Ryan Ch. 04

Almost immediately, he began to feel the first talons of heat in his loins. Ryan was so engrossed that his mind drifted from the conversation, something that didn't go unnoticed by his father and brothers.

Following the direction of his gaze, being men, they understood perfectly what distracted him.

Caleb laughed out loud bringing Ryan out of his trance, albeit slowly.

When Ryan's attention came back to them, they all were giving him a knowing look. Sheepishly, he smiled and said, "Ok, I'm busted, but who the hell can blame me?"

None of them argued his point.

Sighing, he said, "I still can't quite believe she's mine."

Seeing his Dad's arched eyebrow, Ryan said, taking a deep breath,

"You might as well know, this is it for me. I'm in love with Dani. I have been almost from the first moment that I saw her. She's everything I want and need. Having said that, you guys can stop throwing women in my path now," he laughed.

Chucking, Micah said, "All I have to say is that you're one lucky bastard. Just think, if you hadn't gone to Lowe's that afternoon, you might not have ever met her. That's too much of a coincident for me; I have to believe that fate lent a hand. "

"Yeah," Ryan agreed, "especially since I rarely go there at that time of day. You know that I like to get my supplies in the evening and start off a project the next morning. But however it came about, I couldn't be happier."

"What about Dani?" his dad asked, "Is she in love with you, too? Then he shook his head and said, "I don't know why I even asked that, anyone can tell just by looking at her."

"And looking at him," Caleb chipped in with a grin.

"Yeah, Dad, she's in love with me. Damn, I never knew it could be like this. I was happy before I met her, but I can't explain it. I... I can't even imagine my life without her now. While I think on some level I should be afraid of that thought, I'm not. It feels right; she feels right."

Noticing the sudden sparkle in Micah's eyes and that he was starting to open his mouth, Ryan said, "Get your head out of the gutter, Micah, that's not what I meant. Well, she does, but... Oh, hell ..." he broke off.

Laughing Micah concluded, "Yeah, she's got you all roped and tied. Can't say I blame you, though, I feel the same way about Amanda."

"Well, now," Daniel interjected, "does this mean your mother and I can expect a wedding or two soon and maybe some grand babies soon afterward?"

There was a "Damn," from Ryan, followed by an "Oh, shit!" from Micah and a "Don't look at me," from Caleb.

Daniel just smiled at his boys. *

A week later Dani received an invitation in the mail.

Haley's best friend, Julianna Styles, was throwing her a baby shower at a downtown German Restaurant. Dani was pleased that Haley thought enough of her to include her in the celebration.

Dani needed to get a present for the shower and enlisted her co-worker and friend, Charlotte, to go shopping with her. Since Haley was already registered at The Stork's House Boutique, choosing a gift would be relatively simple, but she wanted the company. She knew that Ryan painted the baby's room yellow and green and Haley had already purchased a crib and dresser in bright white.

Since Dani got started as soon as she received the invitation, there was still a fairly large list of items to choose from. Even so, she wasn't sure what she wanted to get, but Charlotte who already had three children, provided some useful suggestions.

Charlotte's youngest was two years old and Dani had gotten a Lil' Luxuries Whirlpool Bath for her. It was the cutest thing. It was actually shaped like a Spa tub with jets and a shower sprayer, all in miniature size, of course. It was something she knew her friend wanted although she chose not to be registered anywhere.

She and Ryan agreed to buy one gift as a couple and share the cost. Dani had to talk him into letting her pay her share, but he'd acquiesced without too much grumbling. She ended up getting a Glider, which came assembled. It was a beautiful chair that had a painted white frame and was upholstered in a bright shade of green with a matching ottoman.

To make the delivery as easy as possible, she requested that the store deliver the items directly to Haley's home on the day of the shower. She then called Haley to let her know to expect the package, but didn't give her a clue as to what it was.

*

The day of the shower turned out to be beautiful. There had been thundershowers in the afternoon for a couple of days, which had Dani concerned that the weather wouldn't clear in time. Thankfully, they were blessed with a clear, sunny weather.

The Shower went off without a hitch. Julianna was a great organizer. They talked, ate, played games and generally acted like a bunch of teenagers, but everyone had a wonderful time.

