by Tina Reber
I was updating my master calendar when Ryan’s elbows hit the table. I heard him end his call and when I looked over, he was holding his head in his hands. He had so many people poking their noses into his business, telling him how to run his life, I wondered how long he’d be able to endure the constant pressure of it all.
I set my pen down and crossed the room. As soon as he looked up at me, I straddled his thighs, wrapping my arms around his warm, bare shoulders, and pulled him in tightly.
I closed my eyes and rested my cheek on his head, rubbing my fingers over his hair, his neck, while his arms cinched around me. We sat in silence for a long time, just breathing and being, chasing the insanity away as best we could.
Ryan’s eyes met mine and we softly kissed, reassuring each other with weary smiles.
“Change your mind yet?” he asked warily, locking his thumb through the belt loop of my jeans.
I shook my head, knowing what he was asking. “Never. You’re mine.”
That definitely pleased him. He gave me a crooked, unsure look. “Till death do us part?”
I gave him a soft kiss. “Maybe just a bit beyond that.”
“So, tell me. Tammy’s stressing out. Makes me wonder what we’ll be up against when we’re planning our wedding.”
I took a little breath. “Honestly? I really don’t want a big to-do, Ryan. I’m thinking sweet and simple.”
“Sweet and simple, huh?”
I nodded. “You know—family and friends. Romantic. Elegant. Maybe some twinkle lights in the trees.”
He wiggled his thighs, bouncing me a bit. “Twinkle lights. Okay, what else?”
I paused to think about it. “Outdoors maybe.”
“Like tents and stuff?”
That thought made me wrinkle my nose. “I don’t think I want the big, white tent thing.”
Ryan scratched his cheek. “You want to do the church thing or . . . ?”
I really had no preference. “I’m not set on anything and honestly, I haven’t been in a church since my dad died, so . . . What do you want?”
His noncommittal shrug was the easy way out. “Naked on a beach?”
I frowned and gave him a nudge.
“Really!” he went on. “I don’t know. Outdoors sounds good. Or inside somewhere. I’m completely open to suggestions.”
“I think we have time to figure it out. Maybe we should work on living together in sin first.”
Ryan slid his hands over my rear, tensing his fingers. “I like that idea. I started drafting some designs.”
Suddenly he was completely rejuvenated, as if he had a new fire burning in his gut. He flipped open the
sketchpad he always doodled in.
“All right, time to start designing our house.”
Ryan was back on set filming when I got to talk to my birth father again. We spoke on the phone for almost an hour, neither of us really minding the time. Joe was easy to talk to and although we kept the conversation light and informative, I could tell that his words were filled with regret.
While Ryan filmed, I stayed in his trailer, going over everything from our latest financial statements to picking out front doors for our future house.
Ryan’s set trailer rocked a little when he bounded in. “Hey babe,” he said, eying me over. “What’s going on?”
I watched as he set some papers on the counter. “Oh, where to begin? You sure you want to hear this?”
Ryan took a bottle of cold water out of the small refrigerator. “Not when you start off that way, Taryn.
But yeah. Start sharing.”
“You have time?”
He took a sip and tilted his head. “I have fifteen minutes. Can I have the abridged version?”
“Okay . . . Marie and Tammy are still fighting, Pete is miserable being laid up on his couch and out of work, your mom said that she’s throwing our engagement party at their house on July twenty-second, which is on both of our calendars now, and somewhere in the last week Cory started sleeping with the new waitress Marie hired.” I wiggled my cell. “Oh, and I talked to Joe.”
He looked a bit surprised. “Wow. I thought all the drama was out there.” He pointed. “Cory nailing that short blonde I met, or did Marie hire someone else?”
“No. It’s the one you met—Kara.”
Ryan nodded. “Well, good for him, I guess.”
“Not so good for me. Especially if there’s a dramatic breakup.”
He slid into the dinette and sat across from me. “That’s the shit you have to deal with being a business owner. Although it’s really Marie’s problem, I suppose.”
