Ada fell asleep in my bed last night. She wasn’t a big cuddler when she fell asleep—she liked her space—but she always migrated closer to me during the night, and by the time I woke up, she had ahold of me like a baby koala.
She didn’t come back to the Big House until after ten last night, and I didn’t see her until she crawled into my bed around eleven-thirty. For a while, Ada had been staying in her room more than she stayed in mine, but this past week she’d slept in my bed every night.
And I couldn’t get enough.
I could feel her starting to stir. She was an early riser, but not as early a riser as me—growing up on a ranch did that to you. I’d been awake since half past four, so I’d been waiting for her to wake up for almost an hour.
At this point, I was pretty sure I’d been waiting for her my whole life, so an hour was easy.
I pulled her tighter to me and started kissing her neck, her tattoos, her forehead—basically everywhere. She kept her eyes closed, but I could tell she was trying not to smile.
“I know you’re awake,” I said with another kiss on her neck.
“No, you don’t,” she groaned. “I want to be asleep.”
“Sweetheart, it’s a good day to be awake. It’s Ryder Day.” Ryder Day was a family tradition. We did it every year. As holidays went, it was up there with the major ones on the Rebel Blue Ranch calendar.
Ada’s eyes popped open. “What the hell is Ryder Day?”
“It’s the day my parents met,” I said. “The day my mom rolled into town in a beat-to-hell Volkswagen Cabriolet and my dad came to her rescue and she told him to fuck off.”
I watched Ada’s eyes glint at the last part. “Is that really how they met?” she asked.
“Yep. They got married that same day the next year—right under the oak tree that’s just out the back door.”
“That sounds like a movie,” Ada said as she curled into me. “So, what does Ryder Day entail?”
“A lot of food, mostly,” I said. “On big holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving, my dad always gives the ranch hands the day off, so we work the ranch on our own those days. Ryder Day is our day.”
“And is Ryder day just for Ryders?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Ryder Day is for our family, but our family is more than just the one we’re born with,” I said, quoting my dad. “So Teddy and Hank—that’s her dad—will be here. Cam might come—her fiancé has yet to show up, though. Since Dusty is home, he and Aggie might join us at some point.”
“And you want me to come?” she asked. I rolled on top of her and pinned her hands above her head.
“I do,” I said. “Please.”
“Well,” she breathed. “Since you asked nicely.”
I leaned down and kissed her slowly, firmly. She hitched one of her legs around my waist and gave my bottom lip a soft bite.
Fuck.
I kissed her harder and let her hands go so I could use mine to roam her body—her fucking insane body that was basically the sum total of everything I’d ever found attractive. I felt her fingers run up and down my back before slipping under the waistband of my briefs.
“Ada,” I growled against her mouth. She giggled innocently, and it shot straight to my dick. That sound was just for me. “Don’t start something you can’t finish.”
“Believe me,” she said, “I can finish it.”
Before I had a chance to make her prove that to me, one of our phones started buzzing. I looked over at the nightstand. It was Ada’s. I reached over and grabbed it so I could hand it to her.
“Who is calling you this early?” I asked.
“It’s probably Evan,” she said. It was Evan’s last week on-site, so I knew there were probably a lot of things the two of them needed to address together.
Ada looked at the screen, and I watched the color drain from her face. “That…that can’t be right,” she murmured. I don’t think she meant to say it out loud.
“Is everything okay?” I didn’t like the effect whoever was calling was having on my girl. It was jarring to watch her go from playful to blank within a few seconds.
Ada didn’t answer. She just held her phone and watched it ring. It wasn’t until it stopped that she spoke. “That was my ex-husband,” she whispered.
Okay, well, fuck that guy, I thought.
“Are you guys in contact?” I asked. Not because it bothered me—I was secure enough about myself that it didn’t. The call didn’t make me uneasy, but the effect it had on Ada did. I didn’t know much about her ex, but I knew he’d made her feel trapped, and that was enough.
Ada shook her head. “No, not at all.” She was staring blankly ahead. “The last time we talked, I told him good night. When I woke up the next morning, he had left. I got the divorce papers in the mail a week later.”
Shit. That was brutal.
I wrapped Ada in my arms and felt relief wash over me when she leaned into me. “You didn’t deserve that,” I said into her hair.
“I know,” she said. “Thank you for saying so.” I rubbed my hands up and down her arms. I didn’t know whether I was trying to soothe her or myself more. “Can I tell you something?” she asked.
“Anything,” I said.
“That day we went out, you told me you wanted to know something no one else knows.” I remembered saying that. I wanted to know everything about her. “When I woke up and he was gone, I felt relieved. I was deeply sad afterward, but not because I was grieving the relationship. I was grieving all of the parts of myself that I lost or gave up in the name of comfort because I would rather have been comfortable than happy. I chose to prioritize my false sense of security instead of me.”
She took a deep breath before continuing. “I was ashamed of myself. I let him control every aspect of my life because I didn’t have the confidence to do it. I didn’t have a sense of ownership over anything in my life, so the fact that I was completely dependent on someone else didn’t matter to me. I didn’t even know our debit card PIN.”
I tried to imagine a different version of Ada—one less fierce and fervent—but I couldn’t. Now I admired those qualities even more because I knew that everything she was, was on purpose.
“I think”—she sighed—“I think Chance wanted power over somebody, and I mistook that for being cared for.”
My chest ached. All I could do was hold her tighter, so that’s what I did. We stayed in our bed awhile longer, and I tried not to think about how empty my arms would feel without her.