One of the games they played was 'guess the baby food.' They all were required to sample some baby food from an unlabeled jar; whoever correctly guessed what it was won a prize. It was funny that no one, including Haley, was overly eager to taste what looked like goop.

The green/brownish mush turned out to be Garden vegetables with brown rice; not great tasting, but not as bad as it looked. Dani found it hilarious watching their faces as each woman sampled the baby food. Haley laughed until she cried. In the end, she got some wonderful gifts, including the glider and ottoman which arrived just as the shower was wrapping up. The delivery men sat the pieces up in the baby's room and they all stood around admiring them for a while before leaving.

Two weeks later, Haley gave birth to Mallory Matthew Chase. He was named after her husband Matt and his father, Mallory. The baby was twenty one inches tall, seven and a half pounds with dark brown hair and his grandfather's blue /gray eyes.

*

It was a tough day for Dani. One of the legal assistants, Melanie O'Connell, was out with the flu and no one was certain when she would return. Having phoned to wish her well, Dani had the feeling that she might take ill with the amount of extra work she would have to take on.

Melanie's Boss, Mr. Grainger, had a big corporate case that needed immediate attention. Although there were two other legal assistants, Dani was tagged to research the case law and help prepare the legal brief. She didn't mind, but it was going to put a strain on her workload for a few days at the least.

McClain, Grainger and McKinney were a large prestigious law firm. Because of the size of their case load, they'd requested an interim assistant from the local work force pool to take care of regular secretarial duties. However, Mr. Grainger didn't want a newbie who hadn't been tested to their standards doing the more detailed work on any of their cases.

Dani knew she wasn't going to get home until close to 7 o'clock, so she called Ryan to give him a heads up. While waiting for him to answer, her phone beeped for an incoming call. Looking at the caller ID, she saw that it was her mother.

She knew her mother was due to get back from her cruise today, but she hadn't figured on a phone call from her so soon. Dani wondered what she wanted, but was sure it wasn't an emergency since her mother would have called her on the cell phone for that.

She was thinking of calling Ryan back when he picked up.

"Hey, baby. Miss me already?" he asked.

Smiling, Dani replied, "Of course I miss you, but that's not the reason I called."

Ryan gave a dramatic sigh and muttered, "Damn."

Dani chuckled at him and then got to the point of her call.

"I called to let you know that I probably won't be home until about seven. Melanie is out today and I've been enlisted to do a couple of her jobs. I'm going to be up to my eyebrows in stodgy research and legal briefs."

"Don't worry about anything, babe. I'm leaving the bar around five. I have to do a little grocery shopping, but I'll fix a nice dinner for us at my place, ok?"

Thankful, Dani said, "That would be great. I didn't want to think about cooking after I got home. Thanks, baby."

"No problem, sweetheart; plan on spending the night. I'll see you around seven."

"Ok, Ryan. I love you."

"I love you too, babe," he responded.

Dani looked at her phone after he hung up and decided that now was not the time to call her mother back. Her day was already going to be stressful and she just didn't have time to get into a long conversation about her love life and future grand kids, her mom's favorite subjects. However, she did listen to the message.

The start of the message wasn't promising.

"Danielle Marie Carter, what's this I hear about some new man in your life. Crystal makes it sound like you're practically living with this guy and I'm just hearing about him. I take a little break to chill out a bit and this is what happens. Well, call me as soon as you can. Don't make me come down to Tampa."

Dani sighed.

Her mother was a bit dramatic, but she didn't trust her not to come down to Tampa.

Her parents moved back to Jacksonville a couple of years ago. By that time she and Crystal had their own place and her brother, James, was away at college. Her mother reasoned that they'd done a good job of raising them, so it was the right time to move back to their hometown.

Her father was always agreeable to anything her mother wanted, that's why they've been happily married for twenty nine years. Her mother spoke and her dad said, "Yes, dear. You're right, dear." It worked for them.

They'd moved to Tampa because of her father's job promotion, which was a really big deal; still they'd missed the friends they left behind. They traveled back home occasionally and a few friends came to visit, but it wasn't the same as having them close all the time. The fact was, they knew their children didn't need them anymore, not like when they were younger.

