by Patt Marr
“How could a few little jabs have done this much damage?” Chunks of plaster lay on the floor and a dusting of white powder covered a fairly large area.
“You’re going to blame this on me, aren’t you?”
Teasing, just like the old days—this she could handle. “It wouldn’t have happened if you’d been a good neighbor.”
“It’s not my fault that you have a hair-trigger temper.”
“Not anymore. I’m a calm, rational adult now.”
He surveyed the mess. “I can see that. Should we call the super to fix this?”
She moved to the kitchen to pour coffee. “Los Palmas is a great place to live as long as you don’t need repairs.”
Ry started to collect the bigger pieces of plaster. “Is your waste can under the sink like mine?”
She nodded and stepped aside for him to get to it. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Well, I wouldn’t do it if I thought I had to. Where’s your vacuum cleaner? In the utility closet?”
It was a little disconcerting to have him so familiar with her apartment. “Let it go. I’ll clean up later.”
“You cook,” he said. “I’ll clean.”
From the corner of her eye, she watched him move, quickly making things right. He was an athlete, that was for sure, and a very smart guy. Not one motion was wasted. In seconds, he had his part of the job done.
“You know, you’re really good at this,” she said.
“You sound like my college roommate,” he said, grinning. “His favorite spectator sport was watching me clean.”
It could easily become her favorite, too. She might want to rethink that brain-over-brawn thing after watching those muscles at work.
He leaned on the counter while she cut up fruit and put it into the blender with milk, ice and protein powder. It made her nervous to have him watching her.
“This is nice,” he said.
“I still can’t believe you’re here.” With him standing this close, the butterfly troop believed it.
“I thought maybe you needed me,” he said.
Her heart skipped a beat. “I needed you?”
“With your search for Mr. Right.” He said that as if he truly planned to make that his agenda. “This is your year. You’re going to find a guy who’ll love you, who’ll be a great husband and a great dad. I’m here for you, Meg.”
The butterfly troop read way too much into that. If she left things up to them, they’d be booking a church and ordering invitations.
“You know,” he said, staring at the ceiling, “I could fix that.”
“You?” Her poor, tired brain couldn’t catch up. She couldn’t imagine Ry Brennan dealing with plaster.
“Sure. Don’t you remember when I took that home maintenance course in high school instead of French III?”
“Your parents acted as if you’d joined a gang,” she said, remembering it well.
“My proudest moment came when the powder room toilet wouldn’t flush during one of their New Year’s Eve parties. I fixed it while their colleagues watched.”
“Yea, Ry!”
“I believe there was some grateful cheering.”
“Led, no doubt, by your parents.”
“Oh, sure, and they really loved it when Uncle Charlie slapped me on the back and said that Brennan Medical Clinic could use a good plumber. My dad gave him a black look and growled, ‘Better a plumber than another urologist.’”
“Your uncle’s specialty?”
He nodded. “For days, I talked about being a plumber.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t, just to spite them.”
“I might have if Mitch hadn’t died,” he said quietly.
“That was a terrible time,” she said, meeting his eyes, sharing the sadness of their friend’s terrible car accident.
“The first responders really botched that job,” Ry said bitterly, “first on the scene, and they compounded the problem by taking Mitch to the wrong hospital. When I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do, I thought about Mitch. If I became a paramedic, it might give his life meaning.”
Her heart swelled with pride. “Any regrets?”
“Not really.” His future was in the Lord’s hands now. He’d done his part, applying to med school. Now he would see what the Lord wanted next.
Meg poured generous servings of her frothy fruity drink into tall glasses and topped them off with strawberries.
“These are almost too pretty to drink,” he said, noticing that there didn’t seem to be anything cooking.
“Would you like a piece of toast to go with that?”
“Yes, please.” Nobody called him a picky eater, but he did prefer to eat his meals instead of drink them. From now on, he’d better do the cooking when they didn’t eat out.
Sipping his drink, he admired the clean, sleek grays of her apartment, and how they were accented by the colors of her mother’s art. “Are you sure you don’t want to decorate my apartment? I love what you’ve done with yours.”
Meg shook her head and smiled. “Talk to my mom. This is her work. She got a chance to mother me, and I got a chance to be an appreciative daughter.”
“It’s terrific, but I would have sworn you were more the hearts-and-flowers type.”
Her pretty blue eyes laughed at him. “You’re the one with the flowers. What’s the story on those roses?”
“The card with the roses said ‘Thank you.’”
“‘Thank you’?” Meg repeated skeptically. “For what?”
“Nothing special. But I lived in New York a long time. I made friends.”
“Women friends,” she said knowingly. “Tell me about her…or was it a group?”
He wasn’t about to tell her that the card read, “One rose from each of the women you’ve left behind. New York’s loss is L.A.’s gain.” And it listed sixty women, starting with Nurses Tonya and Rachel. He hadn’t recognized more than ten of the names, and he had a great memory. They’d gone to a lot of trouble and expense to make him smile.
“I’m waiting here,” she said. “What’s the story?”
