Try - The Complete Romance Series (8 page)

“I thought that specialists couldn’t date
patients; you’re not treating me.” I looked around the office, grateful for the
fact that I was the only one there.

“I think…” I remembered Amie’s comments.
“I—it’s not that I don’t like you, Patrick.”

“If you like me, and I like you, then
what’s wrong with grabbing a coffee? I swear, I won’t push for anything more
than you want. I just thought…” he went quiet for a moment. “I wanted to do
something nice together.”

“Maybe?”

 
I
bit my bottom lip. I couldn’t deny that I found Patrick easy on the eyes—and he
was charming to boot. He obviously loved his son, and I put a lot of credence
on the way that parents treated their kids. “I don’t know, Patrick. I don’t
want to…to mess up the relationship between us.”

“It’s just coffee, Mackenzie,” Patrick
said again, his voice wheedling. “I swear if it’s weird and awkward and bad,
I’ll never pester you about it again.”

“When would you want to go out?” I looked
at the calendar on my desk; it was empty, of course—save for the holidays when
I would be with my family, I didn’t have any plans for the month. I hadn’t had
any solid plans for almost half a year. The calendar really only ever saw
professional stuff—never anything personal. Sometimes I wondered why I even had
it.

“How about tomorrow night? It’s the start
of the weekend, we could get started in style.”

“Let me check,” I said.
I’ll be damned if I let him know I have no
social life. At least, I’m not letting him know right away.
I flipped
through some papers on my desk, blushing at the silliness of what I was doing.
I was even more grateful than before that there was no one in the office with
me. “I think I can make tomorrow night,” I said finally. “I should be able to
get out by five?”

“I can give you until six-thirty, that way
you have some time to get changed and all that.” I smiled wryly to myself,
thinking that it was nice of him—but also that he apparently didn’t want to be
seen with me in scrubs.
Can you blame
him? It’s a date, not a consult.

“Where do you want to meet?”

“How about La Colombe? Can you make it
there?”

I considered. It wasn’t super close to
where I lived, but in Chicago nothing was ever super far.

“I think I can manage to make it there by
six-thirty,” I said, smiling in spite of all the apprehension I felt. My skin
tingled and my cheeks were warm, and I knew that even if I’d told Patrick that
it wasn’t appropriate for me to go on a date with him, I was glad he’d asked. I
would do whatever it took to make it to our date. “I’ll see you tomorrow night
then,” I said. “I’m actually just about to leave the office, and if I wait too
much longer, I’ll freeze my butt off when I do walk outside.”

“Don’t let me hold you back, then,”
Patrick said quickly. “I’m so glad I’ll get to see you tomorrow night. Get home
safely Mackenzie.” I told him goodbye and hung up the phone; I didn’t think
that I’d be cold once I stepped outside, no matter how the temperature had dropped
after the sun went down. I was too warm on the inside to care.

Chapter Ten – Patrick

The sidewalks were full of people as I
walked up to La Colombe. I’d forgotten that the time of night that I’d
suggested meeting up with Mackenzie was the time when everyone was doing their
Christmas shopping and taking family members out and about in the city. It had
taken me a full fifteen minutes to find a parking spot, and I had been out of
my mind thinking that I was going to be late to meet with her; not the impression
I wanted to make.

I hadn’t exactly hidden what I was doing
from Landon when I went home to get ready and drop him off at his grandparents’
house; I told him that I was going to be having coffee with Mackenzie, and he’d
asked if we were going to talk about him. “Probably a little bit, but I really
just want to spend some time getting to know her.”

“She’s nice,” Landon had said. “Are you
going to kiss her?”

“I don’t know yet, shrimp. If she wants me
to kiss her, then maybe.” Landon had turned to look at his Christmas list, up
on the fridge. “Your Granny and Pop are going to take you to see Santa while
I’m hanging out with Mackenzie—that’ll be fun.”

“It will,” Landon had agreed. “Are they
going to get my picture taken with him?”

“I hope so!” I’d made sure that Landon had
his toys and his warm clothes, and hurried him off to my in-laws’ house to
spend a few hours. I hadn’t told them that I was going on a date, but I knew
that Landon would probably drop the dime on me. I didn’t think that Bill and
Sherry would mind; after all, it had been five years since I’d lost Joanne, and
I hadn’t dated anyone since then. They knew that I’d never bring anyone into
Landon’s life who I didn’t know for sure would be good for him.

