Annie had assumed Ryan had taken a high-paying position after his residency ended, although she couldn’t say for certain where she’d gotten that impression. Maybe from the Lexus, except she’d discovered tonight the car belonged to his sister. His own car was a hybrid.
“Weren’t you at the health center Sunday?” Michael asked Ryan. “Isn’t that why you couldn’t play pickup basketball?”
Ryan shifted as though he wasn’t comfortable answering. “Yeah. They needed someone to help out.”
So that’s where Ryan had been on Sunday before he found Hobo. Annie’s opinion of him slowly shifted from a flashy young doctor out to make a buck to a man who was socially and environmentally conscious.
“Will you stay on at your sister’s practice after her leg heals?” Sara asked, her head resting against Michael’s shoulder.
“I haven’t decided,” Ryan said. “I have some feelers out for jobs, but I could go in a couple of directions. That’s one of them.”
Another stunner. How could Annie have been unaware that Ryan was considering living in Indigo Springs permanently? Although she spent most of her time on the road, she did make regular visits home. If Ryan were a town resident, it would be difficult to avoid him in the future.
She looked down at their hands, which had been entwined for most of the evening. Who was she kidding? The more time she spent with Ryan, the less able she’d be to keep her distance. No matter where he chose to live, they couldn’t go back to being strangers.
She thought she could handle letting him into her life—as long as she could keep him out of her heart.
RYAN WONDERED as the evening at the Blue Haven wore on what it said about him that he was perfectly willing to take advantage of the situation.
He enjoyed holding Annie’s hand without having her yank it away. He liked that she couldn’t question every nice thing he said to her. He was keen on his friends thinking of them as a couple.
The growing attraction he felt for Annie could be due to Lindsey. When he’d realized earlier that evening how much of Lindsey’s childhood he’d missed, it had forcefully brought home to him that he and Annie had produced a living, breathing miracle.
But he didn’t think that was all of it.
Even without Lindsey around, he got pure pleasure from being with Annie.
Penelope leaned forward, interest blooming on her face. “How long have the two of you been dating?”
Ryan put his arm around Annie, drawing her close, enjoying the sharp intake of breath nobody else could hear. “Since last week.”
“Tell me,” Penelope said, putting her elbows on the table and looking from one of them to the other, “what made you two hook up?”
Ryan felt Annie’s muscles seize.
“You know, you don’t have to answer all of my wife’s questions,” Johnny said.
“Penelope fancies herself a matchmaker.” Sara patted her friend’s arm. “She’s constantly trying to figure out who should be dating who and why.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Penelope asked.
“I’ll tell you what,” Johnny said, but he was smiling. “You’re constantly asking people questions that are none of your business.”
“I am not!” Penelope straightened and picked up her glass of white wine but didn’t drink from it. “So, Ryan, didn’t I hear somewhere that you were coming off a really bad relationship? This isn’t a rebound thing, is it?”
“Penelope!” Johnny chastised. “Ryan, ignore her.”
“I don’t mind answering,” Ryan said. It would enable him to let Annie know he wasn’t the smooth operator Johnny had alluded to earlier that evening. “You have me confused with someone else. When you’re in med school and doing a residency, you barely have time to sleep, let alone be in a relationship.”
“Maybe it was that new vet who had the serious girlfriend,” Penelope said almost to herself, before switching her attention to Annie. “How about you, Annie?”
“Nope,” Annie said. “No serious girlfriends.”
Everybody laughed, even Ryan, although he’d have liked to hear the answer. Annie was so closemouthed about herself he knew nothing about her dating history.
He excused himself to go to the restroom. On the way back, he heard someone call his name. Jim Waverly, a former high-school classmate he’d never much liked, was sitting at the bar.
Ryan plastered on a smile and shook the other man’s hand. “How’s it going?”
“Better now since I’m divorced,” Waverly said. Ryan hadn’t run into the man since returning to Indigo Springs, but remembered somebody saying his wife had caught him cheating. “I like being a free agent. How ’bout you?”
“Never been married.”
“Yeah, I heard that.” He nodded toward Ryan’s friends. “Strange to see you over there with Sublinski. Wouldn’t have known it was her if not for that thing on her face. You’d have thought she’d gotten rid of it by now.”
“I think she looks great.” Ryan backed away from the other man, loathe to associate with him. “I need to get back to my friends.”
On his way back to the table, he was surprised to see Chad Armstrong sitting at a booth with a stuffy-looking couple he didn’t recognize. Ryan hadn’t checked with Sierra about her plans but she must have passed up an evening at the Blue Haven. He exchanged a silent nod with Chad.
The time passed quickly after that. When eleven o’clock rolled around, Michael called it a night.
“Sara’s been using my shoulder as a pillow for the past hour,” he said. “I’ve got to get her home to bed.”
“Okay,” she told him, eyes twinkling. He laughed and kissed her briefly on the lips.
Soon all eight of them walked into the night, with Ryan and Annie heading in the same direction as the Pollocks.
“I’m sorry if I was too nosy,” Penelope said. “It’s just that I never would have put you two together, but now I’m convinced you’re perfect for each other.”