“It’s my bar. It’s my problem. One that I’ve been avoiding for weeks now. She’s got her own drama to deal with.”
Ryan scratched his eyebrow with his thumb and frowned at me. “I can’t tell you what to do, but you know you can’t be in two places at once. And Mike is so miserable, I’m about to send him off to Seaport if he doesn’t get to see Marie soon.”
He was rather grumpy lately.
“She wants to become a bodyguard.”
I was surprised when he didn’t seem fazed by that. He took another swig of water and I watched him swallow. Something about that was quite sexy, actually. “Mike told me.”
The news that Mike talked to him about it was also surprising, since Mike wasn’t one to share much.
“Mike told you?”
He nodded. “Yeah. We talked about it quite a bit.”
“According to Marie, he’s being extremely supportive about it.”
Ryan twisted his lips as if he were hiding a secret. “Love will do that to ya.”
That surprised me. “He’s in love?”
“Isn’t it obvious? She’s very attractive, but she also is a bit of a scrapper. Feisty little thing, ya know?
That’s exactly what he needs.”
I smiled. “Yeah, I know. She doesn’t take a lot of crap. She’s worse if she’s been drinking.”
He crawled out of the bank seat and sat down on the couch, putting his feet up. “And what are your thoughts on all of that? You’d lose your bar manager.”
“I think she should do whatever makes her happy.”
He rested his head back into his hands. “I agree. Especially if she and Mike stick. Would be best if their jobs complemented each other. That’s just a win-win for us.”
“Win-win?”
He gave me his isn’t it obvious? eyes. I wasn’t about to ask. I was sort of stuck on his other innuendo.
“You want me to sell the bar.” It wasn’t a question, but it definitely came out of my mouth as a whispered realization.
His frown said it for him. He took another drink of his water, eyeing me before he spoke. “I want you to do what’s right for us. Having the business is great but you being constantly worried about it isn’t, so something needs to give.”
He was right, in a way, but then again we’d been engaged only a few weeks. Was I wrong for wanting a fallback plan? One ace stashed up my sleeve in case of emergencies? After all, I had my own sense of self-preservation.
“Can we discuss this some other time?”
Without hesitation, he said, “Yep.”
“How are things on set? How’s Nicole doing?”
Ryan seemed undecided. “She’s been toeing the line.”
“You think she’s staying clean?”
He scratched his eyebrow. “She doesn’t have much of a choice since I insisted on her getting weekly drug screenings. She can be pissy toward me all she wants; while she’s here working on my film, she will keep that shit out of her body and her head in the game.”
I nodded. “Did you talk to her about getting some drug counseling?”
I knew he was not keen on intervening. “No, but I did have a private chat with her. One slipup and I’d see to it that she’d get hauled off set in cuffs.”
“You didn’t?”
“I most certainly did. I don’t have time to babysit. She has to deal with her own shit or else. Anyway, t
hat’s not our problem. I have to go back soon. I came to get you. I need you there.”
“You need me there?” I gave him my best are you for real? look.
He picked at his costume, which was a blue pair of very cool rock climbing pants, a look that I’d be sure to buy for him the next time I went shopping. “Yeah. I like knowing you’re there.”
“I don’t want to be in the way. I figured I was a distraction.”
“Taryn, you just breathing is a distraction. Knowing you’re on the lot, holed up in my trailer doing God knows what that I can’t see, is a distraction.”
Ditto.
And here I thought I made him nervous. Hearing that he wanted me there made my insides warm. I was learning so much by being a silent observer and I’d much rather be out there than in here. “Well, since you need me . . .”
Ryan knifed his body up and then he was inches from my face, letting me know his thoughts. “I need you. You’re my muse.”
I knew he was messing with me but his sexy lips made me think about how damn lucky I was, especially imagining him being all athletic and sweaty on set. “Your muse, huh?”
He grinned and nodded. “Uh huh.”
“I thought I was your sex slave.”