As I got closer to the café, I saw that it
was packed and my heart sunk. It wouldn’t be easy to talk to Mackenzie with the
dining room so busy, and I wanted to have as much of a chance as possible to
get to know her—and for her to get to know me. I could get where she was coming
from about the issue of going on a date with a patient’s parent, but I hoped
that I could change her mind. I thought about Landon’s wager as I navigated
around some gawking pedestrians and got to the front door of the café.

I stepped into La Colombe and looked around.
Oh shit. Are you even going to be able to
recognize her in regular clothes?
For a second I almost panicked, and then
I thought of the fact that I had her phone number; if I couldn’t find her, I’d
text her and ask her if she’d arrived—and then I’d figure out where she was. I
looked over the crowd of people in the café slowly, looking for Mackenzie’s
face in the swarms of people. Everyone was moving around—of course they
were—but it made it harder to spot any individual person.

Just when I would have grabbed my phone
out of my pocket to text her, I spotted Mackenzie sitting at one of the tables.
Her cheeks were still a little pink from the cold outside, or maybe she was
anxious as I was; she looked somehow softer, sweeter away from the office, her
hair down around her face. Since she was sitting down I couldn’t see all of her
body, but she’d taken her coat off, and the sweater she was wearing fit her
like a glove—much better than the scrubs I’d seen her in during the sessions.

I made my way to her through the crowd,
sidestepping and dodging people carrying big, hot coffees and hoping that I
wasn’t running late. Finally I arrived at the table and she looked up, almost
startled. “Oh! Hi, Patrick,” she said, and the pink-red flush in her cheeks
deepened, spreading down onto the part of her chest that I could see at the
neck of her sweater.

“You look beautiful,” I told her, smiling
down into her face. Mackenzie stood up quickly and I gave her a quick hug,
barely pressing my cheek against hers. The touch of her skin on mind sent a hot
jolt through me—a tingle that worked down my spine, something I hadn’t felt in
years.

“You look good yourself,” Mackenzie said,
stepping back and taking her seat once more.

“Can I get you a coffee? Or do you want something
else?” I glanced around; there was a line at the register but it wasn’t too
bad.

“Coffee is fine,” Mackenzie said, smiling
a little nervously.

“Then I will be right back,” I said. I
gave her a pretend stern look. “Don’t run away on me now—I spotted you, so I
know you’re here, and I’ll know if you run away.”

“I won’t run away,” Mackenzie said, her
smile warming up a bit. “I’ll be right here.”

I stepped into the line and tried not to
fidget as I waited for the people ahead of me to put in their orders.
Get it over with and you can sit down with
her for an hour or more. You won’t have to get up again.
I’d never been
close enough to Mackenzie to smell her, and of course it’s not like I go around
sniffing people; but when she’d hugged me, I’d caught a whiff of her soap and
shampoo, and maybe a hint of perfume. Mack smelled sweet and warm, just like
I’d thought she might, and I could feel that while she was strong, she was
soft, too—in all the right places.

The line moved forward bit by bit and I
lost myself in thought for a minute, wondering if things were just going to be
awkward, or of Mackenzie was going to actually give the date a real chance. The
fact that she’d gone to the trouble of getting cleaned up—and I thought she
might have put on makeup, too—said that at least she had invested some thought
in meeting with me.

Finally I got to the registers and put in
my order for two regular coffees. I realized I hadn’t asked Mackenzie how she
took her coffee; I told the woman behind the register to leave room in one of
the cups, just in case. I waited off to the side, and glanced at Mackenzie to
make sure that she was still there—and not terribly bored. I grabbed the two
coffees and made my way back to the table, being as careful as the crowd around
me would let me be; the last thing I needed was to spill coffee all over myself
or someone else because I was hurrying.

“I didn’t know if you take cream and sugar
or not,” I explained to Mackenzie as I set our coffees down on the table. I
took my coat off quickly and draped it over the back of the other chair, across
from where Mackenzie sat.

