Нора Робертс - The Perfect Hope

She just had to figure out what the hell to do about it.

“Is this what you felt?” Hope stayed where she was, breathing in honeysuckle, struggling to find her balance. “No wonder you’ve waited. What else could you do? He loved you, too. You knew. You didn’t wonder or worry or doubt. If you’d wait, if you could, so could he. I’ll find him.”

Billy.

Hope heard the joy in the name, the life in it.

Ryder.

“Yeah.” On a long breath, she pushed herself up to sit again. “It looks that way. It looks as if I started moving here, to this, from that first minute. Dizzy, hot, overwhelmed, dazzled, scared. Just like now. It shouldn’t be, but it is. It shouldn’t have been for you either, considering. It must run in the family.”

Billy. Ryder.

“And I’ll bet Billy had that same cocky nature. It shouldn’t be so appealing. Swept you off your feet. I can see it. I can see it now. It didn’t matter who your father was, what your station was. He loved you. He saw you, and that was all that mattered. I wonder what that’s like. To have someone so strong and confident see you, look at you, and you’re all that matters.”

She sighed now, got to her feet. “I can’t think about that right now. I can’t expect that. I need to finish my list, and I should bake some muffins before the guests arrive.”

The cupboard door where she kept her baking supplies flew open, slammed shut.

“There’s no reason to be annoyed with me. Billy loved you, I understand. He wanted to marry you. Ryder doesn’t …”

She stepped back instinctively as the door slammed again. She heard the names clearly.

Billy. Ryder.

“All right, Eliza. Enough. If I say I wished Ryder felt for me what Billy did for you, will you be satisfied? But Billy and Ryder aren’t …”

She stopped, braced a hand on the counter as it sprang up in her. “Oh God, is that it? Was it always that simple. Billy Ryder? Joseph William Ryder. Is that it? Is that his name?”

The lights came on in a brilliant glow, pulsed like a heartbeat.

“Billy Ryder. Yours, and apparently mine. His ancestor? Could that be? His, like you’re mine. Wait.”

She grabbed the kitchen phone, punched in Ryder’s cell.

“What?”

She ignored the automatic annoyance. He hated being interrupted, but that was too damn bad. “Ryder’s a family name, isn’t it?”

“Huh? Jesus. So what?”

She pitched her voice up, compensating for the hammering on his end. “It’s your mother’s maiden name? Her family name?”

“Yeah, and so what?”

“Billy. It was his family name, too. He’s Joseph William Ryder.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Do you recognize the name? Is it familiar?”

“Why would it be? He was dead a couple hundred years before I was born. Ask my mother. Ask Carolee. Call Owen. Any one of them would know more than I do.”

“All right. Thanks.”

“Congratulations.”

“I haven’t found him yet. But yeah, it’s worth a high five. I’ll talk to you later.”

She hung up before he could, immediately dialed Carolee. No time to bake muffins, she decided. She’d get something from the bakery instead.

Whatever time she had to spare, she’d spend looking for Joseph William Ryder.

IT TOOK SOME TIME AND SCHEDULE SHUFFLING BEFORE everyone could get together at one time, in one place. At Justine’s request, they met in her home. There, she felt, everyone could talk and speculate freely.

And if she had everyone who mattered to her most under one roof, they might as well make a party out of it.

She knew her men, so she marinated flank steaks, picked up corn at her favorite roadside stand, harvested tomatoes and peppers fresh from her garden.

“You don’t have to fuss so much.” Willy B sat at the counter, snapping beans, his contribution from his own little garden. His pug curled devotedly under his stool.

“It feels good to fuss some. This summer’s flown by, and we’ve hardly managed to all get together like this. And it keeps my mind settled.” She sprinkled paprika on a platter of eggs she’d deviled—one of Owen’s favorites. “When I think about it all, Willy B, how I just had to have that inn, felt that pull in my heart for it. Now it turns out there’s this connection. Billy Ryder. All this time.”

She sighed. “I never asked questions about my people, or not many. Never bothered to find out much at all.”

“You lived your life, Justine. You had Tommy and your boys, and Carolee.”

“I know it, and it’s always been about the now and the next for me. And still, aren’t I the one for buying up these old places? So there’s something. Anyway, Carolee doesn’t know any more than I do. Daddy, either. When we find out whatever we find, I’m going to make more of an effort to learn about who came before me. You looked into yours. I remember.”

“It was kind of interesting to find out.” He paused his snapping to scratch through his red beard. “Where they came from in Scotland, how they came here—those who did. And I thought Avery should know. Maybe I thought she didn’t have much on her mama’s side, so she should have as much as I could give her on mine.”