After listening to the call, Dani settled in for a long day.

*

She made it through the day, but she was bone tired. She'd left twenty minutes later than she intended, but she didn't want to leave any work to carry over to the next day. It was always busy, but if she didn't have unexpected work, she usually managed to complete her 'to do' list and leave the office by 5 o'clock.

She was grateful for the extra work in a way. It kept her from thinking about her mother's phone call. She wasn't avoiding talking to her about Ryan, well not exactly. Frankly, she thought Crystal would have told their mother long before now. Meeting Ryan no doubt deterred her sister from her usual interfering role.

Dani talked to her mother at least then times in the period that she'd known Ryan, but she managed to avoid the subject of her love life by telling her she was very busy at work, which wasn't a lie. She hadn't said she wasn't seeing anyone, she just didn't say she was. She knew, legally, she was on shaky ground with that explanation, but she had been desperate.

The problem with dealing with her mother was that she let her imagination get the better of her. Her mother would hear 'new guy', then automatically wedding bells would go off in her head and the pitter patter of little feet would soon follow. Unfortunately for Dani, more times than not, she was the one her mother converged on like a heat seeking missile.

It was one thing For Dani to talk to her Mother about random dates, quite another to talk about her relationship with Ryan. Yeah, her mom would want to know the details. Yeah, those details, including the what, who, how, when and the where of it all.

Dani decided she'd deal with that later tonight, if she didn't, her mother would call first thing in the morning. No one should doubt that her mother was anything but persistent. *

Dani stopped by her condo to change into something comfortable before heading to Ryan's place. She decided on a short, form fitting floral skirt and a canary yellow knit top. She would also need an outfit to wear to work tomorrow. She had some things at Ryan's already, but there wasn't anything suitable for the office.

While she was at it, she decided to take a few other things. Ryan was always complaining that she didn't have enough clothes in his closest. The space was made available by the fact that he had a considerable amount of his clothing in her spare room closet. If they moved in together full time, she knew she would need to edit her clothing, especially those she hadn't worn in a very long time. While not exactly a pack rat, it seemed that her gene for getting rid of stuff was a bit mutated.

It was after 7:30 when she pulled into Ryan's drive-way. After getting out of the car, she got her things out, locked it and headed to the front entrance.

Opening the door with her key, she could hear the stereo playing some soft blues. She immediately felt at home. She closed the door and proceeded through the foyer into the living space. Ryan was tossing a salad in a large wooden bowl with equally large wooden utensils. He was a fabulous cook and look at home in the spacious kitchen.

Dani put her purse down on the end table, the garment bag over the back of the sofa and the suitcase on the floor next to it.

Looking up, Ryan gave her a huge smile.

"Hi, sweetheart, I didn't hear you come in," he greeted her.

Dani quickly walked over to him, took the utensils out of his hands, wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head down for a sweet lingering kiss.

"Hi, baby. Gosh, I needed that," she whispered against his lips.

Ryan grunted and pulled her in closer to his body, slanting his mouth to deepen the kiss.

When Dani could take a calm breath again, she smiled at him and said, "Ummm, it's nice to have my dessert first, but what is that delicious aroma."

Instead of answering right away, Ryan gently caressed her butt and then squeezed it. He leaned in for another short kiss and replied before releasing her, "Lasagna. It's another family recipe, Grandma McMillan's this time."

"Yum, I can barely wait."

"I'm sorry for being late, baby. I didn't want to leave any carryover work for tomorrow," Dani said.

"No apology necessary, sweetheart. I know how work gets sometimes."

Dani sat on a bar stool while Ryan took the lasagna out of the oven.

"Oh, by the way, I got a call from my mom. Apparently, Crystal finally broke and told her about us and she wants me to call her with details."

"Why haven't you told your folks about us before now?" Ryan was curious to know.

Dani sighed deeply.

"To understand that, you'd have to understand that our Mom has been trying to get Crystal and I married since we turned eighteen. I think she was planning our weddings even before then," she said only half joking.

"She has clucked over and vetted every boyfriend and or date with the intention of finding us a marriage mate. Never mind that we wanted to grow up a bit before we took the leap. Oh, yeah and we wanted to find the right guy for us, not our Mom."

