“Alyson is with Jason.” Etta sat on the edge of the bed. “She wasn’t with me when Ryder called. But I called to tell her what is happening. After that your mother called and Alyson explained the situation to Caroline.”
“Call Alyson and tell her she doesn’t have to come over. She and Jason have so much to do in the next month.”
“I’ll tell her, but I can’t guarantee she won’t come over.”
The door opened a few minutes later. Andie’s heart jumped a little, expecting it to be Ryder. Because he wouldn’t stay gone. He’d never stayed away for long. It wasn’t him, of course it wasn’t. She had told him to go. It was a nurse’s aid with a dinner tray. The young woman set two covered dishes on the table and opened the container of milk.
“Dr. Ashford told me to bring food for you and for your grandmother.”
“Thank you.” Andie raised her arms and the aid moved the table across the bed.
She was hungry, but she didn’t know if she could eat. Her heart was still breaking, because she hadn’t expected to want the person walking through her door to be Ryder. She hadn’t expected it to hurt this much when he left.
Etta sat down in the chair next to the bed. She thanked the aid for their food and waited for the young woman to leave.
“Andie, I don’t know what is going on with you and Ryder, but I know the two of you will work this out. You’ll find a way to be parents to these babies. And I think you’ll both do a good job at it.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“Oh, honey, when have I ever been wrong?” Etta winked and then her smile faded. “Goodness gracious, what kind of food is this?”
Andie managed a smile, but it was hard to smile when she didn’t know when Ryder would be back. She wouldn’t let herself think the worst—that he wouldn’t come back.
Chapter Fourteen
Ryder Johnson didn’t run. Or at least he’d been telling himself that for the past few days. But it really felt like running. He’d taken his cue from Andie, and he’d run. It wasn’t sitting too well with him. He’d called himself things like “yella” and “coward.” But it was hard to shake off pretty serious changes to his life, and to Andie’s.
He was going to be a dad—to twins. Every single time he thought that, which was often, it felt like a punch to the gut. But it wasn’t all bad. He was adjusting. And it was starting to feel a little better, the idea of those two babies in this house.
Since he’d left the hospital, he’d been working on the nursery. The room was painted, all but the trim around the door, and he’d ripped up the carpet. Antique green with antique ivory trim. He didn’t get all of these antique colors. His mom had worked hard to make this house look French country and anything but antique.
Ryder stepped back, wanting to see how the room looked from the door, as a first impression. He wasn’t very creative, and he wasn’t much of a painter, but he thought it looked pretty good. He wondered what Andie would say.
Not for the first time in the past couple of days he thought about calling her. But he wasn’t going to push. He’d said what he had to say and now she had to come to terms with things, with life, and with them as parents.
When he left the other day he’d decided they both needed a few days to adjust and think. He had to admit to being knocked on his can with everything that had happened. First the pregnancy, and now twins. He shook his head and looked at the room he had meant for one baby.
Now he thought about how it would be to have the babies here part-time.
He put the brush down and walked around the room, trying to picture it with Andie here, and babies in that crib he was sanding down out in the garage. A room, a crib, a rocking chair and babies. He told himself not to put Andie in this room, not even in his imagination. Babies, yes; Andie, no. But he couldn’t stop thinking about her in this room, in this house and in his life.
Floorboards in the hallway creaked. He turned and Wyatt walked in. He stopped just inside the door and nodded what Ryder hoped was his approval.
“You got it done. I guess that’s why you’ve been up here with the door closed for the past two days.” Wyatt wiped a streak of green off the trim at the door.
“Yeah, almost done. Still have to do the trim around the door.”
“Word around town is that Andie Forester is having twins.”
Ryder hadn’t talked to his brother much since the night he came home from the hospital. He’d come home, went out to the barn and knocked around the old punching bag they had in one of the stalls. That was one thing their dad had done for them. He’d taught them to box. He’d given them an outlet. So after his fight with Andie he’d come home and put on boxing gloves.
“Yeah, we’re having twins.”
“Wow, that’s huge.”
“Thanks.” Ryder put the cap on the paint.
“Is she going to marry you?”
“Nope. She says I have to say something other than ‘I think we should.’ I’m not sure what she wants from me.”
Wyatt laughed, really laughed. “You can’t figure it out? You know, everyone in this town thinks you’re the ladies’ man. But you’re really just the guy who dated a lot of women. You know, to be honest, I’ve never figured out why you didn’t date her.”
“Because we’re friends. I didn’t want to mess that up by dating.”
Wyatt had said it best; Andie was the longest relationship Ryder had ever had.
But he had messed it up. Instead of dating, he’d taken advantage of her when she needed him the most. He’d done a lot of praying about that, and he’d needed a lot of forgiveness.
“This isn’t about protecting your friendship.” Wyatt picked up the brush and stroked it across an area that looked smudged. Now that Ryder looked a little closer, maybe it was. He’d never said he was a painter.
“Well then, oh wise one, what do you think it is?” Ryder was about to get those boxing gloves again. It wouldn’t be the first time he and Wyatt had settled something in the backyard under the security light.
