Ryan's Love (Sawyer Brothers #1) (3 page)

Chapter Four

Amber

Bailey and I had spent each night and day for over a week cleaning the bakery. It was in desperate need of a facelift, and Heavenly Temptations needed a new look to go along with the new owners. We had to make it ours yet leave a few touches of my grandmother.

What were once dingy yellow walls were now cream with light pink and blue accents, making the room bright and cheerful. And to bring back Helen’s signature color, we threw in a few splashes of yellow here and there too. We’d cleaned and repositioned the displays, opening the place up a little more than before. We painted all the cabinets in matching cream to get rid of the hideous brown color. And the new signs and flyers arrived yesterday, just in time for tomorrow’s opening.

I was nervous but ready for this new beginning. I was definitely ready to leave behind a past that was dragging me down.

So far everyone in town had been welcoming and extremely helpful. Livingston was starting to feel like home to us.

A loud crash came from the kitchen, and I quickly rushed toward the commotion.

“Goddammit,” Bailey muttered. A fresh batch of oatmeal-raisin cookies lay scattered across the floor as she waved her hand back and forth to cool it. “I am not cut out for this shit,” she grumbled.

The girl looked a hot mess. Her hair was going in every direction, and I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but there was something crusty stuck to her cheek. I couldn’t help but laugh when she looked up at me in defeat.

“I burned my hands again!” she groaned and hung her head, her nostrils flaring in aggravation.

I stepped closer and wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “You know I love you, right?” I asked and she nodded. “How many people do you know would pick up and move across the country just because their best friend asked them to? You left behind everything to take this adventure with me, and I can’t thank you enough. But…”

I paused, and she looked up, her eyes questioning me.

“If you regret it, if you feel like this isn’t the place for you, I understand. I would never force you to stay, Bay. I love you entirely too much to make you when you don’t want to.”

She nudged me with her shoulder. “Yeah, like my life was just so amazing,” she joked. “The only thing I liked about Chicago was you being there with me. I had a shit job, a variety of loser guys that bored me to death, and parents who barely noticed I was in the same city. This is where I’m supposed to be, right here with you.”

I hugged her close, and she let out a sigh. “But I can’t bake for shit, Amber. I seriously have to be the worst cook in history. I’m going to cause someone to become ill, or worse yet, the health department will shut you down from my lack of skills.”

“You’re actually improving.” I bit my lower lip to hide my smile.

“Whatever. I’ll just stand behind the counter and look pretty. You can stay back here and do all the manual labor.” Bailey tossed her hair to the side, all dramatic. She stepped over the cookies and pushed through the double door, smiling back at me as she left me to tend to the baking.

The cookies on the floor were charred, and some of them had burned so bad they were stuck to the pan that lay alongside the crumbled mess. I couldn’t help but laugh. Bailey was right—she’s not a baker. A disaster with an apron maybe, but definitely not a baker.

***

“Bailey,” I hollered up the stairwell that resembled more of a path of doom than the entrance to our apartment. It was still so dark and dingy. We had spent so much time finishing up the bakery we had neglected our home. I made a mental note to grab some light-colored paint, because the brown color on the walls had to go.

A few seconds later she appeared at the top of the steps with a big blue towel wrapped around her hair. “Yeah?”

“I’m going to run to the store and pick up a few things. I shouldn’t be long.”

The grand opening for Heavenly Temptations was less than a day away, and the last thing I wanted to do was run out of anything. Yes, we ordered all our supplies in bulk, but I still feared running out of something as small as napkins. Having a backup stash would make me feel better.

I had ordered all-new appliances, including three coffee machines. I had even invested in a fancy espresso maker and one that made three different flavored cappuccino drinks too, hoping customers would welcome the new additions. My grandmother was definitely old-school, but I wanted to give the shop a contemporary feel.

I spent nearly an hour shopping, roaming the store aisles while running inventory through my head. I left with bags full of supplies after spending entirely too much money.

Pulling out of the parking lot and turning right onto Main Street, I mentally went through my checklist again. I was so nervous about the opening.

Suddenly I heard a swooshing noise, followed by the car sounding like it was dragging the ground. I pulled over to the side of the road, rolled my window down, and stuck my head out just enough to hear it better as I slowed to a stop.

I had a flat tire, which was the last thing I needed right now.

I slammed my car in park and banged on the steering wheel as I let out a frustrated sigh.

“Ugh! I can’t believe my luck.” I shoved my car door open and looked back toward the rear wheel. Seeing the flat tire only made me more agitated. I walked over, lifted my foot, and kicked it.

