Yours to Hold: Ribbon Ridge Book Two (8 page)

They left the restaurant and walked back to Kyle’s car. Once there, he offered to walk her the few blocks home.

“That’s okay,” she said. “It’s not far.”

“I don’t mind.” He wanted to, in fact.

“Really, it’s fine.” She resettled her purse strap on her shoulder. “I had a nice time tonight.”

“You sound surprised.”

She blinked at him. “Aren’t you?”

He laughed softly. “Okay, yes. I might even like to do it again.”

She exhaled. “That’s not a good idea. I mean, unless it’s about finding the drug dealer. I’m on board with that. Totally.”

“I’ll take that.” He moved closer to her, wondering how the wine would taste on her lips, in her mouth. His body tightened with desire. “I had a great time with you.”

She thrust her hand out. Slowly, he did the same and tried not to smile when she shook it. But then smiling was the last thing on his mind as electricity shot between them. He wanted to kiss her, touch her, feel her.

“Good night,” she said, withdrawing her hand rather quickly. “Let me know what you find out.”

She turned and stalked away, her stride devouring the sidewalk as she hurried away from him into the twilight. He watched her go and wondered how bad it would really be to take her on a real date. One that would end in kissing and touching and feeling.

It wouldn’t be bad at all, he decided.

T
HE DIRT FELT
good in Maggie’s gloved hands, the rich, earthy scent comforting her, soothing her nerves, which tended to unravel when she went to her mother’s house. She worked the fertilizer into the ground, sifting it through her fingers.

The gate separating her mother’s backyard from her father’s opened. Dad stepped through and let the wood clap shut. “Hello, my little magpie.”

She smiled up at him. “Hi, Dad.” With his long, dark, graying hair and full-sleeve tattoos, he was every bit as hippie-dippie as Mom, but he respected one’s choice to
not
be hippie-dippie. “How’re classes?”

Dad ran an art school at the local community center in southeast Portland. “Super. And my private lessons are at full capacity.” He’d offered them in his garage studio for as long as Maggie could remember. “Stop in before you go, and I’ll show you what I’m working on.”

Maggie nodded, hoping he’d forget. She didn’t mind most of his art, but some of his “experimental” stuff could be a tad unsettling. He argued that it was supposed to be, that the best art pushed you outside your comfort zone. It definitely did that.

He pushed at the bridge of his small, round wire-rimmed glasses. “What’s new with you, magpie?”

“Not much.” She finished working in the fertilizer and stood. A flat of plants—a mix of perennials and annuals—sat on the lawn beside her. She grabbed the shovel and dug holes where she planned to put the ornamental grasses.

“The new job’s going well?” he asked. “You’re feeling good?”

Dad had been incredibly supportive after Alex had died and Maggie had suffered her breakdown. He’d brought her dinner a handful of times and checked in on her regularly. “Yep, thanks.” She finished the first hole.

“Taking the herbal supplements I recommended?”

That would be Dad’s code for,
Are you smoking the pot I gave you?
Dad was a great believer in the healing and soothing powers of marijuana. She shook her head but smiled. “I’m good, Dad, really.”

“It’s better for you than those prescription drugs,” he said, his voice turning stern.

As she worked on the second hole, she threw him an exasperated glance.

He held up a hand. “I’ll stop. Badgering is your mother’s job.”

Yes, it was. Thankfully, she was embroiled in a Skype conversation with a friend on the East Coast. Maggie moved on to the third hole and contemplated whether to broach a topic with Dad. She typically kept her nose out of her parents’ lives—it was better for her peace of mind if she didn’t know what was going on—but she rarely got Dad alone, and sometimes he gave her a bit of insight into why they lived the life they did.

“How’re you and Mom? Spending a lot of time together, or is this one of your ‘off’ periods?” Because they lived apart, they pretty much led separate lives. Yet they still felt a connection and responsibility to each other. When Dad broke his foot two years ago, Mom had taken care of him.

“Bit of an off period,” Dad said, leaning against the fence and watching her work. “I think she’s been seeing someone the last few months.”

