Stay With Me (Hope Valley Book 5)

by Jessica Prince

  With that, I was done with the pathetic excuse of a man and spun around to face Mrs. Niedermeyer. “As for you, I just did you a courtesy, having your boy removed from the room before I said what I need to say, but that’s where my graciousness begins and ends. You made a huge mistake, insulting my son like that. You thought you could look down on me and my family because we don’t live how you live or flaunt the money we have. Or maybe you thought you could because I only own a bar and your husband is the vice president of a bank. That was your second mistake. In this town, money doesn’t mean a damn thing. Knowledge and friendships do, both of which I have in abundance. For example, I know your husband used to patronize my bar quite frequently to tie one on, which usually led to him getting sloppy drunk. And when he gets drunk, he gets mean, which isn’t a stretch seeing as he’s mean when he’s sober too. But it was that poor behavior as well as his unwelcome and unwanted advances on my waitstaff that have since had him banned. But it’s behavior I know he hasn’t corrected, because he’s still doing it at the bars he hasn’t been kicked out of... yet.”

  Her face went unnaturally white, but I wasn’t even close to done with her.

  “Your husband’s bank is the biggest in the county because half the ranchers here hold their money there, along with most of the small business owners, and I know this as I’m a small business owner myself, and that’s where I hold my money. What you failed to keep in mind during your ill-advised attack on my child was that this is a small town, and in small towns, people talk. And as the owner of the local watering hole, who they talk to most is me. And because of that, I have their ear and their trust. Which means if I were to leave here and, say, make calls to every small business owner I’m close with—which is every single shop lining the main drag in downtown—and fill them in on this lovely chat, they probably wouldn’t be happy. Then I could make a stop at my father’s house—a man who owns the biggest ranch in three counties and is poker buddies with most of the other ranch owners in the same counties, all of who hold their money at your husband’s bank—and inform him of what went down. I don’t think he’d take too kindly to the names being hurled at a child he’s come to think of as his grandson, and I would imagine he’d be calling all of his ranch buddies and lamenting his displeasure. Now, what do you think the odds are of your husband keeping his job if all those people were to come in and pull their business so they could transfer it elsewhere?”

  Her mouth opened and closed like a fish as she sputtered, “You… you can’t… you can’t do that!”

  “Oh, I most certainly can. You see, that’s the wonderful thing about small towns. We look out for each other. If you’re a nice person, these lovely people will go to bat for you in a heartbeat. But if you spend your days staring down your nose at them just because you have a bigger house or fancier car, they aren’t so inclined to help out when the going gets rough and that fancy car and big house are suddenly stripped away. Now, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never stared down my nose at anyone… until this very moment.”

  “I… I don’t….” She trailed off, the realization finally dawning in her eyes that she wasn’t the big fish in the little pond she thought herself to be.

  “Your son is a bully,” I stated. “He’s cruel and nasty, and I can only assume that’s a learned behavior from the short yet unfortunate time I’ve had to spend in your company, as well as knowing your husband’s less-than-sterling reputation. The good news is there’s always time to change. You can still teach him to be a good person. You can teach him that he shouldn’t judge other people, and that kindness goes so much further than ugliness. And I suggest you get on that now before he grows up to be an unhappy, miserable excuse of a man. But if he ever”—I leaned in close to her—“ever says another unkind word to my son or touches a hair on his head, this meeting will have seemed like a trip to Disneyland compared to what I’ll rain down on you next. Is that understood?”

  Unable to say a word, she gave me a short nod.

  With that done, I stood tall and squared my shoulders before starting toward the door, but I stopped to give the principal one last look over my shoulder, declaring, “Zach will be coming home with me for the rest of the day, but he’ll be in class bright and early tomorrow morning, and I’ll expect he doesn’t have a single problem.”

  Then I pulled open the door and stormed out.

  Chapter Thirty

  Rory

  I clenched my arms around Cord’s shoulders as my breathing finally slowed to a normal level.

  As always, the sex had been off-the-charts incredible, and I was left feeling sated and happy as I hummed contentedly in his ear.

  Cord’s head came up, and through the moonlight, I could see those forest greens staring down at me as his lips curved into a delicious smile. “You good?”

  “Oh yeah,” I replied, my voice throaty from my recent orgasm. “So good.”

  And I truly was, in more ways than one. Not only had my man just given me some world-class lovin’, but after the showdown with the principal and that wretched woman earlier that day, things with Zach had taken a turn.

  The ride back to the ranch had been made in complete silence, and with each minute that ticked by, I became more and more worried that I’d screwed up.

  Zach sat unmoving in the back seat, keeping his head turned so he could stare out the window at the passing landscape.

  Sensing my growing unease, Cord had reached over and taken my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze before loosening his grip but still keeping hold of it the entire way. I fed off the strength he offered, but that didn’t stop my mind from racing.