“Goddammit,” I yelled, as if that would somehow magically fix the flat. I kicked it a few more times.

The sound of someone clearing their throat startled me. I let out a yelp as I spun around. Two men were standing behind me.

“We didn’t mean to startle you, but I don’t think kicking it is gonna help matters much.” His deep, husky voice made my heart race.

“No, but it sorta made me feel a little better.” I shrugged and leaned against my car in defeat.

“You got a spare?”

His voice broke my trance. I didn’t realize until that moment that I had been staring at the stunningly handsome man standing before me. He had dark hair, light scruff covering his jaw, and those eyes…even in the darkness and lit only by the streetlight, they were mesmerizing. His gaze was locked on me too, as if he was trying to read my thoughts to figure out why I was gawking at him.

I blinked a few times and looked to his side, where another man was standing. I finally realized they were cops—two very good-looking cops—and they were both smiling at me, waiting for me to speak. I was sure they were mentally making fun of the tantrum I’d been throwing and how quiet and stunned I was now.

“If you have a spare, we could change it over for ya,” the slightly shorter cop said. He was grinning from ear to ear, his eyes bright with amusement. He was definitely the more cheerful of the two; he just had that fun-guy kind of look.

“Um,” I stuttered. The taller, more appealing cop kept staring at me, and excitement filled my stomach. I suddenly felt nervous and a little self-conscious about my appearance. He was gorgeous, and I knew I must have appeared somewhat homely in my old, torn jeans shorts and a shirt that had seen better days. My hair was piled on top of my head in a wild mess. I had to look ridiculous. I was worn out from my day of endless preparation, and I had no makeup on. I hadn’t even thought to clean myself up before I left the bakery.

“Darlin’?” the shorter cop said. I realized I still hadn’t answered his question.

As I looked back at Mr. Tall and Appealing, I could tell by his cocky grin that he sensed my attraction to him. I smiled and quickly averted my gaze, my cheeks hot.

“I’m sure I have one in the trunk,” I replied as I popped the trunk lid with my key fob and tried to refrain from looking back at the man who had my insides in knots. I was so nervous my palms were sweating. I wondered if he was still watching me, but I wouldn’t look. I couldn’t get caught staring again. He would think I was really weird.

The shorter, blond cop stepped up to my side and leaned forward. “I’m Officer Sawyer. Noah Sawyer,” he said, winking at me before he began loosening the spare beneath the flap in my trunk. After it was free, he pulled it upward and leaned back away from the car, taking the tire with him. “That mute guy over there,” he said, pointing to the taller of them, “is Sergeant Sawyer, or Ryan, if you prefer the more personal introduction.”

“Sawyer?” I asked, looking back and forth between them before settling on the overly friendly one.

“Yeah, we’re brothers. But I’m the more manly,” he said with another wink before busying himself once again.

I took a chance and looked back at the other cop. The grin pulling at his lips made me smile in return. He nodded and stayed quiet, though he kept staring at me slyly, which only made my heart race even more.

As they made changing a tire look like a walk in the park, I took the opportunity to inspect both of them a little further, looking for similarities. The fact they were brothers floored me, because they seemed so different. Noah had a great build, muscular and fit. But Ryan’s tall, lean body held my attention. He was extremely attractive, just one of those men you couldn’t stop staring at no matter how hard you tried. I couldn’t help imagining what it would feel like to be wrapped in his embrace or curled into his side.

Ryan looked back over his shoulder with a coy smile, almost like he could feel my eyes on him. My heart was racing and my head was spinning as he studied me with curiosity. As they finished up, I admired how his shirt hugged his fit arms and broad shoulders, and I bit down on my lower lip to stifle a groan. I was one lucky girl. Two sexy-as-sin cops had come to my rescue, and now I had a story to tell Bailey. She’d be sorry she missed this trip to the store.

As they stood up, I stepped back a little, allowing them room. Ryan took my old tire and put it in the trunk of his cruiser.

“We’ll have that checked out for ya,” he said.

“Okay,” I said, nodding.

“So now that you know our names, what’s yours?” Noah asked as he brushed off his pants and stepped up beside me.

“Oh, wow, I’m sorry,” I said, realizing with embarrassment that I was so wrapped up in admiring Ryan that I hadn’t told them. “My name is Amber Dirksen. I’m the new owner of Helen’s Bakery. Well, it’s actually Heavenly Temptations now. Helen was my grandmother,” I said as I held my hand out to Noah.