Maggie strained to hear a clue as to how Dad felt about that, but she couldn’t tell. She set the shovel aside and knelt to put the grass in the first hole. Knocking it out of the pot, she glanced up at him, deciding to be bold. “Does that bother you? I admit, I still don’t understand your open marriage concept. I always thought it was just physical, but then it seems like you and Mom actually date people from time to time.” So weird. She knew they loved each other and couldn’t imagine just turning the other cheek when your soul mate stepped out.

“It’s sort of like that. We’re very up front with our partners. Some of them are just sex buddies.” His lips curved up. “Sorry, I know that’s probably not what you want to imagine your parents doing.” No, it wasn’t, and if this conversation had been with her mother, Maggie would’ve been called a prude several times by now.

“It’s okay, you’re people, too.” She set the grass into the ground and patted the dirt around it. Then she moved on to the next pot. “But a few months . . . that’s longer than Mom usually spends with someone.”

Dad shrugged. “Maybe. I was with someone for about eighteen months once.”

Maggie nearly dropped the plant. “You were?”

He nodded, folding his arms over his chest. “Long time ago. You were nine or ten.”

“Wow.” She couldn’t even grasp that. How did you have a relationship like that in addition to the one with your wife? And that had been before they’d moved into the duplex. They’d lived in a small house, and now that she’d thought about it, Dad had spent a lot of time at his off-site studio. Now that she
really
thought about it, that studio had included a loft, a small kitchenette, and a bathroom. Like so many things she’d learned in her life about her parents, she wished he hadn’t told her.

He squatted down beside her. “Hey there, little magpie, I didn’t mean to upset you.” He brushed a strand of her hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear. “I was always very careful to insulate you.” He was, but that didn’t make it better.

She exaggerated her motions so that his hand fell away. She didn’t want him to touch her. She loved her parents—she did—but their odd lifestyle made her uncomfortable. No, it made her feel somewhat insignificant. Her anxiety started to amp up, and she chastised herself for not taking her Xanax. Real dumb move, but after her great evening with Kyle the night before, she’d woken up this morning feeling better than she had in a long time. A morning at her mom’s hadn’t seemed overwhelming, but now that she was here, the familiar stress was rifling through her.

Dad stood, sighing. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I know better than to trouble my sensitive little magpie.”

She looked up at him as she patted dirt around the grass. “It’s okay, Dad. It’s not like this is surprising.” Just unsettling. How many other things was she unaware of? Probably dozens, and she hoped it stayed that way. Mom kept a diary and always said she’d leave it to Maggie when she died, but Maggie planned to burn it without reading.

Dad turned the conversation to a safer topic and asked her about what she was planting. Maggie launched into an animated discussion of the grasses, the Russian sage, and the variety of annuals.

“It’s going to be quite the colorful little patch when you’re finished,” Dad said. “I think you missed your calling, magpie. It warms my heart to see your passion for something artistic.” Instead of medical. Both Mom and Dad counted Maggie’s and Rowan’s careers to be failures, where other parents—normal parents—would be proud of having a daughter with a PhD and a son with a juris doctorate. But for an artist and a yoga instructor, a therapist and a lawyer were apparently disappointing career goals.

“Thanks, Dad. I do enjoy it.” She’d considered going into landscape design, had actually taken a couple of classes as an undergrad, but she’d enjoyed her psychology courses, and when she realized she could make more money and enjoy more stability as a therapist, she’d taken that path instead. Growing up poor was a good incentive to follow your head rather than your heart.

Mom swept out of the house like a whirlwind. “Oh, Jer! You look scrumptious.” Smiling, she went to Dad and kissed him. She slid her arm around his waist and turned to survey Maggie’s work. “Looks fabulous, darling. What are you two talking about out here?”

“Just the plants,” Maggie said.

