Healing Hearts (New Hope Falls #6) - Kimberly Rae Jordan Page 0,58

grandma used to make meatloaf for us sometimes, and it had great big chunks of onion in it. I needed a lot of ketchup to help me eat that.” He paused and looked down at his food. “It looks like you are much luckier in what your mom makes you.”

“You don’t like onions?” Bryson asked.

“I don’t mind them now, but as a kid, I didn’t much care for them.”

“Do I like onions, Momma?”

Sophia squeezed some ketchup on his plate, then set the bottle back in front of him. “I don’t really know if you do or not, baby. I don’t serve them because I don’t like them.”

Bryson’s eyes grew wide. “I thought you liked everything.”

“Nana would be happy to tell you about all the things I don’t like,” Sophia said as she began to serve herself. “Some of which I’m still not fond of.”

She noticed that Ryker waited until she had food on her plate before he began to eat his own meal. His manners seemed to be impeccable, better even than hers, and certainly better than her brothers.

“Do you like everything, Ryker?”

It was a little funny that so many of their discussions seemed to revolve around food. As Sophia listened to Ryker recount foods he hadn’t liked as a child and those he still didn’t like as an adult, she knew she shouldn’t be enjoying these little tidbits of information about Ryker. However, once again, she wouldn’t put a stop to the conversation since Bryson was actually interacting of his own accord with someone outside of her family.

She let the two of them talk, though Ryker would occasionally draw her into the conversation. It dawned on her then that she was far more used to listening to people talk than being the one doing the talking. The only person she ever conversed freely with was Nana. With her, she never feared judgment like she did with her family. Especially Natalie.

Thankfully, most in her family didn’t seem to expect her to talk, but it seemed that Ryker didn’t have that same expectation of her. Where she felt invisible much of the time, Ryker made her feel seen. It was like he wouldn’t allow her to fade too much into the background before pulling her back into the conversation.

It was a bit disconcerting, if she was being honest. The last time she’d felt so seen was when Ezekiel had turned his attention on her. And look how that had turned out.

She breathed a sigh of relief when the meal was over, then declined Ryker’s help to clean up, figuring he’d done plenty already with his work in the yard.

“I guess I should head home,” Ryker said after he took the bag of cookies from Bryson. “Thank you for yet another lovely dinner.”

“Thank you for the flowers you planted. I know Nana will be thrilled to see that her flower beds haven’t gone to the weeds this year.”

“I was happy to help with that.”

“Will you be back tomorrow?” Bryson asked.

“Sorry, buddy,” Ryker said with a shake of his head. “I have work tomorrow, then I’m going to my brother’s house for my nephew’s birthday party.”

“Oh.” Bryson looked crestfallen, but Sophia didn’t want Ryker to feel bad about not being able to come. “I’ve never had a birthday party.”

Ryker glanced at Sophia with raised brows, apparently not sure if he should take that statement at face value or not.

“We’ll have one when you turn five, baby,” Sophia said. “I promise.”

That brought a smile to Bryson’s face. “Will you come to my birthday party too, Ryker?”

“That’s still a couple of months away, Bry,” Sophia said. “I’m not sure what exactly we’ll be doing.”

“When you have a plan, you can let me know,” Ryker told him. “In the meantime, have a good visit with Nana.”

With that, Ryker left the house and jogged down the stairs before heading to his truck. He probably couldn’t wait to get away from the awkwardness of that last little conversational tidbit.

Part of her wondered if she should just tell Ryker everything and spare him from having to figure out why Bryson had never had a birthday party. But she hated the idea of having him look at her with pity and even the smallest amount of judgment for her bad decisions. He would be right to judge her—just like her family had—because she’d let herself be led right into the middle of a cult and had gotten pregnant without being married.

Well, that wasn’t exactly right. She and Ezekiel had had