Ryan wasn’t about to argue with that.
He didn’t comment on Penelope’s observation until he and Annie were inside his car, driving through the quiet town en route to pick up Lindsey.
“So the town matchmaker thinks we’re perfect for each other. What do you make of that?”
“What does Jim Waverly think?” she asked. “I saw you talking to him.”
The change of subject threw him. “I don’t care what he thinks.”
“You didn’t mention Lindsey, did you? You didn’t say she was in town?”
Those were strange questions. “Why would I?”
She shifted in her seat. “I guess because you two used to be friends.”
“Not really.” Waverly had been buddies with some of Ryan’s friends, which was another thing entirely. His memory was hazy, but he thought Waverly might have been the one who’d made a pass at Annie the night he’d driven her home from the party. No use bringing that up, though.
He left the main road for the residential neighborhood where Chase lived with Kelly and Toby. The other couple’s car was already in the driveway.
Lindsey must have been watching for them because she skipped out of the house, waving goodbye to Kelly. She got into the back seat, full of stories about Toby.
“Don’t you want to know if we had a good time?” Ryan asked when she finally paused for breath.
“Oh, yeah.” Lindsey’s voice was young and eager. “How’d it go?”
“It went great.” Ryan slanted Annie a look. “Annie looked so beautiful I couldn’t take my eyes off her.”
“I told you that dress was perfect!” Lindsey exclaimed, then went back to her rendition of the night, sounding as comfortable as if she’d grown up with them as her parents.
It felt, Ryan thought, as though the three of them were a real family. Just like tonight Annie had seemed to be his real girlfriend.
That was what he wanted, he realized. He just needed to figure out how to make it happen.
CHAPTER TEN
The water hit its mark, cascading over Lindsey in a cool shower. She shouted in shock, her hands lifting futilely to cover her already drenched hair.
The family of four in the next raft roared with laughter, the loudest hoots coming from the teenage boy of about sixteen who held the white plastic container.
“Why did he do that?” Lindsey asked indignantly.
She did indignation well, so well she’d almost weaseled out of the deal to go rafting. Annie would have let her, even though she’d arranged for two other guides to come so she didn’t have to work the trip. Ryan wouldn’t hear of it, not after he’d already taken Wednesday afternoon off.
“Water fights break out between rapids when it’s hot,” Annie said, hearing the apology in her voice. “It’s kind of a tradition.”
“It stinks!” Lindsey cried. She pushed her wet hair back from her face, which wouldn’t have been necessary if she’d worn it in a ponytail as Annie had suggested.
“Only if you don’t fight back,” Ryan said. Each raft had a container, its intended purpose to bail out the water that inevitably collected at the bottom of the raft. Ryan tried to hand Lindsey theirs. “Here.”
She settled her hands on her hips, looking like bedraggled royalty. “You can’t be serious.”
“They’re probably over there planning another attack,” Ryan said. “You want them to pick on you for the rest of the trip?”
Her expression turning fierce, Lindsey grabbed the pail from him and dipped it into the river. With the muscles in her upper arms straining, she swung the bucket backward, then put all her weight into a forward motion. The water hit the teenage boy square in the chest.
“She’s a ringer!” Ryan shouted. Lindsey beamed, and she and Ryan exchanged a high five.
He’d handled the situation perfectly, Annie thought, much better than she would have if she and Lindsey had been alone. He’d make a terrific dad, yet another point in his favor. Annie gave herself a mental shake. That kind of thinking was dangerous.
“You’ve done it now,” the teenage boy yelled. He refilled his container and let the water fly. Lindsey ducked, putting her head in her lap and covering up. The stream caught Ryan. He gasped, reacting to the cool shock of the water.
Lifting her head, Lindsey giggled. Lines appeared at the corners of Ryan’s eyes, crinkling in amusement. His smile flashed.
“Get the other bucket, Annie!” he yelled, pointing behind her to where a second container sat. “We’ll teach them to mess with us.”
He handed Lindsey the first pail and encouraged Annie to load the second. Under Ryan’s direction, the two of them launched a double-pronged attack. They managed to hit all four people in the other raft with two tosses of water.
Ryan raised a fist in the air. “Those are my girls!”
The water fight didn’t stop there. By the end of the battle, everybody in the two rafts was soaked and laughing. Lindsey’s makeup had washed off so she looked about, well, thirteen years old.
Most of her ferocity disappeared when they tackled the rapids. This was a pleasure trip, with the course no more than medium difficult even in the most challenging of times. Summer rafting tended to be tame, especially when rainfall was low, as it had been for the past few weeks. Lindsey still screamed her way through the rapids, her cries louder than the roar of the white water.
The rest of the afternoon passed in much the same vein, with the teenager in the other raft resuming the water fight between rapids. He called a truce when they stopped for lunch, inviting Lindsey over to the shady spot he and his younger brother had picked to eat their sandwiches.
Ryan claimed the space next to Annie, sitting on a wide, flat rock that afforded a spectacular view of the winding river. With the sun shining, the water shimmered, the sky seemed more blue and the bushes and trees along the riverside took on deeper shades of green. Ryan was more interested in the sight of Lindsey and her new friends. Lindsey ate with gusto instead of picking at her food as she sometimes did. Between bites, she laughed at whatever the boys were telling her.
