The Good Ones Read online

  “If that’s the way you feel, I can respect that,” she said.

  “Thank you.” He looked surprised.

  “I also think it’s best if we go back to our former association as employer and employee,” she said. The words came out short and tight and anyone who knew her at all would recognize she was angry, but Ryder didn’t know her well. Did he? It was a good reminder to get out while the getting was good.

  He stared at her. She saw the muscles bunch in his jaw. He looked like he was losing his temper, too. Good.

  “I suppose you’re right,” he paused, “boss.”

  Maisy stiffened her spine. She wasn’t going to let him rattle her. She met his gaze and said, “I think this will keep things from getting confused.”

  “Sweetheart, we’re already there.” His tone was as dry as dust. “But whatever you want.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  With that she turned on her heel and strode from the room, half wishing he’d follow her and half wishing he’d fall into a big vat of slime to be justly rewarded for letting their newfound coupledom go without a blink or a sigh or an orgasm. Damn it!

  * * *

  • • •

  RYDER thought about going after Maisy several times during the day. Wasn’t that what the hero was supposed to do? Swoop in and throw the heroine over the back of his horse and ride off into the sunset with her? Yeah, there were a couple of problems with that. First, he didn’t have a horse, he’d have to borrow one from Joaquin, who would likely not be down with his using it to kidnap a woman. Second, Maisy was the sort of woman who if she knew he’d even thought such a clichéd thing, she’d likely give him a black eye, which was one of the many reasons he lo—

  He stopped the thought with a vigorous shake of his head. He was not in love with Maisy Kelly. He liked her—a lot—but that wasn’t love. He had no room in his life for loving someone right now. The only person he loved with his whole heart was Perry. Giving her everything he hadn’t had as a kid—unconditional love, a safe and happy home, opportunities—that was all he cared about.

  Maisy stayed out in the bookshop all morning, probably avoiding him. Ryder tried to convince himself it was all for the best. It was good that Maisy had put a definitive end to whatever they’d been doing. It wasn’t going anywhere and the potential to get hurt was high for both of them. No, he would go to Charleston and take the big-paying pencil jockey position he’d been offered, and Maisy would open her bookstore and meet some nice guy who’d marry her and make babies with her and they’d live in Fairdale for the rest of their lives.

  “Hey, bro, what did that pencil do to you?”

  Ryder glanced up to see Quino standing in the doorway. He looked down at his hand to find he’d snapped a number two between his fingers. He dropped the pencil onto the drawing table.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I guess I don’t know my own strength.”

  He faked a laugh, but Quino wasn’t buying it as he didn’t return the smile. Instead he pushed his cowboy hat back on his head, letting his thick dark hair poke out under the crown, while his steady dark-brown eyes regarded Ryder with sympathy, as if he knew there was an inner turmoil chewing up Ryder’s insides like one of his horses did with a bucket of oats.

  Ryder scowled. “What brings you by?”

  Joaquin tossed the book bag he was holding in his other hand at Ryder, who caught it before it hit him in the chest. It was Perry’s. He recognized the Stranger Things sticker stuck on the front.

  “She was at the stables this morning,” Quino said. “She left that behind.” He tipped his head to the side and studied Ryder’s face. “She had that same look on her face.”

  “What look?”

  “That stubborn thing you’ve got going on, where your eyebrows meet in the middle and your lower jaw sticks out,” he said. “Are you two having a fight?”

  “A difference of opinion,” Ryder said. “We’ll sort it out.”

  Quino nodded. He turned to leave, his limp from his soccer injury barely visible now, but he had to jump back as Savannah charged into the office. She saw him standing there but didn’t slow down. She just plowed past him into the room. Ryder caught Quino’s look of surprise and almost laughed.

  “Hey, cowboy-architect guy,” Savannah said. She planted her hands on her hips and glared at him. “What did you say to Maisy?”

  “Nothing, why?” He tried to ignore how his pulse jumped at the sound of Maisy’s name, coupled with the worry that she might be upset by their talk. It just proved that halting the budding relationship was a good thing, since he absolutely hated the idea that she might be sad and it would only be worse if they stayed together and then parted ways when he left.

  “Liar,” Savannah said. “She’s with King George right now and she’s—”

  “Crying?” Ryder asked in alarm.

  “Singing.” Savannah gave him a dark look.

  Oh, singing was bad, very bad, for a variety of reasons. “‘Over the Rainbow’?”

  “Worse. ‘Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ral,’” she said.

  “The Irish lullaby?” Quino asked. “What’s wrong with that?”

  Savannah and Ryder shared a look and then Savannah said, “I’m sorry, this is your business why?”

  “Because Ryder is my friend,” he said.

  “Well, Maisy is mine,” she countered.

  Ryder glanced between them. If ever there were two people who should not be in the same room together, it was these two. Both were fiercely independent, stubborn, and frankly, mouthy.

  “Here’s a thought. If you don’t want me knowing your friend’s business, maybe you shouldn’t talk about it in front of me,” Quino said. He crossed his arms over his chest, doing a fair imitation of a wall.

