by Janice Lynn
What if she hadn’t been able to respond?
The question hit him hard, punching him in the gut, and stalling his feet. What if she’d gone into her office and something bad had happened?
She’d looked as if something was really wrong, had been leaning against the wall for support and been pale as a ghost. Had she gone into her office and passed out?
He knocked on the door again. This time brisker and with more urgency.
Nothing.
“McKenzie, open up.” Because the more his brain raced, the more he knew he couldn’t just walk away without making sure she was all right. He had to know she was okay even if it meant later being accused of overreacting.
Her office door could be locked. If so, he’d break in or get help.
“If you don’t answer, I’m coming in to make sure you’re not passed out on the floor.”
* * *
What was Ryder’s problem? McKenzie wondered as she lifted her head off her knees and tried to get her blurry eyes to focus on the room around her. He’d barely acknowledged she existed for months and today of all days he felt the need to make sure she wasn’t passed out on the floor?
“Go away.”
There. She’d answered. He could leave.
“I brought you water and crackers,” he repeated.
“You can have them.”
Water and crackers weren’t going to solve her problems.
“I’m not going away until I make sure you’re okay.”
Ugh. If he was waiting on her to be okay, he might be there awhile.
She would be okay, she told herself again. Eventually. Hadn’t she been after Clay had broken her heart? Sure, it had taken a long time and meeting and falling for Paul, but she had recovered from Clay’s blow to her heart.
She had experience in recovering. This time shouldn’t take nearly as long to get back on her feet, to make the pain in her chest go away, to not want to burst into tears at every sappy song on the radio.
Yeah, she was a pro at this getting dumped and would be shaking off Paul’s wanting time apart. No big deal.
“I’m not leaving, McKenzie. Open up.” He knocked on the door again.
Ugh. He was making so much commotion in the hallway he had to be drawing the attention of their colleagues. She could do without everyone there knowing she was Paul’s yesterday news.
She stood from where she had been crouched on the floor, wiped her eyes, took a deep breath and told herself she had this. That Ryder was just a man. A gorgeous man who’d probably never been dumped, but, still, just a man.
She didn’t bother forcing a smile to her face because she wanted him to know she didn’t appreciate his concern. Perhaps she should, but at the moment she just wanted to wallow in her pity a few minutes.
“What is your problem?” she asked as she flung the door open. Okay, so that hadn’t been very nice of her, but he was seriously butting into her business and she just wanted to be left alone.
Seeming stunned by her irritation, he held the water and package of crackers out to her. “These are yours.”
“Fine. I’ll take them.” She did just that, taking them from him. “You can go now.”
“I... Okay, I will.” He studied her face.
McKenzie lifted her chin, almost daring him to say something. Yes, she had been crying. Yes, she knew her eyes were swollen. Yes, it embarrassed her that he was seeing her this way.
“Is there anything I can do?” he surprised her by asking, deflating her false bravado.
“I... No, there’s nothing you can do.” Nothing anyone could do. Either Paul loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her or he didn’t. Embarrassed that Ryder was seeing her when she was so dejected, when she knew her eyes were red rimmed from crying and that she likely had mascara running down her cheeks, she forced a weak smile to her face. “I had a long night on call at the hospital and didn’t get much rest. This morning has had a few unexpected things come up.” To say the least. “Thank you for the water and crackers.”
It was nice of him to get them for her when he hadn’t had to. She must have looked really bad for him to have felt the need. If he’d wanted reassurance on that, she doubted she looked any better after her mini-boohoo-fest.
“Truly.” She mentally willed the corners of her mouth upward again. “I’ll be fine.”
With that she closed the door, leaving him on the other side, and her knowing she had to get her act together to make it through the rest of her day.
If Ryder, who didn’t even like her, had shown such pity, her friends would be holding an intervention.
She’d wash her face, repair her makeup, and, should anyone ask, she’d blame any remaining puffy redness on her hospital on-call shift. Tonight, in the privacy of her home, she’d give rein to her broken heart.
CHAPTER TWO
A WEEK HAD passed since Paul’s decision to rock McKenzie’s world. The feeling of being on the verge of constant tears had eased somewhat. Instead, a mounting sense of panic was rapidly taking its place.
In less than two weeks she had to go to Tennessee to be in her cousin’s wedding.
Her cousin with the perfect life that her mother went on and on about. That was, when she wasn’t going on and on about how much she looked forward to meeting McKenzie’s future husband.
Because no matter how many times she’d attempted to tell her mother that she and Paul had broken up, McKenzie hadn’t been able to drag the words from the pits of her being.
She didn’t want to hear the sorrow, the pity, the disappointment in her mother’s voice.
Nor had she been able to tell Reva.
