He's Still The One
“He owes me a phone call,” Zoe muttered. “I should call the locksmith, just to prove him wrong. Ryan! I want my phone call!”
When Ryan didn’t materialize, Zoe shouted out his name again. She heard footsteps and braced herself. But it wasn’t Ryan. It was Jake.
“Uh, Zoe,” Jake said with a wariness Zoe could understand. After all, they had tangled in the fishpond and ended up wet, dirty and slightly shaken by the encounter. And she’d punched him, a fact she deeply regretted. “Uh, Ryan hasn’t let you out yet?” He glanced right, then left, everywhere except at her. Finally their gazes met.
Zoe motioned him closer until they stood face-to-face. “You don’t want to be the one who tells me he’s found the key but hasn’t unlocked the cuffs.”
“Can I…I mean…is there something else I do can for you?”
“You can accept my apology for hitting you. And I want my phone call.”
“Apology accepted.” Jake warily handed her his cell phone through the bars, then reddened in embarrassment when she waved her still-cuffed wrists in front of his face.
“I can hardly punch out numbers while my hands are otherwise occupied, Jake. Maybe,” she said gently, “you could help Ryan find the key.”
Jake slowly backed away. “I’ll get Ryan.”
“You do that,” Zoe said, trying to keep her voice bright.
She watched Jake disappear around the corner. He was tall, like Ryan. Had an athlete’s body, like Ryan’s. Handsome features, including deep-set blue eyes, also like Ryan’s. But when she stood face-to-face with Jake, she felt nothing, there was no sizzle between them. Unlike the sizzle that had unexpectedly snapped, crackled and popped when she and Ryan had stood on opposite sides of the jail cell door.
What she feared most was caring for Ryan again, maybe even falling head over heels for him again, because in the end, he’d pick up and leave.
As she impatiently waited for the man to appear, Zoe pondered why the Ryan she’d met today had sizzled and every man she’d dated during the past year in New York had fizzled. She’d chosen them, she admitted wryly, because they hadn’t sizzled, hadn’t captured a portion of her heart and soul. And when they left, as all the men in her life inevitably did, she’d been left whole and emotionally untouched. And alone. Very, very alone.
But that was preferable, she told herself, than to be left alone and heartbroken. The way she’d felt when her father left, when Kate left, when Ryan left. Okay, so the all-too-sexy Ryan O’Connor could still made her sizzle. Nothing wrong with that, as long as she didn’t act on it.
Zoe lay back on the cot, letting her eyes drift shut again. This time the image was of the night of her high school graduation. Her parents were seated as bookends to the two empty chairs in the otherwise packed Riverbend High School auditorium. She’d never forget that June night when her world had turned upside down. Her parents had announced they were separating. And Kate and Ryan had eloped. She’d been eighteen, hurt, crushed, devastated and determined never to forgive any of them, especially Ryan.
She was twenty-eight now. Long ago she’d made peace with Kate, and accepted but still couldn’t claim to understand the reasons for her parents’ divorce. But she hadn’t let herself answer why she still felt the sting of Ryan’s betrayal.
Maybe, she admitted to herself, it was because she didn’t want to accept that their friendship, which had meant the world to her, hadn’t been important enough to him.
The sound of approaching footsteps—very different male footsteps from Jake’s—helped clear her mind. She waited until she heard the cell door open before she raised her head to look at him. Keep it light and breezy, she reminded herself. If he sizzled, she would definitely ignore it.
“So nice of you to visit,” she said brightly as he stepped inside the jail cell. “I’ll ring for the coffee or tea while you tell me what you’ve been up to the past ten years.”
“Ms. Zoe Russell, always ready with a joke.”
She sat up, held out her cuffed hands. “I don’t consider this situation funny at all.”
Ryan joined her on the cot. If it surprised Zoe that she let him, she could tell by the expression on his face she’d surprised Ryan even more. “Don’t you think it’s time you let me loose?”
“Jake found the key.” Ryan fumbled with it before unlocking the cuffs. He cleared his throat. “I see you every morning on TV.”
“Oh?” Zoe stood, stretched her aching arms over her head. Out of the corner of her eye she watched as Ryan tidied up the cell, folded the blanket, punched up the pillow. “You watch Wake Up, America?”
