“I need to be there,” Vick told him when she hung up the call, her heart in her eyes.
“Of course you do,” he replied.
“I want to take Cody with me.”
“That’s a great idea. Why don’t I come along, too?”
“You don’t trust me with him,” she said, her mouth drooping.
“I absolutely trust you. I thought you might want someone along to take care of Cody while you spend time catching up with your twin.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“Of course.” He would do anything to get the two of them out of this house, where they would have some time together all by themselves. Their son would be with them, but Vick had a large family with lots of sisters to help take care of a little boy, while his parents worked on their relationship.
At least, that was the way Rye imagined things happening when they got to Jackson Hole. The reality was somewhat different.
“MOMMY TOLD ME she grew up here,” Cody said, as Rye drove them through Jackson Hole toward his first meeting with his Flynn brothers. “There it is!” Cody exclaimed, pointing as they passed the town square. “A bazillion elk antlers are stacked up in arches so high you can walk under them.”
Rye was only half paying attention to his son and simply replied, “Uh-huh.” He felt edgy and tense, because he wasn’t sure what to expect from the four men he was about to meet. Then he realized what Cody had said. He met his son’s gaze in the rearview mirror of the SUV and said, “A bazillion antlers?”
“So many you can’t count them all,” his son explained.
Rye had left Vick at Taylor and Brian’s home in Jackson, where her female relatives had gathered to admire the couple’s twin daughters. Rye’s destination was a restaurant near the fire station where Brian worked. Rye wasn’t sure how he felt about being forced to meet his new relatives in a public setting, but maybe it would keep everyone civil. Not that he expected violence to erupt, but if his half brothers felt anything like he did at the moment, emotions were sure to run high.
Rye would much rather have been spending the day with Vick. He was frustrated because he wasn’t getting the time alone with her that he’d hoped for when he’d decided to join her on this trip. When they’d arrived in town three nights ago, he’d dropped her off at the hospital, where Taylor was in labor, and used Cody’s sleepiness as an excuse to avoid meeting the various Grayhawks and Flynns waiting there for the babies to arrive. He’d fled to the closest hotel.
He hadn’t seen Vick over the past three days except in fits and spurts. He played digital games and watched G-rated movies with Cody while she visited Taylor at the hospital. As far as he knew, Taylor was still the only one who was aware of Cody’s existence, which was why he and Cody were staying out of sight.
At breakfast this morning at the hotel, Vick had hardly been able to sit still, fidgeting with the salt and pepper, then picking up her coffee cup and setting it down and picking it up again, then playing with her spoon until it clattered on the table.
She met his gaze with worried eyes and said, “Everything is arranged. You and Cody are going to have lunch today at the Snake River Grill with the Flynn brothers, while my sisters and my niece and I visit Taylor and the twins at Brian and Taylor’s home, where I plan to tell everyone about Cody.”
Vick took a deep breath and continued, “Then you and Cody will come pick me up and meet my family, except for my father.”
No wonder she was nervous, Rye thought. “Where will your father be?”
“King’s in the hospital in Houston. His leukemia is back.”
“I’m sorry, Vick. I had no idea.”
“He beat it the last time. Hopefully, he will again.”
So here he was on his way to a lunch he would have avoided like the plague, if he’d had any choice in the matter, with another meeting filled with potential pitfalls on the menu for later.
“The place where you first saw Mommy has saddles you can sit on, instead of chairs,” Cody said.
Rye wondered how the subject of his first meeting with Vick had come up. He eyed Cody again in the rearview mirror, where he was constrained in his car seat, and said, “If you want to see them, I’ll hold you up, so you can look in the window. You have to be a grown-up to go inside.”
“Mommy said you were really, really handsome, and she liked you right away,” Cody continued.
That was nice to hear. “I liked her, too. A whole lot.”
“And because you liked each other so much, you made me.”
Rye was a little shocked at that last sentence, but it was a good way of explaining something to a child in terms he could understand. “Yes, we did.” He was impressed at Vick’s use of that first indelible meeting between them to explain to Cody how he’d been conceived.
Rye wished there were some way to re-create the magic of that moment, but he didn’t see how. He took a deep breath and slowly, quietly let it out. It felt like his whole life was hanging in the balance. Maybe the thing to do was take Vick back to where it had all started and speak his heart.
Rye wanted to believe that Vick would hear what he had to say and fall into his arms, and they’d live happily ever after. Life didn’t always turn out that way. Otherwise, Vick would have stayed in bed, they would have had breakfast at the Wort Hotel in the morning, and maybe he would have found a way to turn their one-night stand into something more substantial. But at this point, he was willing to try anything.
He put his plans for a drink with Vick at the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar on hold as he entered the Snake River Grill holding Cody by the hand.
He recognized his brothers at once. They shoved their chairs back and rose as one. He saw three tall, black-haired, blue-eyed, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped men, and one chestnut-haired man who was a little shorter and a little leaner than his brothers. That would be Devon.
Rye felt Cody sidle closer to him and picked up his son to reassure him. He held him close as he extended his hand to the closest Flynn. “Ryan Sullivan,” he said.