"It was hard for us to dodge the boyfriend inspection while they lived here, but once they went back to Jacksonville, we got a breather. Besides, if you remember, she and dad have been on that cruise with their friends the past 6 weeks. There was no point in telling her while they were on vacation, at least that's what I told myself. I know I could have told her before that, but really, I wasn't ready for the drama," she said.

While they waited for the fresh bread Ryan made to finishing baking, Dani took his hand and led him to the sofa where she snuggled up to him.

"Anyway, I figured we could spend some time with them now that they're back. I have vacation time available. I could take off a week and if you can get away, I'd like to introduce you to my parents. I warn you, if you decide to accept this mission, you could self-destruct within sixty seconds of meeting them." Dani concluded, trying to paraphrase the old Mission Impossible TV series she knew from re-runs.

Ryan snorted and said, "Oh, don't worry sweetheart, I can handle them. You forget, I've been dealing with my family on the marriage subject for more years than you. As for visiting them, yes we can do that in a couple of weeks."

After the meal and cleaning up the dishes, Dani put in a call to her mother. It was almost nine, but she knew her parents would still be awake for some time.

She was sitting on the sofa with Ryan lying with his head in her lap, watching TV. The sound was turned down, low enough not to interfere with her call, but loud enough for him to hear.

The phone was on its fourth ring when Dani's mother answered.

"Hello?"

"Hi Mom, it's Dani."

"Hi, sweetheart, how are you?" she answered.

"I'm great, Mom. How are you and Daddy?"

"We're fine, except for the usual aches and pains you get when you're getting on in years." She replied.

"I was beginning to think you weren't going to call me back today. I was going to give you until tomorrow to fill me in on your young man, but I'm glad you called. Your father has been nagging me to death about when you're going to call back. He's over at Carl's playing Dominoes right now, so I got a break," she chuckled.

"So, what's he like? Where did you meet him? Is he from a good family? Does he have a brother for Crystal?" her mother asked almost without taking a breath.

Dani knew her mother didn't like Crystal's boyfriend, Isaac because he'd been married before and had two children, from two different baby mamas, neither of whom were his wife.

"Hold on, Mom, one question at a time. First of all, his name is Ryan Sinclair, he's 33 years old, he's a great guy; dependable, considerate, good with animals, kind to strangers..." she trailed off resisting the urge to laugh out loud.

She felt Ryan's shoulders shake with laughter at her description of him and pinched his butt, which only made he laugh again.

"Are you trying to be smart, Danielle Marie?" her mom admonished in that stern motherly tone. But Dani knew she wasn't angry.

"No, I'm not trying to be smart, Mom. You asked," she reminded her mother.

"Ok, child, get serious; good with animals, kind to strangers? Huh! Does he have a good job? He's not one of those men who still lives with his mama, is he? Do they still call them scrubs?

"Mom, you're incorrigible," Dani chided.

"Ryan has his own business and his own home. Look before the game of twenty questions grows into one of two hundred questions, we're coming up to visit you and Dad in two weeks and we'll be happy to answer all of your questions, within reason."

"Within reason? What is that suppose to mean? I'm always reasonable, ask your Dad," her mother said.

"Seriously?" Dani thought and almost choked on a laugh.

"Ha! That man would agree with anything you said," she declared. "If you said the sky was falling, he'd yell, "Watch out!"

Ryan didn't know what that was about, his mind having drifted back to the TV show, but he found Dani's response amusing.

"As to the meaning, it means please, please don't embarrass me. He's my boyfriend, not a defense witness being questioned by the prosecution. Besides, you might run him off," She said, trying to head her mother off at the pass.

"Not a chance in hell," Ryan whispered.

"Ok, Ok. I won't cross examine him, but your Dad and I need to know that he has your best interests at heart. From what Crystal told me, this is serious. We love you both. We may grill you about your boyfriends, but it's only because we want the best for you," her mother explained.

"I know Mom," Dani said quietly. "We love you too and although we complain about your interest in our relationships, we do understand your motives."

"I'm glad you do, sweetheart. Give your young man my regards. I'll let your Dad know you're coming. Call us a couple of days beforehand. Goodnight, baby, I love you."