There was something exciting about Mom’s energy, something that always made a space brighter or the atmosphere more charged. When Maggie had been younger, before she’d understood the weirdness of her upbringing and her parents’ marriage, she’d loved that spark. Regardless of the strain in their adult relationship, she still envied her mom’s ability to live in the moment and even her absolute honesty, despite its occasion to cause harm. Mom lived without regret, without worry. And without filters.

“Isn’t it lovely, Jer?” Mom said, setting her free hand on his chest so that her stance was one of absolute possession. Or so it looked to Maggie. She imagined touching Kyle like that, claiming him for her own. The woman’s jealous look in the crosswalk the night before rose in Maggie’s memory, eliciting a small smile.

“What’s that about?” Mom asked, demonstrating her uncanny capacity to detect even the smallest things. “That’s a provocative little grin.”

“Nothing, Mom. You guys look cute together, that’s all.” Maggie picked up a trowel and dug holes for the rest of the plants.

“We do.” She patted Dad’s chest and moved away. “You look so comfortable in the garden, my flower bud. I still say you should be doing this full time.”

“I was just telling her that,” Dad said.

Maggie dropped a marigold into the ground. “If you guys are going to harass me about my job, I’m leaving and you can finish this yourselves.”

Mom laughed. “You’re always so sensitive!”

Maggie patted dirt around the gold flower and threw her mother an irritated glance. Her phone vibrated in her back pocket. She pulled her right glove off and pulled it out. A 911 text from her service. Taking off her other glove, she stood. “I have to return this call.”

Thankful for the reprieve, she went into the house and was immediately assaulted by Mom’s little Yorkshire-Maltese mixes, Sonny and Cher. They ran around her feet barking until she leaned over to pet them both. Appeased, they flopped on the floor and stared up at her as she called the service back. “This is Maggie Trent.”

“Dr. Trent, we got a call from Ryan Dillinger. He says he’s feeling pretty bad and would like to see you today, if possible.”

Ryan was a relatively new patient. He’d lost his job several months ago and had recently broken up with his girlfriend. He was suffering from depression, and Dr. Innes had prescribed an antidepressant, but Maggie was providing the therapy. “Sure.” She looked at the clock on her mother’s microwave. “Have him meet me at the clinic at one.”

“Will do. He sounded pretty rough.”

A thread of anxiety wound down Maggie’s spine. In the two months since she’d returned to work, she hadn’t had to deal with anything too depressing. But she knew it was coming. Maybe it wouldn’t turn out as badly as it had with Alex—God, she hoped not—but helping people wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. While she’d known what she was getting into with this career, she hadn’t anticipated that other people’s problems would affect her so much. Mom had warned her they would, but as with most things, Maggie hadn’t listened.

“Thanks for letting me know.” She ended the call and turned to go back outside. Her eye caught her purse, and she paused at the threshold. She looked into the yard, saw her parents making out, and turned away from the slider. The tumult inside her grew until she heard a buzzing in her ears. She dug into her purse for her pillbox and pulled out a Xanax. Without overthinking, she popped it into her mouth and took a swig from the water bottle next to her purse to wash it down.

She closed her eyes and counted to three before making as much noise as possible opening the door. By the time she got to the yard, her parents had stopped kissing—how did they do that when Mom was supposedly seeing someone? Maggie shook her head and worked to clear her thoughts before she started to therapize her parents. Therapize? Kyle’s word. She liked that word. She liked him. Yes, think about Kyle.

She went back to work on the flowerbed and mostly tuned out her parents, who’d moved on to discussing Rowan’s girlfriend. Soon, Maggie felt relaxed, good, happy almost.

It was probably the Xanax, but she thought—no, she hoped—it was maybe because of Kyle, too.

Chapter Five

K
YLE WAITED TO
search Alex’s office until just about everyone was at lunch on Monday, save Natalie, who typically went later so that she and Paula weren’t gone at the same time. Alex’s office was on the other side of Dad’s. It was smaller than the others but had the best view of the valley. They hadn’t hired anyone to fill his position as director of communications—right now they were hiring freelancers to take care of any writing projects. Kyle suspected Dad just couldn’t replace him yet.

