by Diana Gardin
“And my job is to be with you today, as much as I want to be hunting him down with the rest of my team. Lawson’s the lead investigator when it comes to stuff like this, so he’s working with Indigo to follow the scent. They’ll find him, probably before the cops do. And when they do…I’ve asked for five minutes alone with him.”
There’s so much loathing in his voice when he talks about Eli that it makes me shudder. “Why?”
He glances at me as he turns onto the highway that leads away from the beach, toward the outskirts of town. “Why what?”
“Why would you want to do that? Ryder, this is a job for you. Why do you give two hoots about Eli Ward?”
Ryder pulls to a stop at a red light, engine purring, and turns his big body to face me. He grabs my hand from across the console and laces our fingers together. “Do you really think that after spending time with you, having you in my bed, hearing you scream out my name when you’re coming…Jesus, Frannie. I know it hasn’t been more than a week, but we’ve been through some shit together. It intensifies things. Do you really think that this is just a job for me?”
Uncertainty weighs heavy in my gut at his words. What am I to Ryder?
There was a time, not very long ago, when I didn’t want to know. All I wanted was to keep him at as far a distance as possible so that I could keep my little girl safe, but also keep myself out of Eli’s hands so I could be her mom without that monster in her life. But now? I still want those things. But I might be ready to trust someone again. Ryder’s right…the time we’ve spent together hasn’t been long, but it’s been intense. The feelings I’ve developed for him in a matter of weeks are real.
So damn real.
The light changes to green, and Ryder doesn’t release my hand as his foot stomps on the accelerator. We’re leaving the beachy, touristy part of Wilmington and entering the more urban side of town. Every city has two faces, and this is the one the Wilmington tourist brochures don’t show the world.
“So, is it just because I’m the woman you’re protecting right now? Would it be like this no matter who I was? How many have there been like me?” My voice rises as my own insecurities take hold, wrapping themselves around my throat. “How many of your clients have you taken to bed?”
“Fuck.” Ryder drops my palm and brings his hand to the back of my neck, gripping tightly enough to show possession but not an ounce of pain. “Look at me, sweetheart.”
I do, glancing at him through a haze of the tears that have suddenly, maddeningly sprung to my eyes. He curses again, and his tongue runs over his full bottom lip.
“None. You hear me? I’ve never slept with a client. I’ve never even wanted to. You and me…this is something different for me. I don’t know what yet. But what I have to show you today just proves to me that you’re something more. And to be honest, sweetheart, I don’t know if I’m ready for more. All I know is that when I’m around you I want to try. There’s grief inside me that’s been there for a long time, so long it’s a part of me. I’ve learned to live with it. But when you’re pressed up against me, or when I’m looking into those big blue eyes of yours, it hurts less. You make me want to heal. You are healing me. All I want is for you to let me in.”
My breath catches. Because I want to let him in too. I’ve just been terrified, because for me there’s so much at stake. He keeps glancing at me between looks at the road. “You feel me?”
I nod slowly. “Will you tell me about your grief?”
He nods. “Today, I will. And I hope that if I open up to you, you’ll feel safe enough to talk to me. Because we all have our secrets, baby. I just need you to trust me enough to let me be a part of yours.”
It feels like my heart is being torn in half. Ryder is ripping me apart. Half of me wants to hand him everything. But I know I don’t have everything to give. Not until I know Dove is completely safe.
“Where are we going?” I whisper.
I glance out the window as we cross a set of train tracks, the brick apartment buildings and storefronts on either side of the car broken up by empty fields and basketball courts. There are people walking, all kinds of people, but they all seem to have one thing in common.
The people who live in this neighborhood don’t have a lot of money. Maybe they work hard and don’t make more than minimum wage. Maybe they’re down on their luck. Whatever the reason, the people here struggle, and it shows in the general run-down look of the buildings around me. It’s evident in the way that children and teens run around the streets with no supervision.
My heart aches.
Ryder pulls to a stop at the curb in front of a large brick building with a big blue symbol stenciled on the glass front door.
