As I walked off, Dani called out, “Don’t think I didn’t notice you smelling her! You’ve got the baby bug, admit it!”
Without turning around, I lifted my hand and waved.
I did have the damn baby bug, but I would never admit it. At least not right now.
WALKING INTO THE house, Ryder was sitting on the sofa in the front living room reading something. He looked completely focused on it.
Oh. My. God. He started looking and found something without me! I’m going to kill him!
“Hey, what are you reading?”
He looked up and frowned. “Did you threaten Vanessa today with bodily harm?”
Placing my hand on my hip, I narrowed my eyes as anger swept up to my face, heating my cheeks. “I knew it. I knew that little bitch would do something.” Walking up to him, I asked, “What is it? A restraining order or something?”
Ryder laughed. “What? Why would she do that? Jesus, Ava. What did you say to her?”
“Wait. How do you know?”
“She practically attacked me when I pulled up. She said she was innocently standing outside when you walked up to her and threatened to punch her if she ever talked to me again.”
My mouth dropped open. If he took her side I was taking this diamond and chucking it in his face.
“I can’t believe this. You’re actually going to sit there and tell me you believe I would ever do something like that?”
Ryder stood up and smiled. “No, I don’t believe her, but I do believe she got you so mad you probably did threaten her.”
“I did, but she started it. When she found out we were getting married, she said she couldn’t believe you would settle for someone like me.”
He pinched his eyebrows. “Damn, baby, please don’t let anything she says get to you. She doesn’t matter and what comes out of her mouth really doesn’t matter either.”
Grinning, I glanced down at the paper. “What were you reading?”
He quickly picked up the paper and folded it. “Nothing.”
Lifting my eyebrows, I lowered my head and looked at him. “Really? Cause you were very focused on that piece of paper when I walked in.”
The cutest damn smile spread over his face. Pulling me to him, he kissed me softly and then whispered, “They’re my vows.”
Plunk. That was my heart dropping. Just like that, I was swept off my feet. “Your vows?”
“Yeah, I wrote them last night when I couldn?
??t sleep. I need to polish it up a bit. Actually a lot. I can’t make heads or tails of the whole second half. I must have been dozing off.”
I melted right there on the spot. “If I didn’t want to search this house so badly, I’d totally push you down and rip your clothes off.”
His face lit up. “I like the sound of that.”
I slapped him on the chest. “Later! Let’s go exploring.”
THIRTY MINUTES LATER we were standing in the middle of the master bedroom looking around. “Okay, so we checked all the drawers in the dressers. The closet is empty, and the desk doesn’t have any secret doors. Now what?” Ryder asked.
“I guess we could ask Jackson if he knows if Kate left anything in the house.” I sat down on the bed and looked around. I had this overwhelming feeling there was something in this room and Kate wanted us to find it.
Shaking my head, I closed my eyes. Show me, Kate. You have to show me.
Opening my eyes again, I got up and started walking around the room. I walked over to a painting and stopped in front of it.