He placed his palm against mine and shook my hand. I turned to Ryan and offered him a handshake too. His gaze dropped toward my outstretched palm, and he slowly placed his hand against mine. He had strong, calloused hands, and a firm grip, and my insides clenched from his touch.

Sergeant Ryan Sawyer had just made Livingston, Montana, my favorite place in the world.

Chapter Five

Ryan

Noah let out a heavy groan as we stared out the windshield while Amber crawled into her car and buckled her seat belt. She offered a small wave before she pulled away from the curb and drove away.

Noah shook his head. “That girl is dangerous.”

“Dangerous?”

“Hell yeah,” he replied. “A girl like that has a man’s mind thinking up all kinds of dirty shit.”

Both of my brothers had a way with words, or so they thought. I looked back toward the direction she drove off in. Only her taillights were visible in the distance now. Amber was very pretty, beautiful even. She had a gorgeous smile and kind eyes. But the idea of feeling an attraction toward a woman other than Claire made me feel guilty.

“You gotta admit it, Ry, Amber is damn good-looking.” Noah was grinning like a fool, watching me for any indication that I agreed.

“Yeah,” I said without going into detail.

“‘Yeah’? That’s all you got?” he countered.

“Leave it alone, Noah,” I warned. I wasn’t going to get into this right now. I had spent a full year mourning my wife. Followed by another two years of walking around with my head hung and my world shattered. I couldn’t even look at another couple without feeling as if I may spiral out of control. Now here I was three years later and I still felt angry with myself for feeling even a slight attraction toward another woman.

“You do know it’s okay to move on, right, Ryan? Claire wouldn’t expect you to spend your life alone.”

I let out a deep breath. I avoided conversations like this. Even my own father had tried at one point to tell me it was okay to love again. “How do you know what Claire would’ve wanted?”

Silence filled the car as I stared forward, irritated.

“Ryan, I may not have been married to Claire, but we all grew up together. She wasn’t a selfish woman. She would want you to be happy.”

I was well aware of that. I knew me sitting around pining over her would be the last thing she would want. But that fact didn’t change the ache in my stomach at the thought of moving on without her.

“You don’t think I know that? Damn, Noah, I know Claire wasn’t selfish. She was the most loving, honest, and giving person I have ever known. The problem is when I consider dating another woman, I feel like I’m cheating on her. I vowed to love her always.” My voiced cracked, and I took in a deep breath.

“Moving on, dating, and finding someone to spend time with doesn’t mean you’ve stopped loving Claire. Hell, we all loved that girl. She was my family too. You will always love her. We all know that. But you know as well as I do that she would be pissed to know you’re giving up all chances of happiness.”

He was right; she would be. When Claire and I had talked about those uncomfortable what ifs, she would ask me if I would fall in love again if something were to happen to her. I would always brush off the question, because damn it, that was the last thing I wanted to imagine. Claire always told me she would want me to find happiness. Even now, her words were still clear as a bright day.

“Ryan, you deserve to be loved. I would want you to find someone. The only thing I ask is that you never forgot our time together. Never let go of the memories we created together as a family.”

Yeah, as if that were even a possibility.

***

I woke to the sound of Olivia banging around in the kitchen. By the smells that filtered through the house, I could tell she was making pancakes, just like she did every Saturday morning.

I stretched out in bed and looked over to the nightstand, where my favorite picture of Claire still sat. She was holding Olivia in her lap, smiling down at her. Liv must have been around two or three years old. Claire had her hair tucked behind her ear, exposing her beautiful face, which showed nothing but love for our daughter.

Our time together was cut entirely too short. I had things I wanted to show her, places I wanted to take her. But I’d pushed those dreams aside, letting life in general consume our days, always thinking we had time. Now I only had a lot of regret for all the things I wished I’d done, things I wished I’d taken the time to say more often.

We all tend to do that, wish we had done things differently. We think back and know we should have taken the time to appreciate the small things and let go of those annoyances and grudges that truly didn’t matter.

“Dad?” Olivia’s voice and a light knock on the door pulled me from my thoughts.

“Yeah, sweetheart,” I called out as I sat up in bed. “Come in.”

The door creeped open, and Olivia’s sweet smile appeared in the gap. “Pancakes are ready,” she said as her face lit up with excitement.

“Chocolate chip?” I asked.

“As if they would truly be pancakes without them. That’s the only kind I make, Dad! You know me better than that.”

“That’s my girl. Give me a few minutes.”

