Bosom Buddies (5 page)

“Your strength will come back,” Allie assured her.

“Not soon enough for me.” Disgust tinged Anne’s voice.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Allie said, pulling a chair next to the bed. “Dr. Johns said he hoped you’d be out of here soon, and Ian mentioned that your place has stairs and so does his. A two-story apartment complex doesn’t need an elevator, so that’s no help. So, what are you going to do?”

“I just don’t know.” There was worry in Anne’s eyes.

“I think you and Ryane should stay with me,” Allie said.

Anne shook her head. “I couldn’t.”

“Why not?” Allie knew it was a viable idea. She had a spare room just sitting there.

“Well, think of the imposition.”

“Oh, yeah, it would be terrible. I mean, I’d get to cuddle Ryane all I want and you’d be there to take over the messy diapers.” She grinned at her own humor.

Anne chuckled. “Do you ever take no for an answer?”

“No.” Allie grinned. “I don’t know if Ian told you, but I was raised by three older brothers. I learned early that it’s best to hear only what you want to hear. And I don’t want to hear no.”

“But, my place . . .”

“Ian and I could pack it up, move your furniture into storage, and you could have my spare room until you’re literally back on your feet.”

“I don’t understand you, Allie.”

Allie indulged herself and gave Anne’s hand a quick squeeze. “Seriously, you’d be doing me a favor. I’m new in town and used to having a lot of family around. My one friend in town is newly married so she’s pretty much occupied. It’s too quiet at my place. You and Ryane would actually be doing me a favor.”

Anne chuckled. “Yeah, some favor.”

“Is that a yes or a no?” Allie said with a grin, knowing she’d won.

“I might not understand you, but I like you, and not just for what you’re doing for us. I’m not a fool—the answer’s yes. And as long as you feel I’m doing you a favor”—Anne’s grin said she didn’t believe a word of it—“maybe you’d think about doing me one. Well, maybe two.”

“Shoot.”

“First, I was hoping you’d consider being Ryane’s godmother. You’ve stepped into our lives like some kind of fairy godmother, and I thought it might be nice to make it all official.”

“That’s not a favor, that’s an honor,” Allie assured her.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes.” Both women laughed.

“And favor number two is I’d like you to consider me a friend. Ian only grunted when I mentioned you yesterday, and being a well-versed grunt interpreter, I figure there’s something going on. If you’d like to talk . . .” She left the offer hanging.

“When I’m ready to talk about Ian, or about anything, you’ll be one of the first people I come to. I like you too, Anne.”

“Good. Just know I’m here.” She looked at the bump under the cover that was her injured leg. “And I don’t think I’ll be going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Sooner than you think, you’ll be up and about.”

“Promise?” Anne asked.

“Promise.”

“What are we promising?” Ian asked as he walked into the room.

They hadn’t really talked since Monday. They’d handed off Ryane, only exchanging pertinent information and the most superficial pleasantries.

Before Anne could answer, Allie blurted out, “We just decided to become roommates.”

Ian’s smile faded. “Anne and I have truly appreciated all your help, but we’re more than capable of making arrangements.”

Allie knew a gauntlet when she saw one and was quick to pick it up. “I know all about the oh-so-self-sufficient Ian Thomas Ryan, and you’re not the one I’m asking to be my roommate. If my presence insults your sensibilities so much, then feel free to visit Anne and the baby when I’m at work. Or, better yet, let me know when your regal presence will be there and I’ll make sure mine isn’t.” She stormed toward the door. “And since you’re here, I’m off to work. When Anne’s done, you can take Ryane.”

Her parting line set the stage for her grand exit, and she opened the door, made it a couple feet down the hall, and ran into Nurse Mary Sunshine.

“Problems?” the woman asked, the smile on her face indicating she hoped there were.

Allie just glared at the woman.

“I hope there are,” Mary said. “With all the problems you caused Dr. Neighbors and his poor wife, well, you deserve everything you get and more.”

Ian walked down the hall and over to the unpleasant woman. “I’d like the name of your supervisor.”

“What on earth have I done?” Mary said, the mantle of the self-righteous draped over her like a misbegotten banner.

