She had no notion of what to do next.

This new wrinkle was so strange, and her chest was knotted up, her head fuzzy. “I like you, Ryan. I like you so much, and I am falling for you. And I understand it’s not easy to say what happened to your family. I get that, and I wish I could take away the horrors of what you’ve gone though. But aside from that, when I analyze what’s happening with you and me, the reality is this—I’ve been completely open. I told you at the diner about my marriage. I didn’t wait for you to uncover it. I put it all on the table. I told you about my parents, and my brother, and myself. I can’t help but wonder what else you didn’t share, or didn’t say, or didn’t want to deal with when I’ve tried to be forthright with you.”

“Look, Sophie. I don’t tell anyone. I don’t get close enough to tell anyone. But I knew I needed to tell you, and it’s not the kind of thing I wanted to tell you on the phone, so I was planning to tell you tonight. I was starting to at the table.” He waved his hand in the direction of the dining room.

Maybe he had been planning on opening up. But she had no way of knowing if he was being truthful now. She tried a new tactic. “Why was the case reopened?”

“I don’t know. He won’t tell me. I think he thinks there were others involved.”

His words sent her back to the night she left for the gala, and her conversation with John beforehand.

“Talked to some guy today who I’m sure knows something, but he won’t let on what it is.”

“What do you think he knows?”

“Something that would help me find the other guys I think were involved.”

John was her brother, her flesh and blood. He was the man who’d supported her and helped her build her business, who would take a bullet for her. He had a reason to suspect Ryan was hiding something, and she’d be a foolish woman to wave this off and carry on as if nothing had changed.

“I need you to believe me. I wanted to tell you,” he added, and she desperately wanted to trust in his words.

But she’d relied on her instincts before, in her marriage with Holden, and those instincts had been wrong.

Maybe she needed to use her head more. Not her heart. Not her body. “I don’t really know what to think. I want to believe you, but I need to sort this out. I’ve been letting my heart lead instead of my head, and my heart feels pretty foolish and stupid right now.” She walked over to the dining room table, picked up the peach pie, returned to her kitchen, and covered it in tinfoil. Then she handed it to him.

He shook his head. “I can’t take the pie.”

“I need you to. I made it for you. I need some space to think, and I can’t do it if I’m surrounded by this fruit I wanted to give you.”

She showed him to the door.

Chapter Twenty-Three

His grandmother dug her fork into the pie on her plate. She rolled her eyes in pleasure. Moonlight shone through the kitchen window in her home. The clock next to the refrigerator ticked near ten.

“Let me tell you something. You don’t give up a woman who cooks like this.”

“Yeah? That’s the bottom line, Nana? How she cooks?” he asked, and grabbed a fork from a utensil drawer and stole a bite from his grandma’s plate.

She smacked his hand then eyed the pie tin. “Serve your own, young man. This is all mine.”

“That’s all I wanted. One bite,” he said, thinking the sentiment might be apropos for Sophie, too. Maybe all he’d take of her would be the one bite he’d had. Then he’d walk away. It was better like that, wasn’t it? Leave before your heart gets mangled. Enjoy it while it lasts, like this dessert. This absolutely scrumptious, amazing, incredible dessert.

His grandma scooped another forkful then answered his question. “When she bakes like this, yes. You don’t give her up. This pie is divine.”

Funny, Ryan had used that same word to describe Sophie.

Divine.

As well as exquisite. Not to mention delicious.

Sophie was peach pie.

He wanted the whole damn pie.

He wanted all of Sophie.

But what was the point? Tonight’s argument was further proof that intimacy was too dangerous. He had to protect the secrets he’d locked up. When secrets were cracked wide open, you were left far too vulnerable. And when you were vulnerable you could wind up dead in your own driveway.

“Yeah, it is, but…” he said, letting his voice trail off.

“You like her,” his grandma said.

He shrugged. “What does it matter?”

She set her fork down and parked her hands on the counter. “It matters because this is all we have,” she said, tapping her chest.

“It’s not like that.” He tried valiantly to deny that there was anything more to the empty ache he felt right now than missing great sex. “We were just having a good time. Honestly, there’s nothing more to it.”

She screwed up the corner of her mouth. “If it was just a good time, then why are you here?”

“I wanted to bring you the pie.”

“You could have eaten it yourself.”

“Nah, I can’t finish that,” he said.

“Sure you could. You’re a sturdy man. You can handle a peach pie.”

He patted his flat stomach. “Gotta watch my boyish figure.”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. “You’re not fooling me.”

He held out his hands wide as if to say he was an open book, even though that couldn’t be further from the truth.

“Ryan,” she said gently, walking around to join him on his side of the counter. “I worry about you. You’re so private about everything.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not. You brought me this pie because you wanted to talk, and you have never wanted to talk about a woman before. So I’m saying perhaps you should consider talking to her. Sharing some of your heart,” she said.

“What would I even say?”

“Just talk to her. Tell her why you didn’t say a word. Tell her what’s on your mind. What’s in your heart. Women often like that.”

But did they? He flashed back to Sanders’s wife and her weird glances at the mention of the speeding ticket. He hardly knew how to do what his grandma was prescribing. “Is it even worth it?”

“Is it?” she echoed. “Only you know the answer to that. But Ryan, you think you have to manage everything perfectly because your life spun out of control when you were younger. All our lives did. Here’s the thing you need to see—you can’t control everything, and you also don’t have to. The only things you can take charge of are the choices you make, and if Miss Peach Pie is a choice you want to make, then you should let her in.” She paused then added, “Besides, you’ve never shown up at my house at ten p.m. to talk about a woman. So think about that, my love.”

He wasn’t sure he agreed with her.

Hell, he wasn’t sure about anything. Except tonight seemed to prove it was a good thing he generally didn’t make it beyond a third date.

Just look at the mess he’d made of the fourth one.

* * *

Sophie scrubbed the island for a third time. She would likely go for a fourth, perhaps even a fifth. John finished loading the last plate in the dishwasher. “Look, men are pigs,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

She shot him a sharp-eyed stare. “That makes you a pig, too, then.”

He nodded vigorously. “Takes one to know one. Men are horrible.”

She grabbed a dishtowel and swatted him on the shoulder with it. “Stop. You’re being ridiculous. Men aren’t pigs. Not all of them at least,” she said softly. “You’re not. Dad wasn’t. I don’t really think Ryan is either.”

John said nothing, and Sophie returned to cleaning the marble countertop of the island, making sure she scoured each section to a spit shine. She wasn’t trying to erase the evening, or the man. She was merely trying to keep her mind busy, so she’d be less apt to rely on her heart.