“Not exactly. The only way I could get our community liaison here at seven in the morning was to install a TV so she could watch her favorite show. Even without the TV, though, it’d be hard to miss you.”
Her voice chilled. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Magazine ads. TV spots during prime time. I’m not criticizing. Just observing how you got what you wished for. Fame. Fortune.” He cupped her shoulder and turned her to face him. “A chance to ham it up in front of millions of people.”
“Is that what you think of me? That all I care about is being a celebrity? I’m a serious journalist. I worked hard to get that spot on Wake Up, America.” She paused, raising herself to her full height of five feet seven inches, but she still fell short of Ryan by almost half a foot and had to tilt her head back to meet him eye-to-eye.
She stared up at him, fascinated by the specks of gold in his blue eyes, the way his dimples deepened when he smiled. For one inexplicable moment she was torn between wiping that smile off his face and kissing him senseless. Then, thankfully, Ryan cleared his throat and broke the moment.
“You’re standing on my foot.”
Zoe glanced down to see her left mud-splattered sneaker on top of his right shiny black boot. She stepped back, horrified to discover large chunks of dirt on his toe.
Ryan took his handkerchief out of his back pocket and Zoe immediately reached for it. After a slight tug-of-war she sighed and let it go. Ryan brushed the dirt off her cheeks and from the tip of her nose. That brief touch made her insides quiver and the goose bumps run up and down her arms. His smile made her weak in the knees. Looking into those blue eyes made her want to kiss him. Which would be wrong. Which would be totally inappropriate. Which would be a giant mistake.
Which was why she had to get away from Ryan before she did something they’d regret. But it was getting harder and harder to ignore the way Ryan O’Connor made her feel.
“I think I’ve got the worst of it,” he finally said. “Your bail’s been paid. You’re free to go.”
Zoe stepped out of the cell and into freedom. She walked down the hallway to the reception area, aware that Ryan followed in her wake. Aware that he stood a few discreet steps behind her as she signed for her personal belongings. As she swung her tote back onto her shoulder, she tossed a nod in Ryan’s direction. “Is there something else?”
“I’ll walk you home,” Ryan said.
“That’s not necessary.”
“Consider it part of my job.” He swung an arm lightly around her shoulder. Couldn’t he feel the sizzle between them? “I want to make sure you don’t take any more detours.”
They silently walked the three blocks to Kate’s house. She sneaked a glance at Ryan and wondered what life would have been like for Ryan, Kate and her if…if they’d never left Riverbend.
And found him staring at her, intently.
“Am I interrupting something?” a female voice called from the other side of the screen door.
“No!” Zoe and Ryan, their gazes locked, spoke in unison.
“I think I am.” Kate Russell opened the screen door and ushered Zoe inside. “But I’m happy to see my maid of honor and best man are speaking once again.”
Chapter Two
“Ryan O’Connor is your best man?” Zoe dropped onto the queen-size bed in Kate’s guestroom, adjusted the pillows behind her back and propped herself up against the wrought-iron headboard. “First you conveniently forget to tell me he’s back in town. Next you drop the best man bombshell. What other important news are you keeping from me?”
“Why would you think I’m keeping stuff from you?” Kate set two glasses of iced tea on the nightstand before wrapping a blanket around her shoulders and curling up next to Zoe.
“Because you know I hate surprises.” Zoe vigorously toweled her hair. Twenty minutes in a hot shower had done wonders to restore her body but not her mood. Only Ryan O’Connor disappearing into oblivion would do that. “You should have called the minute he crossed into the city limits.”
“You wouldn’t have listened to me,” Kate returned sweetly. “Your exact words were, ‘Don’t anyone, anywhere, at any time, mention that man’s name to me ever again.”’
“That’s hardly the point.” Zoe scowled again at Kate’s snicker. “And I can’t believe I’d say something like that. I was eighteen. Nobody in their right mind pays attention to what eighteen-year-olds say.”
“Ryan did.” Kate said quietly. “So did I.”
Zoe fumbled for a response. When she looked at Kate she felt she was looking into her own soul, although the sisters were as different as night and day.
Zoe had always despaired that with her red hair and fair skin she burned rather than tanned, while Kate, with their paternal grandmother’s exotic dark looks, seemed to keep a deep honey color even in winter. While Zoe was tall, slender and could eat without gaining an ounce, Kate was shorter by several inches with an hourglass figure and had to watch every calorie. Growing up, Zoe had been impulsive, Kate cautious.
