Page 84 of Ryder

He hasn’t seen his stepbrother since the day we left Greenlark. His stepfather died a few years back, his drinking and drug taking finally got the better of him.

“Yeah.”

I cup one side of his face. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. She wasn’t any kind of mom. Sometimes I wonder how things would’ve turned out if my dad had taken me with him.” This has always been a sore spot for Ryder. He never heard from his dad again, and we’ve no idea where he went. Ryder even had Star, Nevada’s ol’ lady, look into it because she’s a P.I. But the trail went cold after he moved to San Diego. Ryder didn’t want her to keep digging; there was no point. The man didn’t want to be found, and who knows, maybe his past had caught up with him in the end.

“He was no better than she was,” I remind him. “He ran away like a coward and left you, your mom and brother to deal with things without any help. Don’t think like that.” He’s a piece of shit. “What did Stu have to say?”

“He sounded… I don’t know, different.”

I pull away to look up at him. “Different how?”

“Sorry.”

I blink. “He was sorry? I thought he hated your mom?”

“He hated me, and the world. He was a confused teenager whose dad beat him, just like he did me. He needed someone to take his anger out on, and I was the bullseye.”

“Still, it doesn't make him a nice person.”

“He wants to catch up.”

I balk. “You’re kidding?”

He shakes his head. “There’s a will.” Ryder clears his throat. “Apparently my mom came into some money a few months ago. A great aunt, who I never met, left her a bunch of cash in her will, and now, apparently, it’s all mine.”

“So that’s why he wants to catch up?”

“To be honest, I don’t think he even knows. He hasn’t seen her in a couple of years.”

I narrow my eyes. “I don’t trust him. He always looked at me weird when we were kids.”

“Yeah, I remember. He was a teenager, he hated girls in general, but especially you because he knew we were close.”

“I don’t want him around Aidan,” I say. “He’s not trustworthy.”

He kisses the top of my head. “He won’t be anywhere near either of you. I don’t know if I even want to see him, but then there’s the funeral.”

“Do you know any of the details?”

“Nope. But nobody is gonna arrange it if I don’t take charge. It should just be something small — she didn’t have a lot of friends.”

“That’s kind of you, considering.”

“Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

I smile. This is why I love this man so fucking much.

We may have had our ups and downs over the years, and even lately, things have been strained between us because I’m desperate for another baby. Ryder thinks things are fine as they are; he doesn’t like change, and while he’d welcome another baby, he saw what I went through with Aidan and doesn’t want me to suffer. He also spends so much time working, even when we don’t need the money, because he has this fear of going broke. He wouldn’t ever borrow money off my parents to get our first home, even when they offered it. He’s very proud, and because of that, we’ve become strained and often too exhausted to even talk to one another. All couples go through this, I’m sure. But I remember a time when he couldn’t keep his hands off me. When we played sexy dares and he loved it. The amount of places we’ve fucked out in the open, discreetly of course, makes my toes tingle. But Ryder is a responsible dad now, and I’m a supposedly responsible mom. Still, you can take the girl out of the countryside, but not out of the wild.

“What do you want to do?” I ask softly. “I can help.”

“I think we just get a copy of the will and then go from there. I’ve no idea what she wanted in terms of a burial or cremation.” He runs both hands through his short hair. “All of this is just so surreal.”

“I know, it’s awful. I know you weren’t close, but you’re still allowed to feel how you feel.”

“That’s just it. I don’t feel anything,” he says. “I thought I would, but I don’t.”

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