Mrs. Robin's Sons by Kori Roberts (free children's online books .TXT) 📗

I’m not where I want to be in my life?” She looked around the lake, the sounds and flashes of fireworks echoing in the night air.

“You know, I’ve spent most of my adult career working at the hotel, and I’m proud of my accomplishments. But, it just doesn’t hold the same appeal for me anymore.” She glanced at Mya. “Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do for a living, but the environment is sucking me dry and stealing my youth.”

Her eyes wandered back to the lake again. “All I know is that I have to make a change soon, otherwise neither of them will still be around for me to see the wonderful fathers I know they’re going to be.”

*

Nick felt the bed move, and his eyes opened in time to see Noah leave the room and quietly close the door behind him. Nick glanced at Rylee and saw that she was still asleep.

When Noah didn’t come back after several minutes, Nick eased from the bed and pulled on a pair of jeans and shoes before he went looking for him.

He found Noah outside on the deck, leaning against the railing, seemingly lost in thought as he stared at the lake.

“You okay?” Nick watched Noah silently as he waited for him to respond. Finally, Noah sighed and turned around to face him.

“It’s nice here.” Noah spoke quietly. Nick just nodded, knowing that his brother had a lot more than just the scenery on his mind as he waited for him to continue.

“You know, I look around this place, I see Mya and Tom, even Drew and Jacob, and I can’t help but think about Rylee. She deserves to be happy, just like her friends.”

“Wait…what do you mean?” Nick frowned. “You don’t think Rylee’s happy?” Noah shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what are you saying, Noah?”

“I’m saying that she deserves more. She deserves to have a family and a life like this.”

Noah gestured around the lake, and sighed heavily before he spoke again.

“I’m saying that you should ask Rylee to marry you.” Nick could only stare at Noah, feeling certain that he’d heard his brother incorrectly.

“If you don’t, I will.” Noah warned.

“Hold up.” Nick walked over to where Noah stood. “Trust me; I have no problem with asking Rylee to marry me.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Hell, I’ve wanted to ask her for a while, but I didn’t want her to feel like I was rushing things.” He met Noah’s gaze. “And I didn’t know how you’d feel about it if I did.”

“How I’d feel?” Noah shook his head, and chuckled softly, the sound less than happy.

“Part of me hates the idea of her marrying anybody other than me, including you.” Noah was quiet for a while before he suddenly smiled, and the look was much more genuine.

“Luckily, that’s a pretty small part. Mostly, I think I’d feel happy if the two people I care about most in the world were married.” Noah looked at him with serious eyes. “I know how much you love Rylee, and she loves you.”

Nick opened his mouth to tell Noah that Rylee felt the same way about him, but Noah held up a hand to stop him from speaking.

“And, I know that Rylee loves me, too. But she can’t marry both of us. And I would never have known her if it weren’t for you. So, yeah…I’m good if you two get married.”

“Are you sure about this?” Nick watched Noah closely. He knew how deep his

brother’s feelings went for Rylee, and he was positive that Noah hadn’t made that decision easily.

Noah held his gaze unwaveringly, his voice firm. “If it means keeping Rylee in our lives permanently, I’m willing to do damn near anything.” Noah smiled, and his expression became less intense. “And, hopefully, once you two are married, she’ll want to have kids, which is good because you’ll make a great father.”

“No, we’ll make great fathers.” Nick corrected him. “Regardless of whether Rylee and I get married or not, we’re all in this together.” They stared silently at each other for a moment before Noah nodded slowly.

“There’s one more thing,” Nick said. “I think we need to seriously consider expanding the business. I know we’ve talked about it some in the past, but now that we’re trying to make this official with Rylee, we’re gonna need to come up with a way for all of us to live together.” Nick paused, unsure of what Noah would think about what he was going to say next.

“It’d be a lot harder for her to move near us with her job, so we’re probably going to need to look at available places closer to her.”

Noah seemed to think about it for a moment before he said, “Yeah, I think that would work. Besides Wisconsin, we get more business from Illinois than any other state. We could move down there to run the new facility, and let Leslie and José handle the one in Wisconsin.”

“As soon as we get back home, we need to start checking out properties.” Nick could barely contain his excitement. “I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for the three of us to finally live as a family. And now that it’s so close to being a reality, it can’t happen fast enough.”

Chapter Twenty

What did I ever see in him? Rylee studied Ethan as he walked through the restaurant toward her table. She tried to remember what it was about him that had attracted her and made her stay with him for two whole years — not to mention, consider him as marriage material.

At the moment, she couldn’t think of a single thing about him that appealed to her. All she could see was a slightly better-than-average looking man on the wrong side of forty, hiding behind expensive clothes, a cocky attitude, and a flashy lifestyle in a pathetic attempt to hold onto his youth.

“Hello, gorgeous.” Ethan