“This is the Boys and Girls Club,” Ryder explains as he opens my car door and I climb out. “I volunteer here once a week if I can swing it with my schedule. If I’m on a mission I come less, but when I have downtime I try to make up for it.”
I remain quiet as I follow him up the front sidewalk and into the air-conditioned building. Inside, it’s set up like an open gym with a large basketball court. There’s an office at the front, and a dark-skinned man with dreadlocks pulled into a ponytail strides out with a big smile on his face.
I’m glancing around at the bright colors on the walls and taking note of the sounds of children laughing and playing all around me when the man grabs Ryder into a bear hug.
“Been a couple, man. Good to see you!”
“Yeah.” They release each other and Ryder scratches his chin, looking chagrined. “Sorry about that, Drew. You know the work schedule gets crazy. Want you to meet someone. This is Frannie Phillips. Frannie, meet Drew Ryan. He runs this branch of the Boys and Girls Club.”
Drew holds out a hand. He’s not as tall as Ryder, but he’s very broad and well-muscled. He’s like a teddy bear with his warm, brown complexion and big smile. I like him instantly.
“Hi, Frannie. Thanks for coming in with this knucklehead today.”
Grinning, I shake his hand. “No problem at all. It’s nice to meet you.”
Drew nods toward Ryder. “You want to take your usual group?”
Ryder nods. “Yeah. I’ve had some art supplies in my trunk for a while. Been waiting for my next visit. Okay if I use that blank space on the back exterior wall I was talking about last month?”
Drew nods and clasps his hands together. “Sure, sure. They’ve been excited, waiting for you to come back. Well, as excited as teens will show; you know how it is. They’re in the arcade room.”
Ryder chuckles. “Nice, nice. I’m gonna go get a few of them to help me grab the stuff, then.”
Taking my hand, he leads me through the gym and into a back hallway. My emotions are all over the place, my brain firing on all cylinders. “Ryder…I had no idea.”
He arches a brow. “No idea about what?”
I gesture around me wildly. “About any of this.”
He lifts a shoulder. “This is the least I can do to give back after…” He trails away, not finishing his sentence.
I’m taken back to his statement in the car earlier about grief, and my heart clenches. Oh, Ryder. What have you been through?
It should a big ol’ scary red flag, how much I want to know this man. But instead, he keeps drawing me in. Closer and closer, and I have no desire to step back.
When he opens the door to the arcade, a chorus of voices lift. Eight boys greet us, all seeming to be between the ages of eleven and sixteen, and one little girl who’s smaller than the rest. She looks to be about eleven. Their clothes reflect the fact that they don’t have much money, but the smiles on their faces indicate that they’re very happy to see Ryder. They surround him, exclamations and questions flooding from their mouths.
“Hey, hey, okay, guys. I’m happy to see you too. Let me introduce you to someone, all right? This is Frannie. She’s a friend of mine, so be nice to her today. She’s gonna help us with an art project. That cool?”
All the kids stare at me w
ith curiosity, but the little girl looks at me with animosity in her eyes.
Uh-oh. I have some competition for Ryder’s heart, I think.
Ryder leans over to whisper in my ear. “Will you stay here with them while I take a few of the bigger guys out to my car to grab the paint and cloths?”
I nod. “Of course.”
He looks at me like he’s assessing my comfort level. When he doesn’t see any kind of apprehension, he grins. Pulling me into him, he drops a kiss on my forehead.
He turns away from me. “Darius. Joey. Come to my car with me to grab a few things, okay?”
Two of the boys edge their way through the throng of kids, and six pairs of eyes turn expectantly onto me when they’re gone. I gesture toward the games. “What were you guys playing?”
“Pac-Man!” the younger boys yell.
The older boys were playing some kind of racing game on motorcycles, and they are bored enough with me that they get back to it. I take a seat on the couch in the room, and some of the kids follow. The little girl hangs back, but I motion for her to join me. She does with reluctance, perching on the edge of the couch and not looking at me.
Her skin is olive-toned, her long hair textured and hanging down her back in curly waves. Green eyes glance in my direction only once before looking away again.