“Aiden Flynn,” his brother said as he shook Rye’s hand. He gestured to the man next to him. “This is the proud papa.”
“Brian,” he said with a grin as he extended his hand for Rye to shake.
“I’m Connor,” the third brother said. He pointed with his thumb at the last man and said, “This little guy is Devon.”
“Not so small where it really matters,” Devon said, grinning at his brother. He shook hands with Rye and gestured to one of the two empty chairs at the table for six. “Have a seat.”
All four men stared at the child in his arms and Rye suddenly realized that while Vick was planning to tell her family about Cody, she’d left it to him to introduce their son to his Flynn relatives. Except, he noted with surprise, the second empty chair already contained a booster seat intended for a child.
He stared at Brian and said, “I thought only Taylor knew about Cody.”
“She’s my wife. We don’t have secrets from each other.”
“I wondered why you had the waitress bring that kid’s seat,” Aiden said. “Who is this young man?” he said, his gaze directed at Cody.
“I’m Cody Sullivan.”
“Victoria Grayhawk is his mother,” Rye said, meeting their gazes one by one and daring them to make a snide remark.
Rye noticed the widened eyes, the indrawn breaths, and the speculative looks on three of the four brothers’ faces, but no one said a pejorative word.
“We should sit down,” Aiden said, suiting word to deed, “and order some food. I’m hungry. How about you, Cody?”
To Rye’s surprise, as he settled Cody in the booster chair his son said, “I want a cheeseburger.”
“A cheeseburger it is,” Aiden replied. “In fact,” he said as the waitress arrived, “how about cheeseburgers and fries all aroun
d?” Everyone nodded or spoke an assent. The Flynns already had beverages, so Rye ordered drinks for himself and Cody, and the waitress disappeared.
Rye sat on the edge of his chair for the first fifteen minutes, while they made small talk and waited for their food to arrive. It quickly became apparent that the Flynns had accepted him as one of them almost without a blink of an eye.
“I thought this would be more awkward,” Rye admitted as he stuck a salty French fry in his mouth.
Aiden smiled wryly. “It might very well have been if Angus weren’t Angus.”
“Are you suggesting he had a lot of lovers?” Rye said, his neck hairs hackling at the suggestion his mother might be merely one of many women in Angus’s life.
“Not at all,” Aiden said. “But Angus does what he wants without regard to the rules that keep the rest of us on the straight and narrow. We’ve gotten used to expecting the unexpected.”
“I know a little of what you’re going through,” Devon said. “I had a similar adjustment to make when I discovered last summer that Angus wasn’t my biological father.”
“It never made any difference to the rest us,” Connor said. “We still love the little guy.”
“Cut out that ‘little guy’ stuff, or I’ll show you who’s really the bigger man,” Devon said, punching Connor in the arm.
“You are the youngest,” Connor pointed out.
“Am I?” Devon said, lifting a brow in Rye’s direction.
“I’m twenty-nine,” Rye said.
“Damn!” Devon said. “Twenty-eight.”
“Guess that settles that,” Connor said with a grin. “Still the baby of the family.”
“Cut it out, asshole!” Devon said.
“Stop it, both of you,” Aiden said. “There are impressionable ears sitting at this table.”
Cody apparently didn’t know he was the “impressionable ears” at the table, because he was still completely focused on getting the right amount of catsup on one of his fries.
Rye wished Mike were here. They could show the Flynns what a knockdown, drag-out fight between brothers was really like.
“I suppose you realize we’re all involved with Grayhawk women ourselves,” Brian said.
“Vick and I aren’t exactly ‘involved,’ ” Rye admitted.
Brian shot a glance at Cody and back at Rye. “Really? Having a son together doesn’t qualify?”
“Romantically involved,” Rye said.
“But I thought—” Brian cut himself off. “Oops.”
“Spill, Brian,” Connor said. “What is it you thought?”
Brian met Rye’s gaze and said, “I thought you two might have feelings for each other.”
Rye realized the only way Brian could have made a supposition like that was if Taylor had discussed it with him. Which meant Vick would have had to discuss it with Taylor. Had Vick told her sister she cared for him? “I have feelings for Vick,” he admitted. “I’m not so sure the reverse is true.”
“Good luck,” Brian said with a cheeky grin. “Those Grayhawk women are worth all the effort it takes to win them.”
“If that’s really the way you feel, how would one of you like to babysit for Cody tonight so I could spend an evening out with Vick?”
“We can take him,” Connor volunteered. “My two older kids, Brooke and Sawyer, will enjoy playing with him. We’re having dinner in town before we head back to the ranch. You can drop Cody off at the restaurant, and he can join us for supper. I’ll give you directions how to get there.”
The rest of the meal was taken up with harrowing stories of how each of the brothers had wooed, and all but Aiden had won, the Grayhawk women they loved. Rye was feeling a little sick to his stomach when they were done, aware that he was a long way from winning the Grayhawk woman he’d chosen for himself.
“How would you like to ride in a fire engine?” Brian asked Cody.
Cody’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “Really?”
“Really,” Brian said.
Cody turned to Rye and said, “Can I, Daddy? Please?”