He took another sip of his breakfast, not responding.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you? Ry Brennan, you are amazing. You have this incredible talent for making women fall for you. You love ’em, leave ’em and they just keep loving you. How do you do it?”
“Meg, the roses were a joke.”
“I don’t know, Ry. Once a player, always a player.”
“Hey! That’s not fair.” And this wasn’t fun anymore.
“A leopard doesn’t change his spots,” she said firmly.
“This leopard is a one-woman guy.” There. He’d said it. And if she didn’t realize she was the one, she wasn’t half as smart as she thought she was.
“If you’re such a one-woman guy, let’s get to work on that Dream Date application. I can’t wait to see you walk away from the game show with the woman of your dreams by your side.”
Only if it’s you, Meg. Only if it’s you.
Chapter Nine
The woman of his dreams had Ry tied up in knots. If it weren’t for Meg, he’d be back in the heart of a New York City snowstorm, on the move, going from one call to another, doing some good. Instead he stood on a flower-lined driveway, hosing down an already-clean ambulance, just waiting for a call to come in. He would sure rather be treating a patient than shining up a bus.
Only, they didn’t call the ambulance a “bus” out here. It was a “rig,” and he worked a split-rig, meaning his new partner was an EMT, not a paramedic like himself. Hector Gonzales was a cocky guy with more energy than know-how, but at least he was a lot more fun than Doc.
Doc would have rolled her eyes at Hector’s claim that he was God’s gift to women, but Ry knew better than to take him seriously. Ry’s only concern was how well they would work together on a serious trauma. He’d gotten so used to working with Doc that he could tune out everything but the patient’s needs, yet still hea
r her voice.
The adjustment to the new job had been more difficult than he’d expected. As an easygoing guy, few things really bothered him. Certainly he didn’t mind the switch from a dark uniform to a light-blue shirt and navy cargo pants. He’d never worn boots to work before but he could see how they might come in handy on the variety of terrain out here.
In the suburban area they served, emergency personnel didn’t have to wear bulletproof vests, or not often, and they wouldn’t have to deal with elevators that didn’t work or city traffic jams that left their patients waiting.
Instead of working out of an old, brick firehouse, he reported to an ordinary, white ranch-style house with an attached garage. Palm trees, not skyscrapers, lined the street, and there was such a laid-back feel that Ry should have felt right at home.
He didn’t. Call him an adrenaline junkie, but he missed the noise, the crowds of humanity and the action. The private company he’d signed on with contracted with the fire department and did answer Code Threes, but much of their work was transport, not 911 calls.
On the other hand, the lack of action had given him plenty of time to think, and he’d come to two conclusions:
One was that Meg was meant to be his, and he would be so glad when she gave up this Mr. Right thing and realized he was meant for her. She’d filled a place in his heart he hadn’t known was that empty.
It might be weak of him to admit it, but Meg got him. She understood him better than anybody. When he was with her, life was just…better. He felt centered, balanced, in the right place at the right time.
His second conclusion was he definitely wanted to be a doctor. In particular, he wanted to be an ER doc, and he wanted to work in a busy hospital where he could help lots of people. He wanted daily opportunities to use everything he knew, and he wanted more than fifteen minutes with patients before he dropped them off at an ER. He had loved being a paramedic, but he was ready for more now.
If he were a doctor, there would be the inevitable comparison to Trey that he would hate, and his mother would think she had won, but he could handle it. It was a great feeling to know he had a goal, a dream, a plan.
The scary part was that he might be too late in realizing it.
If he had applied to med school while he’d been in college, his grades and extracurricular participation would have stood him in good stead with an admissions committee. But committees looked at things like why a student needed eight years to decide what he wanted. Who could blame them if they gave his slot to a younger applicant who would use that M.D. degree eight years longer than Ry ever could?
It would be so easy to worry about this, and it was so hard not to. If he didn’t believe that God had a plan for his life, Ry knew he would choke on his daily prayer, “Your will be done.” When a person wanted something as much as he wanted this, it was hard to see that God might want something different.
Asking Jesus to forgive his sins had been fairly easy, but surrendering his life, day by day, hour by hour…that was a whole different story.
The voice of their dispatcher broke into Ry’s thoughts, a welcome interruption. It was a nursing home call, not his favorite, but a chance to be useful. Hector took the wheel and talked about girls the whole way there. Fortunately, it was a short ride.
The welcome they received at Willow Rest was one thing about the job that Ry loved most. People were so glad when help arrived. He never got tired of that.
The facility administrator led the way, reporting that an elderly gentlemen seemed to be in congestive heart failure. The nursing staff working over the man gave way for Hector and himself immediately.
Hector called the trauma center to report the CHF while Ry assessed the patient and noticed they were using a PEG tube to feed him through his stomach wall. If they had overfilled him, he would seem to be in CHF. It was easy to check. Quickly, Ry suctioned the man, and instantly, the patient was out of distress.
There was a small round of applause, but Ry ignored it and packed up his gear. It had probably looked more dramatic than it was.
Back in the rig, Hector said, “How did you know to do that, man?”
“It’s no big thing to use training and experience when you have it. You’ll get there, too.”
