Try - The Complete Romance Series (16 page)

“At least you’ll be surprised with
whatever he gets you,” Mackenzie pointed out with a little grin.

“I will be! That’s right!” I realized she
hadn’t exactly answered my question—or given me a response to my invitation.
“So do you think maybe you’d like to spend Christmas Eve, or Christmas day,
with me and Landon? I know it’s kind of a big day and we’ve only gone on four
dates, but it could be a lot of fun.” Mackenzie’s face twisted into a grimace.

“I wish I could,” she said, frowning. “My
family makes a huge deal about the holidays; they party it up from Christmas
Eve right up until the morning of New Year’s Day. It’s a really important thing
for us to get together.” Mackenzie laughed with a little bit of guilt and
bitterness in her voice. “Last year I had to spend a few days away from the
festivities; I was on the on-call and voluntary overtime lists.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding.

“So they’re putting a lot of pressure on
me to be there the whole time.”

“I totally understand,” I said, leaning in
to give her a quick kiss. “Family can be persistent.”

“My parents? Totally.” I chuckled again.

“Do they know you’re seeing someone?”
Mackenzie looked away and I saw her face light up with a blush.

“Not—not exactly,” she admitted. “I didn’t
want to tell them anything until I was sure that this was going to last, that
it would be serious. They pester me a lot about settling down with someone, you
know?”

“I can picture that,” I said. “So you’re
going to tell them when you get there, right? I’d hate to think you’re putting
up with them bothering you for a week where I can’t even help.”

“Well, if things get too bad, you can
count on me to text you and ask for sanctuary,” Mack told me. We were getting
closer to the entrance to the park.

“Or if you change your mind for whatever
reason,” I said with a shrug. I felt a little disappointed, but I could
understand family obligations. Landon and I both had an obligation to different
parts of my family and Joanne’s; I couldn’t exactly assume that Mack didn’t
have anything at all going on just because she didn’t have a kid and wasn’t
married.

But part of me wondered if she really did
want to spend the holiday with her family—who she had told me once or twice in
the few dates we’d been on had pressured her to date around for years—or if
instead she was using it as an excuse because she thought that a holiday
together was too intense, or because she was iffy about seeing me. I walked
Mackenzie to my car, holding her hand; I’d set Landon up with family members so
that I could hopefully enjoy the thrill of having sex with Mackenzie again, but
I had a lot of food for thought now that Mack had given me an excuse for not
coming over for the holidays. I told myself that she was just busy—a lot of
people were—and that I just had to be patient. But thinking about what Landon
wanted from me, and what I wanted for myself, it seemed to me that Mackenzie
might just not be all that interested in spending a holiday with an almost
stranger. I couldn’t blame her.

I took her straight to her apartment,
instead of driving her back to my place; it didn’t seem like the right
opportunity. I gave Mackenzie a long, hungry kiss, and then we were parting
ways, Mack going into the building and
me
watching to
make sure no one mugged her. By the time I was alone again, I was mostly
happy—but also a little bit worried. We’d have to talk soon.

PART 3

Chapter One - Mackenzie

“Got any Christmas plans, Mack?” I looked
up from the file in front of me on the computer; Charlotte, one of the other
therapists, had stopped at my desk on her way to the therapy area.

“Just going to be with my family, I
think,” I said with a shrug. I couldn’t tell her the little hope that I
harbored, even if most of the people in the office were now aware of the fact
that I was dating Patrick.

“You’re not going to hang with that tasty guy
and his son?” Charlotte clucked her tongue against her teeth, shaking her head.
“No better way to spend the holidays than an early wake-up by a kid, followed
by an afternoon of making love while the tyke plays with the new toys.” I
laughed.

“I’ll get the early wake-up either way,” I
told her. “I’ve got nieces and nephews.”

“Not the same,” Charlotte said, shaking
her head. “Not the same at all. But do what you will with your life, girl.” She
went on her way, back to the therapy area to clean up after her previous
patient’s session.

I went back to working on my files,
waiting for my next patient to arrive. I had reordered my schedule a little
bit; I’d come in about thirty minutes early, before the clinic opened, so that
I’d be able to leave thirty minutes early at the end of the day. Patrick had
hinted that our date was going to be somewhere relatively fancy that night, and
I wanted the extra time to prepare.

