Page 24 of The Last Promise You Made

I didn’t want my heart to soften even more toward him, but it did.

Ryder led us back to the curved staircase and down into a long basement taking up the same amount of space as the kitchen and living area above it. Deep brown leather couches screaming comfort faced a ginormous television built into a wall of teak cabinets. The shelves were packed with entertainment equipment in all varieties, books, and board games. In the far corner of the room was an ancient jukebox and several old-school, free-standing video game units—Pac-Man and Frogger—as well as a pinball machine. A pool table, dart board, and heavily lacquered bar finished up the man-cave dream.

Addy let go of my hand and ran straight for the machines in the corner.

“Play?” she asked, hand waving at the Pac-Man game.

Ryder’s mouth curved upward, lips almost too pretty to be a man’s with a strong M shape at the top tucked inside scruff that was approaching a full beard. It was clipped neat and tight, and I realized suddenly that the facial hair wasn’t just overgrowth he hadn’t shaved but purposeful. Clean lines and curves.

Ryder Hatley wanted the world to think he was a rough-and-tumble cowboy, dressed in worn work clothes and well-used boots, and more interested in crops and cattle than glamour and glitz. But this house, the business he ran, the well-groomed beard…they all screamed precision and control, a planning and artistry that was not in the least bit backwater rancher with his head stuck in the hay.

Ryder strode over to a bowl on the bar, fished a bunch of gold coins from inside it, and then headed for the Pac-Man machine.

He waved at the bowl, saying, “Tokens. If we run out, let me know. I’ll open the machine and get them back out.”

He pushed a coin into the slot, and the machine came alive, music and beeps taking over the room. Addy smiled, but when she moved in front of it, she could barely reach the buttons.

“Hold on,” he said before turning around and heading for a closet just off a hallway. He came back with a step stool he set down for her. Addy climbed on, hit the start button, and then lost herself in the game. A little laugh escaped her as the yellow character almost got caught in a corner. Her hands were fast. Her face alight. It was the most alive I’d seen her since I’d pulled her from under the bed in the hotel room. My heart twisted.

Ryder stepped back, joining me as we watched her play.

When she lost, she put in another coin from the stack of tokens he’d left for her and started again.

“What’s down there?” I asked, chin nodding toward the hallway.

“Unfinished rooms.”

“More bedrooms?” I asked.

He nodded, looking uncomfortable before saying, “Ravyn wanted a large family.”

My pulse skittered again, that same strange, offbeat staccato that had started when we’d pulled up to the house. It was as if I couldn’t find a stable, solid pattern anymore. As if I was perpetually off-kilter here.

“You built the house with her?”

“No. Didn’t have the money back then. We’d drawn up the plans together though. Just dreaming at the time. I made some changes once I had the funds to make it happen, but I kept the extra rooms in case someone else ended up living here and needed the space. They’re unfinished for now.”

“The land belongs to your family, so you wouldn’t sell, right?” I asked.

“No. But someday, Sadie or Gemma might want to settle here. Or Maddox and McK might get tired of living downtown.” He shrugged.

“Where would you go?”

He pushed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and rocked a little back and forth. “We have plenty of land. There’s an old cabin up along the ridgeline.” He pointed across the valley to where the hillside curved upward. “I could fix it up or tear it down, build a two-room place. This is all a bit much for just me.” He looked at Addy as he added, “I had no plans for it ever to be more.”

That little soft spot in my heart grew another notch. I wanted to hate the way he was responsible for spreading it, but the idea that this man would give the home he’d lovingly designed and built to his family, because he didn’t believe he’d ever have his own to fill it, made me unexpectedly sad. He wasn’t like me, who’d never had plans to settle down or have kids. He’d very much had those hopes, and they’d been ripped away. Anna-Ravyn-whoever-she-was had broken him, and the only way you got that broken was if you loved with every piece of you and had it torn away.

I couldn’t imagine the grumpy rancher I’d met loving anyone that much.

And yet, here was the proof. A home that was a work of art built with love in mind.

I didn’t want to be wrong about him any more than I wanted to have anything in common with him. But the solitary life Ryder had chosen was what I’d elected as well. I’d thought my job, my parents, and my brother would be enough. But catching a glimpse into Ryder’s life, absent of anything more, felt unexpectedly lonely. I practically ached at the mere glimpse of it, causing doubts about my choices to whisper through me, and all I could do was shove them aside before they could take purchase and grow into something more.

Chapter Eight

Ryder

STAND

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