“Behaved in a highly unprofessional way.”

“I never—”

“I’m sure that’s half your problem,” Ian said. “And spewing libelous insults at a fellow employee certainly qualifies as unprofessional in my book. You can be sure I’ll be telling your supervisor all about it.” He dismissed the woman with a nod.

“And you,” he said to Allie.

“Ah, my white knight feels the need to shoot a few barbs my way as well?” Pulling herself together, she met his glare with one of her own. “I don’t answer to you, Ian. And asking Anne to room with me had nothing—not one thing in the world—to do with you. I’m sorry I didn’t talk to you about it, but you might recall, we haven’t been really talking about anything the last few days.”

“About that . . .”

“Oh, never mind. You can join everyone else who has already tried and convicted me. I did date a married man and his dear wife did have a slight breakdown. I take responsibility for it.”

“Did you really not know he was married?” Ian asked.

“No.” He’d been handsome and charming. She’d been alone in a new city.

“You didn’t ask anyone?”

“He wanted to keep our seeing each other private. Hospital gossip and all that. I was new, he was established, and he didn’t want anyone to interfere. It sounded perfectly logical when he said it, but I should have checked. It’s my fault.”

Ian’s arm slipped around her shoulders.

Allie shrugged it off. “I don’t want your pity and I don’t need your forgiveness. If I want forgiveness, I’ll go confess my sins to my priest.”

“You are one of the strongest women I know, one of the last I’d pity. That was comfort . . . more for me than for you. And as for forgiveness, you didn’t do anything that requires it. I did. I jumped to conclusions and I’m sorry.”

She sighed. “Don’t be nice. The next thing you know you might smile and, oh, Ian, if that happens, you might do irreparable damage. I mean, your face could crack. And what if smiling leads to laughing? Perish the thought. You might actually break something.”

“You’ve got some mouth on you, lady.” Ian studied that mouth, and the urge to cover it with his own was almost overwhelming.

He wasn’t sure why. Allie wasn’t his type. His type was generally serious, like-minded women. He had never gone for women who collected stray people like others might collect stamps—women who would go to a stranger’s apartment and just take over. And he certainly didn’t go for women who kept huge stuffed pink elephants in their bedrooms.

He’d been collecting Ryane’s things from the room yesterday and had noticed it.

No, women who kept pink elephants in their rooms weren’t the type to attract him.

“Don’t you have to work?” he asked gruffly.

She nodded. “Yep. See you tomorrow. And, I told Anne already, but I’ll tell you as well, Dr. Johns said Ryane could come in a couple times a day, so you might want to bring her back later.”

“Sure,” he said.

“Oh, and Ian?” she asked, a wicked grin on her face.

“What?” he asked. She had something up her sleeve and Ian found himself more curious than worried.

“Make sure you stop at the nurses’ station and pick up all the breast milk Anne’s been expressing. Any drugs she’s still taking are compatible with breastfeeding, so you’ll want to start using the breast milk first and then formula if there’s not enough.”

Ian’s face felt warm. He’d just about gotten used to seeing Anne nurse. She was discreet, after all, and it wasn’t as if he could see anything.

But using her milk in a bottle? What if some splashed?

“I could save it for the feedings you have,” he said hopefully.

Allie’s laugh told him he was out of luck. “You’ll get used to it, big guy. See you tomorrow.”

Ian walked back to Anne’s room, muttering to himself. See what she did to him? Ian Ryan wasn’t the type to walk around talking to himself. He was in control. He didn’t laugh and he didn’t blush.

At least he hadn’t until he’d met Alexandra McGraw.

Thinking of Allie made him think of the man who’d used her. Dr. Neighbors.

Suddenly Ian felt a bit ill.

Yes, he was sure he was coming down with something. Something that would indeed indicate a need to visit a doctor. Namely Dr. Neighbors.

Ian smiled. It was his familiar cold smile, not the one Allie insisted on forcing him to use. He was comfortable dealing with corporate idiots. Dealing with medical ones couldn’t be much different.

C
HAPTER FIVE

“Dr. Neighbors?” Ian’s smile was pasted to his face.