As adults, Zoe had become the more conservative, while Kate seemed to be throwing all caution to the wind. Which might explain, Zoe considered as she gazed around the room that had once been hers, why Kate was marrying a man she barely knew.
She walked over to the single window, now framed by sheer white cotton panels. Zoe vividly remembered the day she’d climbed out the window into the tree and somehow lost her balance. A gangly twelve-year-old Ryan, who’d just moved in next door, had carried her inside to treat her scraped hands and knees. She’d been eight, and had developed a full-blown case of puppy love, which had turned into hero worship when they were teens. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d climbed down that tree and joined Kate and Ryan on their adventures.
She and Ryan had climbed the tree together the night of her sweet-sixteen birthday party and he’d kissed her. Zoe hadn’t thought so at the time, but she’d come to realize he hadn’t meant it as a romantic kiss, but one of friendship and affection. But for a starry-eyed Zoe, the kiss had been a turning point. Her feelings about Ryan began deepening into something more than a childish puppy love.
Zoe wouldn’t dwell on the past. Couldn’t. Because then she’d have to answer questions she’d prefer to ignore. Questions that had bounced around in her thoughts from the moment she’d seen Ryan O’Connor on the other side of that jail cell door.
Zoe tossed the towel at her sister. She saw the worried look in Kate’s eyes and chose to ignore it. “All I’m saying is that it would have been nice if someone, like you, had kept me in the loop about Ryan.”
“Nice?” Kate chided.
“Prudent,” Zoe conceded. “It was a shock to see him again.”
“So prudent you would have found some silly excuse not to be my maid of honor? Stop blaming Ryan for something that was both our faults. We never meant to hurt you.”
Zoe winced at the truth in Kate’s words. She’d never told anyone she’d had a king-size crush on Ryan. That she’d dreamed one day he’d see her as more than a pint-size pal. That, at the time, she hadn’t seen Kate and Ryan’s teenage elopement for what it was, as a form of rebellion. And that after Kate and Ryan divorced, Zoe and Ryan had never been able to regain anything resembling their once-close friendship.
But Zoe was just as certain if she’d known Ryan was back in town, she’d have come home for the wedding. Ten years ago, the night of her high school graduation, she’d heaped the blame for all her pain on Ryan’s wide shoulders. He’d let her. He’d never offered an excuse, or tried to shift the blame.
Zoe settled at the foot of the bed and reached for one of the glasses of iced tea. She sipped and sighed. Lots of sugar. Just the way Mom made it. “How long did you say he’s been back?”
“A few months.”
“As police chief? Philadelphia get tired of him and take away his key to the city?”
“You’ll have to ask Ryan for the details because he’s told me next to nothing. But I gather it was the other way around. Maybe you should take the time to get to know the man he’s become.” She looked at Zoe slyly. “He’s not seeing anyone.”
“Not interested,” she said quickly. “What makes you think I would be? What is it about brides-to-be? Is it your mission in life to fix up every single female you know? Am I so lacking in male companionship that you’re offering me your ex-husband? And that’s supposed to cheer me up?”
“I want you to be as happy as I am.”
“Having Ryan be your best man isn’t a step in the right direction,” Zoe said dryly. “You’ve only known Alec Carmichael a few weeks. Three dates and you’re engaged.”
“A few months,” Kate corrected. “Time is irrelevant when you’re in love. Alec is perfect for me. Ryan’s perfect for you.”
“I’d rather not have this discussion. Ever.”
“It’s time we did.” Kate tossed her a look that brooked no argument. “Ryan and I were never meant for each other. And who’s been complaining she’s always a bridesmaid and never a bride?”
“What I meant was…” Zoe scowled. “It’s not nice of you to bring that up.”
Kate laughed. “I’m your older sister. Nice has nothing to do with it. I just want what’s best for you.”
“Then stay out of my love life.”
“Just pretend you met him today for the first time.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “I was dressed in mud. He was dressed in perfectly pressed tan chinos and a T-shirt that hugged his muscles. Yes, I noticed how good he looks. He called me a crook and I insulted him right back.” And I wanted him to kiss me. Zoe’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. There was that traitorous thought again.
