The Perfect Hope

CHAPTER SIX

MAN NIGHT. RYDER HADN’T INTENDED TO GET ROPEdinto spending the evening with kids and dogs. It just sort of happened.

Plus, Beckett sprang for the manly meal of spaghetti and meatballs, apparently a Man Night tradition.

Anyway, the kids were appealing, and along with Yoda and Ben, their young Lab mixes, generated enough energy to power the whole damn county.

Dumbass was in dog heaven.

Ryder didn’t know what rules applied when the lady of the house was in residence, but Man Night equaled a free-for-all. The kids ran around like demons, ate like wolves, fought like mortal enemies, and laughed like loons.

It reminded him of his own childhood.

The house was made for kids and dogs, he mused. Big, sprawling, open, colorful. He knew Beckett had added on to the plans for the then-unfinished house once he and Clare got together, and had redesigned it with their family at the center. Now the kids had a big boy-style playroom with built-in shelves and cabinets for kid debris. He knew because he’d helped build it, and because Murphy dragged him up to see it.

Then proceeded to haul down every action figure known to man.

Ryder had a collection of his own boxed away. Some things were sacred to a man.

“Yoda ate Green Goblin.”

“Kid, they’re not even in the same universe.”

“Not the real Yoda. Our Yoda. He chewed him up, but he was just a puppy. He doesn’t eat action figures anymore. And Santa brought me a new Green Goblin for Christmas. He left it in my stocking. And he brought me Gambit.”

“You’ve got Gambit?”

“Uh-huh.” Delighted with the interest, Murphy dug into the colorful bodies, pulled it out. “Sometimes he and Wolverine fight, but mostly they fight the bad guys together.”

Ryder had always had a soft spot for Gambit.

“We should have a war now. See, we can use the Bat Cave and the Millennium Falcon for bases, and the Green Goblin and Magneto and the Joker, and like that they are planning the attack in the garage. See, you can put cars in it, but bad guys, too.”

What the hell, Ryder decided, and helped the kid set it up.

The war proved vicious, bloody, and, like all wars, involved cowardice, heroism, and numerous casualties. Collateral damage included a one-legged T-Rex, three Storm Troopers, and a ratty teddy bear.

“Teddy took it in the gut!” Murphy shouted.

“War’s hell, kid.”

“War’s hell,” Murphy repeated since it was Man Night, and giggled insanely.

Owen walked in as the allied Avengers, X-Men, and Power Rangers blew up the enemy base.

“We defeated them.” Murphy leaped up to do his victory dance and exchange high fives with Ryder. “But Iron Man’s wounded bad. He’s in the hospital.”

“He’s Iron Man,” Owen said. “He’ll pull through. You’ve got to take Harry on in Wii Boxing,” he told Ryder. “He beat the crap out of me.”

“Let Beckett fight him.”

“He beat the crap out of Beckett, too. And Liam. You’re our last hope.”

“Fine. You’ve got to help the runt clean this up.”

“I wasn’t in the war,” Owen protested. “I was Sweden.”

Ryder considered. The room resembled a battlefield—that had been hit by a tornado. Bribery worked. “I’ve got pie in the truck.”

“Where’d you get pie?”

“Cherry pie. You want any, help the runt. I’m going to take the other kid down.”

“I like cherry pie.” Murphy hit Ryder with his beautiful angel smile.

“Clean it up, and you’ll get some.”

Pretty good deal, Ryder decided as he headed toward the family room. Skate out of cleanup, and prevent himself from eating a whole pie—which he would have, and no doubt he’d have felt sick after.

He walked in, rolled his shoulders, did a little boxer’s dance in place. “You’re going down, Harry Caray. Down and out.”

Harry raised his arms over his head. “Undefeated. World Champ. I knocked Owen out! He had X’s in his eyes.”

“Glass-Jaw Owen,” Ryder scoffed, tapped his own jaw with his fist. “Big whoop.” He went to the fridge under the bar, got a beer. “Say your prayers.”

“I’ll say some for you,” Beckett offered his brother. “The kid’s merciless.”

