Try - The Complete Romance Series (14 page)

“I was worried you wouldn’t think this was
all that great a date,” I said, gesturing to the ice rink, the park all around
us.

“No! I love it,” Mackenzie smiled, looking
up at the lights that ringed the rink. “I haven’t gone ice skating in—probably
years, now that I think about it.”

“Not even on your own?” It surprised me.
But then, I had started taking Landon ice-skating when he was barely a year
old. I couldn’t imagine a winter without going to a rink.

“Not as much fun to go ice-skating on your
own,” Mackenzie pointed out. I had to agree with that.

“Well now you get to brush up on your
skills,” I said, gripping her hand a little tighter. “Before you know it we’ll
have an Olympic-caliber routine together.” Mackenzie laughed again, shaking her
head.

“I am way too clumsy for that,” she said.
“I might—if you’re lucky—let you spin me, but I’m too good at falling on my ass
to let you lift me.” I tugged her a little closer to me and let go of her hand
so I could wrap my arm around her back.

“I won’t be lifting you any time tonight,
anyway,” I said, brushing my lips against her cheek. “I’m going to be full to
the gills until lunch tomorrow after that meal at the restaurant.” I’d let Mackenzie
pick our dinner spot, and she’d made a good choice: a tiny little
hole-in-the-wall Indian restaurant, staffed by a family that spent the entire
meal we were there bickering and fighting in a good-natured way, whenever they
weren’t fussing over the people in the dining room. We’d both stuffed ourselves
with samosas and biryani, curry and naan and rice pudding until I was sure if I
ate another bite of anything, I wasn’t going to be able to go ice-skating at
all. At that, we’d taken big to-go cups of chai with us to drink out on the
ice.

“I’m glad you liked that spot,” Mack said,
grinning. “I’ve eaten a lot of takeout from them—and the place itself is so
cozy.”

“Is it just me or was the owner’s son
hitting on you?” I raised an eyebrow, pretending to look jealous; Mackenzie
hadn’t acted the slightest bit interested in Ranjit, our server.

“I have it on good authority that I am a
very good prospect for marriage,” Mackenzie said, giving me a haughty look. A
second later, she grinned. “Though Ranjit made it clear to me months ago that
if I married him, he would expect me to either work in the restaurant or stay
at home. I’m sadly a career woman by temperament; I couldn’t leave the clinic
just because I got married. Thus I have ruined the great love of my life.”

The mention of marriage reminded me of the
bet I’d made with Landon. After three dates, I was starting to think that it
would be good at least to see if she and Landon could work well together in a
different setting. “You seem to really like kids,” I said, as we completed
another circuit around the rink. “Do you think maybe you’d ever want to have
some of your own?” Mackenzie looked startled at the question for a moment, and
then a thoughtful look came across her face.

“I’ve thought about it,” she admitted. “I
really do like to be around kids. There was a time—years ago, mind you—when I
did the girly thing. You know: planning the dream wedding and thinking about
how many kids I wanted to have.” She shrugged. “If I found someone…and if I
could make it work with my job…I wouldn’t be against it.”

“If you found someone?”

Mackenzie blushed. “Someone I thought I’d
want to spend the rest of my life with, obviously. I wouldn’t want to have kids
with someone otherwise. And if I was by myself…” she shrugged again. “I have a
lot of respect for you, raising Landon on your own. I’ve seen how hard it is to
be a single parent, and I don’t know if I’d be a good parent on my own.”

“I think you’d be fine,” I told her,
thinking of how she talked to the kids—Landon, and the other patients she dealt
with. “You’re really good with Landon. He minds you better than his teachers.”
Mackenzie laughed.

“Well I’m also dealing with him while he’s
being active, which seems to be his preferred mode,” she pointed out. “For
active boys like Landon it’s easier to get through their skulls when they’re
moving around.”

“Maybe I should use that,” I said,
chuckling. “Sometimes it’s hard to get through to him.”

