Try - The Complete Romance Series (9 page)

“Mack! Where is your head at, girl?” I
almost dropped my cup of coffee on my desk at the sound of Amie’s voice.

“Oh! I guess I just got lost in space,” I
said, wishing the blood would rush out of my face instead of rushing into it.
My cheeks burned, I was blushing so hard.

“Look at this one,” Amie said, gesturing
to my face for one of the other therapists walking through the office area. “I
know what
she
was thinking about. Who
was it, Mack?”

“Oh shut up,” I said, rolling my eyes. “It
wasn’t anyone.”

“I could tell everyone to avoid the
employee bathroom for a few minutes if you want,” Amie suggested playfully.
“Because you look like you’re ready to go.”

“I was just thinking about something,” I
said, shrugging. “I started daydreaming.”

“I can tell what you were daydreaming
about,” Amie told me. She sat down in the chair next to my desk. “Come on, you
can tell me who it was; I’m not going to share it.”

“It wasn’t anyone in particular,” I said,
shaking my head. “Just a little fantasy.”

“I bet it was one of the patients’
parents, wasn’t it?” Amie chuckled. “Don’t act shocked! Gisele had a thing for
one of the parents a couple of months ago—wanted to go to work on him like a
giant ice cream sundae.”

“If I
was
into one of the patients’ parents, after telling me that about Gisele you’re
the last person I’d share with,” I told Amie, grinning in spite of how
embarrassed I felt.

“I’m friends with you,” Amie pointed out.
“Gisele is just another coworker. Come on, tell me who it was.” I rolled my eyes
again.

“Alexander Skarsgard,” I told her,
grinning. “I could do worse than a handsome Swede who has money and brains and
charm.”

“You’re lying,” Amie told me, grinning
with glee. “But I’ll let it slide. You don’t want to tell your best work-buddy
who you were getting all hot and bothered with in your brain, then you don’t
have to.” She leaned in closer. “But that one guy—the one with the
five-year-old—he’s a pretty tasty dish.”

“He’s a widower,” I said with a shrug.
“Besides, we’re not supposed to date patients’ parents.”

“No, but I don’t think anyone would blame
you if you did,” Amie told me, standing up again. “And besides it’s not
something they’d fire you for. Promise me if he asks you out you’ll at least
consider it. I had to laugh; Patrick had already asked me out, and I’d done
exactly what Amie had said I’d do—but we’d gone out anyway. And we were going
out again.

“I promise to actually think about it,” I
told her, and then she was off to fetch her next session’s patient.

Chapter Two - Patrick

I’d seen Mackenzie a couple of times since
our first date together; Landon’s appointments had to continue. But I had
backed off of any kind of romantic advances while I was in the office with her,
while she was working with my son. I didn’t want to make things weird for
her—and more importantly, I hadn’t thought up what I wanted to do for our next
date just yet.
Gotta think of something
good,
I thought as I pulled into the parking area outside of the physical
therapy clinic. “How do you feel about today’s session, buddy?” I glanced at
Landon in the rearview mirror.

“Okay, I guess,” Landon said with a shrug.
“Mack makes it fun.” I started to look for a parking spot; Landon spoke up
again a moment later. “I wish it was faster,” he added. “I want to be able to
play soccer again.”

“You gotta take it slow shrimp,” I told
him. “Otherwise you might hurt yourself again and be out of soccer for an even
longer time.”

“I know,” Landon said, and I saw him
nodding in the mirror. “I just wish it could go faster.”

“I get ya,” I told him, turning my head
for a second so he could see me smile. “But hey—the good news is that you’ll be
a lot better at avoiding getting hurt in the future.”