Kate briskly clapped her hands. “Besides, Ryan meets the Zoe Russell list of dating qualifications. He’s single. He’s breathing. He’s straight. He’s here.”
“That’s low, Kate, even for you.” Zoe shuddered, determined not to try and follow what passed for Kate’s logic. Let Ryan O’Connor back into her perfectly ordered life? No way. Never. She wasn’t that desperate, wasn’t ever going to be that desperate, for a relationship.
She held up her glass. “No, iced tea the way Mom makes it is perfect for me, but I know the sugar she dumps into it is bad for me.” Her voice caught in her throat. It was important Kate understood her feelings and didn’t do something Zoe would live to regret. “I’m not one of those women who need a man to make her complete. I’m happy with my friends and my family.”
“Ryan’s always going to be a part of our family. Even though we’ve been divorced longer than we were married. You were good friends once. You can be friends again.” Kate reached for Zoe’s hand and gently squeezed. “At least talk to him. Clear the air between you.”
When hell freezes over. “Soon as I see him.”
“Promise. It’s important to me.”
Zoe sighed. The always tenacious Kate wasn’t going to let go. “Okay. One little talk. Just for you.”
Kate wrapped her in hug. “You won’t regret it.”
I already do. Zoe knew she owed it to Kate to be the best maid of honor she could be. She’d be careful so that she wouldn’t run into Ryan. If she did, she would be—she wracked her brain for a word—pleasant, she’d be pleasant.
“And then,” Zoe said brightly, “I won’t have to see him for the next two weeks, until I’m forced to stand across the aisle from him on your wedding day.”
Meanwhile, she wouldn’t think about what it might be like to kiss Ryan, be the recipient of his sexy smiles or caress his dimples. But she was intrigued about the haunted look on his face when she demanded to know why he’d left Philadelphia. She’d get to the bottom of that soon enough.
“There is one more thing you should know…” Kate’s voice trailed off.
From the ominous tone in her sister’s voice, Zoe wasn’t sure she was ready for the one more thing. “And that is…?”
The sound of male voices downstairs had Kate running to the top of the staircase. Zoe followed, curious.
“Anyone home up there?” called a deep voice Zoe knew she hadn’t heard before.
“Alec?” Kate frantically brushed her hands through her hair, checked her appearance in the hall mirror. “Zoe’s finally arrived. And there’s a problem with the caterer.”
Zoe sighed, returned to the bedroom and closed the door. She just bet the one more thing Kate had failed to tell her had to do with Ryan. She slipped out of her terry-cloth robe and into a pair of well-worn jeans and a Wake Up, America T-shirt. Her eyes caught the mud-caked tennis shoes she’d tossed on top of the clothes hamper. She gingerly picked them up by their shoestrings and dropped them into the waste can by the bureau. No time like the present to get rid of unnecessary luxuries.
And no time like the present to meet her future brother-in-law. A quick glance into the hallway mirror told her she was as presentable as she could possibly be, under the circumstances. Maybe her cheeks were a bit too flushed, her eyes a bit too bright, but she’d spent twenty minutes in a hot shower.
She jogged down the stairs into the living room to find her sister wrapped in the arms of a dark-haired man a few inches taller than Kate. The look on Kate’s heart-shaped face was one of a woman deeply in love and secure in the knowledge that her feelings were returned.
Kate quickly made the introductions before spiriting away Alec so they could discuss wedding plans. Zoe walked into the kitchen. She wasn’t surprised to see Ryan seated comfortably at the kitchen table with an open pizza box in front of him.
“Why are you here?” Zoe asked crossly before she had a chance to check her emotions. “I think we’ve spent enough time together for one day.”
“Best man stuff.” He cocked a brow, surveyed her up and down several times before turning on that devastating smile. “You clean up well.”
“How nice of you to notice.”
“Almost didn’t recognize you without the mud.” He glanced down at her hands. “Or without the cuffs.”
“I save the more sophisticated look for prison.” She sighed, took a step back. Ryan stood and took one step forward. He was much too close. She thought about her promise to Kate. Make peace? Not tonight. “Go home, Ryan. I’m too tired to play clever repartee with you.”
Zoe yanked open the refrigerator door with more force than necessary. She pulled out two beers. It appeared Ryan wasn’t going home. She tossed one bottle in his direction. “No reason to let pizza with the works go to waste.”
