Healing Hearts (New Hope Falls #6) - Kimberly Rae Jordan Page 0,40

should be over what had happened to him in Syria. And while he could accept that Callie might think that way, he struggled with how his mom could since she was a professional in the mental health field.

So yeah, the dinner had left him tense, which had then led to a struggle to fall asleep, only to be woken by a nightmare. When his alarm had gone off, he’d still been exhausted. Dragging, he’d gone to work, only to be faced with a relentless drip, drip, drip of rain.

He didn’t even get a chance to see Sophia and Bryson since Michael told him that he’d take care of dropping off Vivianne and picking her up at the end of the day. He’d mentioned that he’d be keeping Vivianne with him for the rest of the week since Sophia had let him know she had people coming to stay with her.

Ryker was relieved that Sophia had told Michael about the pending visit. He’d hoped to go by her place after work to do more on the yard, but the rain had derailed that plan. Thankfully, he’d gotten the grass mowed before the weekend, which had been the worst of the situation at her home. Still, he’d wanted to do some further work trimming up the bushes and cleaning out the flower beds.

While the rain didn’t preclude him from doing those things, the fact that he’d already spent over eight hours in the rain did. He wanted a hot shower, dry clothes, and a warm meal. In that order. Too bad it wasn’t going to be a meal in Sophia’s kitchen with Bryson eating bananas and peanut butter.

Since there was rain in the forecast for Tuesday as well, it was unlikely he’d get back to Sophia’s until at least Wednesday. But since she had company, it was probably just as well.

Still, as he dumped a can of chunky beef and potato soup into a bowl, Ryker found himself disappointed at the idea that he wouldn’t get to see the pair for a couple more days. And it really wasn’t just because of the meals Sophia fed him.

Ryker put the soup into the microwave, then popped a couple of pieces of bread into the toaster. Leaning a hip against the counter, his thoughts wandered as he waited for his food to be ready.

What was it about Sophia and, more surprisingly, Bryson, that made him want to spend more time with them? Sophia, he could kind of understand. Though she wasn’t the sort of woman he’d ever dated, he could see that she was attractive and seemed nice. So spending time with her would only ever be a pleasant experience.

Bryson, on the other hand, still triggered nightmares for him. So even though the little boy didn’t look at him with fear anymore, he should have been avoiding him, just to be safe.

But that wasn’t what he was doing.

In fact, from that first time he’d actually spoken with Bryson, he’d continued to allow—and even pursue—further interactions with the boy. He could have still picked Vivianne up and been friendly to Bryson without going as far as he had in building a relationship with the child.

So what, exactly, was he doing?

Ryker hated introspection. Hated forcing himself to look at his motivations for things. Hated being forced to defend his actions—even to himself.

It was all kind of tied to his mother’s career. For as long as he could remember, she always encouraged them to be honest about their emotions, actions, and motivations. When he’d been a kid, she’d had more roundabout ways of pulling that out of him, but as he’d gotten older, she’d become more direct about it.

Somewhere along the line, it felt like she’d managed to condition him to do it to himself without her help, except when it came to his current situation. She was no longer content to just let him deal with it on his own, especially after discovering that he had stopped seeing his therapist.

Deciding he needed a distraction of some sort while he ate, Ryker carried his food into the living room and searched for a movie to watch. His go-to movies of late were sci-fi, and since he’d already seen all the big name ones, he was down to having to pick which of the B-movie offerings on his streaming service he wanted to watch.

The next day promised to be as wet and exhausting as that day had been, so he didn’t stay up super late once the movie