“I can get it—probably better to do it
myself anyway,” Mackenzie said, giving me a quick smile. She stood and I had
the pleasure of seeing that she was wearing jeans—and they fit her like a
glove. As she walked past me, I turned my head just a little bit and caught
sight of the shape of her ass; I looked away just as quickly, turning my
attention onto my coffee, warming my hands on my cup.
Do
not
let her catch you
doing that.
The view was great, and I had at least a dozen more reasons to
hope that things would go well on this first date. I definitely wanted to see
what she looked like naked.
Take your
time. Don’t rush things. She’s probably not the kind of woman who puts out
until the third date—and that’s what you want, isn’t it?

Then Mackenzie was back at the table,
sitting down and taking a sip of her coffee. “You know,” she said, smiling a
little, “I think this is the first real date I’ve been on in probably about a
year.”

“Full disclosure: it’s been about five
years for me,” I admitted. “I went on a few blind dates a couple of years ago,
but they just…” I shrugged. “One of them I ended up pretending that Landon’s
grandparents had texted me to let me know he’d somehow gotten food poisoning.”

“Oh no!” Mackenzie laughed. “That must’ve
been absolutely the worst date.”

“She was a smoker, and insisted that it
didn’t harm a kid to be around it,” I said, shaking my head in disgust. “She
also wanted to know why I didn’t just send Landon off to a boarding school.”

“I can see why you’d cut the date short
then,” Mackenzie said. I took a sip of my own coffee and something relaxed inside
of me.

“So you seem really dedicated to your
job—I almost couldn’t believe I’d caught you at work yesterday.”

“That’s actually why I’ve been without a
date for so long,” Mackenzie said, blushing once more. “I’m so involved in my
career that I sort of just…let dating fall by the wayside.” Mackenzie giggled a
little bit—it sounded amazing to my ears, like a bell. “If you hadn’t asked me
out, I’d probably not have another date until like…April or something.”

“I know that feeling,” I said, nodding.
“Between Landon and my job, it’s hard to find time to devote to another
relationship.” A look like concern flickered across Mackenzie’s face. “I’m
ready to jump back into the dating pool, though,” I said quickly. “I feel like
it’s time. Landon is getting older, more independent.”

“He seems to be really independent
already,” Mackenzie said.

“Oh he is,” I said, thinking of my son.
“He wants to do everything himself anymore—even things he’s too small to do.”
Mackenzie nodded, smiling, and I thought to myself that there was nothing more
gorgeous on the planet than the sight of her smile.

“I read in the file that he broke the leg
playing soccer?”

“Yep,” I shook my head. “One of the
scariest moments of my life. He was a trooper though—barely even cried on the
way to the hospital.”

“How long have you been taking care of him
by yourself?” Mackenzie took another quick sip of her coffee.

“Pretty much his whole life,” I told her.
“His mother died when he was only a few months old. Cancer.” Mackenzie’s big,
bright eyes were full of sympathy for me. “Let’s talk about something else—I
don’t want to dwell.”

We chatted for over an hour, comparing our
jobs, and talking about our childhoods. I learned that Mackenzie had grown up a
little outside of the city, that her parents still lived in the same house
she’d grown up in; I told her about going to college in California, and getting
my degree, and about how Landon and I had moved back to the city after my wife
had passed away.

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I took
it out quickly, worried it might be about Landon; instead of an emergency call
from his grandparents, it was the alarm I’d set to make sure I got back to
their place in time to pick Landon up. “I’m so sorry,” I said, standing up.
“But Landon’s at my in-laws’ place, and they can’t keep him overnight. I have
to go get him.” Mackenzie nodded her understanding and stood, finishing off her
coffee.

“I should head home and put together some
dinner for myself anyway,” she said, giving me another one of those beautiful
smiles. “I had a really great time talking to you, Patrick.”

“Can I walk you to your car?” Mackenzie
hesitated a moment before nodding. We dropped our empty cups off at the pick-up
station and left the café together.

“I’m parked a couple of blocks down,”
Mackenzie said, looking almost embarrassed. “It was impossible to find anything
closer.”

“I know—I was going around in circles for
fifteen minutes to find a spot,” I told her. I walked at her side for a few
steps and then, on an impulse, I reached out and took her hand in mine.
Mackenzie stumbled slightly in surprise, but she gave my hand a quick squeeze
and we continued up the street to where she was parked.