“Okay,” she said as she stepped away, closing the door behind her.

I turned back toward the picture of Claire and traced the edge with my finger. “I’ll live by your words,” I whispered. “I’ll try to move forward, but never will I forget my love for you. You’re always in my heart.” My vision wavered with unshed tears.

It was time to let go, I knew that. But nothing about this journey would be easy.

After sitting down with my daughter and eating a stack of some of the best damn pancakes I’d ever had, I went out to the garage.

I had a tire to plug.

***

I spent five minutes sitting in the cab of my truck, sorting through the feelings flowing through me. I had attempted to open my truck door three different times, only to stop dead with my hand on the handle.

The new bakery’s sign was just thirty feet away. It was strange to see
Heavenly Temptations
displayed above the door now, instead of the big yellow-and-brown sign proclaiming
Helen’s Bakery
. I took in a deep breath, shoved open the door of my Ford, and crawled out of the cab before I could talk myself out of it. I walked to the bed, reached over the side, and pulled out the tire I had spent most of my morning doctoring up.

As I walked toward the front entrance, my throat felt like sandpaper when I swallowed, my heart raced, and my damn legs felt like jelly. The sweat beading on my forehead had nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the amount of tension in my body.

As I pulled the door open and entered, fast hip-hop music flooded out. I stopped in my tracks, my mouth hanging open in surprise. Amber stood less than ten feet away with her back to me, completely oblivious to the fact anyone had walked in. She was swiveling and shaking her hips from side to side as she twisted ever so slightly, bringing all my attention directly to her ass. An ass that was covered by a pair of barely-there shorts. She also had on a pair of fluffy pink slippers and a purple tank top.

The beat of the song picked up, and she began to shimmy a little more, slightly bending her knees and arching her ass out before shaking it even more aggressively. She then moved her arms out to her sides and began singing along with the music. Something about getting nasty or freaky. The words barely registered as I stared at the display before me. My heart raced, and my pants were a little tighter than when I first entered.

“Hey there, Cowboy, you getting an eyeful?”

Startled by the voice behind me, I looked over my shoulder and found a little blonde woman trying to get through the door.

“You mind?” she asked, and I stepped aside. A big smile broke out over her lips as she stepped up to Amber’s side, bumped hips with her, and pointed back in my direction.

“If you plan on offering this kind of entertainment, we should charge a cover. Call ourselves the Booty Shakers and wear some bright-colored thongs to gather more tips. What do you think?”

Amber glanced at me before turning away and covering her face with her hands as her friend laughed at her obvious embarrassment. “Don’t worry, babe, I’m pretty sure he enjoyed the show,” the blonde reassured her.

Now it was my turn to be embarrassed. But her comment wasn’t entirely false; I did enjoy Amber’s little hip shake.

Amber looked up at me and smiled. The blonde walked around the edge of the counter and turned down the music before leaning over the countertop and grinning at us. After a moment she focused her attention on me. “You must be Ryan,” she said. “You were right, Am, he is one hell of a sexy man.”

Blondie was ogling me, and I knew I should have felt like I was on display, but the idea of Amber talking about me was clouding all other thoughts. I looked at Amber just in time to watch her do a face plant into her palms once again. It made me chuckle. She was cute when she got embarrassed.

“Thought I’d stop by and drop this off.” I pointed to the tire I’d rested against the wall just to the side of me. “It’s all fixed up now. If you want me to, I could put it back on for ya.”

“Thank you,” she said. Stumbling a bit, which made her nervousness even more obvious, she reached over the countertop for her keys. Of course her movements only brought my attention back to her ass.

Her friend laughed, and I looked over, catching her covering her mouth in attempt to stifle it. She had caught me devouring Amber’s perfect form with my eyes. I offered her a shift of my eyebrows before focusing back on the brunette who made me feel for the first time in a long time.

Amber turned back and shot the blonde a playful glare while shaking her head at her. “This is Bailey, by the way. You’ll have to excuse her,” she said as she side-checked Bailey with her hip. As she walked in my direction, she bit her lip and looked up at me. Of course the only thing my mind could focus on was her mouth. “It’s just right around the side of the building,” she instructed as she held out her keys and pointed toward the left. “Did you need me to do anything?”

I shook my head and looked down at her fuzzy slippers. Her gaze followed mine, and her cheeks reddened once more. “Love the slippers,” I said, looking up into her eyes again as I twirled her keys around my finger and backed out of the doorway.

Flirting felt nice.