“Save ’em. I’ve got a cherry pie out in the bed of the truck. Why don’t you go get it?”

“Pie?” Liam jumped up from the floor where he’d been rolling with the dogs. “I want pie.”

“Then pie you shall have, grasshopper.” Beckett shoved out of the big leather chair.

“Okay, current and soon-to-be ass-kicked champ. Set it up.”

Harry brought up Ryder’s Mii—dark hair, eerily green eyes, scowling face—offered the controller.

The crowd went wild.

The kid beat the crap out of him.

He dropped down with his beer while Harry circled the room, pumping fists in the air.

“What do you do, play this twenty-four/seven?”

“I’ve got natural talent.”

“My butt.”

“Granddad said so. I beat him, too. But he’s kind of old.”

“I want to play!” Murphy came tearing in.

“It’s my turn.” Liam braced to defend his rights. “Beckett said we could do PlayStation next, and I got to pick. WWF.”

First boxing, Ryder thought, now wrestling. Beckett must sleep like the dead every night.

“I’m going for pie.” Ryder pushed up. Young desire turned on a dime as they stampeded into the kitchen.

NOT A CRUMB of pie remained, a fact Ryder regretted a little. They wrestled, chased thieves, outwitted assassins. Liam was the first to give it up, passing out in the pile of dogs. Beckett plucked him up, carted him up to bed.

By the time he got back, Harry was sprawled facedown on the sofa. While Beckett repeated the process, Murphy sat cross-legged and wide awake on the floor, guiding Owen through some Mario Brothers game.

“Doesn’t he ever conk?” Ryder asked, jerking a thumb at Murphy.

“Kid’s like a vampire. He’d stay up till sunrise if you let him. Time to call it, Murph.”

“But I’m not tired. There’s no school. I wanna—”

“You can watch a movie up in my bed.”

“Okay! Can I watch two movies?”

“Let’s start with one.” Beckett hauled him up, tossed Murphy over his shoulder to make the boy laugh.

As Beckett carried Murphy out, Owen stretched out on the couch. “Two more?”

“Yeah. But Beck seems to have the dad thing down. Plus, he’ll have his own basketball team, if the runt ever gets some inches on him.”

“Avery and I figure on two.”

“Nice even number.” Absently, Ryder dug a hand into a partially mangled bag of barbecue potato chips. “Have you got the date of conception, birth, college graduation mapped out?”

Used to it, Owen merely shrugged.

“Jesus, you do.”

“Just ballparking. Anyway, we’re starting with dogs.”

“I’m not sure a pug is a dog. They’re more cat-sized.”

“They’re dogs, and they’re good with kids. Gotta think ahead. When we started researching breeds—”

“When you started researching.”

“Anyway, Avery fell pretty hard for the pug idea. Then she talked to Mom, and Mom put her onto the rescue idea. So we’re getting a year-old pug named Tyrone who’s deaf in one ear.”

“A half dog—not the deaf part, the size. He’s half a dog, so you’ll have a dog and a half with the Lab.”

“Bingo.” Owen shook his head. “What kind of sadist names a dog Bingo? He’s only four months old, so we’ll change that. Give him some dignity.”

Beckett came back in, went straight for a beer. “Jesus. I’ve been at this, more or less, for almost a year, and sometimes I still wonder how Clare did it all on her own.”

He shoved Owen’s legs off the couch, dropped down. “It’s the first time she’s been away all night. It’s kind of weird.”

“You’ve already knocked her up,” Ryder pointed out. “She can use the rest.”

“She wants to start fooling with the nursery. She’s talking bassinets and changing tables.”

“Nervous?”

“Maybe, but mostly it’s bassinets. It sounds girly.”

“What the hell is it?” Ryder wondered.

“It’s like a basket on a stand.”

“You’re going to put your kids in a basket.”

“A fancy baby basket. The one she showed me has this frilly white skirt with blue bows on it.” Needing support, Beckett gave his brothers a pleading look. “You can’t put a boy in a basket with a frilly white skirt. It’s not right.”

“So put on your pants and man up,” Ryder suggested.

“She’s pregnant.”