“Kids always get toughest with their
parents,” Mackenzie said. “They have to test the boundaries, they have to
figure out what they can get away with, learn right from wrong. I’m practically
a stranger to Landon.”

“Well, if we keep dating, that won’t last
for long,” I pointed out. “I would—I hope you’re okay with this—expect for you
and Landon to spend some time together. Do you think that would risk your
professional interactions with him?”

“I don’t think so,” Mackenzie said. “Do
you mind if we sit down for a minute? I’m getting a bit tired.”

“Sure!” We cut across the ice to the
benches set up along the perimeter. I gestured for Mack to sit down first and
then dropped to the bench next to her, taking a quick, deep breath. “So you
planned your dream wedding. What did it look like?” Mackenzie giggled.

“Oh—typical teenage, early-adult stuff,”
she said, shaking her head. “Perfect white dress, off the shoulder, with a
train and all of it. Beautiful flowers, handsome groom waiting for me at the
end of the aisle. The honeymoon down somewhere tropical.” Mack shook her head.
“Of course, that’s if you never have to worry about money, if it’s just nothing
to you.”

“That sounds pretty good, now that you
describe it,” I told her. “What about your reception? Did you want a band or a
DJ?”

“Oh—band, totally. And for the first dance
it’d be some croony, sweet love song, and we’d make everyone in the room envy
our great and lasting love.” Mackenzie laughed again. “I’ve come to the
conclusion now though that it’s probably never going to happen.”

“Why not?” I gave her hand a quick
squeeze, thinking about Landon—about his need for a mother figure, about the
bet we’d made, and how much I liked Mackenzie; just
liked
her, above and beyond the great sex we’d had. If she’d
decided that she never wanted to get married, I’d definitely have to convince
myself to move on sooner or later; I couldn’t afford to get Landon’s hopes up
and then disappoint him.

“I’ve been a bridesmaid too many times,”
Mackenzie said, giving me a slightly sad little smile. “There’s this old
saying: ‘Three times a bridesmaid, never a bride’.”

“That’s just superstition though,” I
pointed out. “It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve been a bridesmaid. Not
really.”

“I’ve been a bridesmaid about six times,”
Mackenzie said with a sigh. “I’m not against the idea of getting married
someday, but between the long hours I work and my lack of any real social
life…” she shrugged, grinning again. “Why the sudden interest in my attitudes
towards marriage?”

“Well,” I said, glancing out over the ice
for a moment before I turned my attention back onto her. “I’m a single dad, you
know? I’m not saying I want to get married next week or anything—and I want us
to take it however slow you need, and just let the relationship go however it’s
going to go. But eventually I do want to settle down with someone. Landon needs
a real mother figure in his life.” I saw the look of surprise on Mackenzie’s
face. “I’m not saying that if you’re not ready to get married tomorrow it’s not
going to work. I want to do things right. But it is something I have to think
about.”

“You can’t just date around with a son to
raise,” Mackenzie said, nodding slowly. “You want someone you can have a
long-term relationship with, someone who can kind of…not help you—you don’t
need help—with Landon, but who can be sort of… there for him.”

“Right,” I agreed.

“It makes sense,” Mackenzie said quickly.
She licked her lips and I wanted more than anything to kiss her; I gave in to
the impulse. I let my hands fall to her waist, and even with the thick, heavy
clothes she had on it was so easy to remember what Mackenzie had been like in
bed, how hot she’d looked. I made myself pull back after a moment.

“I wish I could ask you to come home with
me,” I told her lowly.

“You can’t?” Mackenzie met my gaze and I
smiled sadly.

“Landon’s with his aunt; I can’t leave him
there all night. If I could…” I kissed her briefly again. “But next time, I am
going to plan ahead enough to make sure I can spend the whole night with
you—and if possible the entire next day.” I gave her hand a squeeze and took a
deep breath, trying to push down the raging hormones in my body. “Let’s get
back on the ice and cool down.”