There was only a week and a half before
Christmas, and I’d gotten about half of my shopping done; I was still going
back and forth in my mind on the topic of whether I should get Patrick
something. Sometimes I thought that a little token gift wouldn’t be a bad
idea—something to show that we were dating, that I had faith in the
relationship, but not something huge and expensive. But then I always stopped
short of actually thinking of anything in particular, because I thought that
we’d only been dating a couple of weeks—not even a full month. If I bought him
a gift, he might think I was taking things more seriously than he was
comfortable with.
This is the real reason
you shouldn’t date patients’ parents, Mack: you don’t have the milestone of
meeting their kid to show you how serious things are.

I had started debating it in my head
again, going back and forth on the issue of whether a small gift would really
be all that much of an indication that I thought things were serious, when I
heard the buzz of my phone vibrating in my desk drawer. I opened the drawer and
took my phone out; flashing on the screen was Patrick’s name and number. “Hey!”
I said, keeping my voice as quiet as I could in spite of the excitement that
welled up at me just at the thought of him calling. “I was just thinking about
you.”

“My timing is excellent,” Patrick told me,
his voice dry. “I really hate to do this, Mack, but I have to cancel tonight.”
I frowned.

“Is something wrong with Landon? I can
come over and check him out if you want,” I suggested. “I mean—I don’t have to
go out somewhere.”

“I wish I could have you over, but I’m not
even going to be home,” Patrick said. “I got pulled into this stupid business
dinner thing. I’m on my way to pick up Landon and drop him off at the
babysitter’s place.”

“That sucks,” I said, feeling my stomach
give a lurch inside of me. I swallowed against the tightness that began to form
in my throat and blinked a few times to get rid of the tears that started to
form in my eyes.
It must be close to that
time of the month—I’ve never gotten this emotional over a guy canceling on me
before.
“I wish you could get out of it, but I’m not going to give you a
hard time,” I said, keeping my voice level by sheer force of will.

“If I’d had a little more notice I would
have had time to ask if you wanted to come with me,” Patrick said, sounding
regretful. I smiled weakly, trying to imagine what use I could possibly be to
Patrick at a business dinner.

“I’d probably just sit there and try to
look pretty,” I told him. “I don’t know if I’d give you any boost in
conversation.”

“Sitting there and looking beautiful would
be enough on its own,” Patrick said, and I could hear the warmth in his voice.
He sighed. “I really hate canceling on you so last minute. I’ll make it up to
you, I swear.” I shrugged, glancing around to make sure no one in the office
was obviously eavesdropping on me.

“I can’t really talk for long,” I told
Patrick. “If the office manager comes through and sees me on my phone she’ll
give me hell.”

“I figured as much,” Patrick said. “I just
didn’t want to leave you hanging or put it off until after you’d left for the
day.” He sighed again. “I wish I was seeing you tonight, Mack. I’m sorry I
can’t follow through with our plans.”

“It’s okay,” I said, making my voice
lighter than I felt. “These things happen. I’m sure you didn’t expect to get
pulled into something tonight. We’ll see each other in a couple of days at
Landon’s next appointment.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Patrick told
me. “If it wouldn’t be totally unprofessional I’d bring you the biggest bouquet
of flowers the florist shop has.” I laughed in spite of myself, picturing
Patrick in my mind trying to carry a huge bouquet into the office while Landon ran
circles around him.

“Bring the flowers to our next date,” I
suggested.

“I’ll do it! And I’ll come up with
something even better than my plans for tonight to give you double the date.” I
smiled in spite of how disappointed I felt and said goodbye to Patrick, hanging
up before I either got caught or stopped being able to cover up how upset I was
that I’d come to work early only to end up with no plans at the end of the day.
I put my phone back into the drawer and closed it, trying to think of things
that I could do when I got out of work thirty minutes early.
There’s always the Christmas shopping,
I
told myself, though it didn’t seem all that great a way to spend my evening.

“You staring off into space again?” I
looked up to see Amie carefully hobbling down the short hallway that led
between the waiting room and the therapy area.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I
stood up quickly, looking Amie up and down. “You’re still injured. You should
be resting.”