  “If you had any manners, you wouldn’t have listened in on what was obviously private information,” Savannah said. She ended it with a hair toss, and Ryder saw his friend’s pupils dilate. Quino had always had a thing for gingers.

  “Steady, you two,” Ryder said. “We’re all friends here.” He cast a glance at Savannah. “At least, I hope we are. Joaquin Solis, this is Savannah Wilson. There, you’ve been introduced, now play nice.”

  Quino’s eyes moved over Savannah’s tall, curvy frame. She was dressed for success today in a skirt and blouse and spiky heels. Her long red curls were loose and framed her face becomingly while her green eyes blazed provocatively. Ryder would have felt sorry for his friend if he wasn’t all consumed by his own female-based misery right now.

  “You’re a city girl, aren’t you?” Quino asked.

  “Woman. I am a woman, not a girl,” Savannah said. “And, yes, I’m from Manhattan, or as we like to call it, civilization.”

  A slow smile spread across Quino’s lips. Ruh-roh. Ryder knew that look. It practically shouted challenge accepted.

  “Well, woman, since we’ve established that I lack manners, I’m going to say exactly what I’m thinking,” he said.

  “That should be a short sentence,” she retorted.

  This time Quino laughed and it hit the room like a sonic boom of warmth. Ryder noticed that even Savannah responded to it by relaxing her posture a bit. She turned to face him, and Quino moved forward until they were an arm’s length apart.

  “I think you should go on a date with me,” he said. Tall and muscular, with movie star good looks and a friendly personality, it had long been established that Quino could have any woman he wanted. In fact, in all the years Ryder had known him no woman had ever refused a date with him.

  “That is never going to happen,” Savannah said. “But thanks for the offer.”

  Ryder was pretty sure his jaw hit the ground. He tried to cover it up by faking a yawn, but seriously—holy shit!—no one ever said no to Joaquin Solis. He thought his friend might be embarrassed to have crashed and burned in front of him.
<
br />   Nope. Quite the opposite. Quino looked at him as if to say Her. I’ll take her. Ryder had the abrupt epiphany that his world had just gotten infinitely more complicated. This had to be nipped. Immediately!

  “Okay, then, this was fun,” Ryder said. He threw an arm around Quino and half pushed, half dragged him to the door. “But we’d better get going since I need to deliver Perry’s book bag to her before she has a meltdown and since she’s not speaking to me, you’d better be the one to drop it off at the office at the school. Thanks, man, you’re the best.”

  He kept up the steady stream of chatter until Savannah closed the door after them with a decisive bang. He shoved Quino into the passenger seat and got into his truck. As he fired up the engine and headed toward the school, he asked, “What was that?”

  “That was history in the making,” Quino said. There was a smile still on his lips and he turned to Ryder and winked. “That was the first meeting between me and my wife.”

  “Did Daisy throw you? Did you hit your head and sustain a brain injury that you haven’t told me about?” Ryder asked. “Savannah is about as far removed from life in the Smoky Mountains as a woman can be. She is mani-pedis, lattes, and shopping until her credit card catches on fire.”

  “I’m not seeing your point,” Quino said.

  “You are horses, small-town life, and you buy your clothes at the feed and tack store,” Ryder said.

  Quino shrugged. “None of that matters.”

  “You really did concuss yourself, didn’t you?”

  Joaquin just grinned at him. It was the smile that had broken a hundred female hearts and probably a few male ones, too. “By Christmas, she’ll be my wife, you’ll see.”

  Ryder shook his head. He wanted to say that by Christmas, Fairdale, Maisy, and the Happily Ever After Bookstore would be a distant memory for him, but he didn’t, because the thought hurt like pressing on a bruise. And he suspected that voicing it aloud would hurt even more, in the realm of taking a knee to the man junk, or a punch right in the sternum. He absently rubbed his knuckles over his ribs and forced himself to think about Perry. She was going to love her new school. She would have every opportunity. Maybe she’d even take up one of those scholarly sports like lacrosse or crew.

  Yeah, that was the plan and Ryder was sticking to it. Perry was going to pursue her dreams as far as they took her and Ryder would be there, always, the hand at her back, the leg up when she needed it, always.

  Because that’s what a good father did even if the thought of leaving Maisy behind in Fairdale killed him.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  LOST in thought, Ryder barely had time to hit the brakes when a stop sign sprung up out of nowhere.

  “Ryder, dude, what is up?” Quino pushed himself off the dashboard and adjusted the seat belt that looked to be trying to strangle him.

  Ryder fell back against his seat. He shook his head. “Sorry. I’m just . . . I have some stuff on my mind.”

  The driver behind him, clearly out of patience with Ryder’s poor driving, began to lean on his horn. The sound was jarring, and Ryder stepped on the gas and moved through the intersection.

  “Seriously, bro, are you okay?” Quino asked him. “You look upset.”

  Ryder met his stare and said, “I am.”

  “Explain.”

  “There’s no point,” he said. He turned back to the road and focused on his driving. “It is what it is.”

  “Want me to drive?”

  “No, I’m good,” he said.