Hector shook his head. “I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ll stick around that long. I’d rather be a firefighter or a police officer. Better pay and all that.”
Ry couldn’t argue. People had to pay their bills. Most of the paramedics he’d known liked their jobs well enough, but they moved on for more money. Either that or they worked a lot of extra shifts. To keep from dipping into his trust fund, he’d done that himself.
“Why don’t you become a nurse or a real doc?” Hector asked. “You’re good, man, maybe the best I’ve seen.”
“High praise for suctioning a PEG tube,” Ry said in a lazy drawl to make light of the compliment.
“No, man, you’re as good as the teachers I had. You know what you’re doing.”
“Let’s hope so,” Ry said, reaching for a bottle of water. He took a long drink and thought about telling Hector about those med school applications. If he got rejected, and he might, he’d didn’t want to deal with pity—not from Hector, not from anyone.
“You don’t talk about yourself much, do you?” Hector asked, giving Ry an assessing look.
Ry almost laughed. He wished Doc could hear that. “There are more interesting topics.” Doc would second that.
“Not according to my little sister,” Hector said with a sly grin. “Ever since she caught a glimpse of you when we drove by the neighborhood, she hasn’t stopped talking about my new partner and his gorgeous dimples, his gorgeous smile…”
Ry groaned. Why couldn’t Beth have been the only one to inherit his grandma’s looks?
“His gorgeous, curly hair.”
His low-maintenance hair. It had a life of its own. He missed Doc and her put-downs.
“My sister says you’re ‘eye candy,’ partner.”
“Tell your little sister to pick on guys her own age, and change the subject, Hector.”
“Okay, we can talk about that little hottie nurse at the nursing home who was giving me the eye,” Hector said.
Yes, they could…if there had been one. Ry did laugh at that. Doc wouldn’t have seen the humor, but Ry sure did. Once upon a time, he might have said something equally silly, just to pass the time of day. But those days were over for him.
Meg was in big trouble. She sat at her desk with a pile of Dream Date questionnaires and couldn’t seem to focus on a single one. This wouldn’t do. She had shows to put together and applicants to contact for interviews, yet all she could think of was how much she wished she were with Ry.
That first week after his move to L.A. had been the best of her life. He’d had a whole week before his job started, and he spent it with her, waiting every night until she got home. No one was more fun than Ry, and they got along together terrifically. Besides their years of shared memories, they had their new faith in God to share, too.
She’d anticipated each new day with such joy, though the old tingles and flutters from junior high were a nuisance. The butterfly troop said she was falling in love, but they were new on the scene. What did they know?
Ry had a gift for making people feel special. He cared about them, and they took it for more than it was. If she let herself become another one of those women who misunderstood, she would have only herself to blame.
To keep that from happening, she had conscientiously introduced Ry to several women with Ms. Right potential—some at church, others at Los Palmas. It wasn’t that he needed the introductions. He really was a chick magnet. But she would love to find him the perfect woman.
At least two had been excellent matches in her professional opinion, and both made it clear they were interested. Ry made it just as clear that he was satisfied with her company alone. That, of course, was thrilling, but she had to face facts. This wouldn’t last.
&nbs
p; One day he would start dating for real. That was as certain as smoggy days in L.A. When that happened, she would be back in old-friend status, and the butterfly troop would resign.
She really should accept more first dates from Mr. Right prospects and more second dates, too. She’d spent way too much time with Ry, yet how could she not?
Beth was too busy for him. His coldhearted mother wouldn’t even talk to him, and his dad… Well, his dad just made Meg mad. Dr. Brennan was all talk, giving Ry hope that they would have a relationship. He was no more of a dad now than he had ever been.
What a waste to have a son as wonderful as Ry and not cherish him. She wished the Brennans could see how sweet Ry was with Pete and Sunny’s kids and how he never lost his temper. She’d begun to wonder what it would take to break through Ry’s good nature.
For a new Christian, he seemed to connect with the Lord and show God’s love better than anyone she’d seen. She wished she were as tolerant and easygoing as he was. Whether they were fixing up his apartment, driving out to Pete and Sunny’s or just hanging out at their apartment complex, he just seemed so happy. That in itself was a wonderful testimony.
But now, she had to check the calendar to know when she might see him. Sometimes he worked one shift, then had one shift off. Other times he worked two, what he called “forty-eights,” or he might work three or four shifts back to back with two or four shifts off.
And then there was the sleeping. If he hadn’t gotten to sleep during his shift, he went right to bed when he got home. Naturally, she understood, but she still missed him even when she knew he was upstairs, asleep in his bed.
“That must be some applicant,” Brad, her camera operator, said, coming up behind her. He slid into the seat beside her desk. “I caught you daydreaming, didn’t I?”
“No.” It was instinctive to deny it, especially to the most annoying person on the planet. “I was thinking.”
He snorted. “Thinking about some guy.”
She pointed to the application she’d been staring at. “Yeah, this guy looks like he’d be good on the show.”
“Nice try! But that’s not who you were thinking about. You were miles away from here. You know what I think?”