“You’re the best daddy there is. Nobody could’ve done better.”

“Well, I had the best girl to work with.” He smiled over the beans, then shifted, cleared his throat. “Justine, you don’t want to get married or anything, do you?”

“Why, Willy B MacTavish.” She fluttered her lashes. The question may have come out of left field, but she knew how to catch. “That’s the most romantic proposal ever uttered.”

“Oh now, Justine.”

She laughed, the sound full of amused affection. “What makes you ask?”

“I don’t know, exactly. All this talk about families, I guess, and your boy, my girl—wedding talk. You’re here alone, and don’t give me that look. I know you can take care of yourself, and whatever else needs it. But we’ve been … you know, for a while now.”

“I like ‘you know.’ You’re the sweetest man I know, and if I wanted or needed marriage, I wouldn’t look at anyone else. We’re good as we are, aren’t we, Willy B?”

As answer, he took her hand. “You mean the world to me, Justine. I just want you to know it.”

“I do know it, and I’m grateful you’d ask. Maybe, down the road some, I’ll ask you.”

“Oh now, Justine.” He pinked up at the idea, made her laugh again as she came around the counter to hug him hard. “I love you to pieces, Willy B.” She eased back enough to plant her lips on his.

And Ryder walked in, D.A. behind him.

“Man.” He gave them a wide berth, went straight to the refrigerator for a beer. “Man,” he said again and popped the top.

Tyrone leaped up, shivered a little as D.A. walked over to sniff him.

“Oh now, Tyrone, D.A. won’t hurt you.” But Willy B got off the stool, crouched down to soothe the puppy and scratch D.A.’s ears.

“Where’s Hope?” Justine asked him.

“She had stuff. She’ll be here.” Lightning quick—a man had to be quick in his mother’s kitchen—he snagged a deviled egg.

“Has she had any more trouble from down in the city?”

“No, and I don’t see that happening. Book’s closed.”

“Good. Go on and let those dogs outside now. Tyrone’s fine with Finch and Cus. He’ll be fine with D.A. before long.”

Ryder obeyed, nudging the still reluctant pug out with the toe of his boot. “Beckett and his brood just pulled up. Dogs, too.”

“Oh, well, maybe I should—”

“Willy B, you let that pug socialize,” Justine ordered. “You’re going to make a neurotic out of him otherwise.”

“Everybody’s bigger than he is.”

“And you’re bigger than anybody else. You don’t hurt anyone.” She opened a cupboard, took out three bubble-shooting guns she’d already loaded, and took them out to the boys.

Seconds later Clare came in with a bowl.

“Whatcha got?” Ryder asked as he took it from her. “Potato salad? You’re my favorite sister-in-law.”

“I’m your only, but not for much longer. Avery and Owen are right behind us.” She stepped over to kiss Willy B’s cheek.

“You sit right down here, get off your feet.”

“I’ll do that, and snap the rest of these beans.”

“Okay then. I’m going to go out and …”

Clare lifted her eyebrows as Willy B hurried out the door.

“He’s worried the other dogs will traumatize that bug-eyed rat of his.”

“They won’t, and Tyrone is adorable.”

“He looks like a dog from Mars.”

“Maybe a little.” She snapped beans while boys shouted, dogs barked. Male laughter rolled over it all. “Go on outside. You know you want to. I’m fine here. It’s like a small sanity break.”

“If you say so.”

He did want to go out, especially since he’d stowed the old Super Soaker in the shed for just such an occasion.

When Hope pulled in, a war raged. Kids, dogs, grown men, all soaked to the skin, battled with a variety of water shooting weapons.

She eyed the combatants warily. She could probably trust the boys not to aim in her direction. The dogs simply had to be avoided. But she knew very well grown men could rarely resist a fresh target.

She got out carefully, using the car door as a shield as she reached in the back.

And caught the gleam in Ryder’s eye through his dripping hair.

“I have pies!” she called out. “If I get wet, the pies get wet. Think about it.”

He lowered his weapon. “What kind—” And, vulnerable, took a shot in the back from the youngest water warrior.

“I got you good!” Murphy shouted, then screamed in hysterical delight as Ryder gave chase.

Hope took advantage of the distraction, and her cherry pie shield, to make a beeline for the house.

“Everyone out there’s soaked,” Hope announced, then spotted Avery, wineglass in hand, a man’s work shirt draped to her knees. “Casualty?”