by Patt Marr
Careful, he repeated, smiling to himself. If Meg were here, he could have said that out loud. Wasn’t that proof that the maverick who acted before he thought was long gone? In his place was a responsible guy who thought about skin cancer, vehicle safety and what might happen if the Lord meant for the two of them to be together.
An inviting cushioned chaise lay flat in the sun, just calling his name. Laying facedown, he stretched his arms over his head and enjoyed the winter pleasure of warm sunshine.
Lulled by the rhythmic ebb and flow of the tide, he drifted into nothingness and dreamed of a dark-haired mermaid who swam by his side down deep in the sea.
Icy-cold goo hit his back and brought him back to the surface. In one quick move he twisted to face his tormentor and caught Meg’s wrist.
“It’s only sunscreen,” she said, laughing at him.
He loved the sound of that low, rich laughter. Gone was the cute ponytail which he’d liked, but her dark hair now rested on one shoulder, gleaming in the sunlight. Had she brushed it extra pretty for him, and had she applied that fresh glossy lip color so he would notice she had the most beautiful lips he’d ever seen? He hoped so because that would mean he might have a chance.
“Thanks for thinking of the sunscreen,” he said as matter-of-factly as he could, considering the pick-up of his heart rate. He resumed his belly-down position. “I expect I could use a lot of that stuff.”
“We don’t want you to get burned,” she said with a smile in her voice, scooching him over so that she’d have room to sit beside him.
That was fine with him, especially if she planned to do a thorough job with that sunscreen.
Even though he expected the feel of her hands, her first touch made him tense so obviously that she laughed.
“Kind of flinchy, aren’t you?” she teased.
“Kind of what?” He hadn’t heard that one before.
“Flinchy. That’s what my grandpa used to call it when a person had the twitches.”
“I do not have the twitches.”
“No?” She drizzled more cold lotion on his back.
Of course, he flinched again. “You’ve become a cruel woman, Meg.”
That rich laughter again. He loved it.
“I can still throw you in the ocean,” he warned.
“If you can catch me.”
He thought he might be up to that challenge. Her hands glided over his skin, smoothing the lotion over his arms and shoulders until he was putty in her hands. Right now, he couldn’t win a race with baby Meggy.
“What’s this, Ry?” She circled the round design of the tattoo on his back. “It looks just like…”
He waited for her to figure it out.
“Ry, isn’t this just like the medallion you used to wear on a chain? The one your Grandma Rose gave you?”
Wordlessly, he nodded. Would she think its symbolism overly sentimental or would she understand? He’d had the tattoo for a decade, but Meg was the first to see it who had also seen the original.
“But the initials aren’t the same,” she murmured, her hands stilled as if the design required her whole concentration. “MRH? Your medallion had your initials, RHB for Rylander Hamilton Brennan.”
If Grandma Rose hadn’t given him the medallion already engraved with his initials, Ry would never have worn it, not when that set of letters represented a man as cold and hateful as Grandma Rose had been loving and kind.
Grandma Rose had reached high to place the chain over his long curly hair. She’d straightened the silver disk on his chest and said, “That’s for Grandma’s good boy.”
If people only knew how much praise meant to a kid, especially one as starved for it as he’d been, they would shower a child with good words.
He rose to a sitting position beside Meg, picked up the bottle of lotion, squirted some in his palm and smoothed it over his face, throat and chest.
“So are you going to explain, or not?” Meg asked.
He looked at her, wondering what he would do if she laughed at his story. For starters, he would throw her in the ocean, but then what? Still, if he couldn’t trust Meg, who could he trust?
“When Grandma Rose died, I’d been away a year or so. In that time, I’d only called her twice. This was a woman who’d shown me nothing but love, and I cut her off just like I cut the rest of you off. I must have thought I had all the time in the world to show her I cared. When I realized what a mistake I’d made, it was awful.”
“You were young,” Meg said, nudging his shoulder with hers, a comforting gesture. “Kids take the future for granted. Your grandmother knew how things were for you.”
He hoped she was right. “I flew home, all torn up inside, trying to think of a gesture that was worthy of Grandma. Flowers weren’t enough, and I don’t write poetry or anything like that. But I passed a tattoo parlor and thought about having the medallion duplicated on my back, under my left shoulder blade, right behind my heart—or where I thought the heart was at the time.” He smiled at his own youthful thinking and looked at her, expecting her to be smiling, too.
But there were tears in her eyes. “That was a sweet thing to do, Ry. Your grandmother would have loved it.”
He’d always hoped so. “I had her initials tattooed on my back medallion—MRH for Marsha Rose Hamilton—so I’d always have her with me, and I dropped my chain and the medallion with my initials in her casket.”
“So you would always be with her,” Meg finished.
He nodded, grateful that she understood.
She laced her fingers through his, a gesture just as precious as his sentimental soul could take.
“It was kind of crazy,” he murmured.
“Do not let me hear you ever say that again.”
Whoa! Power Woman could be fearsome when she wanted to be. Or maybe she knew he’d had all the sentiment he could take.