“She’s having fun, don’t you think?” Annie asked Ryan.
“Oh, yeah, but she might not admit it,” Ryan said. “She doesn’t think of herself as an outdoor woman.”
She smiled at his reference to her magazine. “I can live with that as long as she’s enjoying herself.”
“I’m enjoying myself, too,” he said. “That’s not hard to do with you around.”
“There you go again saying nice things when no one else is around,” she said as lightly as she could, watching Lindsey instead of him. The girl and the two brothers sat with their feet dangling in the water, alternately kicking up spray.
“I ran into Johnny this morning. He had some nice things to say about you, too,” Ryan said. “Everybody had such a good time Tuesday they’re planning to meet monthly. We’re invited.”
Since she wasn’t looking at him, she had a better chance of hiding her wistfulness that things could be different. “I’m sure you can come up with some excuse next month about why we can’t join them.”
“I know you’re not dating anyone else right now, but is there somebody you care about?” he asked. “You were pretty evasive when Penelope asked.”
“That’s not it.” She figured it wouldn’t hurt to tell him about her last relationship. “It’s been about three years since I had a serious boyfriend.”
“What happened?”
“He wanted to get married. I didn’t.” She left it at that, although the sticking point had been more complicated. To her ex, marriage included children. By giving up Lindsey, she’d already proven that she was no more cut out for that kind of a life than the mother who’d abandoned her when she was a child. Especially with a man she didn’t love.
“Then why can’t we join them?” Ryan asked. “Your dad won’t be back for another month. You’ll still be in town.”
“Lindsey will be gone.” She turned to face him, determined to make her position clear. “Once she leaves, we can stop pretending.”
“I’m not pretending.”
She’d half expected him to say something like that, which was why she’d tried so hard since last night not to be alone with him.
“I’m attracted to you, Annie.” A lock of her hair had fallen in her eyes. He smoothed it back from her face, his fingertips brushing her cheek. She told herself she didn’t shy away from his touch because Lindsey could be watching. “So why don’t we keep dating and see where it goes?”
She shook her head back and forth vehemently. “No.”
“Why not?” he said. “I think you’re attracted to me, too.”
She ignored his remark, unwilling to admit it was true. “The only reason we’re together is Lindsey and she’s going home soon.”
“Maybe she’ll come back.”
“What? Where is this coming from?”
“Look at her, Annie,” he said. Lindsey was knee-deep in river water, her hair falling in her face. She splashed the younger of the two brothers, her laughter traveling on the breeze when he retaliated. “Does that look like the sullen, unhappy girl her stepmother talked about? She’s thriving here. She’s even eating more. Why shouldn’t she come back to visit?”
Annie saw the same things in Lindsey he did, but she couldn’t let herself be blinded by them. One of them had to be realistic. “It’s a fluke that she’s here now, Ryan. She didn’t come to visit us, so why would her parents let her come back?”
“We’re her parents.”
“The people who raised her are her parents,” she corrected. “We gave her up, and that’s what we’re going to have to do again. Soon.”
He picked up a small rock and flung it into the river, away from where the rafters were eating their lunches. “It doesn’t have to be like that. We can keep in touch with her.”
&n
bsp; “What reason would we give?” she asked, although he hadn’t brought up anything she hadn’t thought of herself, anything she hadn’t daydreamed about. “Do you really think it would be fair to complicate her life like that?’
He didn’t respond. The closed look on his face told her she hadn’t gotten through to him.
“I’m not ready to give up on her,” he said. “I’m not ready to give up on you.”
“You’ll have to. Once Lindsey is gone, things between us will be over.” She stood up before he had a chance to respond, not wanting to hear any more from him. She clapped her hands, then announced to the group. “Gather up your trash. It’s time to go.”
She could no more trust the feelings Ryan professed to have for her than the fantasy that Lindsey could continue to be part of their lives.
She’d stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago.
ANNIE WAS DOING her best to put distance between them, and so far Ryan hadn’t been able to do anything about it.
The cold shoulder had started after lunch when they’d gotten back in the raft for the second half of the trip. She was the most experienced rafter by far, but she’d let him do the heavy paddling, sitting in the front with Lindsey rather than in back with him. Even Lindsey had noticed the imbalance, moving to the rear of the raft to even things out.
The chill had continued once they reached land, with Annie hanging behind to supervise the crew that was taking the rafts from the river. She’d advised Lindsey and Ryan to go ahead to the shop.
Lindsey hadn’t needed to be told twice, rushing ahead so she could reunite with Hobo.
“How’s the voice?” Ryan asked her.
“Fine.” Lindsey was kneeling beside Hobo, who was smothering her with love as though he hadn’t seen her in years instead of hours. “Why would anything be wrong with my voice?”
“You sure screamed enough,” he teased.
“That’s because people kept throwing water at me,” she complained loudly. The teenage boy who’d instigated the water fight was moving away from the checkout counter, a can of soda in hand.
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