Val squinted a bit. “This guy is the gold medal of guys?”
“Exactly.”
“Have you had …” Val wiggled her brows.
Ryn blushed. “Yes. Oh. My. God. Yes.”
“And?”
Ryn laughed. “Back to the Olympic scenario … if sex were an event. He’d take the gold.”
“I hate you.” Val shook her head.
“You should.” Ryn sighed. “I think there is a long line of women who hate me. Hell, I’m jealous of myself. I just know someone is going to shake me, and when I wake I’m going to be so pissed it was all just a dream.”
“So he’s a god. The sex is award-winning. Yet I get this vibe that something’s wrong.”
She chewed the corner of her lower lip and nodded. “It’s the age thing, but not like I’m going to break a hip during sex. Although his stamina is—”
“Yada yada … he’s a fucking stallion. I get it.” Val rolled her eyes.
Ryn chuckled. “Anyway, he lived a cavalier life before he moved to Omaha, but now he’s looking for something different.”
“A mature woman?”
With a twist of her lips, she shook her head. “A wife—a child-bearing wife.”
Val’s eyes grew wide as she mouthed Oh.
“Yeah. This is so messed up. When we’re together I can’t stop wondering if he’s attracted to me or my maturity and child-bearing hips.”
“I thought you had a C-section with Maddie.”
“You know what I mean.”
Val laughed for a moment then it fizzled when she looked at the true concern on Ryn’s face. “Is it really about believing he could be genuinely attracted to you, or are you not wanting the same thing? I have two teenagers and I can’t imagine starting that all over again—nursing, diapers, sleep deprivation.”
Ryn rested her chin in her fist and nodded slowly. “It’s everything. My hormones are all over the place. I don’t even know if I could get pregnant. And if I did, can you imagine what a monster I’d be with even more hormones coursing through my veins? And you’re right, there’s the new-mom thing. At one point I dreamed of more children with a man who loved me, but I think over the past few years that dream disappeared, and now I don’t know if it still exists.” She laughed. “But really … it’s all so insane because I’ve known him for less than two months. He’s mysterious, unpredictable, and I’m so far out of my comfort zone I can’t think straight when we’re together.”
Val shrugged. “You’re in your sexual prime. Go for it.”
“In less than ten years he’ll leave me because my female parts will be all dry and shriveled up. And the crazy part is I wouldn’t blame him because the guy was made to …”
Val perked a single brow. “Made to … fuck?”
Ryn smiled. “I think so. I’m not even sure he’s wired for monogamy. It would be like Secretariat being a circus pony—all that wasted potential.”
They both laughed.
“I’m scared, Val.”
She grabbed Ryn’s hand. “He’s not Preston and you’re no longer that woman.”
“I know, but he’s still alive and in my life because of Maddie. Even after all these years I swear he’s still messing with my mind. I second-guess everything, including what I want. I’m forty, for God’s sake. I should know what I want by now, but I don’t because somewhere along the way I lost a piece of myself. And because of Maddie I feel this incredible guilt like regretting Preston means I regret Maddie.”
“Ryn?”
She took a cleansing breath, ashamed those words even came out of her mouth. “What?”
“If being somebody’s wife again or having another baby is even a one percent chance in your mind, then get the guy. Suck him—pun totally intended—for all he’s willing to give you and then…” Val winked “…give him to me.”
Chapter Twenty
Day
Jones looked at Luke. Luke looked at Jones. Neither would concede that the other deserved to be in the dog house. As Luke’s gaze drifted to the fourth empty Heineken bottle hanging from his loose grip, he felt fairly certain the mutt would be sleeping in his spot that night.
Francesca needed a heart transplant or she would die. He remembered the days when he would have given her the heart from his own chest. Those days were gone and his heart left a few hours earlier to go for a bike ride. Even four beers in before one o’clock on a Saturday, Luke knew with every bit of his existence that Jessica Day was meant to be with him.
Somewhere along the way he unintentionally convinced her she needed him. Every day he wondered what would happen to them if she realized he needed her more. Beneath all the pain, the regret, the blood, the deaths … Jessica Day was a survivor. It’s not what she did, it’s who she was, and nobody could touch that part of her: not Four, not Matthew Green, and not Dr. Jones.