He knew just the thing to brighten the mood. “Last night you mentioned that I brought a woman to Grandma’s funeral? Remember?”
“I think everyone remembers, Ry,” she said dryly.
Okay, so he’d made some bad choices back then. “Want to know who she was?” he asked, eager to tell her.
“I’m guessing some babe you met at the tattoo parlor.”
She knew him pretty well. “Close,” he admitted. “She was my tattoo artist. She did the medallion.”
Meg murmured, “No way.”
It was the truth, not that he was all that proud of it.
“Please tell me that’s how you introduced her to Trey,” she said, her mouth quivering with laughter.
“I did, and she offered Trey a family discount for his own tattoo. She suggested that he have a snake like the one on her arm.”
“I love it!” she hooted.
Laughter ripped from his girl, and he joined her. It was the best laugh he’d had in ages.
When she could catch her breath, he grabbed her hand and pulled her down the stairs to the beach. Scooping a bit of sand, he tossed it against her legs—her very pretty legs—and said, “You’re it. Catch me if you can.”
He took off toward the hard-packed sand against the water’s edge. Turning to see if she followed, he realized he couldn’t loaf. Those pretty legs weren’t just for show. She was right behind him.
And he could hardly wait until Meg caught him.
Chapter Seven
Ry leaned against the ambulance door and stared out of the window at his beloved New York, barely noticing his partner’s driving skill as they sped to a call. Had this part of the city always looked so old and winter ugly? Where was the vibrancy he’d felt during his student days at UConn when weekends in New York were such a treat? He’d known even then that this was where he wanted to live.
Tourists called the city a concrete jungle, but he loved every sky-high building, old or new, all erected with pride and hope for the future. Of the many bridges that led off the island, he seldom used them. Manhattan was New York, and New York was home.
Or
it had been until yesterday, especially last night.
He’d put his foot down and told Meg she was not coming to the airport to see him off. It was too late at night. He had his rental car for transportation. But Power Woman had her way. She’d stayed with him until he had to pass airport security and head to his gate.
They hadn’t talked much. It was funny how people couldn’t think of much to say when one of them was leaving. She had done her best, asking what he’d be doing when he got back. And he’d done his best, trying to sound normal when all he could think of was how much he wanted to kiss her goodbye. Not just a friendly goodbye kiss, but a genuine man-woman meeting of lips, heart and soul.
But he hadn’t risked it.
When had he become such a chicken? He loved a dare. He took risks every day. But he hadn’t risked giving Meg a kiss to remember. That little brush of his lips on her forehead didn’t count, not any more than that touch of her lips on his jaw. He could have done so much better.
Overnight, Meg had become a woman who’d dug so deeply under his skin that he could hardly concentrate on his job today.
“You’re doing it again,” his partner said irritably.
“What?” he answered just as irritably. He wasn’t in the mood for sparring with Doc.
“Zoning out. Get your mind on your work, college boy.”
He hated it when Doc called him that. Doc didn’t even know he had a degree. “My mind is on my work,” he muttered. “Who just intubated that last patient when you couldn’t?” If he didn’t hold his own with Doc, she ran right over him.
“Yeah, but you’ve got ‘that look,’” she groused.
Oh, fine, here it came. A shift wasn’t complete without some dig about him being a womanizer.
“Who is she this time?”
“What makes you think there’s just one?” Okay, that fed her fantasy, but it seemed to make Doc a little less cranky to see him as a skirt-chaser—an endearing term she’d used so often it was even in his vocabulary.
“You’re different today, college boy. What’s her name and where did you meet her?”
“Mom. Met her in the womb,” he said glumly. He wasn’t in the mood to play.
“Nope. Don’t think so. Try again.”
Bulldog Doc. She would gnaw on this bone until she was satisfied. He’d have to get creative. “Okay, if you must know, her name is Beth, and I met her at a New Year’s Eve party.” That had enough truth that it ought to get past Doc’s radar. Doc didn’t know he had a sister. They never talked about their families.
“That’s not it. Get real, college boy.”
“If we’re going to get real, let’s talk about who you were with on New Year’s Eve, Doc.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
But turnabout was fair play. “Why do we always have to talk about my life instead of yours, Doc?”
“Because I don’t have a life, and yours is shallow, but fairly interesting.”
High praise indeed.
“C’mon, amuse me,” she said. “Who’s the woman and where did you meet her?”
The choice seemed to be try out names and places until their shift ended or try the truth and see if she bought it.
“Meg. California,” he said, assuming a sarcastic edge to throw her off.
She glanced his way assessingly. He looked out the window. Let her read the back of his head.
What he wouldn’t give for the sight of a palm tree, even a scraggly one, or the view from Pete and Sunny’s beach house. He’d seen the harbor several times today, yet he felt homesick for an ocean a continent away.
Of course it wasn’t the same. Those gray caps in the harbor were wintry cold and unfriendly. There was no beautiful beach inviting him to play, and no dark-haired beauty to chase as the tide lapped the shore.
“I thought you went to California to see your family?” she said dryly.
“I did.”
