Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (48 page)

Landon brought back the reports that
Mackenzie wrote out over the course of the few sessions I couldn’t bring myself
to attend, and the sight of her handwriting alone was enough to make my stomach
clench. Whether I wasn’t sure of her feelings or not, I was sure that my
feelings were way too strong for her. Every little scribble of her notes about
Landon’s progress and the next steps that I needed to take with my son was like
a silent accusation that I wasn’t holding up my end—even with the little
comments at the end that she hoped she would have an opportunity to talk to me
again soon, or that Landon was cuter than ever.

I told myself over and over again that I
needed to just bite the bullet and reschedule the date. If Mack really wasn’t
interested in me, I should hear it from her lips, and not just assume it. If
she
was
into me, then I needed to do
the right thing—for both of us—and talk to her about what an insecure jerk I
had been. But I couldn’t make myself do it, no matter how much of a coward I
felt like for avoiding her. I was an idiot, I knew it—but I couldn’t make
myself do the right thing and just confront the issue. I was too much out of
practice when it came to relationships, too scared. I didn’t want to have to
deal with my own feeling of disappointment, much less tell Landon that things
just weren’t going to work with Mack. I thought—somehow—that if I just kept
avoiding Mackenzie until the physical therapy sessions ended, it would just
dissolve. I thought on the other hand that I would eventually work up the
nerve, and everything would be all right again—but that moment didn’t seem to
be coming.

There were only a few days left until
Christmas, and when Landon came back from his session, climbing clumsily into
the back seat of the car and asking me for help in getting the seat belt to
work with his booster seat, he handed me a little piece of paper—the latest
report on his progress.
Landon is doing
very well, making very steady gains in his recovery…I’d like to discuss his
progress in more detail with you one-on-one, when you’re not so busy…I believe
it may be almost time to move Landon down to three-per-week sessions, instead
of five-per-week.
The report was just as neutral as it had always been, and
it still stung to read it.

“Dad, are you mad at Mack for something?”

 
I
finished fastening Landon’s seatbelt and gave it a tug to make sure it would
stay where it was. “No, bud. Why do you think that?”

“Well, before you were always going into
the sessions with me,” Landon said, frowning. “You never had to do work in your
car before.”

“Things are busier than usual this close
to Christmas,” I told my son, starting the car and taking the gearshift out of
park. “We’re going to have a lot of days off together, and I want to make sure
that I don’t leave anything hanging before I get my vacation.”

“Oh!” Landon considered that. A little
flash of doubt—and concern—flickered through my brain.

“Did Mack ask about it?” I pulled out of
the parking spot and turned around, wanting to get away from the clinic as
quickly as possible without looking like I was running away.

“No,” Landon said simply. “I just wanted
to know.” As I drove away from the clinic, I found myself thinking once more
about Mack. I had felt so good with her—so at ease, so comfortable. It had been
totally unlike the random set-up dates that I’d had with women in the early
years of Landon’s life after Joanne passed away. I had had hopes that I could
bring Mack into my life with Landon in a way that I hadn’t thought possible
with any other woman that I’d met. I smiled to myself, thinking that even
Joanne would have liked Mack.

It had been a different time in my life
when I’d met Landon’s mother; I’d been younger, more willing to give into the
hope and the optimism. I hadn’t even really thought about getting married, one
way or the other. Things had just seemed to fall into place with Joanne at
first. Everything was smooth sailing, and everything happened naturally. We
dated for a couple of years, and then eventually we ended up living together
almost on accident—we figured out that we had an equal amount of our things at
each other’s places and decided that it just made sense to have them all in one
place. When I’d proposed to her, I had done it because it seemed like the right
thing to do, because I was convinced that we would spend the rest of our lives
together. And for Joanne it was true; she had spent the rest of her life with
me.

