Lauryn still had some concerns, but she pushed them aside and packed the kids into the van to take them to her parents’ house before her appointment with Howard Greenbaum, the loans manager at the bank. Howard and her father were old friends and she’d known the man since she was a little girl. She also knew that Howard would never let that long-term friendship affect any decisions that had to be made on the job—a fact that he confirmed before she left the bank.
When Lauryn returned to her childhood home, Zachary was napping in his playpen and Kylie was playing with some of her mother’s old dolls in front of the television in the living room—keeping Grandpa company while he watched his favorite afternoon game shows. Looking at her children now, everything seemed so normal, so right. But she was suddenly and painfully aware of how quickly their situation could change.
Still, she was lucky. She knew that no matter what else happened, her parents would never let her kids go hungry or sleep on a park bench. And while there was undoubtedly some comfort in that realization, she wanted to provide for her own family—even if she was becoming increasingly doubtful that she could.
“Is everything okay?” Susan Garrett asked when Lauryn made her way to the kitchen, where her mother was tidying up after baking cookies.
She could only shake her head.
“Do you want to talk about it?” her mother prompted.
She shook her head again, then let out a sigh.
“Actually I do,” she admitted. “But if I talk about it, I’ll fall apart, and I don’t want Kylie to see me fall apart.”
Susan pulled a glass from the cupboard, filled it with milk, then set the drink and a plate of chocolate-chip cookies on the table and instructed her daughter to sit.
So Lauryn did. And, unable to resist, she reached for a cookie and broke off a piece. The still-warm morsel flooded her mouth with the flavor of her childhood and made her yearn—almost desperately—for those simpler times when her mother could make all of her troubles go away. But she was the mother now; she had to handle her own troubles and make things right for her children.
“Are there problems at The Locker Room?” Susan asked, aware that Lauryn was trying to pull the sporting goods store back from the brink of financial disaster.
She managed a wry smile. “Aren’t there always?”
“Then something else—something more—is weighing on your mind,” her mother noted. “Have you heard from Rob?”
She shook her head. “Not a single word. And believe me, that’s a relief not a disappointment.”
“I can understand that,” Susan acknowledged. “What I can’t understand is how he could walk away from his children. Regardless of what happened between the two of you, he’s their father.”
“Apparently, that title doesn’t mean the same thing to all men,” Lauryn noted.
“Has Kylie asked about him lately?”
She shook her head. “Not in a while.”
“Maybe that’s for the best,” her mother said.
“I’m sure she misses him,” Lauryn said, then reconsidered. “Or maybe not. Even when he was around, he wasn’t much of a hands-on dad.”
“So if you’re not worried about Rob,” Susan prompted.
“I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help, you know—”
“I do know,” Lauryn interjected. “But you already do so much.”
Her mother seemed genuinely surprised by that. “What do I do?”
“You look after Kylie and Zachary whenever I need you to.”
“Honey, that’s not a favor to you but a treat for me,” Susan told her.
“I love you for saying that, but I know my kids—they’re not always a treat.”
“They are for their grandparents,” her mother insisted.
Lauryn managed a smile. “They’re so lucky to have both of you. I’m so lucky to have both of you.”
Susan lifted a hand to brush her daughter’s bangs away from her eyes. “Can you stay for dinner?”
Of course, they could. And no doubt, whatever her mother had planned for the evening meal would be better than the meat loaf Lauryn had thrown together that morning. But her parents had already been with the kids for four hours, fed them lunch and probably numerous snacks.
“Thanks, but I’ve got dinner ready to go in the oven at home.”
“We’re having roast pork with fingerling potatoes and green beans,” Susan said in a final attempt at persuasion.
“Enjoy,” Lauryn said, kissing her mother’s cheek.
* * *
When the rain finally stopped early in the afternoon, Ryder loaded up the necessary supplies and headed back to the Schulte residence. It wouldn’t take him long to tack down the tarps, and since Lauryn had said she had errands to run, he expected to complete the task and be gone before she returned.
He didn’t quite make it. He was securing his ladder into the bed of his truck when she pulled an aging minivan into the driveway beside his truck.
The Garretts were one of the wealthiest and most well-known families in Charisma. Of course, Lauryn’s last name was different, which was why he hadn’t immediately made the connection, but as soon as Kylie had mentioned the flowers and the wedding, he’d started to put the pieces together into a more complete picture. But there were still big, gaping holes in the form of the ancient van, leaking roof and outdated kitchen. He finished the tying down while she got the kids out of the vehicle and decided that, sooner or later, he would fill those holes.
He noticed that she’d changed out of the yellow T-shirt and jeans into a slim-fitting navy skirt and jacket and tucked her feet into high-heeled sandals. He also noticed that she had some pretty nice curves beneath the buttoned-up suit.
He shook his head, as if that might dislodge the unwelcome thought from his brain. She was his client—and if he expected to be able to work with her, he had no business ogling her. Not to mention that she really wasn’t his type. He preferred uncomplicated women and simple relationships—a single mother, no matter how beautiful and desirable, didn’t fit that criteria.
“What are you doing here, Mr. Wallace?” she asked.
“Ryder,” he reminded her.
“What are you doing here, Ryder?”
He smiled at the pique in her tone. “I took advantage of the break in the weather to put some tarps up.”
Her gaze shifted to the roof of the house. “You didn’t have to do that,” she protested.
“I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t get any more rain in the castle,” he said, winking at Kylie. “And give the wood a chance to dry out so that it will be ready when the roofers are.”
“You’re really going to get my roof fixed?”
“I said I would,” he reminded her.
She nodded. “Rob used to say a lot of things, too,” she admitted. “But he didn’t follow through on many of them.”
“Home renovations aren’t as easy as a lot of people think,” he said, even as he wondered what had gone wrong in her marriage and if she was still hung up on her ex-husband.
“Well, thanks for putting up the tarps.” She started to move past him toward the house.
“Since we’re