“Mr. Ryan, what seems to be the problem?” said the centerfold-good-looks doctor. He glanced at the chart in his hand and frowned.

“I didn’t tell the nurse for the chart because it is sort of personal,” Ian said. If the doctor had known him better, he would have seen the wolfish gleam in his eyes. Instead of looking nervous, the man just nodded encouragingly.

Ian continued, “I realize you’re a general practitioner, but I’m hoping you can help me out.”

“Maybe, if you tell me what the problem is.” The doctor’s perfect smile flashed whitely.

“Well, it’s sort of embarrassing.”

The man looked sympathetic. “I’m a doctor, there’s nothing you can tell me I haven’t heard before.”

Ian looked at the man Allie had dated.

What had she been thinking?

The doctor was a shark. Ian could see it clear enough.

That was Allie’s problem. She only saw the good in people. She wouldn’t know a shark from a goldfish.

Three brothers might have raised her, but they hadn’t done such a hot job of seeing to it that she was prepared for the real world. New mothers and babies, maybe. Sharks like this man, never.

“I’m having a great deal of pain,” Ian offered.

“Where?” Dr. Neighbors asked, professional concern flashing on his way-too-pretty face.

Ian remained silent a moment and then said, “In my, well, posterior. Excuse my graphic language, but there it is. I’ve got this giant pain in my ass.”

The doctor’s face clouded. “Maybe you should see a proctologist? I could recommend one.”

Ian stood, towering over the doctor, who suddenly had the good sense to look nervous.

“I really think you’d better find someone who’s better able to help you.” The good doctor fidgeted with the chart, suddenly looking less like a shark and more like a trout grabbing at the oh-so-tasty bait Ian was offering.

“Oh, I think I’ve found who I was looking for.” He smiled another cold smile and moved menacingly closer.

“What are you talking about?” the doctor stuttered.

“That pain in the backside I mentioned? Well, I’m looking at it. You see, men who cheat on their wives make me sick, and ones who would prey on someone as guileless as Allie McGraw, well, that type of man is the hemorrhoid on the backside of life.” Ian took another step forward, which placed him right in front of the doctor.

The man tried to pull himself together but didn’t do an impressive job of it. “Now, see here, my private life is none of your concern.”

Ian nodded. “I’d have to agree with that, but Allie’s is.”

“Who are you? One of those brothers she’s so proud of?” the man said with a sneer in his voice, indicating he didn’t think much of the brothers who had raised Allie.

That they’d managed to keep her safe and allowed her to grow into the woman she was made Ian think he’d probably like them very much. “Worse. I’m the man who’s in her life now, and I don’t take kindly to all the bad press she’s getting around the hospital.”

“And what are you going to do about it?” the doctor asked. It might have been his attempt at a sneer, but it was a pathetic attempt. Almost as pathetic as the man himself.

“Now, you see, Dr. Neighbors, I’m a businessman. It took a lot of effort to cultivate this cool exterior. Before I managed it, I was sort of a hood, the type of man who enjoyed a good fight. But as a businessman, I use my wits instead of my fists. Though, a part of me misses the old days when any difficulty could be solved by planting my fist in someone’s face.” He looked closer, as if seeing Dr. Neighbors’s face for the first time.

“And it would be a shame to mess up such a pretty-boy face. So, here are our choices as I see them. The hood part of me, the one I’ve worked so hard to get rid of, would like nothing better than to beat the
pretty boy
right out of you. The more civilized part prefers to negotiate.”

“How?” the man squeaked.

“You will go to the hospital and you will see to it that everyone knows you pursued Allie and that she had no idea you were married. I’m there often enough and have seen how people treat her, so I’ll know if you’ve done a good job. I don’t want her to be the subject of any more murmured innuendoes or outright insults. If you don’t take care of it, then not only will I come back and let that grittier side of me out, I’ll make a little call to those brothers who Allie is so proud of.”

The man visibly swallowed hard. “You wouldn’t.”