Oh, how she and her cousin had been so close once upon a time. Just for the longest time McKenzie had sensed her cousin’s awkwardness with McKenzie’s unhappy personal life, her guilt that her own love life seemed to always be so perfect when McKenzie’s hadn’t. Until McKenzie had started dating Paul, she and Reva had reached the point of barely talking. Only over the past few months as McKenzie had convinced her cousin that, yes, she had her own perfect life in Seattle, had she and her cousin’s relationship started getting past the awkwardness that had reared its ugly head when McKenzie had taken the residency in Seattle, despite all her family pushing her to stay in Nashville. Mostly, because they worried about her and wanted to fix her up with blind date after blind date.
No thank you.
Her mother had even gone online trying to find McKenzie dates in Seattle.
Meeting Paul and being able to tell her family to back off had been a godsend. Suddenly the tension between her and her mother had eased, the tension between her and Reva had eased.
Even McKenzie’s brother had seemed less worried about her being so far away.
How could she tell them she’d been dumped again?
The pressure to move home would renew, the meddling in her love life—or lack thereof—would start again. You’d think being so far away would keep the damage at a minimum, but McKenzie knew better.
She couldn’t go to Tennessee single.
Nor could she cancel out on being in Reva’s wedding. If Reva ever found out her reasons for doing so, her cousin’s guilt would be tenfold at having the perfect life while poor McKenzie had been dumped yet again.
Getting involved with someone was the last thing McKenzie wanted. Her breakup with Paul was too fresh. Maybe she’d never want to get involved again, but would decide to focus on her career and would dedicate her life to helping heal as many tiny hearts as she could even if she couldn’t do a darned thing to repair her emotionally broken one.
McKenzie didn’t want to meet anyone, didn’t want to start a new relationship, didn’t want the hassle of another heartbreak down the road.
Which explained her rather embarrassing internet search.
She was at the hospital in a small
dictation room off the pediatric cardiology unit, waiting on test results on a new admit, and had let desperation take hold during the rare moment of downtime.
She scrolled through her search results for “reputable dating services.” Ugh. How could she be so successful in her professional life and so unsuccessful in her personal?
This would cost her a small fortune but would be worth every penny to keep the focus on her cousin’s wedding bliss and off McKenzie’s latest heartbreak. She’d have to hire someone from Seattle to fly to Tennessee with her, rather than use a Nashville service. She couldn’t risk her family bumping into a purchased date and knowing what she’d done. How embarrassing would that be?
Down the road, once they were past Reva’s wedding and McKenzie was back in Seattle, she’d tell them the truth.
But to keep everyone happy and her own life a lot less stressful, McKenzie needed a wedding date pronto.
“I’m not sure I want to know.”
Oh, flipping pancakes! Ryder!
Face going hot, McKenzie minimized the computer screen and wished she could hide her mortification as easily as she turned to face him.
He leaned against the doorjamb, his brows drawing together, and an odd look on his face. “Did something happen to you and the guy you’ve been seeing?”
What was he doing there? Okay, so she was at the hospital in the dictation area, but had he forgotten he didn’t like her and kept his distance?
Too bad he hadn’t avoided her just now.
“You could say that,” she admitted, taking a deep breath and not meeting Ryder’s intent gaze. Maybe if she didn’t look directly at him, he wouldn’t see how horrified she was that he’d caught her looking at escort services. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
“I thought you two were long-term.” He studied her as if he was trying to solve some great mystery.
McKenzie sighed. He’d already caught her looking at dating agencies, had seen her raccoon-eyed last week. What more could it hurt to admit she’d been dumped? She could hide the truth for only so long before word got out among her coworkers, anyway.
“We were, only now, we’re not.” She shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal. As if she hadn’t spent the last week trying to figure out what it was about her that eventually always drove away the men in her life.
“Good riddance. He wasn’t right for you.”
McKenzie’s jaw dropped at Ryder’s unexpected and rather forceful comment. The two men had met only a couple of times and had never had a conversation as far as she knew. Why would Ryder have thought Paul wrong for her?
“Paul is a nice man. I will win him back,” she murmured, then blushed when she realized she’d made the claim out loud. Why had she? Yes, she was distraught at the breakup, cared for Paul and had thought they’d marry, but win him back? They’d barely spoken since his devastating text.
“You weren’t the one to end the relationship?” Disbelief filled Ryder’s voice.
Yeah, right. McKenzie had never been the one to end a relationship. Not ever.
Ryder had straightened from the doorjamb, had moved further into the tiny room.
McKenzie’s heart rate sped up and she swallowed as she stared up at him.
She wished she could just disappear. Poof. Be gone.
Ryder gestured to the computer where he’d seen her search results. “Are you planning to try to make him jealous?”
She glanced at the screen, no longer lit with her escort service search. She hadn’t, but his thinking that was better than his knowing the truth. “Do you think it would work?”
Maybe if Paul thought she was moving on he’d come to his senses, realize he didn’t want to lose her, and they could get back to their normally scheduled lives.
Ryder’s dark brow lifted. “Is that really what you’re doing? Hiring a date to make your ex jealous?”
Ugh. She sounded pathetic. Would admitting the truth, that she needed a date for her cousin’s wedding be more, or less, pathetic?