Chapter Nine - Mackenzie

Even though I would never have expected it
when I first agreed to go on a date with Patrick, I found myself getting
giddier and giddier, looking forward to our next night out together more and
more. I’d hoped that our third date together would end the same way our second
date had; but I could understand that he needed to put Landon first.

It was a slow day in the office—a lot of
the other parents had heard about the incident with Amie and some of them had
postponed or canceled their appointments. Patrick had had to cancel Landon’s
appointment, and while I’d been disappointed, I knew that it wasn’t because of
the attack; he’d mentioned that Landon had a last-minute event to get to at
school, some kind of end-of-semester award ceremony that he’d been invited to.

I looked around and made sure that no one
was watching me too intently. Anyone who wasn’t working with a patient or
talking to a parent was working on paperwork, just like I was pretending to do.
I reached into my desk drawer and took out my phone; almost as soon as Patrick
had called the office to cancel Landon’s appointment, he’d texted me to ask if
I wanted to plan our next date.

Somehow—I wasn’t sure how—word about my
dates with Patrick had gotten out. I thought maybe one of the other therapists
had seen me with him, or something like that. Amie had made a brief visit to
the office and had crowed that she just
knew
that I would end up falling for Patrick. So far no one was giving me a huge
amount of grief about it, but when Patrick’s cancelation had come in, Alice at
the front desk had given me a little grin and commented that she rather thought
I’d have already known that the man had to cancel.

How
does a trip to the ballet sound? I hear there’s a great production of
The
Nutcracker
going on.
I grinned to
myself at the text message from Patrick. We had never quite made up the date to
go see a play; a ballet was a good substitute for that. But I’d loved the
ice-skating so much—I wouldn’t have minded another casual date like that.

Maybe
we could do that,
I wrote back.
I love that ballet. But I loved ice-skating too. And didn’t you tell me
you wanted to bring Landon on a date with me sometime?
I thought to myself
that saying something like that was stupid; if Landon came with us I doubted
there’d be sex at the end of the night. But I wanted to keep my options as open
as possible until Patrick made a definitive offer of a date.

Maybe
a little closer to Christmas. Or after? We could go on a picnic, if you can get
free this weekend.
I giggled to myself, covering my mouth
with my hand to keep from being loud enough for someone to hear me. I thought
about the idea of a picnic in the middle of winter; it would be pretty, but it
could easily get really cold, and very wet.

I’d
hope you could keep me warm,
I wrote back.
It’s supposed to stay pretty cold the next
few days.
I put my phone in my lap and turned my attention onto my computer
as the office manager came through, looking to make sure that everyone was
working. Even if we were slow, I knew she would point out that there was always
the backlog of patient files to attend to. Harriet walked past and I breathed a
sigh of relief. I almost yelped when I felt the phone vibrate in my lap,
startling me in spite of the fact that I’d been expecting some kind of answer.

Oh,
I could do a great job of keeping you warm,
Patrick had
texted back. My phone vibrated again and I saw he’d sent me a winking emoji.

Really?
How would you do that?
I licked my lips, feeling my face
warming up a little bit at the hint of something sexual. I typed out a few
comments on one of the files up on my screen while I waited for the response.

Well
they do say that the best way to stay warm is to share body heat…I think you’re
pretty good at generating heat yourself.
I bit back a giggle.

Sharing
body heat? Doesn’t that normally work better with skin contact?
My heart beat faster in my chest, and I felt warm and tingly all over. I had
never—ever—done anything like this while I was at work. Even when I’d been
dating in college, I’d kept my phone turned off during my work hours, and I
never would have even considered drifting into sexy territory while I was on
the clock.

Skin
contact! Mm. Well, if I remember right, you are really warm on the
inside…almost too hot. I could definitely share that body heat.
I felt my cheeks getting hotter, my whole body starting to warm up with a
mixture of how turned on I was at the sensual words and how worried I suddenly
was that someone would catch on to what I was doing. I knew that some of my
coworkers texted with their boyfriends and girlfriends—and that some of them
even sexted their partners on a regular basis. But I’d always stuck with being
professional; I didn’t want to screw up that reputation.