Barbara Freethy - Ryans Return

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

"Kara will be here in a few minutes," Ryan announced as he set the phone down on Dirk Anders's desk. "She said she would be happy to help me."

"Only because you're a paying guest at the Gatehouse. Otherwise she would have let you sit here for the rest of forever," Andrew replied, sitting in the straight-back chair next to Ryan's.

"That's it. I've heard enough." Dirk stood up.

"You're letting us go?" Ryan asked hopefully.

"No, I'm locking you up. You two want to have at it, fine, but I don't have to listen to it." He led them down a hallway and opened the door to a cell. "Go on, get in there."

"Look, Dirk, can't we talk about this?" Andrew asked.

"No."

Ryan smiled as Andrew walked into the cell.

"You, too," Dirk said, pushing Ryan through the doorway.

"Hey, I want my own cell," Ryan said.

"This isn't the Hilton, boys."

"There's only one cot. Where is he supposed to sit?" Andrew asked, pointing at Ryan.

"That's not my problem. Maybe it's about time the two of you learned how to share."

"I'd rather sit on the floor," Andrew said.

"Then do it." Ryan walked over to the cot and sprawled across it.

Dirk slammed the door shut, and they were alone.

Neither one spoke for ten long minutes. Ryan lay on the cot and stared at the ceiling for most of that time, counting the square tiles, wondering if the sprinklers would really go off in case of a fire. His gaze moved over to the brick walls, to the dirt and grime that clung to the floor that Andrew was sitting on. He had been in this cell before, years earlier. He had been scared out of his mind then, afraid of his anger, his lack of control, and most of all afraid of Jonas's reaction.

Now Ryan felt resigned, more frustrated than angry. He shouldn't have raced Andrew, and he shouldn't have tried to fight him. Hadn't he learned anything in twelve years?

"I want you to stay away from Kara," Andrew said, interrupting his thoughts.

It was the worst thing Andrew could have said. Ryan hated it when people told him he couldn't do something or have something. "Why should I?"

"Because she's mine."

"Does she know that?"

"She knows."

But Andrew didn't sound all that certain. Not surprising, really. Ryan had a feeling Kara would never be anyone's possession. She had too much fire, too much passion, too much heart, too much stubbornness. Otherwise she wouldn't have invited him to the centennial.

He couldn't see Andrew with Kara at all. But then he hadn't believed Andrew and Becky Lee would get together either. Obviously his older brother had something that appealed to women.

The silence ate away the years between them. As the long minutes passed, the petty bickering of the past hour faded into the quiet, and Ryan's thoughts turned to Becky Lee.

"Why didn't you tell me Becky Lee died?" Ryan asked, voicing the question that had been constantly on his mind since the day before.

Andrew met Ryan's gaze head-on for the first time that day. "I figured when she didn't show up at your place, you would probably come looking for her."

He said the words as if he didn't care, but Ryan didn't believe for an instant that Andrew had taken her departure so easily.

"I didn't know she was coming," Ryan said. "I didn't ask her to come."

"That's not what she said."

"She lied." Ryan sat up and swung his legs down on the ground. "The last note I got from Becky Lee was a birth announcement. I never called her. I never wrote to her. I never said one damn word to make her leave you."

Andrew's face drew into a taut line. Ryan suddenly realized how old they both were now, how many years had passed between them. His older brother had gray hair in his sideburns and wrinkles under his eyes. There was a weariness in his expression that spoke of pain and anger, most of it directed at him.

"I never would have asked Becky Lee to leave you, not with her having a kid and all," Ryan added. "Besides, she chose you. She wanted you. That was the end for me."

He couldn't help the bitterness that crept into his voice. Becky Lee had hurt him when she married Andrew, more than he would have thought possible. Over the years he had told himself it was for the best. He wasn't the marrying kind then, and he wasn't the marrying kind now. And more than anything Becky Lee had wanted to be married. That's what he couldn't figure. Why had she left Andrew when she finally had everything she ever wanted -- a husband, a home, and a baby?

"It wasn't the end for her," Andrew said so softly that Ryan had to strain to hear him.

"Why? What happened between you two to make her leave?"

"Nothing."

A man of few words, that was his brother.

"There had to be something."

"If there was, she didn't say."

Ryan wondered if Andrew really believed that. Or if his brother just couldn't stand telling him the truth. Andrew always had to have someone to blame. And it looked as if Ryan was it -- as usual. Andrew had blamed Ryan for everything bad in his life -- when he wasn't blaming his mother, that is.

"So, did you find her?" Andrew asked abruptly.

Ryan started at the change in topic, wondering how Andrew had followed the line of his thoughts so clearly. "Mom?"

Andrew nodded, his expression carefully guarded.

Ryan was suddenly reminded that they had another woman in common besides Becky Lee, and that woman was their mother. Isabelle's desertion had built the first wall between them. Becky Lee had built the second. For a moment he saw Kara in his mind and wondered if they were heading down the same road -- if they were bound by some force, some destiny, to keep repeating the mistakes of their past.

"You looked for her, didn't you?" Andrew asked again, his voice gruff as if he didn't really care about the answer.

Ryan took in a deep breath, not sure he could talk to Andrew about his mother. They had never agreed on why Isabelle had left. Andrew had blamed his mother for walking out. Ryan had blamed his father for forcing her to choose between Serenity Springs and her dreams.

They had both been too stubborn to ever see the other side.

"I never found her," Ryan said. "I hired a private detective a few years back. He couldn't pick up a trail. Said it was too cold. It had been almost twenty years by then."

"I guess she didn't want to be found."

"It's strange, though. The detective said he never saw anyone disappear quite so thoroughly before. No trace of her anywhere. No bank stubs, no phone bills, no credit cards, nothing."

"She always was pretty good at playing hide-and-seek," Andrew said, a genius at understatement.

Ryan grinned. "Remember that time she hid in the old oak chest at the foot of her bed? We couldn't find her for the longest time. We looked everywhere. And then we heard Dad go into the kitchen -- "

"And he said he was going to start dinner," Andrew continued.

"Which meant he was turning on the stove, and we suddenly -- "

"Thought Mom was hiding in the oven and -- "

"You went screaming into the kitchen that Dad was going to turn Mom into the Gingerbread Girl."

Andrew bit back a smile. "He got mad."