He pressed his lips together. He was going to find out how Alex had gotten those drugs, and prosecuting the person who’d sold them to him was going to help Dad move on.

A search of Alex’s room at home yesterday had yielded nothing about Shane, so Kyle hoped he’d find something today. He sat down behind the desk and methodically went through each drawer. Nothing. Frustration mounting, he turned to the credenza behind the desk and looked through the hanging files.

“What’re you doing?”

Kyle jumped, nearly closing his fingers in the drawer. “Shit! Natalie, you scared me.”

She moved into the office, her mouth forming an O. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to. My bad.”

He blew air out and took a deep breath to regulate his suddenly racing heart. He didn’t want his family to know what he was doing, but maybe Natalie could help him. “I’m looking for something, actually.”

“Can I help?” She walked around the desk. “You know I can probably find anything.”

“That’s true, but this isn’t work-related. Can you keep a secret? And I mean a real secret—this is important. This isn’t gossip-type stuff.”

She tipped her head to the side, her dark eyes narrowing slightly. “Have you ever known me to engage in office gossip? I respect your family too much, and I value my job more than anything.”

“I know. I just wanted to be clear. I completely trust that you won’t say anything, which is why I’m going to confide in you. But I had to say it, okay?”

She exhaled. “I get you.” She crossed her fingers over her heart. “Your secret is safe with me.”

He smiled. “Excellent. I’m trying to find out who sold Alex the drugs he used to kill himself.”

Her eyes widened. “Oh my. Why do you think he bought them from someone?”

“No one would’ve prescribed them to him with his medical history. He had to have gotten them illegally.” He went back to the file drawer and continued, but everything in there was a work-related project.

Natalie perched on the edge of the desk. The position hiked her skirt a little and exposed a length of very toned, very tan legs. “What are you looking for?”

“Anything really, but I’m particularly searching for the name Dane Hawkins or Shane Dawkins.”

“Wait, isn’t Shane the guy who visited you Friday?”

He glanced up at her. “Yeah. He’s an old friend, and he has some shady contacts.” Kyle had no plans to divulge his gambling background to Natalie. One secret was more than enough to share. “I think it’s possible he could’ve hooked Alex up.”

Her dark brows drew together. “Now that you mention it, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that guy before.”

Kyle turned sharply, letting the drawer close. “You have?”

She chewed her lip. “Yeah, I think he’s been here before.”

Adrenalin pumped through him. “Do you remember when?”

“Maybe late last year? Right around the holidays, I think. Yeah, the office was decorated.”

The timing sounded right, as Alex had killed himself in early February. Fury burned Kyle’s insides. He longed to beat answers out of Shane, but that wouldn’t help anything. He breathed like Maggie had told him to. Slowly, he calmed down, but determination gripped him. He’d get to the bottom of this with Shane. Hopefully with Maggie’s help.

He’d thought of her a lot over the weekend. Friday’s dinner had been fun, flirty even. He’d wanted to kiss her at the end but realized that probably wasn’t smart. He wasn’t even sure she wanted him to. She’d flirted back, but flirting wasn’t following through.

“Is that helpful at all?” Natalie asked, interrupting his thoughts and reminding him she was still there.

“Yeah, sorry. Got wrapped up in what I want to do next. Thanks for your help, really.”

“What are you going to do?”

He stood up from the chair. “Crucify Shane.”

She cringed as she got up from the desk. She touched his arm and looked at him intently. “Be careful. He looked like a pretty tough guy.”

“I will be, thanks.” He moved around the desk and paused at the threshold of the office. “Will you close the door behind you? And remember, this is between us. I don’t want Dad to know what I’m doing. If this goes nowhere, he’ll be disappointed, and I’m trying to give him some closure, not make him feel worse.”

She nodded. “Got it. I’m happy to help you any way that I can.” She crossed the office and met him at the door. Her gaze locked on his, conveying her commitment. “Really, Kyle, I’m here if you need me.”

