“Yeah.” Eventually. In the morning.
Hailey looked disappointed, but he wasn’t going to kiss and tell. He wouldn’t have been surprised if Lauren had already called her friend and filled her in, but since she hadn’t, Ryan kept his mouth shut.
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you lying to me?”
“Absolutely not.” Technically he wasn’t.
Sighing, Hailey shook her head. “Your loss. She looked hot as hell in that dress.”
She looked even hotter in the Victoria’s Secret number under the dress, but he wasn’t telling that, either.
“You have a good day, Hailey.”
“Thanks for bringing my car home.”
When Ryan reached his truck, Josh refused to get out of the driver’s seat and instead cracked the window enough so he could talk, but not enough so Ryan could reach in and choke him.
“You’ve gotten soft if you need heated leather seats, dude.”
“Get out of my seat.”
“Or what? You gonna drag me out? You can try, but I’m younger and I wasn’t up all night trying to keep a lady happy.”
“I’m sorry you have to work so hard at it. I, on the other hand, can keep my lady happy and still kick your ass up and down this street.”
He shrugged. “The fact remains, your truck is locked, your keys are in the ignition, I’m in the driver’s seat and you’re on the sidewalk.”
Muttering every curse he could think of, and combining them into interesting new combinations, Ryan walked around to the passenger side and, when he heard the lock release, climbed in.
“I’d reach over and punch you in the face, but I don’t feel like taking shit from Rosie for bruising her precious baby boy.”
Josh grinned, cranked the radio and left half the tires on the asphalt as he took off. Rather than encourage him, Ryan gritted his teeth and rode home in silence as his brother tried what seemed like every satellite radio channel. Twice.
*
Rose tried to keep a stiff upper lip, but she only got halfway through hugging the kids before she was leaking tears. They were a rowdy bunch, this family that had made her one of their own, but she couldn’t have loved them more. The big lodge was going to feel too quiet for a while.
She almost came undone when it came time to hug Sean. He’d been gone so long during his time in the army, she’d hardly gotten to see him more than she saw Liz, and then he’d gone and fallen in love with a woman already settled in New Hampshire. He was happy, though, and that was all that mattered.
After looking around for a second, he pulled Emma close and put an arm around each of them. “We’re not telling anybody else yet—okay, I told Ryan because he kind of guessed—but I have to tell you because you’re...our Rosie. Emma’s pregnant.”
She almost came undone, weeping all over the poor girl and then Sean. But she tried to do it discreetly because she didn’t want them to have to explain to Mary why saying goodbye was especially hard this time around.
“I’ve been waiting to knit a blanket for a grandbaby for years,” she said once she’d composed herself. Then she realized what she said and hoped Emma didn’t mind the housekeeper claiming her baby as family.
But Sean’s wife smiled and squeezed her hand. “We have plenty of room for Nana Rose to come stay for a while when he or she is born.”
Nana Rose. She liked that a lot. So much, in fact, it was a few seconds before she could find her voice. “I’ll be there.”
She forced herself to let Sean and Emma go, then moved on down the line. When she came to Mary, she squeezed extra hard. A long time ago, the woman had been nobody to Rose but her employer’s sister-in-law. Then Sarah Kowalski had died and they’d bonded while helping Frank raise his children, Rose day to day and Mary the best she could from a state away and while raising four kids of her own.
“It was a beautiful wedding,” Mary said. “And thank you for making us feel so at home. I know we can be a little overwhelming.”
“I loved having you. Honest.”
They left the way they’d come, all in a line. With the windows down, there were hands sticking out waving from all the vehicles, and Rose laughed as they pulled out of sight.
“I need a beer,” Josh said.
“I’ll join you,” Ryan added. “Love ’em, but I’m going to sit on the porch and listen to the damn crickets for a while.”
“I don’t hear any crickets.”
“Even better.”
Rose shook her head at the guys and followed Liz and Katie into the house. She only had a short time left before Ryan took Liz back to Portland to catch her plane, and it might not be long enough to ferret out what was wrong with the girl.