“You know as well as I do that getting up
and moving around within reason is the best thing someone can do during
recovery,” Amie told me. She took the chair next to my desk and sat down in it,
crossing her arms—one of which was in a cast—across her chest. “Besides,
someone’s got to keep an eye on the likes of you.” I rolled my eyes.

“Right, because you’ve done a great job of
that in the past,” I said, sitting back in my chair.

“I knew that you were going to date
Landon’s dear old dad before you even did,” Amie said, sticking her tongue out
at me. “I’d say that’s a decent track record.”

“Not true,” I said, grinning. “I had
already gone out on a date with Patrick when you suggested I should go out with
him.”

“You sneaky thing!” Amie looked at me in
shock for a long moment. She shook her head, laughing. “So how many dates have
you been on with him?” I shrugged.

“I’ve been on a few,” I said. I felt my
cheeks warming up with a blush. “I mean—it’s not really serious or anything, we
just go to dinner or go out and do something.”

“What’s been the best date so far?” I
grinned, unable to help myself.

“We went ice-skating together,” I said. “I
got to pick the restaurant we went to beforehand, so I took him to that Indian
place around the corner from here, and then we just went to the park and went
skating.”

“You are a cheap date, Mackie,” Amie said,
shaking her head in pretend disapproval. “It’s not like he’s broke! Have you
even been paying attention to his clothes? His kid’s clothes? He’s sending that
boy to one of the most expensive private schools in Chicago, and rolling in
here in designer suits.”

“I’m not going to try and make him spend a
ton of money on me,” I said sharply, scowling at Amie. “I just want to have a good
time with a nice guy, that’s it.”

“Tell me this: have you and he gone to bed
together?” I blushed even harder.

“A few times,” I said, looking away. “Not
that it’s any of your business.”

“It is so my business! If I don’t ask, who
else are you going to talk to about him? I’ve never seen you really share
anything with anyone else in this office, and god knows you don’t have that
many friends out of this place.”

“I have friends!” I glared at Amie, a
little hurt at her comment. “And I have siblings. I could talk to them.”

“Yeah, if you wanted them to start
planning your wedding after your first date you could,” Amie said with a grin.
“What’s he like in bed?” I looked around, trying to make sure that none of the
young patients—or their parents—were listening in.

“He’s great,” I said quietly. “Of course,
it’s been ages since I’ve been with anyone else, but…” I grinned, blushing
bright red. “He’s amazing in bed. I swear.”

“It’s probably been a while for him, too,”
Amie pointed out. “So it’s good that he’s able to take care of business.” She
smirked at me. “Does he go down on you?”

“Amie!” I looked around again, shocked at
how direct her questioning had become. I swallowed against the dry feeling of
impulsive fear in my throat. “Yes, he does sometimes. He’s good with his hands,
too.”

“Then I’m satisfied that this is an
excellent life choice,” Amie said, giving me a quick nod. “Even if it isn’t
serious and doesn’t go beyond seeing him every few days and having good sex,
I’m glad to hear you’re getting out there. I was starting to worry about you.”
She pulled herself up carefully, groaning in pain until I started to get up to
help her. “No—it’s okay. I just put off the pain pill until I could get back
home. I need to fill out paperwork, and I do not fancy trying to take the train
home high as a kite.” Amie patted my hand with her uninjured one and gave me
another grin. “One of these days if things do get a little more serious between
you and him, you should bring him on a double date with me and Travis.” I
rolled my eyes.

“That’s down the line,” I said. “I don’t
even know if things are going to last beyond the month.” I thought of the fact
that Patrick had canceled our date for that night; I didn’t say anything about
it to Amie—especially since she was on her way to the manager’s office to fill
out paperwork—but I couldn’t help but think that Patrick might have been able
to get out of the business dinner if he’d really wanted to. It just seemed too
convenient that he found out about the obligation a few hours before our date.
You’re being stupid,
I told myself.
You had to cancel a date with him before;
it’s only fair that you give him the benefit of the doubt on one cancelation.
Don’t get all paranoid before the relationship even gets serious.
I watched
Amie leave and went back to trying to decide how to spend my evening off, now
that I wasn’t going to be spending it with Patrick.

