Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (139 page)

I shrugged; Landon’s list seemed to be
fairly standard to me. He had about five items he had told me he
really
wanted, and a few more that he
“only sort-of” wanted on top of those. It would be pretty easy to get them all.

“It’s a respectable list,” I said.

“I want to bet you something,” Landon told
me.

“Oh? That sounds interesting.” I was torn
between feeling amused and worried about the fact that my son wanted to make a
wager with me.

“The thing I want to add to my Christmas
list is a mom,” Landon said quickly. “But Santa can’t bring me that, can he?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not
really in his wheelhouse.”

“So you’d have to get it for me.”

I cringed slightly at the unfortunate
phrasing. “You want a mom for Christmas?”

“I want a mom,” Landon confirmed. “If…if
you could find me a mom, I would be willing to not have the rest of my list.”

“Really?” It hadn’t occurred to me that
Landon could be that interested in having a new mom.

“So I want to bet that you can’t find me a
mom,” Landon explained. “If you can find me a new mom by the New Year, then
I’ll…”he hesitated. “I’ll give my toys from my Christmas list to someone else.”

“Like a charity for other kids?” Landon
nodded. “That is a good thing to do. What if I can’t find you a mom by the new
year?”

“Then you have to get me double the toys,”
Landon said quickly.

I laughed. “That’s a fair bet,” I told
him. I thought about Mackenzie without quite knowing why. Her beaming smile and
bright eyes just appeared in my mind. “I’ll take that wager,” I told my son.
“If I can find you a new mom by the new year, you donate your toys to a
charity, and if I can’t, I will buy you double your list—but the second half
will be in the new year. Deal?”

“Deal!”

Chapter Nine - Mackenzie

I was the last one left in the office; I’d
stayed late after Landon and Patrick left, and even after the other PT staff
left, so I could catch up on a few things that absolutely had to be done in the
files on the computer—no way to take them home, because of confidentiality
laws. So even as everyone slowly made their way out of the building, calling
out their goodbyes as they made for the door, I sat at my desk and filled in
reports and evaluations and updates to files for each of my patients, including
some information that would have to go to insurance companies.

Even with the pile of extra work on my
plate, I was only willing to stay after hours for so long. I started to think
longingly about getting a hot chocolate from the café one block down from the building,
and drinking it in my nice arm car while I made my way to my apartment. “Maybe
I’ll make some stroganoff for dinner. Or reheat some of that chili I made last
week,” I said to myself in the empty office. As December wore on it was getting
colder, and there was enough snow outside that I didn’t really want to do any
Christmas shopping that night—besides, I was exhausted. Maybe, I thought, I
could make a mug of spiced wine when I got home, and I could drink it in the
bathtub, soaking and getting the cold out of my bones, relaxing until I was
ready to get some sleep.

The thought started sounding better and
better in my mind, and I decided to wrap everything up for the evening and get
into my car before it got much colder out. I started shutting everything down,
getting my things together, making sure I wasn’t forgetting anything. Just when
I was about to pick up my purse and head out of the office, I heard my phone
ringing.

I slipped my hand into my pocket as I
gathered up my purse, yawning slightly. The number on the screen was
familiar—but it wasn’t one of the contacts I had in my phone; there was no name
assigned to it. I decided it must be someone I knew, if the number looked
familiar to me, and tapped accept.

 
“Hello?”

“Hey Mackenzie.”

This time—unlike the first time that he’d
called me—I recognized Patrick’s voice.

“Is something happening with Landon?”

I felt a little flurry of apprehension at
the possibility that the cute little boy who was making so much progress might
have gotten injured.

“No—I mean, he’s fine,” relief from the
worry flowed through me. “He was complaining earlier that his ankles hurt
sometimes.”

“Oh—that’s probably normal,” I said,
sitting down in my desk chair as I thought about Patrick’s almost-question. “In
addition to the fact that he’s working muscles that he hasn’t done a whole lot
with in his life, he is a growing boy. Is it a sharp pain, or is he just achy?”

“I think he’s just achy,” Patrick told me.
“If it happens again I’ll ask him.”

“You can also check and see if you notice
any swelling or bruising around his ankles or feet, if it comes up,” I
explained. “If he injures himself—playing on the playground, or something like
that—we can take a look at it. Otherwise, if the pain is bad enough for him to
notice, get him to rest for a bit, keep his weight off the ankles for a while.”

“That’s good to know,” Patrick said. I
heard a weird sort of hesitation in his voice, and wondered what was on his
mind. “Hey—so, Mackenzie, I just wanted to apologize again for Landon prying
into your personal life.”

 
I
grinned to myself. “It’s no big deal, really,” I told Patrick, shrugging even
though I knew he couldn’t see me. “Kids are always curious about the adults in
their lives, and by now Landon probably sees me the same way he does his teacher.
I’m used to getting personal questions from kids.”

“Then let me apologize for the fact that
I’m kind of glad he asked,” Patrick said, I frowned to myself. “Not—not that I
would prompt him or anything like that, you understand. But since you’re single,
I was wondering: would you maybe like to get some coffee sometime? Or maybe
catch a movie?” My stomach gave a lurch inside of me, and I felt my cheeks
burning.

“I—I—thank you, Patrick, but I’m not
supposed to date patients’ parents,” I said weakly, even as my heart began
beating faster and faster in my chest. “It’s not anything personal, I just—it’s
an ethics thing. I could maybe get in trouble for it.”

“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.