That got me a wider grin and a sexy-as-hell kiss. “That, too,” he breathed, tasting of the mint gum I had slipped into his pocket.
I wanted his tongue again. “You taste good.”
“I’ll let you taste me all over if you want—later. Reminds me, there’s this one position we haven’t tried yet and I was wondering if you’d be game?”
His face was so close; I had to lean back. “Just one?”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “You have a dirty mind and a mouth that makes me have all sorts of ideas.
That’s why you’re perfect for me.”
I met his lips and gave him a wicked kiss, growling from the strain of having to separate us. “Before you get carried away . . .”
“Then you better come up with another distraction besides putting your tongue in my mouth.”
I fought his pull and murmured, “I talked to Joe for almost an hour.”
He looked surprised, edging back a bit. “Yeah? And?”
I fought back my disappointment and sudden sadness, trying to stay positive on the subject, but it was hard. The man who fathered me was keeping me at arm’s length, and well, it hurt. I felt more rejection than acceptance in that hour.
“It was good, but . . . well . . . He told me about his wife and his family. He has two young daughters who apparently are huge fans of yours.”
Ryan’s eyes narrowed, reading me like a book again. “Is that so? Apparently he also said something that upset you. I can see it in your eyes.”
I sat back. “He said that he’d always regretted giving me up but he was young and didn’t know the first thing about raising a baby and . . . I can tell he’s full of remorse.”
Ryan sat down next to me. “I can imagine. So we going there to meet him?”
“No.”
“And why not?”
“Ryan, I have not been a part of his life for a very long time.”
“So?”
“It’s not that simple. We talked and, well, he’s glad I know the truth about him but said he’s not ready to tell his wife about me yet. He’s not sure how she’ll take it since he’s never told her about fathering a child when he was a teenager. He’s afraid the news will upset her too much.”
Ryan rubbed his forehead, appearing annoyed. “Well, that’s too fucking bad.”
“Ryan, it’s his choice. I can’t expect him to put his family’s happiness in jeopardy, no matter how much I want to meet him.”
Ryan shrugged a bit. “A man should own up to his situation.”
“He was a kid when I came along. I can’t put that on him. He’s got to decide what’s best for them.”
He seemed to disagree. “What’s he do for a living?”
For a moment, it sounded like he was being protective, like he needed to know if Joe was good enough to be my absentee real father. “He’s a master electrician. He owns his own company. He said he does a lot of new construction and they’re so busy they can hardly keep up.” There, that ought to be good enough.
Ryan’s lips twitched and he nodded his silent approval. “Good, honest job. Sounds like a hard worker.”
Who are you and what happened to my twenty-seven-year-old fiancé?
“Does his wife work?”
I nodded. “She’s a dental hygienist.”
That got an eyebrow raise and a few more head bobs of approval. It was almost like saying she was related to his dentist father, in the way he seemed good with that information.
“And the girls? How old are they?”
“Abby is fourteen and Eli is eleven. They sound like great kids.”
With that Ryan seemed to relax a bit, but still he said, “Listen. I know that you’ve been dealing with this . . . this shock. And I’m going to continue to be patient and supportive, but I will not allow someone you barely know to upset you. Before you opened that box, things were fine. Well, as fine as they could be considering, but now this has tossed you for a loop and I don’t give a shit if he’s the king of Siam. If he doesn’t bring goodness and happiness to you, then he’s going to be cut off very quickly. Mark my words, Taryn. I won’t let this eat at you. If he doesn’t want to own up to his shit and be a man about it, then he can go back to being unknown to us. You’ve had enough hurt for one lifetime and I won’t stand for someone bringing more sadness on you. I won’t.”
“I know,” I grumbled quietly.
“No, I don’t think you do. Your entire life you’ve been obliviously happy. Now you question everything more than you did before. But what you need to focus on are the things that are right and true in your life.