“Which is why you’re sitting there talking about frilly white skirts. It’s embarrassing.”

“Eat me.” Beckett looked down the couch at Owen. “I’m thinking we could build something. Well, two somethings. A kind of cradle, but raised on a stand so you don’t have to bend down to get the kid. A little fancy work to make Clare happy, and enough so she won’t want to cover it up with a damn skirt.”

“We could do that. Make them so they’d rock.”

“Carve their names into them.”

Intrigued, Beckett looked back at Ryder. “Their names.”

“Makes them unique, and it’ll keep you from mixing them up. Better come up with something for the three you’ve already got so they don’t get their noses out of joint.”

“I’m going to build them a tree house. I haven’t gotten past the design stage yet. Too much going on.”

“Nothing like a tree house,” Owen said. “Man, we spent hours in ours. Stockpiled candy, comic books. Remember,” he said to Ryder, “you bought that skin mag off Denny. I saw my first porn in that tree house. Good times.”

“I got laid the first time up there. Tiffany Carvell. Excellent times.”

“Christ.” Beckett closed his eyes. “Don’t mention porn or getting laid to Clare. She’ll never let me build it.”

“Pussy.”

Beckett sneered right back at Ryder. “Say that to me again when you’re married.”

“The two of you can drive that train for a while. The women of the world need at least one Montgomery brother free and clear.”

“I’m going to like being married,” Owen commented.

“You might as well be already.”

“Yeah. And I like it. I like knowing she’ll be there when I get home, or she’ll be coming home. And it is weird,” he said to Beckett, “that she won’t be tonight.”

“They must be having a good time. Clare only called in once to check on the boys. And she said Hope needed some girl time. Speaking of which, what’s the deal with this Wickham guy? Clare didn’t have the whole story.”

“He thought he could poach her.”

“Fucker.”

“Fucker in a five-thousand-dollar suit.”

“He dumped her, right?” Owen lazily sipped at his beer. “For some blonde. Pretty hot blonde if you like the type. Avery showed me her picture in the Style section of the Post.”

“The Style section?” Ryder snorted. “Seriously?”

“Kiss ass. Avery found it, showed me. So, he dumps her for the blonde, has his big, splashy society wedding, then he comes up here to our place and tries to poach our innkeeper? Makes you want to kick his ass and mess up his five-thousand-dollar suit.”

“He added a perk. She’d hook back up with him and he’d set her up.”

Owen sat up now. “What the fuck did you say?”

“You heard me. He’d set her up as his side piece. Buy her a house, toss in some spending money and a trip to Paris or some shit.”

“And yet he lives,” Beckett murmured. “Why didn’t you beat the shit out of him?”

“Because I didn’t know about it until he’d left. Besides, she handled it, handled him. She was telling him to stick it when I walked by. And check this.” He dug for more chips. “She sashays right up, tells me to go with it, and plants a long, steamy one on me.”

“I didn’t hear about that.” Owen looked from one brother to the other. “Why didn’t I hear about that? I hear about everything.”

“It was just yesterday, and we’ve been busy since. Word’s probably inching along the grapevine now, which I figure she didn’t think about at the time.”

“You went with it?” Beckett asked.

“Sure. Why not? I got the picture, and I didn’t like the look of him. Or his suit. I figured she just wanted to give him the business, make him jealous. No skin off mine. Then after he left … She was shaking.”

“Goddamn it,” Beckett muttered.

“Most of it was mad. She was plenty mad. Insulted. But she was shaken up, too.”

Owen pulled out his phone. “Did you see his car?”

“This year’s Mercedes C63 sedan, black.” Ryder rattled off the license plate. “I don’t think he’ll be back—she hit him where it hurts—but it doesn’t hurt to keep an eye out.”

“Exactly. Son of a bitch just got married and he’s trying to make Hope his … He did her a favor when he dumped her.”

“Yeah, she seems to get that.”

Beckett shot out a finger. “She made you the pie.”

Ryder grinned. “Good pie. She wanted to even the score, I guess. So I took it, then I put a move back on her. I like to be ahead in the game.”

