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You can’t just walk away.
Except he had. The words were still a punch to his gut. He’d heard them from her before. And still he had walked from his friendship with Zoe, his life in Riverbend and, inevitably, from his youthful marriage to Kate, which had been a mistake on both their parts. Six months ago he’d walked away again, his decision, although not his choice, from almost a decade of fighting Philadelphia’s crime and watching it fight back until he was losing more than winning. More than anything, Ryan hated to lose.
He dropped into the oversize oak chair, planted his feet on top of the scarred desk and, through the open door of his office, surveyed the calm scene before him. The phones were mercifully quiet. His dispatcher sat at her station reading the latest issue of a celebrity magazine. The community affairs liaison was reuniting the Johnson boy with his runaway puppy.
“Ah, suburbia,” he muttered. “A far cry from the mean city streets. I will be happy here.” I will be happy here.
He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. And prayed his mind wouldn’t replay that deadly night in Philadelphia. A drug sting gone wrong. He’d taken a bullet to the side, and through the haze of pain he’d seen his longtime partner, Sean, go down with one to the back.
Everything that had mattered to him had changed that night. He hadn’t been as strong, as heroic, as he’d needed to be. Even though everyone told him he’d been all those things. The professionals also told him the nightmares would go away. As usual, they were wrong.
“Uh, chief?”
He slowly opened his eyes. Jake, his childhood friend, his number one deputy and the man who bravely had wrestled Zoe Russell into an arrest, stood before him, wet and muddy but with key in hand. Ryan rubbed the tired from his eyes. “Care to explain how a peaceful protest about the new senior’s park ended in complete chaos?”
Jake poured his lanky body into the chair across from Ryan’s desk. And grimaced as he dripped mud and water all over the floor. “Zoe started interviewing people. Once they realized who she was, they pushed and shoved to get her attention. I was trying to get to her and we slipped and ended up in the pond.”
“Were the handcuffs really necessary?”
“Jeez, Ryan, she punched me. I did it as much to protect me as her. I had no choice but to arrest her.” Jake wiped the key clean before placing it on Ryan’s desk. “I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to be on the other end of Zoe Russell’s hard right.”
“You were eight and she was six,” Ryan reminded him dryly. “And you’d just stuck a tadpole down her bathing suit. In that very same pond, too.”
“Yeah, well, the tadpole was your idea.” Jake’s scowl turned into a wide grin. “Should I let her out? Or maybe throw away the key for a few more hours?”
“Let me handle her.” Ryan tossed the key into the air and caught it. “Everything under control at the park?”
“The protest fell apart peacefully once we had Zoe in custody.” Jake chuckled. “You should have seen Flora Tyler. Demanded that Zoe pose for a picture with the senior citizen group. Bet it will make the front page of the Tribune.”
Ryan laughed. “That’s what happens when a celebrity comes to town. Have you called Kate about bailing her sister out?”
Jake nodded. “Gave me an earful. Mumbled something about how she hadn’t talked to Zoe yet, and asked if she could beg a second favor.”
“She expects me to post Zoe’s bail,” Ryan guessed and wasn’t surprised to hear Jake still chuckling as he walked out of the office, closing the door behind him. Ryan fingered the key he’d pocketed. Too bad the key wasn’t a coin, and he could toss it into the air, leaving it up to fate to determine whether he would—or should—grant Kate’s second favor.
Because he knew exactly what Kate wanted him to do. She’d been dropping not-so-subtle hints since she’d set her wedding date last month. Make peace with Zoe. At least for the next two weeks until the wedding was over and Zoe headed back to New York. There was nothing in the Ryan O’Connor rule book that said he had to go back and rehash the last ten years. That was history. And since the incident in Philadelphia, Ryan had become very good at ignoring the past.
As Ryan grabbed his checkbook and headed for the court offices next door, he didn’t want to consider whether or not he was strong enough to turn a blind eye to the woman Zoe Russell had become.
Zoe’s limited stock of patience had run out.
She didn’t appreciate being ignored. She didn’t appreciate being locked in this tiny jail cell—still handcuffed—for more than an hour. It felt like days.
She shook her hands to clear them of the numbness, then winced as the cuffs jangled heavily against her wrists. Not her jewelry of choice. Somehow, some way, she’d see that Ryan paid for not having a master key to these cuffs. She’d like to think that if their roles had been reversed, she’d graciously have called the locksmith, even if his workday was officially over.
Zoe tried to curl up on the cot. The lumpy cot. With a pillow missing its crucial foam or feathers. She hoped Kate got here soon to bail her out. She couldn’t take much more of Riverbend’s unique blend of hospitality.