He caught the bottle before it made contact with his head and gently set it on the table. He eased himself back into one of the high-back oak chairs. “Your aim hasn’t matured along with the rest of you.”
Zoe wanted to snarl at him. She really did. It wasn’t good manners that kept her from doing so. It was that marching band with its percussion section at full volume that had just begun rumbling through her head.
She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples trying to ease the pain. Just pretend you met him today for the first time. Right. If life were simpler, and Zoe years younger, she’d happily take Kate’s advice. Ryan had grown from a gangly cute teenager into a devastatingly handsome man. She knew Kate would ignore her plea that she wasn’t interested in Ryan, and would still find a way for them to spend a lot of quality time together during the next two weeks. She wondered if she’d survive the experience.
Zoe ordered herself to keep the conversation light but on point. She needed all her wits about her. “Kate thinks we should talk. Clear the air. Put the past behind us.” Date. No, dating Ryan O’Connor was not a viable option. Not now. Not ever.
Then he smiled. And Zoe’s heart beat a tattoo. She thought back to earlier in the day, and the effect he’d had on her senses. From the moment they’d met, she’d been on the defensive. It was past time to turn the tables and put Ryan O’Connor in his place. “Let’s play Truth or Dare.”
“Truth or Dare. And I’ll live to regret it.” Ryan’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I admit I’ve followed your career because I take pleasure in your success. You tell me why you’ve treated me like a pariah the past ten years.”
She sputtered as she fought to swallow a gulp of beer.
“I know why.” The patience in his voice didn’t fool her. He was angry and trying hard to keep his emotions under control. “I’m not an idiot. I just need you to tell me why. Actually, you need for you to tell me why.”
Zoe swallowed the gulp, but it was a few more seconds before she finally found her voice. “I’m not going to let you reduce the last ten years of my life into some sixty-second commercial for…”
“You wouldn’t have offered up Truth or Dare if you didn’t have something important to say to me.”
She hated it when he was right. When they were teenagers, playing Truth or Dare was the way they dealt with sensitive issues they’d rather not—but knew they had to—talk about. She didn’t want him to be right. She didn’t want him to be a handsome, sexy and available man.
Zoe wanted him to be going bald, with bad skin and a paunchy stomach. With a nagging wife and several snot-nosed brats who drove him crazy. She wanted him to be a thousand miles away and not upsetting her already much too complicated life. But he was here. And she had no choice but to deal with him.
He looked so comfortable sitting at her family’s dinner table as though he’d always had a place. He’d always belonged there, and when he’d gone, he’d left a hole no antiseptic could heal, no Band-Aid could begin to cover. She resented him for making her feel anything, even anger and most especially desire, for him. But she didn’t know what to say to him.
“You’ve always underestimated me. You’ve never taken me seriously. You’ve never really known me. How would you like it if I ripped into your life?”
Ryan’s expression hardened. He stood, leaned over the table so they were face-to-face, mere inches apart. “There’s nothing to rip into.”
She kept her gaze locked to his. “I don’t agree. Let’s start with why you’re sitting in the police chief’s chair in Riverbend when all you ever wanted to do was chase crooks in the big bad city.”
“That’s none of your business.” His voice was devoid of emotion.
“You left.” She challenged him to deny her words as she abruptly changed the subject and answered his Truth question. “We were friends, Ryan. Friends don’t desert one another.”
“I graduated from college,” he said patiently. “I moved to Philadelphia to take a new job.”
“You weren’t there on the most important night of my life.”
“Guilty as charged. We missed your high school graduation. But Kate and I had other things on our minds.”
“You eloped! Why?”
“I’ll tell you if you answer why our marriage sent you into such an emotional tailspin that you neatly and deliberately cut me out of your life.”
“I can’t answer that question.”
“Can’t,” he said quietly, “or won’t. It was never about me marrying Kate. Or our moving to Philly. It’s always been about your father.”
Zoe’s heart pounded in her chest. She felt each painful breath as she slowly exhaled, then inhaled then exhaled again. She’d thought the day couldn’t get any worse. She was wrong. “Leave my father out of this. You don’t know anything.”
“Your parents separated. I know it was a painful time for you, but they did what they thought best. Kate was hurting, too. And I was reeling after my parents were killed in that stupid car accident,” Ryan said softly. Now she heard the pain in his voice, and tried to harden her heart against it.