Love, Diamonds, and Spades (Cactus Creek #2)(34)

Her hand flew up to her mouth and for a second there, she almost, almost felt herself start to cry.

But for once, not in anger or sadness or even fear.

She just loved the man so damn much. “Rylan—”

He dropped his shovel and cupped her cheek. “You’re not talking me out of this. But I will respect your wishes if you don’t want me to be around Cooper. You’re his mom and I know you’re only trying to protect him. If you think my being here, not as your boyfriend anymore, will confuse him or make him sad, just say the word.”

She shook her head. “No. Actually, Cooper already misses you.” Like I do. “He’ll love it if you still came by to visit him.”

“Not just him, sweetheart. I’m here for you, too. I’ll force-feed you take-out when you’re too tired to eat, I’ll crack my amazingly funny jokes when you’re angry at the universe, and if you’ll let me, I’ll hold your hand when you’re scared. My dad did that for me and my mom when my brother had slipped into a coma after a skateboarding accident. It helped. If for no other reason than to know that the person holding my hand loved the person I was worried about just as much as I did.”

He reached in his back pocket and pulled out a bunch of papers. “You’re not alone in this, Quinn. And it’s not just me being stubborn about it, too.”

She reached over and flipped through about a dozen flyers for concerts, craft fairs, and other fundraisers.

All for Cooper.

“Rylan, you shouldn’t have done this. We don’t need to be burdening—”

“I didn’t do this. Well, the concerts, yes. But the rest, that’s all the town’s doing.” He gave her a half shrug. “You moved to a nosy, nosy little town, sweetie. Cooper told his friends at school that he was going to be having surgery, and those kids told their parents, who then called Cooper’s teacher—who neither confirmed nor denied the info—and after deciding that was good enough recon for them, those parents contacted pretty much everyone in town.”

Quinn hung her head down and couldn’t help but laugh.

Lordy, this town…

“Of course, after half the things were already planned, someone came forward with true confirmation…via folks overhearing you yelling at your insurance company over the phone for not covering the surgery over some technicality.”

That mild rush of panic she’d gotten when she’d first heard the news hit her in the pit of her stomach again, and she swallowed back the bile as she explained bitterly, “They disagree with the treatment plan. They’re saying it’s too radical a procedure in Cooper’s case. They say that we have to first try a few other surgeries and exhaust all these other ridiculous avenues. All of which could take months that Cooper simply doesn’t have. They said that if we do all those other surgeries first, and none of them work, then they’ll cover the reconstructive surgery. But we just don’t have that kind of time to wait.”

“Heartless pricks,” snarled Rylan. “Have you tried talking to Connor? Maybe get some legal help from his firm?”

“No. Again, we don’t have that kind of time. So we’re just going to go ahead with the procedure and pay out of pocket.”

Rylan tapped on the flyers. “Well, now you have a little help with that.”

He walked back over to his shovel and wheelbarrow of plants. “Rylan?”

“Hmmm?”

“Thank you. For this. All of this. For being my friend. For helping. And…for coming back.”

“You can always count on me for all of the above, sugar. I’m not going anywhere.”

Yeah. She was starting to see that.



*



TWO WEEKS LATER, Quinn was quickly getting in some spoonfuls of the chili that Rylan had made as she watched him toss the ball around with Cooper in the back yard.

She still couldn’t believe that in the last week alone, he’d gone and done every single one of the very chores his poker games were famous for.

Washed her dog? Check. Dishes, car wash, shopping—with Penny and the kids no less. Check, check, and check. Then the big one—a load of laundry. From start to finish, without her supervision.

She’d had no words.

They were clean, yes. All wearable? Not so much.

He did manage to get a bunch of her blouses so crispy that she’d probably never have to iron them again for work. A scientifically fascinating feat she was still trying to figure out.

God, he was just the most incredible man. And a great friend, too. Lately, she found they could spend hours talking about anything and everything. Even business. Since she and Luke were starting to go through some possible financial hardships with the shop, for the past week, Rylan had actually been a great sounding board for her to bounce ideas off of, something she’d never really had before. Luke, bless his heart, had great ideas for sure, but the man couldn’t run a business to save his life.

Rylan, however, had a lot of experience from starting up his own landscaping business, and managing his band. They’d since spent a lot of time just talking business, which would lead to them discussing life in general into the wee hours of the night.

She missed him.

Even now, as she watched him playing with Cooper outside, she found she didn’t just miss kissing him and seeing that brain-scrambling body of his up close—though, she most definitely did—she missed just being with him. One day, after a particularly rough few days almost two weeks ago, Rylan had arranged for Quinn to have that spa day he’d mentioned once. Basically, he’d tricked her out of the house and pushed her out of the car at the doorstep of the spa where three people with mystically zen voices had come forward to whisk her into Shangri-la. It had been the single most relaxing day of her life. But, throughout the whole royal treatment, the entire time she’d been getting massaged and pampered to within an inch of becoming comatose with tranquility, all she’d been able to think about was how Rylan and Coop were home making mini homemade pizzas and watching a movie.