She closed her eyes, then immediately opened them when the image of Ryan’s face appeared. Those perfect features. Chiseled chin. Deep-set blue eyes. Thick blond hair that seemed kissed by the sun. It had been ten years since she’d last seen him in the flesh. Photographs and family home videos didn’t count.
He looked better than she remembered, sexier than she’d imagined possible. She tried to picture him at sixty-five, potbellied, gray-haired—no, make that bald—limping down Main Street chasing after a criminal, banned from driving a car because his vision was so bad.
She smiled at the image she had created of a not-so-perfect Ryan O’Connor. Too bad men like Ryan usually aged like fine champagne, not cheap wine. She stood and paced the tiny cell. Why was it taking him so long to find that key? And who did Ryan think he was dealing with, anyway, claiming Riverbend was not a 24/7 town? She knew full well that locksmiths everywhere lived for being called after hours so they could charge outrageous overtime fees.
“He owes me a phone call,” Zoe muttered. “I should call the locksmith, just to prove him wrong. Ryan! I want my phone call!”
When Ryan didn’t materialize, Zoe shouted out his name again. She heard footsteps and braced herself. But it wasn’t Ryan. It was Jake.
“Uh, Zoe,” Jake said with a wariness Zoe could understand. After all, they had tangled in the fishpond and ended up wet, dirty and slightly shaken by the encounter. And she’d punched him, a fact she deeply regretted. “Uh, Ryan hasn’t let you out yet?” He glanced right, then left, everywhere except at her. Finally their gazes met.
Zoe motioned him closer until they stood face-to-face. “You don’t want to be the one who tells me he’s found the key but hasn’t unlocked the cuffs.”
“Can I…I mean…is there something else I do can for you?”
“You can accept my apology for hitting you. And I want my phone call.”
“Apology accepted.” Jake warily handed her his cell phone through the bars, then reddened in embarrassment when she waved her still-cuffed wrists in front of his face.
“I can hardly punch out numbers while my hands are otherwise occupied, Jake. Maybe,” she said gently, “you could help Ryan find the key.”
Jake slowly backed away. “I’ll get Ryan.”
“You do that,” Zoe said, trying to keep her voice bright.
She watched Jake disappear around the corner. He was tall, like Ryan. Had an athlete’s body, like Ryan’s. Handsome features, including deep-set blue eyes, also like Ryan’s. But when she stood face-to-face with Jake, she felt nothing, there was no sizzle between them. Unlike the sizzle that had unexpectedly snapped, crackled and popped when she and Ryan had stood on opposite sides of the jail cell door.
What she feared most was caring for Ryan again, maybe even falling head over heels for him again, because in the end, he’d pick up and leave.
As she impatiently waited for the man to appear, Zoe pondered why the Ryan she’d met today had sizzled and every man she’d dated during the past year in New York had fizzled. She’d chosen them, she admitted wryly, because they hadn’t sizzled, hadn’t captured a portion of her heart and soul. And when they left, as all the men in her life inevitably did, she’d been left whole and emotionally untouched. And alone. Very, very alone.
But that was preferable, she told herself, than to be left alone and heartbroken. The way she’d felt when her father left, when Kate left, when Ryan left. Okay, so the all-too-sexy Ryan O’Connor could still made her sizzle. Nothing wrong with that, as long as she didn’t act on it.
Zoe lay back on the cot, letting her eyes drift shut again. This time the image was of the night of her high school graduation. Her parents were seated as bookends to the two empty chairs in the otherwise packed Riverbend High School auditorium. She’d never forget that June night when her world had turned upside down. Her parents had announced they were separating. And Kate and Ryan had eloped. She’d been eighteen, hurt, crushed, devastated and determined never to forgive any of them, especially Ryan.
She was twenty-eight now. Long ago she’d made peace with Kate, and accepted but still couldn’t claim to understand the reasons for her parents’ divorce. But she hadn’t let herself answer why she still felt the sting of Ryan’s betrayal.
Maybe, she admitted to herself, it was because she didn’t want to accept that their friendship, which had meant the world to her, hadn’t been important enough to him.
The sound of approaching footsteps—very different male footsteps from Jake’s—helped clear her mind. She waited until she heard the cell door open before she raised her head to look at him. Keep it light and breezy, she reminded herself. If he sizzled, she would definitely ignore it.
“So nice of you to visit,” she said brightly as he stepped inside the jail cell. “I’ll ring for the coffee or tea while you tell me what you’ve been up to the past ten years.”
“Ms. Zoe Russell, always ready with a joke.”
She sat up, held out her cuffed hands. “I don’t consider this situation funny at all.”
Ryan joined her on the cot. If it surprised Zoe that she let him, she could tell by the expression on his face she’d surprised Ryan even more. “Don’t you think it’s time you let me loose?”