Ian smiled a smile that was known to make his business associates nervous. “Oh, I would. And I’m betting you don’t know that Dr. Sawyer’s son-in-law is a client of mine. We just played eighteen holes a couple weeks ago. I wonder what the good doctor would have to say about someone on his staff carrying on the way you have?”

“I-I,” the man stuttered.

Ian turned and walked to the door. “I’ll expect the information to be duly spread by the end of the week. After that, one more look, one more comment, one more insult made in Allie’s direction, and I’ll be making another appointment. And after I’ve kept it, you might want to consider making an appointment of your own. You also might want to consider sending out your résumé.”

“See here, you can’t walk into my office and threaten me,” Dr. Neighbors yelled.

Ian turned at the door and smiled. “It wasn’t a threat, it was a promise,” he said and walked down the hall. He whistled tonelessly. He felt much better.

Yes, sometimes solving things as a gentleman felt good. But he suspected plowing his fist into the little worm’s face would have felt better.

Ian sighed.

Sometimes being a responsible grown-up was a trial.

“What did you do?” Allie’s bosom would be heaving in indignation if she had enough to heave. Her chest didn’t even jiggle when she did jumping jacks.

She put any thoughts of her underendowed endowments away and concentrated on the man standing in front of her. “And it’s no use denying it, I know it had to be you.”

“I’m not denying anything,” Ian said with annoying calmness. “But why don’t you tell me what you suspect I did?”

“
You
know you did something to Dr. Neighbors and
I
know you did it. What I need to know is what precisely it was you did.”

“That was a sort of convoluted sentence, wasn’t it?” Ian looked at her blandly.

Allie hated that sense of control he seemed to exercise effortlessly. “Stop stalling and answer the question.”

“What question? It seemed more like an accusation to me.”

She resisted the urge to rip out her hair. She used to think only her brothers inflicted this sort of annoyance, but now she was beginning to think it was men in general.

“What did you do?” she asked again, with as much calmness as she could muster.

“Oh, that question. Well, I needed to see a doctor, and Dr. Neighbors happened to be the one I saw.” He stopped.

“And?” The man was exasperating. He was going to make her drag every single word from his mouth.

“And what?” he asked, the picture of innocence.

“And what did you say to him?”

“You’re a very suspicious woman.” Ian shook his head. “When we first met, I thought you were a trusting sort, but you don’t seem very trusting right now.”

“Answer the question, Ian Thomas Ryan.” Allie shook a finger in his face. The urge to stomp her foot in frustration was almost overwhelming. The urge to have it land on Ian’s foot was even more tempting, but she restrained herself. No one could say Alexandra McGraw wasn’t the model of restraint.

Good judgment, no.

Restraint, yes.

“I just mentioned my problem to him.”

“Which was?” She wanted to scream, he was being so difficult.

“A tremendous pain in the ass.”

She sank onto the couch and buried her head in her hands. “Oh, Ian.”

“And I mentioned that, as a physician, it was his duty to see that he relieved my pain.” He sat next to her and looked at her thoughtfully. “I take it there’s been a change in attitude by some of the staff?”

Allie peeked through her fingers. “I began to be suspicious when the same people who’d been ostracizing me for weeks suddenly sought out my company. And when Nurse Mary Sunshine came up to me and actually hugged me while she apologized, I was certain something was up. It was spooky, Ian, darned spooky.” Allie shuddered.

“I’m sorry people are being nice to you,” he said, no repentance in his voice, a hint of a smile in the stony face.

“It’s not the being nice, it’s the reason why they’re being nice.” She sighed. “Did I ever mention why I moved away from home?”

He shook his head.

“Well, the problem with having three brothers raise you is that they don’t ever seem to notice when you are, in fact, raised. The final straw was the night they busted into my living room at ten o’clock at night and kicked my date out.”

“What was wrong with your date?” he asked.

Allie felt herself blushing as she began to remember, oh so vividly, the incident. “Oh, Bull wasn’t quite corporate enough for them.”

“Bull?” An eyebrow rose with elegant disdain.

“Don’t give me that look. That look is one of the reasons why I moved away. The final straw.”

“So, what was wrong with Bull?” he asked.