Me. My family. We are constants. I’m not going anywhere and you know that. But some guy you don’t know who donated some sperm is not worth the head space he’s taking up. Dan and Jennifer were your parents and I know they were taken way too early from you but you need a mom or a dad; my parents are all too willing to step up and give you what you need.
“This guy . . . this Joe person, he makes no difference to our lives. You and me—that’s all we’ve got.
And if your friends want to make choices that don’t include a future with us, I’ve got no problem with that, either. None. Cut that shit clean off and we’ll make new friends. We surround ourselves with people who care and love us. That’s how we roll.”
He was right. So freaking right, as usual. I’d recognized my fears of abandonment when I thought Ryan’s parents were moving him out of the apartment right before we got engaged. Everyone I loved eventually left me. Everyone. And now some guy I didn’t even know was tugging on my emotions and twisting my thoughts just because I needed to get something back; needed to validate why this information about me being adopted was even dropped on me.
Still through all of that, I almost wanted to laugh at him. “That’s how we roll?”
“That’s how we roll,” he said, serious at first until the edge of his mouth tipped up. “You have no relationship with him. He doesn’t want to make one with you, no problem. One less person fucking with our happiness, as far as I’m concerned.”
I smiled at that thought; how he was able to make me love him more and more every day.
His eyes dropped down to my lips, his head tilted in the opposite direction, and he murmured, “C’m’ere” as he leaned down to kiss me. I wrapped my arm over his shoulder so I could pull my body even closer while my other hand found those soft curls of hair by his neck. He groaned in my mouth as I tugged on his hair.
“I need to spend an entire day kissing you,” I breathed out on his lips.
He pulled on the tips of my hair hanging right next to my breast. “Tomorrow. All morning. No phones, no computers. Your mouth and your body are mine.”
Someone banged on our trailer door. “Ten minutes, Ryan.”
His shoulders slumped, as did mine. His eyes skittered over to my laptop screen. “What you got there?”
I’d forgotten about my Internet searching. “The totally awesome front door for our new house. You
like?”
“Yeah, let me see it.” His lips curled just a bit and he sat up, moving the computer closer to get a better look. “Nice. Add it to the list.”
Well, that was easy.
“You want to see more?”
“Why? You design the whole house?”
“No, but Marie sent some pictures. She said this is where we should get married.” I opened the email and made the attachments full size on the screen.
Ryan’s eyes scrunched together before going wide. “Wow. No, scroll back. Back. Stop. Holy shit, that’s cool. Where is that?”
“Italy. A place called the Grotta Palazzese. What do you think?”
Ryan’s smile widened, taking in the restaurant. It was located inside the opening of a cave and had breathtaking views of the vast Mediterranean Sea. “That’s wild. Italy? Is that what you want? Something like that?”
I shrugged, not firmly decided on anything. “I don’t know. But that definitely looks like a cool place to have dinner.”
He gave me his look, the one that said he’d fly me anywhere I wanted and give me the wedding of my dreams as long as I said yes along the way.
“I think we need to go there and check it out, even if it’s just for dinner. Brings us back to freeing up your responsibilities, though, Tar.”
“I know. And I think I have a solution.”
Ryan raised a brow. “You do?”
After I told him my idea, he was more than happy. He was downright relieved.
Going to Italy was easier said than done. After spending another few days with Ryan in Vancouver, I flew back to Rhode Island by myself. The month of June was almost over, Marie was slightly miserable, Tammy wasn’t really speaking to either of us, and Pete was drowning in debt, his days of climbing ladders and doing manual labor for a living on hold indefinitely.
To say I was looking forward to returning to all of this would be a lie. At least the paparazzi and gossip rags were being somewhat nice, printing photos of our happiness when they caught Ryan and me out shopping a few days ago.
Ryan and I had a nice time wandering around, taking in some sights and spending some money on stuff we didn’t need but could afford. I was sporting a gorgeous antique diamond bracelet that Ryan spent a small fortune on and he bought himself a nice platinum chain with a stainless steel dog tag that had a tribal design on one side and my name engraved on the other.