And the actual reason for the trip provided a perfect opportunity for him to witness to Doc. He wanted her to see that a relationship with the Lord made life worth living. She would remember the kid they’d brought in on New Year’s Eve. He could tell her how that kid’s death prompted him to go home and make things right with his family.
But he’d hardly been a joyous believer today. Maybe he would save that sermon for another day. “Meg is a family friend,” he said quietly, hoping Doc would leave it at that. He wasn’t prepared to analyze and report on his new feelings for Meg.
An order from dispatch routed them to a new call.
Ry sat up straight and charted the information. A six-year-old male was having a severe asthma attack. Man, he hated it when a kid was involved.
He turned the siren and emergency lights on. “Step on it, Doc.”
She already had.
Just once he’d like to see drivers get out of the way when their siren blared and their lights flashed madly. Did they think he and Doc were rushing to pick up a pizza? A child might not make it if they didn’t get there in time. Little kids didn’t realize how sick they were. When they crashed, it was serious.
“So you’ve known this Meg for a long time?” Doc asked conversationally.
Ry’s adrenaline pumped and his thoughts were all about how he planned to treat the child. But Doc operated best when she pretended there was no upcoming trauma.
“Since we were little kids,” he said for her sake, not because he was interested in conversation just now.
“You’ve never talked about her or your family.”
He hadn’t talked about a lot of things. It was easier to let Doc and others think he had the depth of a teacup than to invite questions he had no answers for.
“So, where in California? And what’s your family like?”
Good grief. Like it mattered? “Beverly Hills,” he snapped. “And they’re all M.D.s.”
“They’re all M.D.s, and you’re a paramedic?” Her voice rose.
He shouldn’t have told her.
“So what happened to you? Flunk out, college boy?”
If she hadn’t called him that again, he could have kept his cool, but he snapped. “No, Doc, I graduated with honors the same year I led the conference in touch-downs.” What difference did it make if he told her? She probably wouldn’t believe it. “Over there, that’s the address.”
He was out of the bus before she could turn off the motor. Grabbing their stuff, he headed inside, praying that someone had been smart enough to summon the elevator and had it waiting for them. Hopefully, it worked in this old building, and they wouldn’t have to deal with the stairs.
Doc backed the ambulance out of the bay at Manhattan General, noting that her partner seemed as exhausted as she was. It had been a very physical shift, and this last call had zapped both of them. How could people live on the tenth floor of a building with a broken elevator?
If it hadn’t been for Ry’s strength, their little asthma patient wouldn’t have made it. Ry had beaten her up the stairs, got a line going, scooped up the child and met her on the way down.
“You saved that kid, Ry.”
He shrugged as if he were angry. “It was too close of a call. That family needs a baby-sitter with a brain. They need better housing, better jobs, medicine for the kid—” He stopped midsentence and folded his arms in frustration.
This was not like Ry at all. They dealt with calls that bad all the time. Ry was different today, and it worried her. Where was the irrepressible flirt, the eternal optimist, the man who lifted her spirits every day?
“We do what we can, Ry.” She so seldom had to be the positive one that she hardly knew how.
“It isn’t enough.”
“Nothing’s enough, but we do what we can.”
He made a sound of disgust. “I’m sick of it. I ought to know more, be able to do more.”
She hadn’t known he felt that way. She did herself, but she was doing something about it. Why didn’t he? He said he had a college degree, that he’d graduated with honor
s. She believed him. Ry was a sharp guy. She wished she had his gift for remembering things.
“If you want to do more,” she said, “quit your whining and do it. Use that degree. Go to med school. Become an M.D. like the rest of your family.”
He didn’t answer, which was unlike him. Ry always had an answer.
“What’s holding you back?” she said. “The fact that you might actually have to work a little?”
Slumped in his seat, discouragement and frustration were written all over him. This was not like Ry.
“Is it money?” She could understand that.
“I’ve got the money, Doc,” he said wearily. “I had a rich grandma who left a trust fund that would pay for med school several times over.”
Doc felt shocked to her boots. Ry lived as conservatively as she did and worked overtime just as much. He had money and didn’t use it? The guy was an idiot.
“Yesterday I told my dad and my sister that I was thinking about med school. This morning, I get home and there are two medical school applications in my mailbox. One for here in New York, the other in L.A. I don’t know how they could have pulled that off, and it was probably Dad, not my sister, but it’s just another example of how the family wants to run my life.”
If she had support like that, to say nothing of the money and the college degree, she’d be the happiest person in the world. He sounded as if he’d been shackled, chained and spit up on. Maybe he ought to be, the ingrate.
Gall rising in her throat, she steered the bus to the first available curb, put the transmission in Park and turned to face her idiot partner.
“Ry, I still live with my parents so I can save every dime. I’m working on my degree, but only part-time. I have no friends, no freedom, no fun. And, if I can maintain this grueling lifestyle long enough to get my bachelor’s degree, I plan to apply to med school myself. Of course I’ll have to pray for admission because my grades aren’t so hot, and if accepted, I’ll have to mortgage my future with loans.”
Ry couldn’t believe it. This was Doc’s secret life? Bless her heart, who wouldn’t be cranky with that schedule?
