.”

“That’s what you think. You didn’t say that. Tell me you didn’t.”

“I told her my intention was to take you to this wonderful vineyard outside of town that I checked into for the two of us,” he said.

“Wait—are you serious?” I asked. “When?”

The two of us ducked into the car as Harper flailed her feet in the backseat.

“Next week. Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?” Ryan asked.

“I’m sure. Now, what about this vineyard?”

“It’s this massive place that’s got all these wine tastings and stuff like that, but they also have these bungalow-type cottages you can rent out for a night or two. I figured it might be something you’d like to do, if you could find someone to watch Harper.”

“That actually sounds—really great,” I said. “You told my mother about that?”

“I told her I was going to ask if it was something you wanted to do. But that was it.”

“Well, it’s definitely something I want to do.”

“Then I’ll book it for us next weekend if I can. How does that sound?”

“Friday night and Saturday night. I work on Sundays.”

“I remember,” he said with a grin.

The three of us headed to lunch, then afterwards we went back to the park. Harper was running around, dragging poor Ryan behind her as she ran him ragged. They went down the slide together and played tag with a bunch of other kids. They swung side by side to see who could go the highest. We all walked back to the bridge and tossed rocks into the water, then we ogled at the ducks that were swimming and quacking on the shoreline.

The day was fantastic, and Harper had a blast.

By the time we were walking back to the car, my daughter was holding Ryan’s hand instead of mine. In fact, she wanted nothing to do with me. She had completely taken to Ryan and it made my heart soar, because I was beginning to develop real feelings for him.

I wasn’t sure how strong they would grow or if he felt the same way, but they were certainly there.

“I had a great time today,” I said, as we pulled into my driveway.

“I enjoyed it as well,” Ryan said. “Though you still should’ve let me drive.”

“Keeping Harper’s car seat in here is the easiest route to take,” I said.

“Then we should get one for my car.”

I could tell he was just as startled by the comment as I was. Our eyes connected, and I felt my heart skip a beat. A man didn’t put a car seat in his car unless he planned on sticking around. Was I reading too much into it? Was it something he regretted saying?

His lips on my cheek pulled me from my trance and a blush crept into my skin.

“Your mother’s peeking out the window and Harper’s watching. Otherwise I’d give you a real kiss,” he said.

“I can’t wait for our weekend together,” I said.

“I’m looking forward to it, too. When I have the details, I’ll send them to you.”

“I’ll be looking for them.”

Ryan got Harper out of her car seat and gave her a massive hug. The smile on her face filled my heart with so much joy. It was the smile she would’ve hadfor Grant if he had still been alive. Maybe she would get to know what it was like to have a father figure around after all.

“Will you come back soon?” Harper asked.

“Of course I will,” Ryan said. “And I’ll come with a movie for us to watch.”

“Really? And ice cream?”

“And ice cream,” he said with a chuckle.

I placed a kiss on Ryan’s cheek before we started to the porch. My mother opened the door for us before I could and I shook my head as I walked in. She closed the door quickly behind me and watched Ryan pull out of the driveway. I braced myself for what I knew was coming.

“There’s something off about him, Grace,” she said quietly so that Harper wouldn’t hear.

“Harper, why don’t you go upstairs and get out of your dirty clothes, okay? I’ll be up in a minute and you can jump in the tub,” I asked.

I shooed her up to her room before I turned my attention to my mother.

“What?” I asked.

“There’s something about his story that doesn’t sit right with me,” my mother said.

“Then enlighten me. I take it this is about your interrogation of him while I was upstairs getting ready?”

“I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but I get this weird vibe when I’m around him.”

“A vibe,” I said. “You sure it’s not gas?”

“I’m being serious, Grace. You’ve got him around my granddaughter now, so I feel I should have a say in this.”

“No, you really don’t. You’re the grandmother, not the mother. You don’t get to choose who comes into her life because no one guards that more closely than I do,” I said.

“But what if you are just seeing what you want to see? Look, I’m glad that you are finding some happiness somewhere since Grant died, but I just don’t know if Ryan is who you seem to think he is. I just feel like something about his story is off.”

“What story?” I asked, exasperated.

“Well for starters, I don’t think he actually works in construction Grace,” she said.

I nearly rolled my eyes. “And what makes you think that?” I asked.

“He told me there was a construction site just outside of town he was working on. A subdivision that was being built or something. So I did some digging, and there aren’t any subdivisions being built outside of town.”

“Mom, you’re being ridiculous. And very paranoid,” I said. “I think you might need a hobby.”

“Are you listening to me? There are no neighborhoods going up. There isn’t a construction job outside of repaving roads and putting up some storage units and empty strip malls.”

“Then maybe he’s working on one of those.”

“They aren’t subdivisions, Grace. He said subdivisions.”

“Mom, I get it. Losing Grant hurt you, too. It hurt all of us. But Ryan? He tells me I’m beautiful and then makes me feel that way. He treats me right, he romances me and he adores Harper. Maybe his job isn’t all that glamorous. Maybe he is just paving roads and didn’t think you’d find that worthy of me, but why do I care? He provides for himself and his brother Jason and that’s all anyone could ask of a man.”

“So you don’t care that he might be lying to you about what he does for work,” she said. “That—doesn’t faze you at all?”

“I’m not planning on marrying the man next week, Mom. I just want to have some fun and a little romance. Like you’ve said, it’s been so very long since I’ve had any of that in my life. And I know Ryan, we have history. It just makes it so easy.He’s working hard to make sure that his brother can go to college like he never had the chance too. I know nearly everyone in this town looked down on him after his dad went to prison, but no one seemed to realize that what his dad did wasn’t his fault. He had to forego his own future to make sure his little brother had one. So if he’s paving roads or cleaning toilets to make that happen, I really don’t care.I’m not looking for another husband, or even someone to provide for my daughter and me. I’m just looking for –"”

I shook my head as tears rose to my eyes.

“You know you deserve that, right?” my mother asked. “Someone to love and cherish you, someone to keep you and Harper first in his mind.”

“He makes me feel good, and that’s what I want. I want someone to make me feel good after having a kid, giving up my dream, and losing my husband. And if you can’t support that, then you can at least shut your mouth about it.”

I stormed up the stairs and shuffled Harper into the bathroom. She needed a bath and I couldn't be around my mother a second longer. It was the truth. I didn’t care if Ryan wasn’t a construction worker. I didn’t care how he got the money he had. I knew Ryan. I knew we were safe with him, and I knew he enjoyed me like I enjoyed him.

“Is Grandma staying for dinner?” Harper asked.

The front door of the house slammed closed as I closed my eyes.

“I don’t think so, sweetie,” I said.

“What were you guys fighting about?” she asked.

I shook my head, marveling at how intuitive she was for a five-year-old. “Nothing. We weren’t fighting. Just talking about grown up stuff.”

“Does Grandma think Ryan’s bad?”

I put her in the bath and began to fill the tub with bubbles.

“I think she’s just being a mom and wants to make sure you and I are always safe and happy,” I said.

“Well I like Ryan. And that’s all that matters.”

“Oh really. That’s all?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“Well good. Because I like him, too.”

For the moment, that was enough for me.