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“Okay, but I’m warning you to be careful. You can’t trust Ryder Hayes.”
A slight shiver passed through Esme, and she turned to see the man in question exiting the hospital. Her and Chase’s tests had been completed first, and she’d slipped out of the hospital lab after they were finished. She’d heard Ryder in the next room demanding that Mary Dill give him a list of everyone on staff during the shift when Chase and Noah were born.
All she’d wanted was to get out of the building. What she longed to do was run and ignore everything, but something had stopped her from driving away.
Ryder stood outside the sliding doors, unaware of her presence. He held the handle of the infant carrier in both hands, and his head dropped forward, shoulders slumping like they carried an unbearable weight.
“I’ve got to go, Bea,” she said into the phone. “I’ll call you later.”
“I’m here for whatever you need. We’ll get you and Chase through this, Es.”
She said goodbye, disconnected and placed her phone in one of the pockets of the diaper bag she always carried. As much as Esme appreciated her sister’s support, Bea couldn’t possibly understand the impact those routine test results were having on Esme’s future.
No one did, except perhaps Ryder Hayes. But still, she couldn’t afford to be naive about the situation. Maybe Bea was right, and he couldn’t be trusted and was a womanizer like Seth. Was that why his wife or girlfriend hadn’t come with him today? She hated to think about her son being exposed to that kind of a role model.
But it wasn’t only Chase she needed to worry about. Noah was a part of the equation that couldn’t be ignored.
As the numbness wore off, a tumble of tumultuous emotions threatened to drown her. Of all the things Esme wanted right now, first and foremost, she did not want to be alone.
She picked up Chase’s car seat and walked in Ryder’s direction. He continued to stand like a statue, seemingly unaware of anything around him.
“Hello?” She stopped a few feet away, and the panic in his gaze when he glanced up at her felt like a direct hit to her heart.
Then his eyes cleared, and he offered her a weak smile. “I’m trying not to freak out.”
“How’s that going?”
He chuckled weakly. “Not well.”
Ryder’s phone vibrated from inside his suit coat pocket, and he absently patted the device but didn’t answer the call.
“I heard that thing go off several times during the meeting.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, noticing that his gaze tracked her movement. “It sounds like someone is desperate to get a hold of you.” Was it Noah’s mother? She wanted to ask.
“I missed an important work meeting this morning.” His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Quite possibly wrecked my career because of it. Somehow that doesn’t seem to matter.”
Those weren’t the words of a manipulative, power-hungry man as far as Esme was concerned. Seth’s smarmy behavior might have shaken her faith in her instincts, but she believed Ryder was as disturbed by all of this as her. Either that, or he’d missed his calling as an actor.
For the first time since discovering how badly her late husband had betrayed her, she wanted to trust someone again, even though the man in question was almost a stranger. A stranger with whom she shared an unimaginable connection.
“What are we going to do?” He searched her face as if he believed she’d have an answer.
Apparently, Ryder Hayes trusted Esme with a confidence she hadn’t granted herself in a long time, and she wanted to live up to his expectations. She needed to prove—mostly to herself—that she was strong and capable. Her son was going to need her to be just that.
“I’m not sure,” she answered because there was no denying that truth. “But I know we’ll figure it out. We both want what’s best for our babies.” She cleared her throat and then offered the most genuine smile she could muster under the circumstances. “Would you like to come back to my house while we wait for the results? We could talk and...”
He offered a small smile. “Yes, we could talk.”
She shrugged. “I guess we should get to know each other, given how our lives are about to be intertwined.”
“Intertwined,” Ryder repeated like he was testing the word to see how it felt on his tongue. “Yes, I’d like to get to know you.” He flashed a grin before glancing at Noah’s infant carrier and then Chase’s. “I’d like to get to know you both.”
Awareness skittered along her nerve endings, which was silly because the only connection she and Ryder had was the unfathomable situation they were facing together. This was not the time for her lady parts to wake up from their long slumber.
“I’m parked in the second row.” She gestured to the half-full lot. “My address is 432 Maple. Easy enough if we get separated.”
Ryder nodded and placed a hand on his jacket as the phone continued to vibrate. “We won’t. I’ll see you in a few minutes, Esme.”
She liked the way her name sounded when he said it. That was not good. As Esme secured Chase’s car seat in the base, she reminded herself that she had approximately ten minutes to kill the fluttery feelings that flitted through her stomach unbidden each time Ryder’s green eyes caught on hers.
