Pulling me to my feet, he cupped my face. “Work on your poker face. You can talk to me about anything. I’ll wait until you’re ready.” He sighed. “Come on, let’s go get a snack.”
“By ‘us’, you mean me, right?”
The man was forever trying to feed me. I gained more than I was comfortable with. I was up nineteen pounds. On my last visit, the doctor said it was healthy weight gain. Somehow, Ryan interpreted that to mean I should eat more. He wasn’t the one who had to lose all this weight after the baby was born.
His insistence on my drinking three glasses of milk per day wasn’t just irritating; it felt like a challenge to my autonomy, threatening to disrupt the fragile peace of our household. By that I meant I would disrupt it.
“I’ve been out there all day helping your brother. I could do with some grub to tide me over until dinner.”
Just as we reached the kitchen, he suggested, “How about a glass of warm?—”
“Not drinking any more milk today, Ryan.” I gave him my best ‘test me and find out’ tone.
“How about a bowl of granola?”
Did this man think I was an idiot? I have an entire law degree with the Governor General’s Gold Medal award, but here he was trying to trick me into drinking more milk by offering me cereal.
“No, thank you.” I really hoped I sounded as annoyed as I felt. “Ryan?—”
He held up his finger when his phone rang. He frowned at his phone before answering, “Ryan.”
Placing his phone on the counter, he put it on speaker.
“Hi, Ryan,” a female voice with a country tang greeted him with a giggle.
“Who is this?” he asked while opening the breadbox. Oh, maybe he would pull out the cranberry and orange scones he had made yesterday.
“It’s Sally-Lois, silly.” Her voice sounded like a foghorn.
Did she really giggle again? As Ryan’s mom would say, “Bless her heart,” she was going all out trying to sound flirty, and it was landing like a cement block.
Sally-Lois was an intimidating-looking woman. She was as tall as Ryan and built just like her dad, with broadshoulders that gave her a linebacker-like appearance. Her hands were massive, matching her size-fourteen boots, and she carried herself with a presence that made it clear she was not someone to be trifled with. When I visited Broken Stone, and she thought no one was watching, she sent death glares my way, her expression filled with animosity. It was obvious she had a huge crush on Ryan, though he, for all his perception, seemed completely oblivious to it.
“What do you need?” he snapped.
I noticed that if it wasn’t me or his mother, he sounded gruff on the phone. His aim was to get to the point and get off the call, just like he was handling this one.
Ryan held up the container with the scones, and I nodded as a huge grin took over my face.
“I was checking in. How is your trip?”
He held up a jar of bacon jam, and I gave him a thumbs up. He winked at me.
“Was there something you needed?”
“Well, Daddy said you would be away for a while…” she paused.
I think she expected him to say something; instead, he remained silent. After clearing her throat, she continued, “I wasn’t sure when you would be back…” Again, another charged pause.
Ryan wasn’t the fill in the conversation kind of guy. It made me think she shouldn’t have spent much time with him if she hadn’t picked up on that.
“You are gonna have to get to the point; I’m fixin’ to eat soon.”
“Oh, um.” She cleared her throat. “Daddy struggles with running the ranch on his own. When you are around, you keep him on track.”
Ryan cut the scones in half and placed them in the toaster oven. “Big Terry has things under control.”
“I just don’t want you to lose what you’ve invested in the ranch, ‘cause he was careless.”