“You kissed her again?” Owen demanded.

“The other times she started it. I was starting to feel cheap and used.”

When Beckett laughed, Owen punched his arm. “Hey.”

“It may not be funny. Are you starting a thing with Hope?”

Ryder took a lazy slug of beer. “That would come under the heading of none of your damn business.”

“She’s the innkeeper.”

“Avery’s a tenant. It didn’t stop you.”

“Yeah, but …” While Owen tried to work that out, Ryder shrugged.

“Relax. Jesus. Kissing a woman—an available, willing woman—is a man’s God-given right. It doesn’t mean I’m looking at bassinets. Plus, she kissed me first.”

“And she’s smokin’,” Beckett added.

“Married, father of three with two in the oven,” Ryder pointed out.

“I could be the father of twenty, I’d still have eyes. She’s smart, smokin’—former beauty queen, remember—and bakes pies. Nice job.”

“She’s got nice moves, too.”

Owen put his head in his hands and made Beckett laugh again. “He’s just got to worry about something.”

“She’s the innkeeper. She’s Avery’s and Clare’s best friend. She got dumped by the son of her boss.”

“You don’t want to put me in the same class as Wickham, bro.”

“I’m not. I’m just stating facts. Add one more. Mom’s crazy about her. So if you want to have sex with her, and she wants to have sex with you, great. Just don’t screw things up.”

“You’re starting to piss me off,” Ryder said mildly—always a dangerous sign. “Why don’t you give me the name of a woman I’ve screwed things up with?”

“She’s not just a woman. She’s Hope. And I feel sort of—”

“You’ve got a thing for her?” Ryder asked.

“Oh, just suck me,” Owen snapped back. “I’ve spent more time with her than either of you, dealing with the setup of the inn, and researching for our resident ghost. She’s sort of like a sister.”

“You’re sort of like my brother.”

“Yeah, so it’s weird. And Avery’s given me the down and dirty on the Wickham thing. He really did a number on her, Ry. The whole frigging family did. So, she’s, you know, maybe still a little tender.”

“What do you mean, the whole frigging family?”

“They knew. Wickham’s old man, his mother. He’s got a sister, too. They all knew he was stringing her, and whether they thought it was okay or not, they let it slide. She was managing their hotel, and she handled a lot of their personal event planning. They had her over to their house for dinner, had her up to their place in the Hamptons. Avery said they treated her like one of the family, so she felt like one of the family. So it was like getting dumped by the whole damn family and getting screwed over by Wickham, and being used by her employers. They fucked her over good.”

It spelled things out, clearly. Ryder decided the whole Wickham clan could go to hell. “I don’t fuck women over. Neither does my family.”

“No, you don’t. We don’t. But now you’ve got a better picture.”

“Yeah, I got the picture. If anything moves between us, and I’m not saying it will, I’ll be sure she’s got a clear one of her own. Satisfied?”

“Yeah.”

“And don’t go running to Mom.”

“Jesus, why would I? I’m no tattletale.”

“You told her I broke her cut-glass vase throwing the ball in the house, and hid the pieces,” Beckett reminded him.

“I was eight!” Genuine grief and insult vibrated in Owen’s voice. “How long are you going to hold that over me?”

“Forever. She took TV privileges away from me for three days—for hiding the pieces, and another day for throwing the ball in the house. I missed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

“Grow up and buy the DVD.”

“I did. Doesn’t clear you, dude. The Silence of Brotherhood is sacred.”

“I was eight.”

Since Owen’s mind was on something besides his potential sex life, Ryder pushed to his feet. “You girls work this out now, like ladies. I’m going home, get some rack time.”

“Material’s coming at eight,” Owen told him.

“I know it. I’ll be there.”

“I’m going to work in the shop on the panels for the bar. Text me if you need me to come in.”

“I can make it through one day without seeing your pretty face. You I can use.” He pointed at Beckett. “Seven a.m.”

“It’s going to be eight, eight thirty. Clare’s mom wants the boys tomorrow. I have to get them up, dressed, fed, and over there. Clare’s at the inn, remember.”