“Sure,” Ryan said. “That’s really nice of you, Brian.”
“Anything for family.” He winked at Rye and said, “And maybe future in-laws?”
The knot in Rye’s gut loosened a little after his lunch with the Flynns and his visit to the fire station with Cody, but it tightened back up again as he and Cody headed to Taylor and Brian’s home to meet with Vick and the rest of the Grayhawk women. He hoped she’d experienced as easy a time of it explaining she had a son, as he’d had meeting his Flynn brothers.
When Vick answered his knock on Taylor’s door, and he saw the anguished look in her eyes, he knew she had not.
VICK EXPECTED THE three members of her family gathered in Taylor’s living room who had no idea Cody existed, to be upset when she revealed she had a five-year-old son they knew nothing about. So she waited until the five of them—she and her three sisters and her niece—had oohed and aahed over Taylor’s daughters, Ashley and Annie, for a good hour before she met her twin’s gaze and announced, “I have some news of my own to share.”
“You’re getting married,” Eve guessed as she set down a baby bottle on an end table beside the couch and settled Ashley over her shoulder to burp her.
“To Ryan Sullivan,” Leah said with a grin as she handed Annie back to Taylor, who was relaxing in a rocker near the fireplace with a blanket over her lap.
Vick blushed to the roots of her hair. She shot a look at Taylor, who shook her head, indicating that she hadn’t revealed Vick’s feelings about Sullivan to her two sisters. Instead of saying something like, “Where did you get a crazy idea like that?” and denying the whole thing, Vick settled back in the overstuffed chair next to the rocker and asked, “How do you know about Ryan Sullivan?”
Leah’s lips quirked as she crossed to the fireplace and used a poker to stir up the fire so it crackled and sparks flew. “A little birdie told me.”
“Aiden,” Vick said flatly. “Where did he hear about Sullivan?” Had Angus spilled the beans despite his promise to Darcie?
“I think Brian told him,” Leah said, replacing the poker and perching on the wide stone bench that bordered the front of the fireplace with her long legs outstretched. “I’m afraid there are no secrets between siblings in this family, Vick. The only confidences that get kept are between husbands and wives who swear each other to silence.”
If Angus wasn’t the culprit, she knew who probably was. Vick confronted Taylor and said, “Did you tell Brian what I told you at Christmas about my feelings for Sullivan?”
Taylor looked abashed. “I’m afraid I did.”
“I suppose Connor told you about Sullivan,” Vick said, turning to Eve.
She nodded but looked guilty.
“And Devon told you,” Vick said, staring down her niece.
Pippa tucked her stocking feet under her on the couch and said, “I didn’t ask to be told your secret. Devon volunteered it.”
Vick searched the female faces in the room, wondering how much of a fool she’d been to believe that she’d kept Cody’s existence a secret, her skin so flushed she literally felt hot under the collar, and finally blurted, “So every one of you already knows about Cody?”
“Who’s Cody?” Leah asked.
Vick focused her gaze on Taylor. “You didn’t tell Brian about Cody?”
“I did, but I swore him to secrecy, because I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist telling his brothers.”
“Who’s Cody?” Leah repeated.
“My son,” Vick said almost viciously. “My five-year-old son. He lives on a ranch in Montana with his father, Ryan Sullivan, who has sole custody.”
Leah was on her feet in an instant. “How could you keep something so important a secret from me? I’m your—”
&n
bsp; Vick realized Leah had almost said “mother” but cut herself off. The truth was Leah had stood in that role all Vick’s life, so she could understand why her eldest sister would feel hurt at being kept in the dark.
“I didn’t tell anyone but Taylor,” Vick said, as though that could ease Leah’s wounded feelings.
Leah rounded on Taylor. “And you didn’t tell me? How could you keep this from me? I’m ashamed of both of you!”
Leah’s rebuke struck Vick like the lash of a whip. “I couldn’t tell you, Leah,” she protested. “You would have made me keep the baby.”
“You’re damn straight I would!” Leah shot back. “How could you give up your own flesh and blood? The sister I raised would never do something like that.”
“There were reasons—”
“There is no reason on earth that justifies abandoning your child,” Leah cried. “My mother did that to me. It’s the worst thing I can imagine one human being doing to another. I can’t believe you walked away from your helpless newborn baby.”
“Leah, you have to understand—”
“I don’t understand!” Leah blinked and two tears slid down her cheeks. “Any of this. Where’s your son now?”
“Sullivan and Cody flew to Jackson with me. Sullivan’s been keeping Cody at a hotel in town. He’s bringing him here this afternoon to meet all of you.”
“Cody’s been in Jackson for the past three days, and we’re just now meeting him?” Leah said. “Why wasn’t Sullivan with you at the hospital? What kind of man drops you off and doesn’t stick around to meet your family?”
“Sullivan was right,” Vick muttered.
“About what?” Leah snapped.
“He suspected there was going to be a scene—when one or two or all of you found out about Cody—where you condemned me for the choice I made.” Vick swiped her sleeve across the tears streaming from her eyes and the snot dripping from her nose. “I’m not like our mother, Leah.”
“Tell me how what you did is different,” Leah challenged.
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