  I was on tenterhooks by the time we pulled up in front of my house, and that unease swelled to a nearly painful level when Zach instantly hopped out of the truck before I could even get my door open, raced up the porch stairs, and used his key to get inside.

  “It’ll be okay, sweetheart,” Cord had offered as we took the steps at a much more sedate pace. But I was already deflated.

  We stepped inside, and I immediately came to a stop at the sight of Zach standing just inside the door. His chest was rising and falling with quick, erratic breaths, and his brown eyes were swimming with unshed tears.

  “Oh, sweetie,” I whispered. The words felt like they were being ripped from my chest. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think—”

  He moved so fast, crashing into me with a force that would have taken us to the ground had Cord not been standing behind us. Zach’s arms wrapped around my waist, clenching so tight it hurt to breathe, but I didn’t care.

  Not. One. Bit.

  I lowered my head and lifted my hand to place it on top of his sandy hair. “Zach? Honey?”

  His arms grew even tighter. “Thank you.” His voice was so quiet I had to strain to hear, but the impact of those two words hit me like a wrecking ball. “I can’t believe you did that for me. No one’s ever done somethin’ like that. Not ever.”

  Moving my hands to his shoulders, I shifted him back so I could meet him eye to eye. “Of course I did that for you,” I said softly. “It’s my job to protect you, Zach. I can’t stop all the bad from happening. I wish with everything in me that I could, but what I can most certainly do is make it right once it’s happened. I’ll always have your back, sweetie. Always. And I’ll always be on your side. And so will Cord and my mom and dad. You’re our family, and family looks out for each other.”

  “I just—” He sniffed, battling the damp in his eyes and eventually losing as one tear fell down his cheek. “I just want you to know that I like it here. I really, really like it. I know I don’t always act like it, but I like livin’ with you, Rory. I’m… I’m happy here.”

  “Oh, Zach.” A watery laugh burst past my lips as I yanked him back to me. “I’m so glad to hear that, honey. All I’ve ever wanted was for you to be happy. And I like having you here too.”

  There were no declarations of love exchanged, but that was all right. He wasn’t ready for that yet, and I could wa
it. Just knowing he was happy meant absolutely everything to me.

  “I’m glad, baby,” Cord murmured, pulling me from my musing of those earlier events as he shifted his hips, slowly sliding out of me. “Now up you go.”

  “What? Why?” I cried as he used his muscular arms to execute a push-up on the bed and hop out. “I’m comfy here.”

  My last word ended on a squeak when he grabbed my hand and hauled me up. “We need to clean you up, and there’s something I wanna talk to you about, and I don’t want to do that in the bed we share.”

  An uncomfortable chill skated across my skin as he pulled me into the bathroom and hoisted me up so I was sitting on the counter next to the sink.

  His brows were dipped in a deep V as he went about dampening a washcloth, then stepped back in front of me. His touch was light, almost worshipful, as he spread my thighs and slowly, oh-so-tenderly cleaned the remnants of us from between my legs.

  “Cord? Honey? What’s going on?”

  His eyes clamped closed for just a second while he pulled in a steadying breath, and when he finally looked back at me, what I saw didn’t make me feel the slightest bit better.

  “All right, Rory, I’m gonna preface this by tellin’ you that I haven’t brought this up until now because we’ve been dealin’ with some pretty heavy shit with Zach. But you have my word, I was never planning to keep this a secret from you.”

  It went without saying that his preface most certainly didn’t make me feel better. “What are you talking about? And why couldn’t we discuss this in bed?”

  He didn’t make me wait. “Laurie perpetrated a sneak attack yesterday. I got home from working out, and she was standin’ outside my apartment waiting for me.” I sucked in so much air it was a wonder my lungs didn’t burst, but he wasn’t finished. “And the reason we’re talking about this in the bathroom is because that bed is ours. Yours and mine, and what we share there is something special just between the two of us. Laurie has no place there. Ever.”

  “I… you… she was… she was waiting for you?”

  “Yes.”

  “At your apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Uninvited?”

  “Definitely uninvited,” he confirmed in a snarly voice. “But, baby, I swear to you, I didn’t want her there. And I made that perfectly clear. She found out about our date at The Groves and Zach and—”

  “She found out about our date?”

  “Yeah, but sweetheart—”

  “And Zach?”

  “Rory—”

  “But how?”

  His jaw ticked unhappily before he answered. “She got tight with Sue Ellen Mayfield shortly after she moved here.”

  “Ah.” Okay, that made sense. Sue Ellen Mayfield was one of the nosiest, most drama-fueled gossips in Hope Valley, and I could totally see Laurie Dutton being friends with someone like her. I’d tried. When she first came to town, I’d tried so hard to be her friend. She meant something to Cord, and he meant something to me; therefore, I wanted us to get along, because if I couldn’t have him how I wanted, at least I could keep him as a friend. But she’d rebuffed every effort I made. She didn’t necessarily say anything mean, but she’d ignore me or pretend I didn’t exist every time I tried speaking with her.

