Try - The Complete Romance Series (13 page)

If
you’ve got to drag your ass into work after only three or four hours of sleep,
at least it was worth it,
I thought to myself, pulling into my
parking spot. I shut the car off and checked to make sure that I had all the
things I needed for the day, just like I’d checked with Landon before I’d let
him out of the car. I had my phone, my keys, my wallet, and my laptop bag, with
the reports that I had been working on and a few other odds and ends I found
myself using throughout the day. I’d be exhausted by the time five or six
rolled around, but I’d get through it. I smiled again, thinking of how good it
had been just to be with Mackenzie, and how much better it had been to be in
bed with her. I decided that as soon as I got up to my office and had
everything settled for the morning, I’d take the proactive step and call her to
schedule our next date. It probably wouldn’t be to Fun Town, but I thought I
could come up with something good.
Remember
the flowers, too,
I thought to myself as I got out of my car.

Chapter Seven - Mackenzie

“Hurry up, Blair! Let’s get her to the
door. One…two…three!” I watched Alice and Blair lifting Amie up from the floor
carefully as I hurried to my desk where my phone waited. My heart pounded in my
chest and my blood roared in my ears, but at least on the outside I was mostly
able to look like I was keeping calm. I could hear the wail of sirens outside
as an ambulance approached the building; at least the police were quick about
getting to the scene.

I threw myself into my chair and shook my
head, anger boiling up inside of me at what had happened no more than minutes
after Landon and Patrick had left the office. I’d finished up with Landon’s
session, where he’d done really well—and had asked whether I’d ever been to Fun
Town—and gone back to my desk. I’d told Patrick that I was looking forward to
our date, which we’d agreed to go on that same night. He had invited me to a
play, and I’d been so excited to go on another date with him.

But then one of the parents had started to
get tetchy with Amie. It happened pretty often; at first I hadn’t even thought
about it. I’d figured that the parent would shout a little bit, and then maybe
storm off—that in the worst-case scenario, we’d lose the patient and the little
girl
who’d come in with her dad
would have to find
another physical therapy office. It wouldn’t be the first time some blow-hard
of a parent had decided that they knew better than a trained physical therapist
what their kid needed.

But all at once, or at least it had seemed
that way to me, things had escalated. I’d heard Amie trying to calm the parent
down, and the man starting to curse her out, calling her every name under the
sun. Amie had called out for someone to call the police to deal with the guy,
and then things had gotten really and truly screwed up.

By the time some of the burlier physical
therapists had managed to restrain the guy, he’d managed to beat Amie down to
the floor, breaking a couple of her bones and possibly giving her a concussion.
She wasn’t so badly injured that we needed paramedics—after all, most of the
staff at the office had had medical training—but the cops were on their way,
and it would be a long recovery for her. I was left in charge of dealing with
the police while the two assistants struggled to keep the angry parent
restrained and some of the other women in the office were taking Amie to the
closest hospital. Our office manager had left for the day, so I was the natural
choice of the few of us who were left.

“We’re going to have to ask you to stay a
little longer,” one of the other PTs, Charlotte, was telling a shaken mother
and her daughter. “Just until the police are done. I’m so sorry this happened
during your session with us.”

“It’s not your fault,” the woman replied. “I
hope the cops deal with that guy, though I’m sorry for his daughter.”

“I think,” I said, pitching my voice just
loud enough to be heard over the confusion of patients and their parents, and
the few office assistants and PTs in the office, “that maybe
it’s
snack time for everyone who needs to hang out for a little while.” The kids
would be occupied, and the parents could relax a little bit and wait for the
police to ask them about what they’d seen.

In the meantime, I already knew that I’d
be the one who would have to fill out all of the incident paperwork. The police
had their reports to fill out, and I had my own. I thought about Amie—about how
much pain she was probably in, about how afraid she probably was—and I knew I
couldn’t shirk the responsibility of making sure that the asshole parent who
had assaulted her was arrested.
That poor
little girl…
one of the other therapists was sitting with the asshole’s
daughter, talking to her calmly, offering her a packet of granola to snack on.
If the man had a wife, I’d probably need to call her and have her pick her
daughter up; if not, I’d have to coordinate with the police to get her
somewhere safe. All of the details began to pile up in my mind and I shook my
head. I was going to have to cancel on Patrick, as much as I hated to do it and
as much as I could really use the relaxation of a play.

I opened my desk drawer with a sigh and
took out my purse. I reached inside and fumbled around until my fingers closed
around my phone.
Of course. Of course on
the night I actually have a date, some asshole in the clinic decides to ruin
it.
I pushed my irritation aside and found Patrick’s number in my contacts
list.

“Hey, Mack—I didn’t expect to get a call
from you so soon!” I smiled wryly at the pleased sound in Patrick’s voice.

“I hate to do this to you, but I have to
take a rain check for tonight,” I said quickly. “If it were anything else, I’d
move heaven and earth to make it, but I’m going to be stuck here for the next
few hours.”

“What’s going on?” I looked over at the
man, and then out into the waiting room where the police were talking to the
lone front desk woman who remained in her post.

“There was an incident here a few minutes
ago; you remember that guy who came in with his daughter just before you and
Landon left?”

“No… I was too focused on you to notice
anyone else,” Patrick said. “What happened?”

“He blew up at my friend Amie and, to make
a long story short she’s on her way to the hospital. The cops just got here,
and I’m the senior PT on duty and on the scene—so I have to do all the
paperwork.”

“Oh shit! I hope Amie’s okay!”