“Here I am,” Mackenzie told me. She drove
a beat up old sedan; just what I would have expected for a woman who worked a
job that covered her normal expenses with only a little bit left over, a
responsible person who didn’t live outside of her income. I saw her take a deep
breath and her hand moved in mine. “I had a really good time,” she said,
looking up at me nervously.

“Me too,” I told her. I looked into her
eyes for a moment and made a decision; I didn’t know for sure if she wanted me
to kiss her—but I knew that I would know in a heartbeat if I’d read the signs
wrong. I leaned in and brushed my lips against hers. Mackenzie tensed against
me for just an instant, but then she relaxed. I deepened the kiss, wrapping my
arms around her, giving her plenty of opportunity to push me away or back off
or tell me to stop.

Instead of pulling away, Mackenzie pressed
her body against mine, and a hot jolt of electricity shot through me at the
feeling of her curves crushed against my body. I darted my tongue out and she
opened her mouth, letting me in. In a matter of a few minutes I would never
have believed it was cold outside; we were heating up second by second. My
hands started to wander a bit on Mackenzie’s body and I kissed her more and
more hungrily, and in a matter of moments I had her up against the car door.

I broke away from her finally; I could
feel the heat pooling in my groin, my cock hardening like a metal rod. “I have
to go,” I said, giving Mackenzie one last, quick kiss. “Landon.” She nodded,
looking up at me breathlessly.

“I understand,” she said.

I smiled. “Can I see you again soon?”

Mackenzie nodded. “I’ve got a day off in a
few days; we could go out the night before.”

“That sounds good,” I said, smiling down
at her. “I’ll call you tomorrow to firm up the details.” I gave her one last
kiss and then let her go, stepping back. It felt like I had a hot stone in my
pants as I walked back towards my car; Mackenzie had felt so good and so right
pressed up against me. I couldn’t wait to see her again—and maybe our next date
I would hedge my bets and make sure Landon could stay the night outside of the
house. I watched Mackenzie pull out of the parking spot and finished heading to
my own car, trying to clear my head enough to go pick up my son.

PART 2

Chapter One - Mackenzie

For a few days after my first date with
Patrick, I still couldn’t quite keep the smile off of my face. It had been ages
since I’d actually gone on a date and even longer since I’d had a good date. When
I went into work the day after, everyone commented on my good mood; of course I
couldn’t tell them anything about it—dating a patient’s parent isn’t against
the law or anything, but it isn’t exactly ethical. I had more patience than
ever with the kids who came in, and I could even look forward to my family’s
holiday get-together with something like calm.
If nothing else, at least I can tell them that I’ve been on a date
recently,
I thought as I walked into work a couple of mornings later. I was
as professional as ever with Patrick and with Landon when they came in, which
I’d been a little worried about—but Patrick was the same as ever: focused on
Landon, talking to me about his son’s progress.

I was looking forward to my next date with
Patrick so much more than I thought. When he’d first asked me out, I had been
nervous—that I’d say something stupid, or that he’d turn out to be a jerk, or
that things would get awkward—but when he’d kissed me I’d really felt it.
I wonder how many dates before we can sleep
together?
It wasn’t just up to me; it was up to him as
well. With a child, Patrick would have to be careful about how quickly he got
serious with someone. He couldn’t risk bringing someone into Landon’s life who
wouldn’t be a good influence. Even though I was Landon’s physical therapist, I
understood that Patrick would have to be sure about how I would interact with
Landon in a different part of his life.

“Girl, you have been distracted for days,”
Amie commented. “Can’t you hear Charlotte paging you?” I blushed and answered
the phone. It was a call from another patient’s mother, to ask if I thought
that her daughter would be ready to go back to ballet in three weeks when the
new program started. I told her that we’d have to see at her daughter’s next
appointment if her recovery had been enough to allow for it, and that all on
its own reminded me of Landon and all his progress—which reminded me of
Patrick.

I went back to my work, throwing myself
into a session with a seven-year-old girl who had broken both arms in a
tree-climbing accident and needed to regain muscle mass after the long period
waiting for the bones to heal. As long as I was working with an actual patient,
I was able to focus on my work; I would hate myself if I ever let anyone
distract me from the sessions themselves. I took her through the exercises,
cheering her on and encouraging her about how far she had come, and talked to
her Mom and Dad who were both watching her work with me. “She’s doing really,
really well.”

“Do you think she’s going to make a full
recovery?”