  His hands came to rest on either side of my neck as he bent to stare directly into my eyes. “I told her we were done, Rory. That she no longer existed to me and she had no place in my life. And I swear to god, baby, I would’ve told you as soon as it happened, but you called when I was walkin’ away and told me Zach had been beaten up, and that was all I could think about. I wasn’t trying to keep it a secret, you have to believe that.”

  My heart was racing, beating against my breast so hard it was a wonder Cord couldn’t hear it. “She… she doesn’t exist for you?”

  His hands slid down, stopping at my upper arms, his fingers pressing deep as he pulled me closer to him. “Not anymore. Never again. I told her to walk away so we could at least keep the memories of when we were kids and just maybe look back at them fondly, but she didn’t listen. She said some things that I’m not gonna repeat, because they don’t matter, but after that, I was through, and I told her as much. I love you, dollface. I’d never let anything get in the way of that. And I won’t tolerate someone talkin’ down about you, even if you aren’t around to hear it.”

  My eyes went wide and my lips parted on a fluttered exhale. “You… you love me?”

  His chin jerked back and his grip on my arms grew tighter. “Are you serious?”

  “Are you serious?”

  His eyes smiled before his lips joined in, but once they did, the look on his face took my breath away. “Yeah, Rory. I love you. I’m in love with you. And I don’t care if it’s too fast. I’ve loved you for years, and now that I finally have you, I’m never lettin’ go. I love you in a way that I know it’s never going to stop. It’ll only grow stronger and stronger with every day that passes. Each time I look at you, I can’t believe how goddamn lucky I am that you’re mine. You’re the one I want to start a life with, and at the end of it, you’re the one I want by my side. So yeah, sweetheart. I’m dead serious.”

  My vision began to blur as tears welled up in my eyes and then spilled out. “Well, that’s good to know,” I croaked, my emotions threatening to choke me.

  His velvety chuckle felt like the softest caress against my skin. “I was kinda hopin’ for a stronger reaction than that.”

  I sniffled and batted at my wet cheeks. “Well, excuse me,” I replied snippily. “I’m just a little overwhelmed right now. I mean, I just found out that the man I love, my dream man, the man I asked God for the very first moment I ever laid eyes on him, actually loves me back. I need a second to process.”

  The teasing glint went out of his eyes, and they turned so tender my heart ached. “You asked God for me?” he asked quietly, reaching up to sweep his thumb across my jaw.

  “Yeah, honey,” I whispered just as quietly. “All my life I knew there was someone special out there for me, and all my life I refused to settle. It might have taken a little longer than I hoped, but I finally have everything I could ever want.”

  “God, baby,” he grunted, squeezing his eyes closed and dropping his forehead down on mine. “I love you so much.”

  “I love you too,” I said on a giggle, looping my arms around him to pull him against me. “Now, honey, can we please go back to bed? I feel like this is a special occasion that needs to be marked, and I want to do that with you inside me.”

  A deep, animalistic rumble dragged up from his chest before he grabbed me and carried me back into the bedroom. A second later we went about marking the occasion. It took us several long, enthusiastic, exhaustive hours, but it was absolutely perfect.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Rory

  The past month and a half had been complete bliss. Actually it had been better than bliss, but seeing as I couldn’t find an adequate word to describe the insane happiness I felt each morning when I woke up, bliss would have to do.

  Cord and I were totally and completely in love. It wasn’t a happy, head-in-the-clouds fairy tale, mainly because those didn’t exist outside of princess movies. We argued… a lot, and we did it passionately. He was a bossy pain in the ass, and I was, in his words, too damn stubborn for my own good. But each argument ended with a heated kiss that made Zach visibly retch, and once we were alone together at night, we made up in other ways.

  Another thing that made my life so freaking blissful was that after that episode at the school, the bullying had stopped. Zach was no longer suffering through it in silence, he was thriving. He was happy. And because of that, those walls had lowered even more. He wasn’t openly affectionate, though he didn’t mind when I was—or if he did, he kept it to himself—but he let me know in his own ways that he liked his life here with Cord and me. My boy was finally living the life he deserved.

  The foundation Cord and I had discussed that night at The Groves w
eeks ago was finally coming to fruition. Thanks to the hard work of my mom and my girls who’d spent countless hours working alongside me, the plans to open Hope House, a home for children, was no longer just a dream but a real thing, and I couldn’t freaking wait.

  Something else that made me happy was the fact that the Caswells had finally been tried and convicted of their crimes and were currently enjoying their stay in prison where they rightfully belonged. And Miriam Weathers was also going to be held accountable for her part in the scheme, facing a conviction for fraud among a litany of other charges that would undoubtedly lead to jail time.