With Mack I wasn’t nearly as certain of
myself. Landon had told me, a few days before—just in passing, out of the
blue—that he wished he had a younger brother or sister. It was the day before
school let out for the winter break, and he’d seen his friends’ siblings in the
classroom, seen their presentations about what gifts they were giving their
family members. I’d told Landon that I’d have to find him a new mom before I
could make any kind of guarantees about siblings, and Mack’s words about not
being sure that she was marriage material, about not being sure if she would
ever be in a position to have kids, had floated up in my brain.

As I made my way to the house, I thought
about the wager that Landon had made with me, and the Christmas shopping I had
already done. It seemed to me that with the way things stood, I was probably
going to have to set aside a good bit of money after the beginning of the year
to buy my son a second Christmas. I wasn’t sure which aspect of it bothered me
more: the fact that I’d been dumb enough to wager almost a week’s pay on being
able to find Landon a new mom, the fact that I was almost certainly going to
have to play with the budget more than usual in the first month of the year, or
the fact that my first real try at finding a woman to bring into my life with
my son was failing so miserably.
Let’s go
with all three,
I thought sourly. I pushed the thought aside as Landon
asked whether or not we would be able to go sledding that weekend, telling
myself that there were more important things in the world to worry
about—including the basic needs my son had. I should be grateful that the
accident that had caused his injury hadn’t been worse, and I should be grateful
that he’d given me the kick in the ass to put myself out there once more.
Anything more than that was just gravy. If I couldn’t be happy with Mackenzie,
then I would find another woman who was a better fit, and I could pay up to my
son—and give him more toys than any kid could possibly play with—with good
grace.

Chapter Three- Mackenzie

As I watched Landon hurry out through the
waiting room, darting as fast as his injured leg would allow into the cold
winter air on his way to Patrick’s car, I sat down at my desk and frowned. I
couldn’t quite shake the voice in the back of my mind that insisted that
Patrick was going out of his way to avoid me; I could understand being busy
heading into the week or so of the holidays—I was doing everything I could to
make sure all of my patients were caught up, their files updated and everything
the way that it should be—but it seemed more than a little strange that he
would stay out in his car, taking calls and doing work, for three sessions
straight. It seemed even stranger to not get any real response to the text
messages I sent to him. All I got from him was that he missed me—or that
something I’d said was funny. I had people in my life who I barely considered
friends who had given me warmer responses to messages.

I racked my brain, trying to figure out
what I could have said—what I could have done—to drive him away. Had I been too
demanding? Had I said something bad about Landon? No matter how I tried to
figure it out on my own, I couldn’t come up with anything. I couldn’t ask
anyone else either; I didn’t quite trust Amie—in spite of the fact that she was
my best friend in the office. I couldn’t talk to anyone else in the office,
either. And I certainly couldn’t talk to my family about Patrick. As Amie had
pointed out, they would take the situation way more seriously even than I was
taking it.

I couldn’t think of anything that I might
have done to make Patrick mad; thinking about our dates together I couldn’t
even remember a time that he’d looked upset. We’d had sex together a few times,
and every time it had been amazing. We’d gone on fancier dates and more casual
ones, and every date had seemed to be going even better than the last…right up
until they’d stopped. I didn’t know whether I should be taking Patrick’s
ghostlike behavior as a sign that I should just drop it, or if he was testing me
to see if I was really interested in him—interested enough to make a move, to
be proactive about seeing him.

As I wrapped up for the day, I thought
about the problem in front of me. I couldn’t talk to anyone else about it; and
I had exhausted all of my own ability to figure out what could have gone wrong
between Patrick and me. The only thing left for me to do was to try and talk to
Patrick directly.

I waited until I was out of the building,
heading to my car, and I took my phone out.
What
if he doesn’t answer your call? What if he just keeps avoiding you?
I
sighed and pulled up Patrick’s number anyway. If he kept avoiding me—avoiding
my calls, and even the text messages I sent—then I would know that he had lost
interest. I would just give up on him, and move on with my life. There was way
too much good going on in my life for me to beat myself up over losing a guy.

