WEDNESDAY ROLLED AROUND and Violet still hadn’t tried to make any contact with Ryder.
Damn, she was one stubborn woman.
Ryder had stared at her number in his phone contacts and thought about sending her a little, have you stepped out of the dark yet? Or are you ready to get some deep fried pickles? He thought better of it, giving her the space she needed.
So he’d tried his hardest to not think about her, but it seemed the blonde beauty was unforgettable. The abundance of exhausting Skype meetings with his cousins, the Kendricks, back in Oakston had distracted him momentarily. They demanded the final decisions, his final word, for the redesign of the store, which in turn required his full attention.
But the moment his feet hit the wooden dock, the bow of the boat reminded him of the apple they shared together under stars that had cast a luminous glow across her smooth face, which only heated his desire to kiss her again. And the swim platform brought back the exact moment a weight, Ryder hadn’t realized he was carrying, lifted, reminding him that it felt good to smile, laugh and tease. It was all because of Violet.
He wanted to be angry at himself for being foolish enough to let another woman past his guard and provide her with the weapons to hurt him, but Violet had given him a gift she would never know, his desire to live life again. The down side was that he wanted to live his life with Violet. He wanted to board the boat with her at his side, open a silly can of corn for her fishing bait, and he wanted to massage the sun block across her entire body, before wrapping his arms around her and kissing those saucy lips.
Ryder needed a break from his head...from Violet. He decided spending the day with his dad would keep him busy.
Susan took the opportunity to run into town and complete some errands, which gave Ryder one-on-one time with his dad. Sadly, Donald was having a bad day. The two of them heading to the dock with their fishing gear was now out of the question. Donald didn’t even want to go to the gardens, and that was his favorite place.
Ryder and Donald spent the morning watching old movies on television instead. Old black and white Westerns, with poor effects and comical conversations were minimally distracting.
Ryder felt like he was glancing at his phone every five minutes, to see if he’d missed a text from Violet. The volume was hiked to the max so there was no way he could have missed it, but he looked anyway.
Ryder opened his eyes, not realizing he’d fallen asleep. His exhausted body begged him to return to sleep. Ryder stretched his body out in the recliner and glanced over at the matching beige chair, expecting to see his dad. Donald wasn’t there.
Ryder sat up, pulling the lever on the side of the chair and standing, all in one motion. “Dad?” he called. “Dad?” Besides the noise of Tank scrambling to his feet, silence answered Ryder.
Where was his dad?
Panic thundered through his body as Ryder checked every room in the house, even where Susan and Kelly slept. Nothing.
Ryder dialed Susan’s number as he stepped out onto the small wooden porch to scan the property.
She picked up on the first ring.
“I fell asleep,” Ryder said right away.
There was no time to play games. His dad was not stable enough to roam the grounds by himself and with the river... Ryder almost screamed. He didn’t even know if his dad could swim anymore. In his prime years, Donald had been an avid swimmer, but now, now he was deteriorating and Ryder didn’t know what he was capable of these days.
“I didn’t mean to. And when I woke up Dad was gone. I can’t find him. He’s not in the house.”
“Alright. Ryder, calm down,” Susan said in a tone he’d often heard her use with his father to ease his alarm.
Was that even a possibility?
“Check the gardens first. Your dad will sit in the gardens all day.”
“Okay.”
“I’m on my way. I shouldn’t be more than fifteen minutes. Check by the river and on the boat.”
Ryder was running to the garden, then changed direction toward the river.
Where did he check first?
Some of the paths led to the dock, so he would take those paths straight to the water.
He stopped suddenly. “What if he’s not there?”
What if he couldn’t find him? What if he fell in the water? What if he got lost in the bush across the road?
There were so many what it’s clambering in his head that he almost missed Susan’s promise that they would fine him.
“I will call Kelly and we will both help you find Donald.”
“Okay.” Ryder hung up and ran until he hit the gardens. They were his grandmother Carlex’s gardens, which was why Ryder figured his dad loved to sit for hours staring at the bright bursts of color.
The estate was huge.
Why had he fallen asleep?
He had one thing to do today, watch his dad, and his distraction for Violet had clouded him into a deep sleep. His feelings for Violet, a woman who was fighting against them, were the reason Donald was missing, possibly hurt, possibly...
Ryder swallowed the fear of losing his father, as he rounded the edge of the property and found no sign of his dad. He knew the day would come when this disease took over his father’s body, but Ryder wasn’t ready to lose Donald yet. He wasn’t ready to be alone.