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“I drew a picture of you and me playing trucks,” he confessed.
Ryan’s eyes widened and he glanced up at me, stunned. I smiled at him.
Looking back down at Henry, he said, “Wow…that sounds great, buddy. I’d love to see it sometime.”
Henry jerked his head up, his eyes wide with excitement. “Really? Okay!”
Ryan straightened, and I could tell that he was holding back a wave of emotion, which made my heart clench.
Suddenly, Henry grabbed my hand and tugged on it to get my attention. Blinking, I realized I’d been spacing out, and I turned my gaze down to my son and smiled.
“What is it, baby?” I asked.
“Grandma and Grandpa are here,” he told me eagerly. “Can I go say hi?”
“Of course.” Glancing around, I spotted my parents sitting at a table not far from us. “Go on ahead. I’ll be over in a sec.”
“Okay!” Releasing my hand, Henry turned and scurried over to my parents.
“Oh, Jason, Mr. and Mrs. Myer are here,” Mandy declared, looping her arm through her fiancé’s. “We really should go and say hi.”
“All right,” Jason agreed, but his eyes jumped between Ryan and me. His expression was clearly suspicious. He looked like he wanted to say something to us, but Mandy tugged on his arm.
“We’ll see you guys in a bit!” Mandy exclaimed with a wide smile before she dragged my brother away. I wondered if she realized that there was something happening between Ryan and me. Was she playing interference with Jason to give Ryan and me a chance to be alone? Relatively speaking, anyway.
Once they were out of earshot, I turned to Ryan and said, “Hey there. You look nice.”
He grinned and his arm moved, as though he wanted to reach out to me, but he stopped himself and closed his hand into a fist at his side. I felt a pang. I didn’t want him to hold back, but at the same time, I wasn’t sure what we were. My brother’s rehearsal dinner was not the place for us to hash that out.
“You look beautiful,” he told me.
I smiled, feeling like a teenager again. “Thanks. Um, did I miss anything interesting?”
He shook his head. “No. Nothing yet.”
Swallowing, I glanced around and then leaned closer to him to whisper, “I saw the extra security outside. Does that mean you haven’t found that VP guy yet?”
He sighed. “No, not yet. I don’t want you to worry, though. I’ll have extra security at the wedding tomorrow as well, and I’ve got my people doing everything they can to hunt him down.”
I knew he meant for those words to be reassuring, but I couldn’t help my nervousness.
“Do Jason and Mandy know?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I don’t want to cause them any extra stress right now. I told them the security is a necessary evil for me because of who I am.”
I frowned. “Did Jason ask you about last night? Surely, he’s suspicious.”
“He did, but I convinced him everything was all right and that I’d explain it all after the wedding. Mandy helped refocus him and he dropped it, for now.”
That was a small relief, I supposed. Still, I didn’t really like keeping something like this from my family. If this Bill character posed an actual threat, it only seemed right that everyone should know, so they could all be on alert.
As if he could read the thoughts swirling around my head, Ryan insisted, “Promise you won’t say anything, Sam I promise, I’m taking care of it. I won’t let anything happen to your or anyone in your family.”
I knew he meant that. He would do anything to keep us all safe, but what if he didn’t have as much control over the situation as he thought he did?
Releasing a long breath, I decided to put my faith in him and trust that he knew what he was doing.
“Okay,” I whispered. “I won’t say anything, for now. If things escalate, though…”
