I sip on my wine while I give that woman a few more minutes to rummage around in my things, then I get up from the table. “Looks like you forgot the veggies. I’ll go grab them.”
Ryan gives me a nod, then turns back to James.
I enter the kitchen, expecting to see her, but the room is empty. I glance at my watch. She’s taking too long.
Quietly, I move toward the stairs. As soon as I make it to the top, she’s exiting the upstairs hall bathroom.
“I was afraid you got lost,” I say.
She lets out a shriek and jumps slightly back, her hand grabbing at her chest. “Oh, I didn’t see you there!” Then her expression shifts into this endearing little grin. “I got caught up admiring those cute family pictures on the stairwell wall on my way up! Ryan was an adorable little boy!”
I look back at the images in question and have to agree. He was a cutie. And bonus points to her for the save. It’s a good excuse.
She moves toward the stairs and waits, as if she will follow me, but I step to the side. “I’ll meet you down there. Just need to grab something from my room.”
She hesitates just a second then smiles as she passes me. Once she’s out of sight, I go to our room at the end of the hall. There’s only one thing here she could find and I hope she did.
I move to the dressing table and open the drawer. Two pens and a pencil were arranged in a very specific way on top of a stack of papers and she would have needed to brush them to the side in order to read what was written there, and it’s obvious she did exactly that. I shut the drawer and go downstairs.
I head back outside with the vegetables, handing the tray to Ryan, then I light the candles I’ve scattered around the area now that the sun has fully set.
“Everything should be ready soon,” Ryan says.
Nodding, I say, “Perfect. I’ll get the rest from the kitchen.”
It’s not long before Ryan places a steak on each plate along with a helping of grilled veggies while I put garlic bread and a big salad in the center of the table.
“Everything looks delicious,” she says. “Y’all have outdone yourself.”
I cut a small piece of steak and bring it to my mouth, chewing it slowly. “We love to entertain,” I say, glancing at Ryan. He gives me that smirk, since we’re both thinking of the two weeks it took him to convince me to host our last dinner party.
“How much longer are y’all in town?” Ryan asks.
She looks at James as if she doesn’t know the answer.
“Maybe another couple of weeks,” he says. “As soon as Dad can get around a little better on his own, I’ll feel better about leaving.”
“It’s good you could take off this much time from work,” Ryan says, then takes a swig of beer. This is something he mentioned earlier this afternoon: his worry about why James was really back in town. If James had gotten his life together and was holding down a job like he said, it begged the question: how had he managed to get this much time off?
“The beauty of working from a laptop,” he says with a laugh. “Can work anywhere.”
“What is it that you do, James?” I ask.
He looks at the woman as if she’s the only one who knows the answer. She looks back at him with an expression that can only be described as hopeful that he doesn’t completely screw up this answer.
Finally, he turns back to us. “Lucca actually got me a job at her company. I’m working for her.”
He could have sold it better if he didn’t sound so glum. Instead of us thinking they are equals at work, he sounds like a charity case.
Ryan was not thrilled I had invited them to dinner. He banged around in the garage for a good hour then spent the rest of the afternoon hiding some of the obvious—and easily movable—valuables in the house, including my jewelry and any prescription meds he had in the medicine cabinet. The girls had mentioned James stole from Ryan the last time he was in town, but Ryan never admitted that to me. And you can’t tell if there’s beef between them by the way they are acting around each other now.
Preparing for this evening was the most strained things have been between us.
Regardless of what Ryan’s fears and James’s motives are, I’m only concerned with her.
The rest of the dinner is consumed by small talk. Ryan matches James beer for beer until they’re both pretty tipsy. She and I clear the plates while James and Ryan throw an old football around in the mostly dark backyard, both of them missing more than they are catching.