“It’s really none of your business,” she reminded him, then blurted out something so crazy she couldn’t believe she’d said it. “Unless you’d like to make it your business by being my boyfriend for a weekend?”
* * *
Ryder never sought McKenzie out. Never.
But he hadn’t been able to get her sad eyes out of his mind no matter how he tried.
Which explained why he’d hung around the hospital despite that he’d just finished checking his last patient consult that evening. Normally, he’d have taken off to make sure his path didn’t cross with McKenzie’s when he knew she was at the hospital.
Tonight, when he’d spotted her in the dictation room on his way out, he’d been drawn to her, meaning to just walk by and get a glimpse, maybe say hi and assure his mind that she was, indeed, fine as she’d claimed so that maybe, just maybe, her tear-streaked face would quit haunting him.
Not since finding out she was taken had she occupied so much of his mind. Prior to that, he’d thought about her almost constantly.
The past week he’d reverted to doing so again and hadn’t liked it.
You knew something had upset her, he reminded himself. Had told himself she’d probably had to give bad news to a family during her hospital shift and that had been what upset her. Lord knew there were times when doing so gutted him enough that he fought tears.
The thought that something personal might have caused her tears had crossed his mind, but he’d dismissed it. Even if McKenzie and her man were having issues, the last thing Ryder wanted was to be a rebound guy.
Been there, done that, had the scars to prove it.
“You want to use me to make your ex jealous?”
“Maybe,” she surprised him by admitting. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“No, but—”
“Look,” she interrupted. “I’m not hitting on you. Nor do I want to date you,” she clarified. Her tone conveyed that she found the idea preposterous. “Not for real. I just need someone to go with me to my cousin’s wedding. Someone who won’t take things wrong or have any relationship expectations and if Paul gets jealous in the process...” She shrugged.
McKenzie wanted to use him.
“I don’t think it fair to invite someone who might get the wrong idea,” she continued, perhaps to fill the silence as words failed Ryder.
He liked to think he rolled with the punches, but McKenzie asking him to be her pretend boyfriend for a weekend had him speechless.
“I’m not interested in replacing Paul.” She took a deep breath. “But going to my cousin’s wedding alone isn’t a viable option.”
The desperation that must have driven her to ask him to go with her kept Ryder from walking away.
Not that he’d say yes.
Her suggestion was ridiculous. Playing McKenzie’s pretend boyfriend appealed about as much as the thought of torture.
His gaze narrowed. “When is the wedding?”
“Not this weekend, but next.” At his widened eyes, she rushed on, “Short notice, I know.”
“You want me to go with you to a wedding next weekend? As a pretend date? No strings attached?”
If not for her serious expression, he’d think she was pranking him.
“Want is such a mild word. I’ll gladly repay the favor.”
Ryder arched his brow. “You mean when I need someone to pretend to be my girlfriend?”
“Please say yes. I’m desperate.” She pointed at the computer screen, reminding him of her escort service search. “Obviously.”
“Being a pretend boyfriend for a wedding isn’t on my bucket list. Sorry.”
Her disappointment had him momentarily reconsidering, then he shook off the notion of saying yes just to ease the desperation in her big green eyes.
Once upon a time he’d have loved t
he excuse to spend time with her. Fortunately, he’d put that behind him.
Just as he planned to put this conversation behind him.
God, please let Ryder go back to avoiding her, McKenzie prayed. Because she was absolutely mortified at her blurted plea.
Had aliens taken over her brain? How could she have asked him something so insane?
Desperation really had turned McKenzie’s mind to mush.
Ryder didn’t even like her, so the very idea of his going with her was ridiculous.
No more ridiculous than hiring an escort service.
She dug her fingertips into her clammy palms.
At least she knew Ryder. He wouldn’t get the wrong idea or be some criminal who’d slipped through the company’s background checks.
She raked her gaze over his six-foot frame. Chestnut hair, strong nose and cheekbones, honey-colored eyes, dark, thick lashes, full lips framed by deep dimples. Ryder was gorgeous.
She’d thought it the day they met, and that hadn’t changed with time.
Of course, Mr. Gorgeous had said no. He avoided her like the plague. Why would he bail her out of an unpleasant situation?
Only why was he still standing in the doorway?
He’d said no. Okay, fine. He should go away and let her get back to her internet search before she was notified regarding her new patient’s test results.
* * *
“I didn’t expect you to say yes.” Shut up, McKenzie. “I mean, why would you go to Nashville with me?”
He blinked. “You wanted me to go to a wedding with you in Nashville, as in Tennessee?”
Yeah, that was a long way away from Seattle.
Nineteen hundred and seventy-four miles by plane.
Oh, how she knew every long torturous mile of that five-hour flight and how she dreaded every moment.
Just thinking of it had her heart flip-flopping.
Or maybe it was the way Ryder was looking at her that had triggered her cardiac acrobatics.
Perhaps he didn’t like flying any more than she did.