Wyatt shrugged. “I guess I’d say you’re selfish. You didn’t want to lose your best friend so you never put yourself out there to see what other kind of relationship you could have with her.”
“I asked her to marry me.” Ryder growled the words and then he took a deep breath and made his words come out a little quieter. “I asked her to marry me and she said no.”
“You asked her like it was a solution to a problem.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah? You’re an idiot if that’s all you can say. You’re a clueless idiot and you don’t deserve her.”
“I’m not clueless… I know exactly what I feel.” He stopped, shocked by his own words, and not surprised that Wyatt was smiling.
“Really, what do you feel?”
“I’m not going to hurt her.” Ryder looked away from his brother. “I don’t want her to be Mom. I don’t want to start out thinking we can conquer the world and then someday realize we don’t even like each other.”
“I guess if you start out thinking someday you’ll fail, or things will go south, then you’re probably doomed.”
“Yeah, I guess we are, but I love her too much to have her hurt that way.”
“You love her too much to marry her and be a dad to those babies of yours. Like I said, idiot. You’re not our dad. You’re the guy who has been in this room for two days, painting it some prissy looking shade of green. You’re the guy who has been down in the garage sanding a crib by hand.”
Wyatt tossed the brush in the bucket and walked out of the room. Wyatt was getting it together. He’d even taken the girls to church. Ryder would have gone after him but he figured his older brother was figuring out his own life.
He had proposed to Andie by telling her it was the right thing to do. No wonder she was ticked off. And he’d left her in the hospital alone.
It would take a lot of paper to list the mistakes he’d made in his life. And now, at the top of the list was the
way he’d treated Andie.
Somehow he’d make it up to her. He’d find a way to show her that he loved her and that he wasn’t going to let her down. He wasn’t going to be the man who walked away from her. He wasn’t going to walk out when things got tough.
But those were words he had to share with her. As soon as he got this room ready. He wanted to show her that he hadn’t walked away and forgotten about her. This room was for her.
All this time working up here and he hadn’t really thought about it that way. He’d been fixing a room for the babies. That meant having those babies living here, with him. And that meant Andie.
He couldn’t picture this room without seeing her in it. And it was that image, man, that image of her, with her blond hair and the sun shining through the window that made him want to have her in this house forever.
Because he loved her. He hadn’t ever, not once in his life, let himself think those words about Andie. But he’d selfishly kept her tied to his side in the place of best friend.
Now he was going to find another way to keep her in his life. And he wasn’t going to use the words that had gotten him thrown out of her hospital room.
Andie walked out to the barn. It was great to be able to come and go again. She’d tried not to overdo it, but it had been hard to remember that she still needed to take it easy. She wanted to go everywhere and do everything. She wanted to buy baby clothes in matching sets and pretty pictures for the walls.
The thoughts were pretty out of place in her life. Etta called it nesting and said it would get worse as she got closer to her due date. She shuddered to think about it, about how bad it could get.
She’d had the same bedroom furniture, the same quilt, the same pictures on her walls since as far back as she could remember. And why? Because a girl didn’t plan her wedding, or talk about children, when she was in love with her best friend and she knew that he had no intention of ever settling down.
She wondered how much he resented her for taking away his freedom.
Dusty whinnied when he saw her. He trotted up to the fence, his gold coat glimmering in the evening sun. He pushed his head at her, demanding attention and a treat. She pulled baby carrots out of her pocket and held them out to him. He sucked them off her hand, barely moving his lips.
And then she saw the alpaca. She laughed and tears slid down her cheeks. She touched her belly. “That’s your dad’s idea of romantic.”
It wasn’t chocolates or roses, although he had brought wilted flowers with the alpaca. But it showed how well he knew her, and how much he cared. He’d bought her an alpaca, a silly thing she wouldn’t have bought herself.
“I can’t believe he bought you an alpaca.” Alyson walked across the yard, pretty and feminine.
Andie tried not to compare herself to her twin. But she did look down at her faded jeans tucked into worn boots. Two peas in a pod, they weren’t. But they were connected. Andie should have hunted her sister down. It wasn’t fair, that Alyson didn’t know about them, but they’d known about her. They should have found her.
But Andie had been too stubborn. She’d decided, without any proof, that Alyson knew about them but didn’t want to see them.
She was bad about that assuming thing. She had assumed, for a lot of years that her mother didn’t care about her. She was learning now, since Caroline’s arrival the previous day, that maybe more connected them than Andie had thought.
Last night they’d talked about how it felt to be Caroline, leaving her life in the city, trading it for life in Dawson. And then having twin girls.
Last night Andie learned that her mother suffered from chronic depression. And she learned, from her mother, that the biggest difference between them was that Caroline had never felt like a part of Dawson. She had been the wrong fit for Andie’s father.
But Andie and Ryder had always been here, always loved their lives here. They knew each other. They knew one another’s dreams and goals.
Caroline had helped Andie see that. In a conversation that had been a little stiff, a little formal, Andie had learned about herself from her mother.