Chapter Two – Patrick

When Mackenzie bought my story about
having a business dinner to go to at the last minute I’d hoped that I’d feel
fine about it; after all, I hadn’t lied to her for any bad reason. The fact of
the matter was that I’d simply had too much to do, and I hadn’t been able to
justify spending the night out. Then too, I’d started to think that maybe she
wasn’t as into me as I’d originally thought. I’d played her comments about not
being sure she was marriage material anymore through my head until I’d psyched
myself out—something I wasn’t proud about, but I couldn’t do anything about it
after it was done. I figured that I’d get over it fast enough, or make up my
mind one way or the other.

But instead of making up my mind, or
feeling better about it after a day or two, I only felt worse. Mack had
believed my stupid lie; somehow the fact that she hadn’t even questioned it
made me feel like an even bigger tool. I was abusing her trust and we weren’t
even in a serious relationship together. I felt like an asshole, and when it
came time for Landon’s next appointment with Mack, I couldn’t bring myself to
go in with him. “Hey, bud,” I said when I pulled into the parking spot at the
Kid Care building. “Can you just tell Mack that I had to hang out and get some
work done in my car? I need to make a few phone calls.”

“Okay Dad,” Landon said, shrugging it off;
he had no idea of what an asshole I was being to a woman who was at least a
little bit interested in me, either. He went into the building while I watched
and I sat in the car, knowing I was being a coward and worse, stewing in the
disgusting juices of my own bad behavior.

I spent the two sessions after that the
very same way, feeling more and more like a cowardly asshole. I had convinced
myself that Mack wasn’t all that into me, but why should that matter? I could
still face her as my son’s physical therapist, couldn’t I? Or was I afraid that
she would look uninterested in me, that I’d see it plain as day on her face
whenever I went in with Landon? I hated the fact that I couldn’t bring myself
to just get through the interactions; I couldn’t even bring myself to send a
text message or call her to try and do what I could to keep the relationship
going. It was getting closer and closer to Christmas by the day—and closer to
the deadline that Landon had set in his bet with me of finding someone to be
his new mom.

Every time I sat in the car, waiting for
Landon to finish up his sessions, I thought about the dates I’d been on with
Mack. At the time, I’d thought that they had gone so well—each time we’d gone
out together I’d felt more and more like I was getting to know her better, and
that we were getting closer; right up until the most recent date we’d been on.
I thought about our first date, and how Mack had seemed a little on edge, a
little nervous. It had been so cute to see her blush, and I could picture it so
easily in my mind.

And then at the second date, when we’d
ended up in bed together; as much as I tried to fight the impulse to compare
Mack with Joanne in any way, shape, or form, I thought that the sex with her
might actually be better. I hated to think it—I hated to think of Joanne as
being better than Mack because it didn’t seem fair to Mackenzie to think that,
and I hated to think of Mack being better than Joanne, because it seemed to be
cheating the memory of a woman I loved.

Landon brought back the reports that
Mackenzie wrote out over the course of the few sessions I couldn’t bring myself
to attend, and the sight of her handwriting alone was enough to make my stomach
clench. Whether I wasn’t sure of her feelings or not, I was sure that my
feelings were way too strong for her. Every little scribble of her notes about
Landon’s progress and the next steps that I needed to take with my son was like
a silent accusation that I wasn’t holding up my end—even with the little
comments at the end that she hoped she would have an opportunity to talk to me again
soon, or that Landon was cuter than ever.

I told myself over and over again that I
needed to just bite the bullet and reschedule the date. If Mack really wasn’t
interested in me, I should hear it from her lips, and not just assume it. If
she
was
into me, then I needed to do
the right thing—for both of us—and talk to her about what an insecure jerk I
had been. But I couldn’t make myself do it, no matter how much of a coward I
felt like for avoiding her. I was an idiot, I knew it—but I couldn’t make myself
do the right thing and just confront the issue. I was too much out of practice
when it came to relationships, too scared. I didn’t want to have to deal with
my own feeling of disappointment, much less tell Landon that things just
weren’t going to work with Mack. I thought—somehow—that if I just kept avoiding
Mackenzie until the physical therapy sessions ended, it would just dissolve. I
thought on the other hand that I would eventually work up the nerve, and
everything would be all right again—but that moment didn’t seem to be coming.

