Firefighter Christmas Complete Series Box Set (A Firefighter Holiday Romance Love Story)

by Nella Tyler

  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.”

  “Great! Let me go ahead and finish this chart and you can be on your way.”

  “Let’s get on that then,” I agreed. “Landon will end up never wanting to leave if I let him play with the toys too long.”

  Chapter Three

  Mackenzie

  I had played it cool when Patrick asked me on our second date, but the closer it came the more nervous I became. I rushed home from work so I could have as much time as possible to get ready. I’d managed to have a kid in my second-to-last session of the day whose mom had stuffed him with soda and candy so he’d “have plenty of energy” for his PT session—with the predictable result that he’d ended up puking all over my scrubs and shoes in the middle of doing an exercise. I’d managed to change before my last session of the day, but I was horrified at the idea that I might end up going into my date with Patrick smelling of puke and candy.

  I had started taking off my clothes as soon as I had the door locked behind me in my apartment, nearly tripping over my feet to rush to the bathroom. I managed to kick my shoes off and stumble towards the shower. I turned the water on and let it heat up for a moment while I made sure that I had a clean towel to use. I showered as quickly as I possibly could—but I still stayed in long enough to wash my hair twice before putting conditioner in it and to scrub myself all over twice to make sure that I was good and clean. I shaved while I let the conditioner sink into my hair and then rinsed off one final time. “God I hope I don’t smell like kid-vomit,” I murmured to myself as I stepped out of the shower.

  After that I tried on three or four outfits; I didn’t know where Patrick was planning on taking me, so it was hard to guess whether I was overdressing or underdressing for the night out. He’d said the date wasn’t going to be anything fancy. I settled on a dress finally—one from Old Navy, which came down to just above the knee, in a soft sweater material and a pair of even softer micro-plush tights to keep my legs warm, along with a pair of boots.

  That done, I rushed to get my makeup on. I’ve never liked wearing a ton of makeup, and in my job it almost never made sense to wear any at all, so I went with just some foundation and a little bit of blush, a touch of eye shadow and mascara, and a swipe from a lip marker to give my mouth a little bit of color.

  I was deliberating over my jewelry—and whether to wear any at all—when my phone rang. I was certain for just a second that it would be Patrick, calling to cancel, after everything I’d done to make sure I would be ready on time. Instead the contact details that flashed on my screen showed it was my Dad. “Hey, Dad!” I hurried back into my bedroom and started looking through my jewelry box. “What’s going on?”

  “How’s my girl?” I smiled a little bit to myself at Dad’s voice. I had to get him off the phone quickly—I didn’t know if Patrick would be early, on time, or even a little bit late, but I wanted to make sure that I was done getting ready by the time he showed up no matter when he decided to knock.

  “I’m doing all right,” I said, sitting on the edge of my bed and dumping my jewelry box onto the comforter. “How are you and Mom?”

  “We’re good,” Dad told me. “Looking forward to seeing everyone in a few weeks. Do you think you’re going to be able to stay for the whole holiday?” I bit my bottom lip and picked through my necklaces, trying to decide which one went best with the outfit I’d picked out.

  “I’m hoping I can,” I said absently. “They haven’t decided who’s on call for the days between Christmas and New Years, so I’ll let you and Mom know if I might have to dash out one of the days.”

  “Sometimes I worry about how hard you work,” Dad said, sounding tired. “Just imagining it makes my head spin.”

  “I learned it from you,” I told him, laughing a little from my nervousness. “You were always the first one in and the last one to go home.”

  “But is that any way for you to live your life?”

  I shrugged, even though I knew that Dad couldn’t see me. “It was fine for me—since I knew your mom was there to help you with your homework and all those other things. But your mom and I are worried that you work too hard to find someone to be with.”

  “There are lots of married physical therapists at the clinic,” I said. I picked out a necklace finally and put the phone on speaker so that I could put it on. “Some of them even work as hard as I do.”

  “But how are you going to meet somebody if you’re never free?”

  “I’m free at nights,” I pointed out. “I just have to make sure I get home on time.”

  “You’re still so young,” Dad insisted. “You should be going out to bars, meeting people.”

  “I meet lots of people. I go out sometimes,” I told him, as I finally managed to get the latch on my necklace open. I somehow slid the loop into place and let the latch close. I gave the necklace a little tug to make sure it was on properly and then went back to sorting through my jewelry to find the matching earrings. “In fact I went out with someone a few days ago.”

  “Does that mean you might have a date for our big party?” I fought back the urge to sigh; Dad and Mom alike were obsessed with me having a date for the party, with me getting married. I had started to think that they had some kind of belief that if I would just get married, I’d quit my job—but any guy who expected me to quit working just because we’d gotten married wasn’t a guy I wanted to be involved with. I loved my job, and I loved the kids I worked with; I wasn’t going to give that up for anyone. That’s something I should talk to Patrick about if things ever get any farther than a couple of casual dates, I thought.

  “We’ll see,” I told Dad. I found the earrings and put them on before picking up the phone again. I took it off speaker and went back into the bathroom to check my makeup and to put the finishing touches on my hair. “I don’t get why you and Mom are al
ways harping on me dating someone.”

  “We just want to see you happy,” Dad said. “We don’t like the thought of you living all on your own.”

  “I am perfectly happy living on my own,” I said firmly. “And anyway, you should want me to be with someone who’s right for me—not just anyone at all. Don’t you think I deserve the right guy?”

  “But how are you going to find the right guy if you don’t look?”

  I finally did sigh. “Dad, it will happen when it happens and not a minute before that,” I told him. “If I’m meant to find a good guy, and get married and settle down, then it will happen.”

  “We just think you could be a little more proactive. I don’t want to spend the rest of my retirement worrying what’ll happen to you after I’m gone.”

  “So then don’t worry about it!” I added another coat of color to my lips to deepen it. “Whether I get married or not, I have a good job and good benefits, and I am supporting myself just fine.”

  “Let’s talk about something more pleasant,” Dad suggested. “How was your day at work?” I glanced at my watch and saw that there was another maybe fifteen minutes before Patrick should be arriving to pick me up.

  “I had a kid puke on me today,” I said, grinning wryly to myself. “His mom had given him a whole twenty-ounce bottle of pop and a bag of skittles to go with it and he went up like Mount Vesuvius all over me.”

  “I hope you read her the riot act,” Dad said.

  “Oh you’d better believe it,” I told him. “I told her that the next time her son came in stuffed to the gills with sugar I wasn’t going to work with him, and that if it happened a third time I was going to not only kick her out of the clinic but inform her family doctor.”

  “Good girl,” Dad said, his voice approving. “Did you catch last night’s game?” I laughed. One of the few things that Dad and I always had to talk about was the Chicago Bulls.

  “I did!” We spent a few minutes talking over the highlights while I checked myself over and over again to make sure I was as perfect as I was going to get for the date with Patrick. I told Dad at one point that I’d have to get off the phone soon—I was getting ready to go out—but I didn’t tell him it was a second date with anyone. We started talking about what we were going to get for the different members of the family and I started pacing around my living room.