“She’s going to need time,” I cautioned
them, “but she’s young, and the breaks themselves didn’t do very much damage at
all to her muscles. If we work hard then Annie will absolutely make a full
recovery and fingers crossed, it’ll be like it never happened.” I did a quick
evaluation of her strength and coordination—at such a young age, long periods
of time where the muscles are immobile can slow down normal development—and
sent her on her way with her parents, a little sweaty but grinning from ear to
ear.

After Annie, there was a lull between
sessions; I’d had a patient cancel on me while I was in the session. It
irritated me whenever parents would call at the last minute to cancel, but I
know that things come up, and they can’t always be predicted. I went back to my
desk and pulled up the endless paperwork that I never quite seemed to get done
and decided to work on that. Amie had made a run to the café a block away from
the office, so I had a hot drink waiting for me, and I sipped it while I called
up the files that needed updating.

There wasn’t much of anything out of the
ordinary going on with any of my patients; that of course meant that their
files were starting to get more than a little bit boring to update. I started
typing in my notes, based on the papers I’d filled out during their sessions,
and my mind began to wander while I worked. I knew I shouldn’t give into the
impulse to daydream, but I couldn’t help myself.

I thought about my date with Patrick,
remembering every little detail of our conversation, the way the coffee had
tasted, the way he’d looked. I had to think that it wouldn’t be all that normal
for someone like Patrick—good-looking, pretty wealthy, and working in such a
prized field—to even notice someone like me, much less want to go on a real
date with me.
I wonder where he’s going
to take me next,
I thought, remembering that I’d agreed to a second date. I
bit my bottom lip and felt my cheeks warming up as I remembered the kiss at the
end of the night, the way that Patrick had seemed to be on the point of
asking—begging—me to come home with him. It was a good feeling. It had been
years since I’d felt like I had something special, like I could drive a man
wild. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Patrick had to pick Landon up from
his grandparents’ house, I was pretty sure that he would have gotten to third
base—so to speak—really easily, and probably would have invited me back to his
house.

Maybe for our second date, he would plan
ahead to have Landon spend the night somewhere—or maybe he’d have a babysitter
set to watch his son until the early hours of the morning. Maybe I’d invite him
back to my place, or he’d invite me back to his. I shivered; it had been a long
time since I’d been with anyone. I was a little nervous, but I let myself slip
into the little fantasy anyway. I imagined that Patrick took me out to a nice
dinner—a step up from our first date, but nowhere too fancy, nowhere I’d feel
uncomfortable or underdressed in my good clothes. I’d had time to do my hair
and makeup, and I looked amazing—in fact, Patrick told me just that.

In my little fantasy, the dinner went just
as well as coffee had gone a couple of days before, and we were laughing and
talking, but I could feel the tension building up inside of me. We left the
restaurant together and Patrick suggested that I could ride in his car; he’d
bring me back to where I’d parked later. “Besides, it doesn’t make sense to
take two cars to one destination, right?” I nodded and he kissed me again, just
like he had on our first date together. My heart pounded in my chest as Patrick
deepened the kiss moment by moment, his hands beginning to wander over me. I
was pressed against the car, Patrick’s body against mine, his hands tickling
and caressing me as we stood there.

Patrick broke away from me, pulling back
and looking down into my eyes. “You’re sure you want to come home with me?” I
nodded, too breathless and turned on to even think about turning him down. I
had wanted to go home with him even on our first date—only his need to make
sure Landon was safe and taken care of had prevented us from going through with
it then. I got into his car—since I didn’t really know what he drove, I just
imagined a nice SUV—and then we were at his house, tumbling into the bedroom
together, going at each other like a couple of animals. I imagined taking off
his suit bit by bit, piece by piece; I imagined Patrick fumbling to find the
zipper on my dress. My heart beat faster and faster while we stripped each
other’s clothes off and touched each other everywhere.

Somewhere along the way, we fell into bed
together and all I cared about was the fact that I could feel Patrick’s skin
against mine, that I could feel the hard ridge of his cock rubbing against me
through the thin fabric of his underwear. I shivered, imagining him slipping
one hand between my legs, stroking and rubbing me while I lay underneath him,
absolutely turned on. I felt hot all over, tingling from head to toe, and all I
could think of was that I wanted more—I wanted to feel him inside me, wanted to
feel him moving with me.