“Thanks.” He smiled at her and went back to his office and closed the door. Once inside, he called Maggie’s office and Monotone Man answered. Geez, he really needed her cell phone number. Kyle used his real name this time and got right through to her since she was at lunch.

“No fake
Game of Thrones
names today? How disappointing.”

He smiled at the warmth in her tone. “I can call back as Jaime Lannister if you like.”

She laughed. “This is fine.”

“Actually, it’d be better if you gave me your cell phone number so I can bypass that snore of a receptionist.”

She laughed again. “Baylor is a nice guy.”

“Baylor? That’s a college, not a name.”

More laughter. “Stop, please. Why did you call?”

“I have news. Someone in my office remembers Shane coming here to see Alex last winter.”

“Oh my God. What are you going to do?”

He was thrilled by the shock and excitement in her voice. “Confront him. Do you want to go with me?”

“Kyle, is that safe? I don’t know . . .”

“We’ll go to the gym where he works. Very public. It’s just a conversation. You’re free on Wednesday afternoon, right?”

“Your knowledge of my schedule is a bit frightening, you know that?”

He chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’ll forget at some point. I’m a guy; we don’t remember that kind of stuff.”

“If you say so. It’s still unsettling.”

He spun his chair and looked out the window. “Is it? I thought we’d established I’m not a stalker or anything else creepy. Didn’t you have a good time Friday?”

She sighed. “I did. And you aren’t creepy.”

He smiled. “So Wednesday. I’ll pick you up at two? The gym’s in Northeast Portland, so we’ll be gone all afternoon, probably have to pick up dinner in town to avoid rush hour before we head back.”

“I don’t know. You don’t really need me, right?”

He heard the hesitation in her voice and sat forward in his chair, wanting to convince her. But did he need her there? “I’d
like
you there. We’re in this together.” Or so he hoped. He liked having a partner. It kept this endeavor from being too dark.

Silence answered him, and his muscles tightened. “You’re good at talking me off the ledge too,” he said. “You will undoubtedly come in handy in case I try to do something stupid.”

She made a sound, a small breath, not quite the sigh she’d made before. “Okay, sure. Pick me up at two.”

He smiled into the phone. “You got it.”

“Bye.”

“See you.” He ended the call, glad that she’d be with him. Though he’d used the excuse to convince her, she might
actually
need to talk him down. Because if Shane had supplied Alex with the drugs, Kyle didn’t know what he would do.

A
T FIVE MINUTES
to two, Maggie went outside to wait for Kyle on her porch. There was no way she was giving him even a glimpse of her house. That would ignite too many questions, none of which she wanted to answer—even to herself. At one minute till, he pulled into her driveway, and she strode toward the car.

He jumped out and raced around to open her door. He smiled at her, making her stomach do a little flip. “Eager beaver today, eh?”

“Just ready to do this.”

He nodded and shut the door after she climbed inside. When he was back in the driver seat, he looked over at her. “Music or no music? I tend to like music in the background.”

She set her purse on the floor by her feet. “Music’s fine.”

“Pop, rock, jazz?”

She laughed. “Okay, your gentlemanly thoughtfulness is going a little overboard, don’t you think? It doesn’t matter. Whatever you have is fine.”

“I’ll let the radio decide.” He turned it on, and a Bruno Mars song filtered through the speakers. He adjusted the volume to where they could hear the music but still talk over it and be heard. “Good?”

“Fine.” She smiled at him, surprised at how thoughtful he was and how great his mom must be to have instilled that in him. “Your mom must be pretty special.”

He backed out into the street. “What?” He glanced at her. “Oh, the gentlemanly thing. Actually, the music stems from my siblings. With so many of us, there were tons of arguments growing up. And background noise bothers one of my brothers and used to bother one of my sisters, so I just got in the habit of asking.”

“That’s still really sweet.” She looked at him as he drove. “Is that your brother with Asperger’s—Evan?”

Kyle flicked her a curious glance. “Alex told you about that? Yeah, I imagine he would. Evan’s auditory processing isn’t the best. Background noise makes it hard for him to engage.”