“What’s your name?” I ask her softly.
She doesn’t look at me when she answers. “Nevaeh.”
“That’s beautiful. Is it hard hanging out with all these boys all the time, Nevaeh?”
She shrugs. “Sometimes. That one lives next door to me, so he’s like my brother.” She points toward one of the boys on the motorcycles.
The boy sitting on the other side of me scoffs. “She doesn’t hang out with us. She’s all girly and shit.”
My eyes snap to his. He immediately looks down. “I mean, stuff.”
I can’t help my crooked smile.
Ryder walks back in with the two older boys and claps his hands together. “You guys ready?”
All of the kids jump up. “Yeah! What we doin’, Mr. Ryder?”
“Come outside and I’ll show you.”
Ryder leads a line of kids outside and I bring up the rear, just as curious as they are about what he’s doing with tubs full of spray paint cans and canvas drop cloths.
I had no clue Ryder even had an artistic bone in his body. It seems I’m learning a lot about him today, probably more than I have since I’ve known him.
When we arrive outside through a back door, Ryder leads us around toward the back of the building. A big, whitewashed brick wall stretches before us. He and the older boys place the tubs of spray paint, assorted colors, out in front of the wall.
“Gather ’round me for a minute, y’all.” All the kids move in close, and I notice that Ryder wraps an arm around Nevaeh as she sidles up close to his side. My heart starts to warm.
“Today,” he says to the group, making eye contact with each kid, “we’re going to put some graffiti on this wall.” When murmurs of shock go up among the children, Ryder holds up his hands. “It’s okay, because we have permission from the owner of this building. When you have permission, it’s called ‘commissioned artwork.’ And we’re doing this in honor of someone very special to me.”
Nevaeh speaks up, her voice shy and quiet. “Who, Thorn?”
He glances down at her, a tender expression on his face. “My little sister. Her name was Echo.”
When he says the word was, a stab of pain slices through my heart, so profound my hand automatically goes to my chest. Ryder’s eyes meet mine, and the grief there is stark and uncovered for the first time since I’ve met him. For the first time, I realize that he’s always been mourning something, someone. I’ve never known who or what it was, but there’s always been a sense of sadness to him, of a sense that he couldn’t or wouldn’t be content no matter what.
This is the explanation.
Echo. What a pretty name.
“She died when she was a teenager, and I loved her very much. I want to remember her today, by doing the thing she loved most in the whole world. Art by graffiti. She didn’t always do it legally, but it was always beautiful. Echo was a free spirit, so let’s try to channel that now.”
A somber silence has fallen over the group of children, like they somehow understand the pain and grief their mentor is feeling today. Maybe they’ve been through some type of similar losses of their own, some of them. I’m not sure. All I know is that slowly, one by one, they move forward and pick up the cans of spray paint.
And inch by inch, the side of that brick building becomes covered in graffiti art so beautiful it makes my chest hurt. I’ve never painted anything in my entire life, but I pick up a can and just start spraying. I keep glancing at Ryder, who’s right beside me, a pained look on his face as he paints, pouring all of the hurt and grief in his heart out onto that wall.
I’ve never seen anything as beautifully heartbreaking as he looks in that moment.
I’m not sure if I ever will again.
16
RYDER
Frannie with a can of spray paint in her hand, interacting with the kids who have been like a saving grace for me, is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Where did this woman come from?
Even Nevaeh, whom I noticed giving her the side eye when we first came in, is now standing beside her, watching Frannie spray lavender angel wings on the side of the wall.
“See?” Frannie’s saying. “After I finish with these, you’re going to stand right in front of them. And I’m going to take your picture. And since you’re so gorgeous, and your name is ‘Heaven’ spelled backward, you’re going to look just like an angel in the photo. And you know what I’m going to do with that picture?”
Nevaeh shakes her head, a look of awe on her face. Frannie leans down and whispers in her ear. An expression of delighted pleasure spreads over Nevaeh’s face like the first rays of dawn on a cold winter morning, and that’s when it happens.