“He drove a Harley.” Allie had thought riding a motorcycle would be thrilling, but she’d found it was just noisy, and the taste of bugs wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

“Riding a Harley doesn’t make someone a hardened criminal.” Ian didn’t sound too pleased to admit it.

Allie sighed, wishing she could be less than honest, just this once. “Well, the license plate did.”

“License plate?”

“Well, Conner—he’s the cop—ran the plate when he saw us at the theater, and it turns out Bull was in a bit of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?” That warrior tone was back in Ian’s voice.

It was a tone that reminded her so much of her brothers.

“Well, it had to do with a 7-Eleven and some missing money,” she admitted. She’d gone too far not to admit the whole thing.

“He robbed a 7-Eleven?” Ian asked.

“Well, it turns out he robbed a lot of 7-Elevens.” Another tragic mistake by Allie McGraw. Dr. Slimeball and Bull, the Harley-riding thief.

Allie sighed. Someday she was going to get it right. She glanced at Ian. He was a washout too. They were just too different, and that was a shame because Ian had a lot of redeeming qualities. But there was no way Allie had moved so far away from home just to replace three overbearing brothers with another overbearing man.

“And you were mad that your brothers came after the creep?”

Allie couldn’t tell if Ian sounded incredulous or annoyed. Maybe it was a combination of both. “No. What I was mad about is that they ran the plate in the first place, just because he was with me. And, beyond that, that they felt the need to interrupt my date with Bull in order to arrest him.”

“Oh, those cads.” Ian’s voice was dripping with sarcasm.

“You can’t imagine what it’s like having the three of them dogging your every move, questioning your every choice, monitoring your friends and your dates. They used to practically throw me at their friends, trying to find me the right man.”

“You don’t know how lucky you are to have people who care about you that much.” Ian sounded bitter.

“That’s not what I’m saying. I know I’m lucky, and I love my brothers, but I’m capable of standing on my own two feet. They didn’t ever understand that. And I don’t want you to try and take over where they left off.” He wasn’t going to even try to understand, just like her brothers never tried.

“I didn’t like the way you were treated at the hospital. It was his fault. He misled you. But you were the one suffering.”

She reached out and touched Ian’s hand, wishing she could make him understand. “I wasn’t suffering. There were only a couple people who believed that I was responsible, and they were the type I didn’t really want to be around anyway. The friends I’d made knew the whole of it and believed in me.”

“I believed in you,” Ian said quietly.

It was that uncharacteristic quietness that made Allie look more closely. He hadn’t gone after Dr. Slimeball because he didn’t think she could handle it, he had done it because he cared for her, and to Ian Ryan that meant taking charge.

She’d watched him do it with Anne, and now he was doing it to her.

Allie sighed. “Ian, I know you believed in me, and I appreciate that you wanted to help me, but we can be friends and still stand on our own respective two feet. I wouldn’t charge into your boardroom and smack down any investors who were asking uncomfortable questions, but I’d listen if you wanted to talk about it. I’d even offer an opinion, if you asked.”

She took his hand. It’s funny how right it felt, having his hand in hers. Allie brushed the thought away. They were too different, and even if they weren’t, she wasn’t interested in any new romantic entanglements. Frankly, the last one had been enough.

Ian’s friendship was enough. “Listen, if I have a problem, I’d come to you for a shoulder or advice, but I want to solve my problems on my own.”

The thoughts of Alexandra McGraw using his shoulder were somehow appealing, though Ian couldn’t for the life of him figure out why.

She was naive and almost bubbly. Ian had never been naive—he was practically born a cynic.

And as for being bubbly, well, no one had ever accused him of that personality trait. Egotistical, arrogant, inhuman even, but never bubbly.

So, why did this woman—this woman who was his complete opposite—why did she affect him like this? Ian couldn’t figure it out.

That he’d felt the need to defend her honor was out of character. It must have been gratitude, nothing more.

Allie had stepped in and helped him out. He was thankful. He must have gone to visit Dr. Neighbors because of gratitude—because he felt he owed her something.

The attraction he felt for her was only physical. It was only a he-was-a-guy-she-was-an-attractive-woman sort of thing, nothing more. She had helped him . . .