Page 27 of Riding Danger

“I have a desk in the spare room, we can move it into the dining room for now and then into your room when all the furniture arrives.”

“I have a room?” His wide eyes twinkled at the idea.

“Of course you do.” I gestured for him to follow me upstairs. “There’s only a bed in there at the moment, but I thought I would let you decide on the rest. There’s also an attached bathroom with some stuff in it.”

I opened the door to the bedroom that would be his. The bed looked small in the room that was roughly twice the size of one he had at the cottage. But he would fill it with his things. Eventually.

“You can dump your bag here, then do your homework downstairs.” He followed me as we went back downstairs. “And I’ll start dinner in the meantime.”

Ethan nodded as if approving. “Getting dinner done and ensuring I do my homework, you’re winning major points.”

That’s the plan, kid. That’s the plan.

12

SHILOH

For the hundredth time I checked my watch. I still had another hour left on my shift and I had resisted the urge to text Ryder. He’d texted me twice, though. Once to let me know they were done at the doctor’s office and were at the studio. Then to let me know they were at his place, and that I should prepare to have dinner there.

Except for the day I saw the outside of the house he’d bought, I hadn’t seen the place. I knew it was in a good neighborhood because it was a few minutes from where I stayed. Still, the idea of being in his space made me nervous. Sure, I tried to do everything as carefully as possible, but Ryder was rich. Which meant he had expensive things in the house. What if I broke something?

I mean, sure, Ethan was nine, and more likely to break things, but he was Ryder’s child. Of course he would get a pass. But me? I was just a girl he had sex with many years ago who happened to fall pregnant with his child. He had no obligation to like me. And he certainly had no obligation to forgive me if I broke his Ming vase or something.

“You want to tell me what you’re thinking about so hard over there.” Joel had been listening to me talk about Ryder for the last seven hours. “Are you still worried about him not knowing where the Emergency Room is? Because I think if he went to Doc Evans for that fucking DNA swab, he knows where to find the best ER doctor around.”

That was the logic Joel had used all day. He had ranted more than I did about Ryder’s need for a paternity test. And he was more pissed off that I had relented.

And while I hated that he needed it, I had to admit I saw Ryder’s point.

Joel was also right. At least about the ER thing. Ryder may not have been a parent for nine years, but he wasn’t an idiot. “What if he forgets to remind Ethan about the science questionnaire? I didn’t remind them before they left this morning.”

“What is the worst that could happen if Ethan does forget. Or Ryder doesn’t know to remind him. What great tragedy is going to happen? Other than you and I being proven right.”

I glared at Joel. Of course, he was making sense, and making me sound like an irrational control-freak. Also, I didn’t want to be right. When did I become this person? Sure, I was the one who planned the birthdays and special occasions in our friend group. But that was mostly because Maggie and I were the only two still in town, and Maggie didn’t take things as seriously as I did. Who would hold on to our traditions, if I didn’t?

We’d made pancakes for every birthday since we were teenagers. Maggie and I still did it and we included Tiffany when she’d joined our group of friends. The guys still crashed on occasion when they were around. Of course, with so many of them deployed, and the general anxiety around that, there was no crashing of Maggie’s birthday, the most recent one. We still all gathered around the day before a major holiday and spenttime with one another. Even Theo would come down from his high tower to spend time with us.

All because I kept things together. I was the one who didn’t allow any of us to lose touch with one another. I made sure we stayed in each other’s lives. Still, that didn’t mean I needed to control Ryder’s time with Ethan.

Our radio crackled and I listened for the message. “Unit 14 Bravo. Disturbance heard at twelve forty-two Westford Drive. At least two assailants and multiple gunshots heard.”

“This Bravo 14. Show us responding.”

Joel pressed the siren and our lights flashed. We were a block away from where we needed to be. As we pulled up, the view inside the window was clear. We saw the man pointing his gun at the woman in the bookstore.

“Fuck.” This was not the first time Ms. Sheri had been held at gunpoint. Back when I was a teenager, she had been one of several small businesses that were hit in town. “I can only see one of them.”

Joel got on the radio and requested backup. I pulled the binoculars from the glove compartment and looked into the bookshop.

I switched the frequency of our radio. “This is Officer Bauman, please drop your weapon.” The young man looked out of the window. I couldn’t tell if he was looking at me or Joel. But he wielded the firearm in our direction.

“Back away, or I will start shooting.”

I took a deep breath. This was not my first shooting and it wouldn’t be my last. “Too late for that, Sir. We got reports that there were multiple gunshots from this location.”

“That wasn’t me.” His scream was almost frantic. “I only shot in the air once and no one was hurt.”

I needed to get him to think about something other than the trouble he had just caused. “Sir, what is your name?”

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