I unlocked my car and climbed in, but
instead of starting up the car, I took a deep breath and tapped the call icon.
I held the phone to my ear, shivering a bit in the cold, stale air, and
listened to it ring: once, twice, three times.
It’s going to roll over to voicemail,
I thought with a sigh.
At least he didn’t decline the call
outright.

But instead of the voicemail prompt, I
heard Patrick’s voice.

 
“Hey, Mack.”

My heart beat faster in my chest and for
just a second I wasn’t sure I would be able to say anything at all—my brain
froze. “Hi, Patrick,” I said finally, taking a quick breath and swallowing
against the dry feeling in my throat. “I’ve been—I started to worry about you,
since I haven’t been seeing you come in with Landon.”
Great job, Mack. You’re really coming down on him hard.
“Is—is
everything okay?”

“Oh—yeah,” Patrick said, his voice
hesitant. “Yeah, everything’s okay, I’ve just been really busy. Busier than
usual. Lots of work to do before I go on vacation for the last week of the
year.”

“I figured as much,” I said, smiling
nervously even though Patrick wasn’t even there, and wouldn’t see me. “I just
was starting to kind of…wonder if things were…you know, okay with us. Because
we were supposed to have a date…” I trailed off.

“Yeah,” Patrick said. “I’m sorry about
that. I’ve totally dropped the ball—I meant to reschedule with you and then
everything sort of…piled up.” I pressed my lips together; I wasn’t sure if even
Patrick believed his story. “I’m really sorry I’ve let so many days pass
without getting in touch.”

“I understand,” I said, my smile frozen on
my face. “I guess—I mean—if you’re too busy to see me…”

“I think I can make some time for you,”
Patrick said. “Are you doing anything tonight?” I scrubbed at my face.

“I was just going to get some last-minute
shopping done,” I said with a shrug. “Nothing special.”

“I’d love to keep you company,” Patrick
told me. “If you’d have me?”

“Sure,” I said.
Don’t sound so eager,
I added in my mind. “Give me like twenty
minutes or so to get home and change out of my scrubs, and let’s meet
somewhere.”

“How about 900 North Michigan? That way we
can find something to eat too,” Patrick suggested. I thought about it for a
moment.

“That sounds good,” I said. “I’ll see you
there in maybe like—thirty minutes?”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Patrick said,
and in spite of how skeptical I felt I had to admit he sounded like he at least
was being honest about that. I finished the call and hurried home, weaving
around the rush hour traffic and trying to decide what I could wear for a date
like this. I didn’t want to dress up the way I would for dinner or a movie or
going to a play; but I didn’t want to look like a slob either. I also wanted to
make sure that I wouldn’t freeze my ass off getting to the mall, while not sweating
like a pig once I was inside.

I hurried up to my apartment as soon as I
parked, wondering what was going on with Patrick and whether it even made sense
to go on this date with him. I made a mess of my room going through my clothes
as quickly as possible and finally settled on a pair of jeans, a fitted sweater
with a camisole underneath it, one of the nicer scarves I owned, and a pair of
ankle boots with thick socks underneath to keep my feet warm. I brushed my hair
and tucked it into a cute wool cap that covered the tops of my ears, and put on
just a little bit of makeup; enough to make me look clean and natural and
polished.

I hurried back down to my car and made my
way into downtown, jittery and nervous at the idea that I might be late to meet
with Patrick at the entrance of the mall.
Why
am I sweating this so much? It’s not like we’ve been dating for months. We
barely know each other.
But I didn’t want to let things go without giving
it at least one last, final chance. I kept glancing at my face in the mirror,
wondering if I’d gone too casual, if I looked too fresh-from-work. I told
myself that Patrick knew that I was going to be meeting him almost immediately
from work, that he couldn’t rightly expect me to show up looking as though I’d
spent an hour on my outfit, hair, and makeup, but I was nervous anyway.