There were only a few days left until
Christmas, and when Landon came back from his session, climbing clumsily into
the back seat of the car and asking me for help in getting the seat belt to
work with his booster seat, he handed me a little piece of paper—the latest
report on his progress.
Landon is doing
very well, making very steady gains in his recovery…I’d like to discuss his
progress in more detail with you one-on-one, when you’re not so busy…I believe
it may be almost time to move Landon down to three-per-week sessions, instead
of five-per-week.
The report was just as neutral as it had always been, and
it still stung to read it.

“Dad, are you mad at Mack for something?”

 
I
finished fastening Landon’s seatbelt and gave it a tug to make sure it would
stay where it was. “No, bud. Why do you think that?”

“Well, before you were always going into
the sessions with me,” Landon said, frowning. “You never had to do work in your
car before.”

“Things are busier than usual this close
to Christmas,” I told my son, starting the car and taking the gearshift out of
park. “We’re going to have a lot of days off together, and I want to make sure
that I don’t leave anything hanging before I get my vacation.”

“Oh!” Landon considered that. A little
flash of doubt—and concern—flickered through my brain.

“Did Mack ask about it?” I pulled out of
the parking spot and turned around, wanting to get away from the clinic as
quickly as possible without looking like I was running away.

“No,” Landon said simply. “I just wanted
to know.” As I drove away from the clinic, I found myself thinking once more
about Mack. I had felt so good with her—so at ease, so comfortable. It had been
totally unlike the random set-up dates that I’d had with women in the early
years of Landon’s life after Joanne passed away. I had had hopes that I could
bring Mack into my life with Landon in a way that I hadn’t thought possible
with any other woman that I’d met. I smiled to myself, thinking that even
Joanne would have liked Mack.

It had been a different time in my life
when I’d met Landon’s mother; I’d been younger, more willing to give into the
hope and the optimism. I hadn’t even really thought about getting married, one
way or the other. Things had just seemed to fall into place with Joanne at
first. Everything was smooth sailing, and everything happened naturally. We
dated for a couple of years, and then eventually we ended up living together
almost on accident—we figured out that we had an equal amount of our things at
each other’s places and decided that it just made sense to have them all in one
place. When I’d proposed to her, I had done it because it seemed like the right
thing to do, because I was convinced that we would spend the rest of our lives
together. And for Joanne it was true; she had spent the rest of her life with
me.

With Mack I wasn’t nearly as certain of
myself. Landon had told me, a few days before—just in passing, out of the
blue—that he wished he had a younger brother or sister. It was the day before
school let out for the winter break, and he’d seen his friends’ siblings in the
classroom, seen their presentations about what gifts they were giving their
family members. I’d told Landon that I’d have to find him a new mom before I
could make any kind of guarantees about siblings, and Mack’s words about not
being sure that she was marriage material, about not being sure if she would
ever be in a position to have kids, had floated up in my brain.

As I made my way to the house, I thought
about the wager that Landon had made with me, and the Christmas shopping I had
already done. It seemed to me that with the way things stood, I was probably
going to have to set aside a good bit of money after the beginning of the year
to buy my son a second Christmas. I wasn’t sure which aspect of it bothered me
more: the fact that I’d been dumb enough to wager almost a week’s pay on being
able to find Landon a new mom, the fact that I was almost certainly going to
have to play with the budget more than usual in the first month of the year, or
the fact that my first real try at finding a woman to bring into my life with
my son was failing so miserably.
Let’s go
with all three,
I thought sourly. I pushed the thought aside as Landon
asked whether or not we would be able to go sledding that weekend, telling
myself that there were more important things in the world to worry
about—including the basic needs my son had. I should be grateful that the
accident that had caused his injury hadn’t been worse, and I should be grateful
that he’d given me the kick in the ass to put myself out there once more.
Anything more than that was just gravy. If I couldn’t be happy with Mackenzie,
then I would find another woman who was a better fit, and I could pay up to my
son—and give him more toys than any kid could possibly play with—with good
grace.