“Just get there. Let’s go, Dumbass.” He started out. “And don’t throw the ball in the house.”

He remembered the pie plate at the last minute, backtracked to grab it. With D.A. he drove the short distance home, winding out of the woods, down the road, back into the woods where his house sat tucked away.

He liked it tucked away, and private. Liked having his own space—and a lot of it. He’d hired a landscaping crew to do the grounds. His mother had tried to make a gardener out of him, but it just hadn’t stuck. He was fine digging a hole for a tree, the occasional shrub, but when it came to planting posies? He hired it out.

He liked the look of them, the different heights, textures, shadows in the walkway and deck lights.

Since Beckett had washed it, Ryder left the pie plate in the truck so he wouldn’t forget it. He let D.A. sniff and wander and do what a dog had to do while he stood in the quiet, under a sky full of stars.

He couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, or wanting to. Not because he’d grown up here, though he imagined that played a role. But because this place—this air, these quiet night sounds—had a hold on him. And always had.

He’d chosen this spot, well back from the main road, to put down his own roots, to build his own place. He’d walked and wandered these woods all his life. He’d known his spot long before he’d become a man.

He went in through the mudroom, into the kitchen, flipped on the light. He’d designed the space, with Beckett’s help. Clean lines, simple, and roomy enough for a table. He put the cell phone he’d finally stopped resenting on the charger, grabbed a bottle of water.

He’d get that hot shower now, a hell of a lot later than planned.

The dog trotted upstairs with him, went directly to the big square of pillow he used as a bed. Circled once, twice, a third time, then with a huge sigh curled up with the ratty stuffed cat he loved. Still he watched Ryder, tail thumping contentedly as Ryder emptied his pockets, pulled off his belt.

He stripped down, tossed the clothes in the direction of the hamper, and walked naked into the big indulgent master bath.

A man who worked with his hands, with his back, deserved the king of showers. Especially if he was a contractor and knew how to get it done.

It rivaled the baths they’d put in the inn—the tile work, in his case, in tones of stone gray, the long white counter, the stainless steel vessels. He turned the rainhead and body jets on full, and plenty hot, and let them beat the muscles tight from a long day of work, and play.

And as they loosened, he thought of Hope.

He wasn’t going to screw with her. And he sure as hell wasn’t responsible for her history with assholes.

She’d started it. He reminded himself of that because it was damn well the simple truth. He’d kept his distance, until recently. He’d kept it because there’d been something right from the jump. He hadn’t wanted something, not with a sloe-eyed, sharp-cheekboned beauty queen who probably paid more for a single pair of those stilts she wore than he had for every shoe in his closet combined.

Maybe the stilts made her legs go on forever, but that wasn’t the point.

She wasn’t his type, and he sure as hell wasn’t hers. Hers wore designer suits and ties, probably went to art openings and galas. And liked it. Maybe even the opera. Yeah, the asshole had looked like the opera sort.

She’d started it, and if they finished it, he’d make sure they both laid their cards on the table first. He played fair. And since maybe Owen had a few valid points, he’d think about it awhile before deciding either way.

And if the time came when they both gave the nod, well, he’d play extra fair. No problem.

He shut the shower off, grabbed a towel to scrub his hair dry. It made him think of Hope and her garden hose, and made him smile. Maybe it hadn’t struck him funny at the time, but it did now.

She wasn’t always perfect. She made mistakes, took missteps. He liked it better that way. Perfect? It could be boring, intimidating, or just outright annoying. He liked the chinks, and wondered if—if—things moved forward, he’d find a few more.

Taking time on it, he thought. He had enough on his mind, enough on his plate without adding her right now, straight off.

He walked naked back into the bedroom, pulled down the sheet he’d pulled up that morning—his method of making the bed.

His dog was already snoring, and his windows open to the night breeze, the night sounds. He didn’t bother to set the alarm. There was one in his head, and if it didn’t go off, D.A. would.

He thought about switching on the TV, winding the rest of the way down. He thought of Hope again, saw in his mind’s eye that look on her face—that post-kiss look.

And thinking of Hope, fell straight into sleep.