Page 94 of Runaway Bride’s Husband

“A couple days ago,” I said finally, deciding to just keep it simple. The kid was six. There was no need to burden him with my trauma. After turning to shut the door behind us, I unclipped the leash and watched the puppy bathe Cameron’s entire body in long licks, his tail wagging so hard, he looked a little off-balance. “I’m going to take a wild guess here and assume you’re going to watch him for me tonight?”

“I’m on it!” Cam squealed, lying down flat on his back and giggling as the puppy climbed all over him. “Do you think Mom will let me get one?”

I winced. “You’re going to have to take that up with her, buddy. Speaking of which, where are they?”

“Kitchen,” he managed between gasps of laughter. “What’s his name?”

“He doesn’t have one yet.”

Those little blue eyes found mine from the floor and widened in shock. “Can I name him?”

“Sure. Full disclosure, whatever you name him might not stick. I’m sharing him. With a friend.” That last part physically hurt to verbalize, but I breathed past it. “As long as you don’t call him Kevin or Bruce, I might be able to make a case for whatever name you pick, though.”

“I like Kevin.”

“No.”

“James?”

I shook my head at him. “Try again, kid. He’s not serious enough to be a James.”

“Who’s a James?” Jane asked, appearing in the doorway between the living room and the foyer with a smile on her lips until she saw the dog. She blinked a couple times, then frowned before coming over and drawing me into a hug. “Ryan, why do have a puppy?”

“It’s a long story.” I gave her a quick squeeze, not missing the way her gaze scanned my face as she pulled away.

Whatever she saw there made her sigh and take my arm. “Come on. Holden is already here and dinner is almost ready.”

“I’ll stay with the puppy!” Cameron volunteered between fits of giggles. “Eric is so cute!”

“He’s not an Eric either,” I called over my shoulder until Jane shushed me with a stern warning.

“The little one is still asleep,” she said. “If you wake her up before the actual end of nap time, you can deal with the rattlesnake who’ll be getting out of that bed instead of my sweet little girl.”

I mimed zipping my lips and followed her to the kitchen, where Holden and Alex were sitting around the island, a glass of wine in each of their hands as they laughed about something. When I walked in, they both stood up to say hi, but Jane marched right over to the bottle, poured me a glass of wine too, and pushed it across the counter.

As she nodded at a vacant stool across from hers, she folded her arms and gave me the look. The dreaded, big-sister, I-can-see-right-through-you stare. “Start talking, Ryan.”

I glanced at Holden, wondering if he’d told them anything, but he just raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “Hey, don’t look at me. You’re the one who walked in here looking like you’re on the verge of a mental break, man.”

“What are you talking about?” I scoffed, sat down, and picked up my glass. “I look fine.”

“You showed up with a dog and very little light in your eyes,” Jane said. “That’s not fine.”

When I glanced at Alex for help next, he just smirked and put up his hands in surrender. “Sorry, bro. You really do look like shit, and apparently, you have a dog now. What do you want from me? I’m not a miracle worker and there’s obviously something going on.”

I took a long sip of my wine and finally just came clean. If there was one good thing that had come out of our father’s arrest and everything we’d been through since, it was that we’d come through it closer than ever.

We didn’t tell each other everything in real time, to be fair, but we didn’t make a habit of lying to each other either, and overall, we always had each other’s back. “I’m in love with Maggie Pembroke.”

Jane groaned and swiped her glass off the counter too, taking a swig of it before sitting down and looking right into my eyes. “I had a feeling it was something like that. Is she still marrying the Hawthorne boy?”

“Yep.”

“Fuck,” Alex muttered.

I nodded my agreement and proceeded to tell them everything. I didn’t go into much detail, but by the end, I was pretty sure they got the gist of it anyway.

“It’s killing me,” I finally admitted. “She’s doing it, though. She’s definitely marrying him.”