“That is good,” Landon agreed. I found a
spot and pulled into it; I never liked to be late for anything, but I really
didn’t want to be late for any of Landon’s sessions with Mackenzie. The last
thing I wanted to do was bomb my chances at getting something going with her by
being annoying. I grinned to myself as I got out and then helped Landon out of
the car.
That kiss, man…
it was just
enough to make me want more, just enough to make me wish I’d made plans for
Landon to be taken care of for the whole night. I didn’t know for sure that
Mackenzie would have gone home with me if not for Landon, but I could tell that
she had wanted more. I just had to follow up the right way.

It wasn’t all about getting her in bed; I
wanted to make sure that she was the kind of woman who could be part of
Landon’s life. I didn’t want to tell Landon that I was going to win his little
bet until I was sure that Mackenzie would be the one to help me win it—and I
didn’t have much time.
Figure something
out today. Ask her when you leave.

I checked Landon in and sat down in the
waiting room while Mackenzie finished up with her previous patient. I’d been
right on time for our appointment. I didn’t even really have enough time,
sitting there, to flip through one of the magazines. I checked to make sure I
hadn’t gotten any new emails during the drive from work to Landon’s school to
the clinic, and then Mackenzie was at the door that separated the waiting room
from the back area, and I was following Landon through it.

I was so proud of him for the fact that he
already didn’t have to use the crutches anymore; he’d been walking completely
on his own for days, and even if he was slower than he used to be, I could tell
he was getting stronger, getting in shape. It was a relief to know that he was
going to make a full recovery—at least, that Mackenzie believed he would. I’d
felt guilty more than once at the thought of what Landon’s mother would have
thought of her son breaking his leg playing soccer. Would she have blamed me,
or been upset that her son had been injured? Joanne had loved Landon with all
her heart, for the short, short time she’d had him. I worried sometimes that I
couldn’t give Landon all the love he would need, with her gone. Even if I could
find a woman—Mackenzie or someone else—to take part in my life, could anyone
love Landon as much as Joanne had?

“Let’s get started, okay Landon?” I sat
down on one of the benches off to the side as Mackenzie led my son over to the
first station she wanted him at. I smiled to myself as I watched them together;
I knew Landon liked Mackenzie, that he enjoyed working with her. Somehow she knew
just how to hit the right note with him, to keep him focused in a way that even
his teachers didn’t quite manage. “You know the drill, buddy…walk along the
beam for me.”

“Okay,” Landon said, not even looking at
me. I watched him make his way along a low balance beam, putting one foot
carefully in front of the other. Mackenzie was right behind him, hands out to
catch him if he needed it, but she was letting him do it.
She’s good with kids—especially Landon. She’s cute as hell; she’s
smart…you have to just make the move already. If you don’t, someone else will.
I thought back to our date; Mackenzie had said something about being single for
a while, about neglecting her social life. We had that in common at least.
Watching her working with my son, taking him to another station for a different
exercise, pushing him to do more, to keep going, I thought that it was shocking
she’d even be able to keep from dating. Even in her scrubs she was cute.

“You’re doing
good
,
Landon—keep it up. You’ve got this down!” I watched my son extend his leg on
some kind of machine, his face screwed up in concentration, as Mackenzie
cheered him on. He looked over at me and I smiled.

“You heard her, shrimp—you’re doing
great!” Mackenzie looked over at me too and gave me a quick thumbs-up, where
Landon wouldn’t see it. My son went back to his exercises, and I listened as
Mackenzie kept him going; she alternated between cheering him on and being
tough on him when he started to complain that something was too hard, or that
he didn’t want to do it that day.

“I know it’s rough, but you need to do
these exercises so you can get back to soccer—and you want to do that, right?”

“Yeah. But it hurts!”

“How bad does it hurt, and where?” I
watched as Mackenzie got down to my son’s level and put her hand on his leg.
“Is it here?” She touched the spot where his break had been, and Landon shook
his head. “Here?” She kept going until she came to the spot that my son agreed
was where it hurt. “Is it a poking kind of pain, or is it like your leg is nagging
you?”

“Nagging,” Landon told her.