“And your sister has sensory processing disorder, right?” She felt comfortable discussing this since it seemed to be information that Kyle had planned to share.

He nodded. “Sara. She and I are pretty close. When she was younger, loud noise gave her trouble, but she worked through it. My parents did a lot of different therapies with her and Evan.” He shot her an inquisitive look. “Alex probably told you that, too.”

He had, but hearing it from Kyle in this setting, outside of therapy, was different. “That’s great that your family is so supportive and proactive.” She looked out the window as they drove through Newberg. “So, what’s the plan for today?”

“What do you mean?”

“How are you going to address the drugs with Shane?”

He glanced at her, appearing a bit perplexed. “I’m going to ask him.”

She shook her head. “No, no, you’ll immediately put him on the defensive. I think you should ask him if he can get you drugs. Tell him I want them—that’s why I’m there.”

He stopped at a light and looked at her more fully, his gaze appreciative. “Aren’t you a little conniver?” A roguish smile curved his lips. “I like that. Very smooth idea. Much better than my scorched earth method. I should have come up with that to begin with—see, it’s good that I have you along.”

She understood why he perhaps hadn’t thought ahead. “I get it,” she said. “You’re coming from an emotional place. It makes sense that you want to go in there with guns blazing.”

He refocused on the road as the light turned green. “But I won’t. Thanks to you.”

She wanted to understand exactly what sort of emotional place he was coming from. Was it just the gambling? Alex’s death? Or had this Shane person maybe meant more to him at some point—a friendship gone bad? “How did you meet Shane?”

“The gym. I lived over in Northeast back then. Fresh out of culinary school. I worked at a couple of different restaurants.”

“How did he become your bookie?”

He cast her a sidelong glance. “I don’t know. We hung out. We went to the racetrack a few times. Things just sort of developed. He liked my ribs.”

An image of his cut abs—and she was sure they were cut—rose in her mind, sending a spike of desire straight through her belly. She turned in the seat to look at him. “He what?”

In profile, his grin was every bit as sexy as it was full-on. “My pork ribs—the seasoning, really. I made them for a neighborhood barbecue once, and I couldn’t get rid of Shane after that. You know, I haven’t made those ribs in a really long time. Do you like ribs?”

She was pretty sure he was deflecting. He didn’t want to talk about his past with Shane, or more importantly, how he’d become a gambling addict. Although she was curious, she wouldn’t press him. For now.

She resituated herself to face forward. “Yeah, I like ribs. Are you offering to make them for me some time?” Yikes, she hadn’t meant to flirt with him today. She’d had a conscious conversation with herself—and no, that didn’t make her nuts—to keep their field trip strictly platonic.

“I will absolutely make them for you some time.” He turned off the highway and cut over to the freeway that would take them into Portland. “I’ve been contemplating what to put on the menu at The Alex, and I think I have my first contender.”

It warmed Maggie’s heart to know that Alex had left a lasting legacy. “I think it’s so great that you guys named the place after him.”

“It was Sara’s idea. The restaurant will be The Arch and Fox.”

“All of the Archer brewpubs have Arch in the title, don’t they?” she asked.

“Yep, and we all have animals associated with us. Alex’s was a fox. I think it was because he was sly. Or maybe it was just the
X
in his name.”

She was fascinated to hear more about this family she almost felt like she knew through Alex’s therapy sessions. “What’s your animal?”

“A horse. I loved them when I was a kid.”

“Really?” She’d been obsessed with horses, but they’d never been able to afford lessons or anything. She’d only ridden one a couple of times with Girl Scouts. “Me, too.”

He smiled at her. “What about now?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. They’re beautiful animals.”

“Smart, too. I rode until I started playing sports. That took up too much time.”

“Do you miss riding?”

“Sometimes.” He changed the radio station, presumably because a commercial had come on. “If you wanted to ride, I could probably arrange something. A friend of mine from high school owns a riding facility.”

There he went talking about the future. Ribs, horseback riding. They weren’t dating. They weren’t even really friends. Were they? “You need to stop planning things with me.”