“What?” He looked confused, and I felt even worse. I saw him glance down to the front of his jeans. “I’m sorry, baby, it’s just when I’m close to you…”
“No, Ryder, don’t be sorry, please. It’s me. I’m teasing you…”
He laughed softly and brought his hand up to gently smooth my hair. “You’re just not ready—and that’s okay.”
“I want you.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“Pretty full of yourself, huh?” I couldn’t resist teasing him. I often wished that I had his self-confidence.
He leaned down and softly kissed my lips. “Yes,” he admitted. “But that’s not why I know you want me. I can see it when you look at me. Granny used to tell me that the eyes reflected all of our thoughts if you just looked hard enough. I can see how you feel when I look at you.”
I smiled. “So I don’t need to tell you that I love you, too?”
He grinned. “Nope, I knew that already.”
“Okay, I won’t say it then.”
He laughed. “Go ahead and say it.”
“Nope. You don’t need me to say it.”
“Come on, just say it one time.”
“Nope.” He grabbed me then around the waist and started tickling me. I twisted and turned and tried to get away as he said,
“Say it and I’ll stop.”
Finally, breathless and unable to take it any longer, I said, “Okay, okay! I love you, Ryder Grant.”
He stopped tickling me and looked into my eyes. His Granny was right; I could see what he was feeling. “I love you, Alicia, and when you’re ready, I’m going to marry you, and then I’m going to make love to you all night long.”
My heart swelled in my chest so big I feared it would explode. I put my hand on his handsome face and said, “I love you, and I pray every day that you know how much I appreciate you.”
He kissed me again, and I imagined being his wife. I couldn’t wait for us to be a family. Natalia was going to have a mother and a father and maybe someday a sibling or two. I’d never been so happy, or felt as alive as I did at that moment.
********
RYDER
I was lying in bed later that night thinking about Alicia. I smiled as I remembered telling her that I loved her. It was funny to me that I’d said it so easily and that I’d gone from there to talking about getting married. The funniest thing was that I’d meant every word of it. I loved her so much that sometimes I was completely overwhelmed by it. When I thought I couldn’t love her even a little bit more, I’d see her with her daughter or she’d attack me with a kiss and the heart I thought was overflowing swelled just a little bit more.
I closed my eyes, and just as I began to imagine our wedding night, my phone rang. I picked it up and saw that it was Tim from the motor vehicle department. “Tim, it’s late.”
“Sorry, did I wake you?”
“No, not at all. I’m just wondering why you’re still at work at this time of night?”
“Getting slammed this week.”
“I’m sorry to add to your workload.”
“No worries. You have a pen?”
I groped into the nightstand for a pen and a small pad. “Okay, shoot.”
“The car is registered to a business. The business is Stanton Printing—and it’s owned by a Greg Stanton, but even though the car had Louisiana plates, that’s not where the business is located.”
“Where is the business?”
“I get a California address. It’s in Irvine.”
The paperwork I’d done for Blake was an expense report from his trip to California. A lot of receipts for coffee, gas, and meals were from Irvine. “Great, Tim. Thanks so much.”
“Sure thing. You owe me lunch.”
“You let me know when you have some free time.”
He sighed. “The way things are going, I’m going to have to ask if you deliver.”
I laughed. “For you, anytime.” I ended the call and started to dial Blake. I stopped myself. He was just going to be pissed off that I’d lied to him and that I was still looking into his “personal” business. Instead, I took out my notebook and pulled up the website for Stanton Printing in Irvine. It listed the owner as Gregory Stanton as Tim had said. There was an address that I saved and a list of their assets and yearly earnings. From there I did a search on Gregory Stanton’s background. It said he was fifty-four years old and married to an Elaine Stanton. They’d been married for twenty-nine years and had two children…twins. Gregory Stanton had a son named Dawson, who died in 2008, and a daughter named Dana who was listed as his partner in the business. Son of a gun! Someone from Dawson’s family was watching Blake…and maybe breaking into his house…but why?
I closed the notebook more confused than when I opened it. There was something serious going on in my best friend’s life. He knew it… and now so did I. I had a lot of questions, but my first one was whether or not he was in danger. Normal people don’t break into other people’s homes and stalk them at their place of business, did they?
I lay there for a long time ruminating over what was going on with Blake and whether or not I should try and talk to him about it. I wished that he would talk to me, but for some reason he was not able to do that. I finally settled on calling Leif, Abrahem, and Lucy. I arranged a breakfast meeting that they all agreed to show up for. Maybe together we could come up with some ideas. It was how we did our best work anyways. And speaking of together, when I closed my eyes at last, visions of Alicia in a white dress and me in a tux danced through my head. I could hardly wait.
~~~
RYDER: A Standalone Military Romance (Blake Security Book 1) Page 15