“Okay. Let’s take two minutes, and try it
again, okay? Your muscles are just telling you that they’re tired and need a
break. Let me grab you a bottle of water.” I watched her hurry over to the
little fridge in the corner and bring back a little quarter-pint bottle marked spring
water”. Landon drank it down and for a minute or two Mackenzie just asked him
about his day at school, about his teachers, about how he was doing in PE. She
checked her watch then and took a deep breath. “Okay. Feeling better? Ready to
get on it again?”

“Yeah!” Landon all but jumped back onto
the machine and started back up, chattering about his friend Jessie, about a
new video game he wanted for Christmas, about the possibility of going to see
Santa at one of the big events the city threw during the holiday season.

Finally the session was over. “All right,
big guy! You made a lot of progress today. High five!” Landon slapped his hand
against Mackenzie’s, and they came back over towards her station in the back
area, next to where I sat.

“Feeling the burn, champ?” Landon nodded,
looking a little glassy-eyed but still energetic.

“Grab a snack from my desk,” Mackenzie
suggested, opening a drawer as she sat down and started writing something in the
manila folder that held his file. “Okay, dad, your turn.” She looked up at me
and grinned.

“I’m ready,” I told her. Mackenzie took a
quick drink of water from a big bottle on her desk and set it aside.

“How’s Landon doing with meals? Is he
eating a good dinner every night?”

“He’s eating all of his meat and starch,”
I said, giving my son a quick look. “Sometimes he doesn’t like the vegetables I
make.”

“Brussel sprouts?” Mackenzie looked at
Landon to answer the question.

“They taste like sweaty socks,” Landon
said, twisting his face into a grimace.

“Have you ever eaten a sweaty sock?”
Mackenzie laughed.

“No, but they taste like sweaty socks
smell!” Mackenzie laughed again and looked at me, and I thought that the only
time she’d ever looked cuter was at the café.

“I have some advice on the Brussel sprout
front,” she told me. She looked at Landon. “I used to
hate
sprouts,” she said, leaning a bit closer to him and pretending
it was a secret. “But then I learned a new way to eat them.” She turned her
attention back onto me. “The trick is to cook ‘em in the oven. Roast them at
four hundred fifty degrees, with salt and pepper and oil, and then when they
come out, toss in some dried cranberries. Quick and easy and actually pretty
yummy.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said with a
nod.

“You want to go out into the waiting room,
Landon? We got some more of those Skylander toys.” My son was hurrying clumsily
for the door in an instant, leaving Mackenzie and me almost alone.

“What’s the verdict?” I asked, feeling a
little jolt of worry.

“He’s doing really well,” Mackenzie said.
“You might want to have a snack for him in the car on the way over—pretzels or
goldfish crackers, something with some carbs in it. We’re getting into some of
the tougher exercises now, and he needs the energy.”

“I’ll do that,” I said, making a mental
note of it.
Now’s the time to ask her
out. Grow a pair.
“Hey,” I started, glancing around to make sure no one was
eavesdropping. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind seeing me
again?
” Mackenzie’s cheeks lit up with a blush.

“I wouldn’t mind,” she said, smiling as
her blush deepened.

“It wouldn’t be anything super fancy:
dinner and a movie—you pick the movie. Does that sound about right?” I tried to
think of how I could maybe arrange things so that we could go home together
afterwards if it felt right. I could leave Landon with one of his grandparents
if it came down to it. They would keep him for a night, and I could bring
Mackenzie back to my place—assuming she wanted to go.

“Dinner and a movie sounds like just my
speed,” she told me, smiling more deeply. “What day?”

“When do you have some free time? I
remember you said you sometimes work weekends.”

“The day after tomorrow works for me,” she
said after thinking for a moment. “I’ll have the morning after off, though I’m
on call that afternoon.”

“That sounds great! I’ll pick you up?”
Mackenzie hesitated, but just for a second. She nodded again.

“Can you get me at…maybe six-thirty? Or
seven?”

“Seven is great. I’ll make a reservation
for dinner at seven-thirty.”