  This might have been the biggest lie Ryder had ever told. He was not good. He could try and tell himself a million times that he was fine with walking away from whatever had been happening between him and Maisy, but he wasn’t fine. It felt like for one brief shining moment, he’d managed to catch something magical in his hands and just like that it slipped between his fingers. Lost forever.

  He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. His marriage had unraveled in much the same way. He and Whitney had never really fought during their marriage. Ryder had thought it was because things were okay between them—not great, but okay. He came to find out during their run at marriage counseling that it was mostly because neither one of them cared enough to fight it out. When they disagreed, they just avoided each other until the disagreement passed.

  He thought about Maisy giving him what for about her turret and about Perry. Yeah, things would never just pass with Maisy. She dug her heels in, she called him on his bullshit, she cared. How long had it been since a woman cared like that about him? He couldn’t even remember. Maybe when his mother had been alive. Maybe never. And wasn’t that a sad statement on his life? What was even sadder was that he had no idea how to change it.

  * * *

  • • •

  “YOU look like someone told you Jake Sinclair is fictional,” Savy said.

  “Huh?” Maisy looked up from her poké bowl.

  The two women were sitting on the front porch of the bookstore, enjoying the last of the quiet before the bookstore’s grand opening the next day. Savannah had picked up poké bowls from a new shop in town and they were enjoying salmon and ahi over brown rice and kale. It was a good, healthy, heart-smart choice for dinner and Maisy would have given anything to exchange it for half of a triple-layer chocolate fudge cake or a whole cake. She really wasn’t picky at the moment.

  “Jake Sinclair? The perfect man is fiction,” Savannah said.

  “I know,” Maisy said. “The good ones are always either fictional or taken or gay.”

  “I see I’m going to have to be blunt. You look depressed, like someone stole your truck, ran over your dog, lit your barn on fire, and knocked up your sister depressed,” Savannah said.

  “So, I’m a bad country-western song?”

  “Yes, which really sucks, given that we’re about to achieve your dream by opening this bookstore. You just had to let a man get all up in your business.”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” Maisy said.

  “Maybe not but you sure can’t pick ’em in the man department,” Savannah said. “I like Ryder, I do, but you can tell just by looking at him that he is not relationship material.”

  “You say that about every man,” Maisy said.

  “That doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

  “In my defense, I didn’t know Ryder was leaving at first,” Maisy said. “And we didn’t split up because of that so much as because things got complicated. Besides, you’re one to talk. Jeri told me that Joaquin Solis got you all flustered.”

  “I was not flustered,” Savy said. She used her chopsticks to stab a piece of tuna and chewed it as though it had done something to offend her. “He’s way too sure of himself. Just because he’s tall, built like a Jersey barrier, good-looking in that square-jawed, dark-eyed, smoldering way, and has a smile that makes reasonable women lose all of their self-esteem and throw themselves or their underwear at him, he thinks he can have whatever he wants. Well, he can’t have it from me.”

  “Really? You saw all that within five minutes of meeting him?” Maisy asked. “You are good. And here Jeri was saying you were smitten with the cowboy who asked you out.”

  “Smitten?” Savy curled her lip. “Hardly.”

  “I only know Joaquin in passing but I had his younger sister, Desi, in my English 101 class,” Maisy said. “From what she said about him, he seems like a good guy, the type who will step up and help you carry bags if you have too many, or open a door for you, or give you a lift if he finds you stranded on a road somewhere—without trying to make a move on you. You know, a good one, a keeper.”

  “You might want to raise the bar there. Good manners are mandatory, but not indicative of relationship material. I don’t care if he does help with bags or gives lifts to the stranded, that does not make Joaquin Solis worth dating,” Savannah said. “That guy might seem nice, but I�
�m betting it’s because he has an ulterior motive going the entire time.”

  “If you say so,” Maisy said.

  “I do,” Savannah said. “Now, quit trying to change the subject. What are you going to do about you and Ryder?”

  “Nothing,” Maisy said.

  Savy shook her head, clearly rejecting this response. “It’s too late to do nothing. You blew that option the minute you kissed him. Now you have to figure out what is happening between you.”

  “Yeah, nothing is happening,” Maisy said. “I made that pretty clear.”

  “Really?” Savy said. She turned to Maisy and stared her down. “So, when he strolls into a room with his hat on, you’re not going to feel anything? When he smiles at you, you’re not going to die a little inside? When he leaves, you’re not going to be filled with regret?”

  Maisy glanced away. She knew Savy was pushing her, but she wasn’t saying anything that wasn’t true and they both knew it.

  “M, the only things we regret in life are the chances we don’t take,” Savy said. Her voice was soft and her eyes were kind. “Do you really want to live with that?”

  “But—” Maisy wanted to argue but the words got stuck.

  “But?” Savy pushed.

  “But he’s leaving, which makes the whole thing doomed. And besides, when I tried to point out that I didn’t think Perry wanted to go away to school, he completely shut me down.”

  “That’s no good,” Savy said.

  “No, it isn’t,” Maisy said. “I mean, how can we have a meaningful relationship if he just closes himself off if I say something he doesn’t want to hear?”