any other situation, he’d have put an end to it, but Kate looked thoroughly interested, and after her afternoon with Kari Adams, he figured she needed a few minutes of peace.
Even if it was at his expense.
Shifting Julia on his lap, Ryan shook his head. “Dumbo didn’t close the system.”
“What does that mean?” Kate asked with genuine curiosity.
Kathy Mathews rounded the table with a pot of coffee, refilling cups. “It means Mitch didn’t tie a keeper knot in the figure-eight knot, and the end of the rope passed right through the belay device.”
“You see,” Angela went on, “Ryan had never climbed outdoors before. He’d only ever climbed indoors with Mitch, so when this happened—”
“Scared the crap right out of me,” he said with all seriousness.
Everyone laughed but Kate.
“What did you do?” Her eyes locked on his, and he read the concern in those green depths. His heart bumped.
“There was a huge crack about shoulder level, so I jammed my arm in, elbow first, and dug the toes of my boots into the rock to brace myself. Found I could rest almost all my weight on that arm, though it hurt like hell. Then I shouted every profanity I’d ever learned up at Mitch.”
“So that’s where my boy learned those words,” Kathy said, laughing.
“You could have been killed.” Kate stared at him with wide eyes.
Whenever she looked at him with those soft, emotion-filled eyes, he wanted to wrap his arms around her and lose himself in her sweetness. Since both their parents—and their kids—were sitting around the table, he decided it probably wasn’t the best time to do that. He’d have to save it for later, when they were alone. When he could drag her into his bedroom, lock the door, and show her just how much having her in his house meant to him.
“Yeah, tell that to Mitch,” he said, trying to dampen the fantasy. “He about bust a gut when I finally got to the top. Thought it was the funniest thing ever.”
Roger Mathews leaned an elbow on the table and sipped his coffee. “If you listen to Mitch tell it, the cliff wasn’t all that high. Ryan would only have broken a leg, maybe two in the fall.”
“Thanks a lot,” Ryan shot at him.
Laughter resonated around the table. The phone rang, and Julia scrambled off Ryan’s lap to answer it.
“I think,” Ryan’s father, Michael, said, running a hand down Reed’s little back as he slept against his chest, “that was the last time you went rock climbing with Mitch.”
“What do you mean, ‘with Mitch’?” Ryan crossed his arms over his chest. “It was the last time I went period.”
Angela leaned over and kissed her son’s cheek. “I prefer both your feet on the ground anyway, sweetie.”
“Dad?” Julia walked back into the dining room with the cordless phone. “It’s Uncle Mitch.”
“Speak of the devil,” Ryan muttered, tossing his napkin on the table and rising.
Conversation continued behind him. “Hey,” Ryan said into the phone. “Where are you?”
“Simone and I are in Vancouver.”
Ryan clenched his jaw, looked over at Kate, then turned back toward the kitchen. He rounded the corner toward his office and shut the door. “I thought I told her not to go up there.”
“Ryan, she barely listens to anything I tell her. What makes you think she’ll listen to you?”
As he sank into the chair behind his desk, he heard Simone’s voice in the background and Mitch’s sharp intake of breath. “Tell her to quit hitting on you so you can explain why you’re there.”
They exchanged muffled words, and Mitch’s voice came back stronger. “We found Walter Alexander. Medical examiner thinks he’s been dead about three days.”
“Son of a bitch.” This was all Ryan needed to hear. He glanced up sharply when the office doors opened.
Kate stepped in, closing the double doors at her back. “Put him on speaker phone.”
Shit. He didn’t want her hearing this right now. She was just starting to lose that haunted look. When he only let out a breath, she walked toward him and reached for the phone.
Reluctantly, he pushed the button. “Mitch, I’m putting you on speaker. Katie’s here.”
“What’s going on?” She leaned back against Ryan’s desk.
“We found Walter Alexander,” Mitch said again.
“And?”
“And he’s dead.”
Her eyes darkened. The color drained from her face.
Ryan squeezed her thigh. “Cops have any idea what happened?”
“No.” Mitch said. “Looks like he was whacked over the head with something, but they haven’t said what cause of death is yet. Autopsy won’t be until tomorrow.”