“I understand that.” Elizabeth picked up a dying leaf and tore away the edges.
“Dad grew up old-school. Worked hard, got a good education, and strived for the top. His great-grandparents emigrated to the US as kids during the Irish Potato Famine, and I’m not sure the poverty mentality ever left them. Mom grew up with money, but her parents told her to never depend on anyone but herself. Not her husband, or friends, or children. She was a National Merit Scholar and wrote her own ticket.”
“I’m surprised you fell for me,” Elizabeth said. “I sound a lot like your mom.”
“Maybe that’s why I fell for you.”
“Because you missed your mom during childhood, and I’m the substitute? How Freudian of you.” Elizabeth let the last of the leaf in her hand flutter to the ground.
“No, I meant I really admire and respect Mom.”
“But you still wish she’d been around more.”
Was she fishing for something beyond Ryder’s childhood? Like a peek into her future through Ryder’s view of his mother? “Doesn’t every kid?”
“We’re not talking about every kid.”
A couple more Dorsey cousins, aunts, and uncles arrived, pausing to hug Elizabeth and hand over something from their personal belongings. The picnic table was stacked with towels, boxes, decorative pillows, framed family photos, pots, pans, knickknacks, a carefully bagged quilt someone said belonged to Great-Granny, and envelopes, which Ryder guessed contained money.
“Mom was around more with my brother,” he said when they were alone again. “I was the surprise caboose baby, and her career was a freight train. She did provide the best care and education. Keeping me here in Hearts Bend when moving to Nashville or Atlanta would’ve been easier for them.”
“All fear of passing on Epstein–Barr aside, you’re making my case on why I’m not so keen on marriage. I don’t want my kid saying the same things about me in thirty years.”
“I think there’s a balance to it all, Beth. In the end, it comes down to priorities and values. I sometimes wonder if my mom regrets being away so much. She hinted at it during dinner when she asked me about you.”
“Me? What did you tell her?”
He looked into her eyes for a moment, then toward the bocce game. “That you were a Dorsey and I knew you from the summers you worked at Ella’s. I said you were a friend, also smart, ambitious, determined, fun, easy to laugh with and”—he glanced at her again—“beautiful. To which my mom agreed.”
Each confession warmed her, filling places in her she didn’t know were empty. She liked to believe a career-minded, independent woman was not wooed by a man’s words, but she’d take them. Treasure them.
“Oh, hey, any word from the Colorado offer?” she said.
“Naw. I’m not going. Travis called me into his office this afternoon, apologized again for the misunderstanding, and talked about my career with the WMA. I think he wants to move up and hand me his job.”
“That’s quite a turnaround. Congratulations. I think Will still wants me to take Dan Harper’s place when he retires in three years? Stay at Dorsey, work with Dan, become CFO when he leaves.” She nudged Ryder’s shoulder. “By the way, Travis is right. You’d be good in his job.”
“Maybe you can come back to Dorsey after your master’s degree.”
She laughed softly. “Probably not, but we’ll see.”
“I wish you all the best, Beth.” Ryder kissed her cheek. It was clinical and cold, not like the passionate ones he whispered along her jaw and down her neck that night at the fire tower. The mere memory made her shiver. “When do you leave?”
“Thursday afternoon. I’ll drive halfway.”
Ryder slid off the picnic table. “Don’t be a stranger. Come visit.”
“You know I will.” The exchange was perfunctory. They both knew it’d be a long time before she returned to Hearts Bend.
He glanced toward the family, some playing games, some gathered by the smoldering firepit, talking and laughing. “You should go celebrate with everyone.”
As he walked away, Elizabeth felt…what? Cold? As if something had been taken from her. She ran after him. “Ryder?”
“Yeah?” He turned slowly, and in the dusky light she caught a shimmer in his eyes.
“I’ll text you.”
He nodded once. “Sure.”