That’s the moment I lose my heart to this woman.
I thought shit like that only happened in the movies, this real defined moment when one person falls for another. But I just know. Nevaeh is my gauge, because she reminds me so much of Echo. After we lost our mom, Echo was always trying to escape the world she was forced to endure. She ended up turning to drugs to do that. And Nevaeh is still so young, but her home life is forcing her hand, making her look for routes of escape I want to help her avoid. And I know without a doubt that if Echo were here, she’d approve of Frannie. She’d be happy that I’ve found someone who makes me happy. And she’d want me to do everything in my power to make sure that woman stays safe by my side, no matter what it takes.
“Hey, Mr. Ryder.” Joey, one of the older, Latino boys who helped me carry the tubs of paint from the car, nudges me. “Is Ms. Phillips your girl?”
Chuckling softly, I black out the edges of the big block letters I’ve painted on the wall. We’ve all decided to paint a group mural based on our own individual artistic thoughts and ideas. Standing back and admiring my work, I read the large orange and red letters rimmed in black: WHAT WE DO NOW ECHOES IN ETERNITY.
Smiling, I aim my gaze at Frannie, who’s finishing up her angel wings. “Maybe she will be. Why? You like her?”
“She’s cool.” Joey’s tone is all serious. He flings his head to one side, trying to get his long brown hair to flop out of his eyes. “You seem different today.”
Nodding, I put the cap on my paint and sling an arm around his shoulder. “The right woman can do that for you, Joey. Remember that.” I evaluate the mural as everyone is finishing up. “This looks pretty dang good, everyone. Proud of you guys.”
“Ryder!”
I turn toward Frannie when she calls my name.
She holds out her phone. “Look at this gorgeous angel model I just photographed.”
Nevaeh’s expression morphs into a shy smile at her words, and my heart transforms into somet
hing soft and mushy inside my chest. I grab the phone from Frannie and study the picture. Nevaeh is standing on her tiptoes, skinny arms stretched into the air. Her long hair tumbles around her shoulders as her green eyes aim skyward, and the angel wings Frannie painted in the background on either side of her are perfection.
“Beautiful,” I murmur, handing the phone back to Frannie and glancing at Nevaeh.
She beams up at me, and I wrap an arm around her shoulder. “Did you have fun today?”
“Yeah,” she says, her voice full of open honesty. “Will you bring Frannie back with you again?”
My lips tip upward in a half smile. “Well, that’s up to her.”
Frannie puffs up her chest, standing to her full height of five foot three. “Try and keep me away.”
Nevaeh grins. “Cool.”
Their bond is cemented, and for me it’s just one more reason I can’t let Frannie slip out of my life before telling her exactly how much I want her to stay there.
We decide to order in dinner. I took enough of a risk with Frannie today, bringing her to the Boys and Girls Club with me, but I took a precaution. Bain followed in his truck, kept an eye on the street the entire time we were inside. Backup in this situation was necessary, since it’s clear whoever Eli has looking for Frannie isn’t against shooting at a vehicle with her inside it. Even though I switched to a different car today, we aren’t taking chances.
Spreading the plethora of takeout menus across the coffee table and plopping down on the couch, I pat the cushion beside me. “What do you feel like eating tonight?”
She doesn’t even glance at the menus. “I want Indian food tonight.”
I burst out laughing. “Decisive, are we?”
She pulls her legs up under her, kicking off her silver sandals. “It’s a waste of time, being indecisive. I know what I want, Ryder.”
Those big blue eyes meet mine, the color of the sky on a cloudless day, the deepest kind of turquoise and as clear as any I’ve ever seen. I’m close to falling into them, and I’m leaning forward without even knowing I’m doing it. I know it’s dangerous territory; I know that I’m catering to a woman who’s still keeping secrets from me. And that’s a line I drew in the sand a long time ago. But I also know that trust is a big thing when it comes to relationships. And I haven’t even given her those words yet. I haven’t even told her that’s what I want from her. I haven’t gone all in with her. So what reason does she have to give me everything?