“We think she might have a concussion.
She’s going to be on limited duty—at best—for a month or two.” I shook my head,
glancing over once again to the strong male PTs holding down the asshole that
had assaulted my friend. “But I’m going to have to file a police report and
fill out a bunch of forms and deal with a lot of other details. I’m just not
going to be able to get out of here in time to meet you for the play.”

“If you have to take care of business, of
course I understand,” Patrick said. “Take care of yourself, and stay out of the
way of that guy—they tend to get even more aggressive once the cops start
putting the squeeze on them.”

“I’ll do that,” I said, smiling in spite
of how awful I felt. “If you’re free in a day or two, I’d love to make it up to
you.”

“I look forward to it,” Patrick said, and
I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Cops are coming to the back,” I told him.
“I have to go.” Patrick said goodbye and I had my phone put away by the time
the cops made their way to the back.

“Who’s in charge back here?” One of the
officers asked me.

 
I stood
up from my desk and made my way quickly to the two police who’d showed up in
response to the call. Taking a deep breath, I introduced myself to them. “I’m
the senior PT on duty right now; Amie—the victim—was senior to me, but
obviously she is on the way to the hospital.”

“That the man involved?” The cop pointed
to the parent, still held down by two of the therapists.

“It is,” I confirmed.

“And it looks like you’ve kept most of the
people who witnessed the incident,” the second cop said, almost making it a
question.

“All but the other staff members who are
taking Amie to the hospital,” I told him. “You can catch up with them at the
hospital, right? I think they’re taking her to West Suburban.”

“We’ll find out where, and we’ll talk to
her once they’ve got her stabilized and able to have a chat with us,” the first
officer said. “Why don’t you have a seat? This will only take a few minutes,
and then we can give you what you need for your reports.” I nodded and sat
down.

It may have only taken a few minutes for
them to get my report on the incident, but it took a lot longer for them to
wander around the room, talking to the patients’ parents and the other members
of the staff who’d witnessed the attack. One or the other of the two cops stood
with the asshole father all the while, and once they’d cleared everyone to
leave, they started interrogating him—about what had happened, about whether he
had someone to take care of his daughter while they took him into custody.

Predictably, the dad started yelling once
it became clear to him that the police weren’t just going to let him walk away.
“You’re going to believe that bitch over me? I told you, she was putting my
daughter in danger!”

“Daddy, no she wasn’t,” his daughter said,
her voice shaking.

“Sir—you’re scaring your daughter right
now,” the cop said. “You need to calm yourself down. Now.” I shook my head,
thinking to myself that if the asshole had been capable of calming himself
down, the incident wouldn’t even have happened. The police finally got him to
admit that he had a wife, and I sprang into action, calling the poor woman to
come and get her daughter. Two more cops had arrived by then, and the source of
the terrible situation found himself escorted out of the office and then the
building, still yelling and shouting about his rights as a parent and cursing.

Charlotte sat with the man’s daughter as
we waited for her mom to show up, and I started working on my paperwork,
getting the details I needed from the two cops who’d responded to the situation
first. They were waiting for the man’s wife as well, and they were going to
explain about the arrest and what she could expect. I could only hope that the
whole stupid mess wouldn’t lose us a bunch of patients—not that I could blame
anyone who didn’t want to come in after something like that had happened. When
the asshole’s wife finally arrived, she snatched up her daughter and held her
tightly. She didn’t seem all that surprised that her husband had been arrested
for assault and battery. “If I promise that he’ll never come back—that I’ll
bring her in myself—can Dani keep coming? I don’t want to risk her missing out
on recovery time,” she said. I thought about it.

“I’ll have to talk to the office manager,
and to Amie,” I told the woman, feeling exhausted after all of the drama of the
situation, and after the fear that had boiled in me at how injured Amie had
been. “But your husband is absolutely no longer welcome in the building. I wish
it could be different, and I know that Amie won’t want to jeopardize Dani’s recovery
anymore than you do.” I took a deep breath. “If we do have to sever the
relationship, then we will provide you with a list of other physical therapy
clinics that your insurance will cover.”

“I appreciate it,” she said. She left
quickly after that, and I sat down at my desk, answering a few more questions
about the incident and giving the cops the details they would need to wrap up
the investigation. I thought about the date that I was missing, and knew that
no matter how much I wanted to be there, I was too tired—even if we could have
made it on time. When the police left, I finished the job of straightening up
and started gathering my things to go home. As I thought about the phone call
to Patrick, I wondered if he hadn’t maybe agreed to a rain check a little
easily. He hadn’t even asked if I was sure I wouldn’t be able to make it—or if
I wanted him to come over instead, maybe spend the night in.
It’s only the third date. You can’t expect
him to be that familiar with you and that attuned to you so soon.
I tried
not to think about it, but in the back of my mind I decided that if he didn’t
call later in the night to at least check up on me—or the next day or so to
reschedule—that I would just assume that it had been a nice try, and some good
sex, and leave it at that.

Chapter Eight - Patrick

“I’m glad everything worked out okay with
Amie,” I told Mackenzie, holding her hand tightly as we both glided together on
the ice. “Do you think she’ll be back at work soon?”

“A couple of weeks,” Mack said, smiling wryly.
“At that she hates the fact that she had to cut off from her other patients so
abruptly.” She shook her head. “I’ve taken on a couple, and some of the other
PTs have taken on the rest of them.”

I’d been worried when Mackenzie had called
me to cancel our date a few days before; the fact that one of the parents had
flown off the handle and started to attack one of the therapists was almost
unbelievable. I’d been on the point of asking her if she wanted me to come
back. I had already dropped Landon off with his aunt Mary for the night, and I
had thought at the time that maybe Mackenzie would appreciate the comfort; but
I had second-guessed myself.