“Yeah, an alpaca.” She finally answered Alyson’s question. “What did you say Jason bought you, a baby grand?”
“Yeah, but Jason knows that I wouldn’t have appreciated an alpaca. I think Ryder probably knows how much you’d love one. And you do, right?”
“He’s the cutest, sweetest thing in the world.”
“The alpaca or Ryder?”
Andie laughed at her sister’s very obvious attempt at bringing the conversation back to Ryder. “The alpaca.”
“Yeah, of course.” Alyson leaned across the fence and scratched Dusty’s neck. The alpaca walked toward them, a little slow, hesitant. “How do you feel?”
Andie shrugged. “Good, really. No more cramping. For now, no bed rest. I’m not looking forward to that last trimester. But Dr. Ashford assured me that if I take it easy now, maybe the last trimester won’t mean a lot of bed rest.”
“That’s good to hear. You aren’t a good patient.”
“Thanks for that.” Andie reached to pet the alpaca she’d named George. “I guess I need to try on my dress this week.”
“That would be good. The seamstress says she can leave a little room. In case you’ve gained weight by the end of the month.”
“I don’t plan on doing that.”
Alyson touched Andie’s belly. “I have bad news for you. There’s a little pooch here now.”
“That’s water weight.”
“Of course it is. But about Ryder…”
“This had to come up, didn’t it?” Andie turned away from the alpaca and they headed toward the house. “Did Etta send you out? She’s been after me for three days. Your…our mother has been after me.”
“The two of you not talking isn’t going to solve anything.”
“I never said that I’m not talking to him. He left. He didn’t come back.” Okay, she’d kind of wanted him to leave at the time, but he didn’t have to stay gone.
“Tell him you love him. Give him the opportunity to do the right thing.” Alyson said it with such conviction, looping her arm through Andie’s as they walked back to the house. “He deserves that honesty from you if you’re going to be good parents together.”
“Yes, he deserves to know.” That she loved him. But once the words were between them, what happened then?
She had no idea. She didn’t think it would change anything, though. There were some realities that mattered and wouldn’t change. The fact that they were going to have twins was a big reality. He was going to be a dad. She was going to be a mom.
But the two of them together? She wondered if maybe she was being stubborn. She had been called stubborn once or twice. Maybe loving him was enough?
Maybe him loving the babies and being a good husband, being her best friend, was enough? Her heart picked up speed because she’d never felt more like God was showing her something, as if He was really showing her an answer to her prayers for herself and Ryder.
There were starting places in life. Most of those starting places had a lot to do with trusting God, even with a situation that you didn’t know how to tackle, or how to face.
“I have to go.” She walked through the back door of the house and grabbed her purse off the kitchen table.
“You have to what?” Caroline had walked into the kitchen. Andie paused in the doorway, because it still took her by surprise to see her mother in this house.
“I have to go talk to Ryder.”
“Really? Are you done with the silent treatment?”
“I’m done. We have to come to an understanding. I think the understanding is that we’re going to be parents and maybe ‘I think we should’ is a good enough reason to get married. For our babies.”
“Oh.” Caroline walked to the coffeepot.
“What?”
“Well, I’m glad you’re putting the babies ahead of yourself.” She poured her coffee and turned.
But it still felt like a new pair of boots. She wondered if that would always be their relationship?
Andie guessed probably so if that’s all she expected. She breathed a little and let go. Because Caroline wasn’t going away anytime soon.
“I love him.” Andie slid the strap of her purse over her shoulder and she wondered if her mother saw the parallel between their lives, the way she was seeing it.
“I know you do.” But Caroline had never approached anything with faith. Andie was holding fast to hers.
“I know you believe I’m doing the wrong thing. But in my heart I know that going right now and talking to Ryder is the right thing to do. I know that we have to stop being stubborn and be parents.”
Caroline smiled. “You’re doing the right thing.”
Andie nodded and left. She hadn’t needed to hear that from her mother, she already knew it. But it shifted things. A small empty space in her heart closed up a little.
Ryder carried the sanded cradle into the nursery. He planned on painting it that same ivory color. He thought that’d be the right color. First he had to figure out what kind of paint to use. Babies chewed on things. He knew that. Even toddlers chewed on stuff. He’d found Kat chewing on the kitchen cabinet.
He turned at a noise and smiled. Kat was sitting in the doorway, watching. She had a paintbrush and was pretending to paint the door. Fortunately she didn’t have paint.
“Good job, Kat.”
“Ryder, you have company,” Wyatt shouted up the stairs.
Ryder had thought he heard a car come up the drive a few minutes earlier. He brushed his hands down the front of his jeans and wiped dust off his shirt. It might be Andie. Or it might not.
He wondered just how bad a guy could look after getting just a few hours sleep over the last few days. He raked a hand through his hair and hoped for the best. When she came up the stairs, he was waiting for her. Kat was still sitting in the doorway, smiling at her pretend paint job.
The Cowboy's Sweetheart Page 17