“Jake found the key.” Ryan fumbled with it before unlocking the cuffs. He cleared his throat. “I see you every morning on TV.”
“Oh?” Zoe stood, stretched her aching arms over her head. Out of the corner of her eye she watched as Ryan tidied up the cell, folded the blanket, punched up the pillow. “You watch Wake Up, America?”
“Not exactly. The only way I could get our community liaison here at seven in the morning was to install a TV so she could watch her favorite show. Even without the TV, though, it’d be hard to miss you.”
Her voice chilled. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Magazine ads. TV spots during prime time. I’m not criticizing. Just observing how you got what you wished for. Fame. Fortune.” He cupped her shoulder and turned her to face him. “A chance to ham it up in front of millions of people.”
“Is that what you think of me? That all I care about is being a celebrity? I’m a serious journalist. I worked hard to get that spot on Wake Up, America.” She paused, raising herself to her full height of five feet seven inches, but she still fell short of Ryan by almost half a foot and had to tilt her head back to meet him eye-to-eye.
She stared up at him, fascinated by the specks of gold in his blue eyes, the way his dimples deepened when he smiled. For one inexplicable moment she was torn between wiping that smile off his face and kissing him senseless. Then, thankfully, Ryan cleared his throat and broke the moment.
“You’re standing on my foot.”
Zoe glanced down to see her left mud-splattered sneaker on top of his right shiny black boot. She stepped back, horrified to discover large chunks of dirt on his toe.
Ryan took his handkerchief out of his back pocket and Zoe immediately reached for it. After a slight tug-of-war she sighed and let it go. Ryan brushed the dirt off her cheeks and from the tip of her nose. That brief touch made her insides quiver and the goose bumps run up and down her arms. His smile made her weak in the knees. Looking into those blue eyes made her want to kiss him. Which would be wrong. Which would be totally inappropriate. Which would be a giant mistake.
Which was why she had to get away from Ryan before she did something they’d regret. But it was getting harder and harder to ignore the way Ryan O’Connor made her feel.
“I think I’ve got the worst of it,” he finally said. “Your bail’s been paid. You’re free to go.”
Zoe stepped out of the cell and into freedom. She walked down the hallway to the reception area, aware that Ryan followed in her wake. Aware that he stood a few discreet steps behind her as she signed for her personal belongings. As she swung her tote back onto her shoulder, she tossed a nod in Ryan’s direction. “Is there something else?”
“I’ll walk you home,” Ryan said.
“That’s not necessary.”
“Consider it part of my job.” He swung an arm lightly around her shoulder. Couldn’t he feel the sizzle between them? “I want to make sure you don’t take any more detours.”
They silently walked the three blocks to Kate’s house. She sneaked a glance at Ryan and wondered what life would have been like for Ryan, Kate and her if…if they’d never left Riverbend.
And found him staring at her, intently.
“Am I interrupting something?” a female voice called from the other side of the screen door.
“No!” Zoe and Ryan, their gazes locked, spoke in unison.
“I think I am.” Kate Russell opened the screen door and ushered Zoe inside. “But I’m happy to see my maid of honor and best man are speaking once again.”
Chapter Two
“Ryan O’Connor is your best man?” Zoe dropped onto the queen-size bed in Kate’s guestroom, adjusted the pillows behind her back and propped herself up against the wrought-iron headboard. “First you conveniently forget to tell me he’s back in town. Next you drop the best man bombshell. What other important news are you keeping from me?”
“Why would you think I’m keeping stuff from you?” Kate set two glasses of iced tea on the nightstand before wrapping a blanket around her shoulders and curling up next to Zoe.
“Because you know I hate surprises.” Zoe vigorously toweled her hair. Twenty minutes in a hot shower had done wonders to restore her body but not her mood. Only Ryan O’Connor disappearing into oblivion would do that. “You should have called the minute he crossed into the city limits.”
“You wouldn’t have listened to me,” Kate returned sweetly. “Your exact words were, ‘Don’t anyone, anywhere, at any time, mention that man’s name to me ever again.”’
“That’s hardly the point.” Zoe scowled again at Kate’s snicker. “And I can’t believe I’d say something like that. I was eighteen. Nobody in their right mind pays attention to what eighteen-year-olds say.”
“Ryan did.” Kate said quietly. “So did I.”
Zoe fumbled for a response. When she looked at Kate she felt she was looking into her own soul, although the sisters were as different as night and day.
Zoe had always despaired that with her red hair and fair skin she burned rather than tanned, while Kate, with their paternal grandmother’s exotic dark looks, seemed to keep a deep honey color even in winter. While Zoe was tall, slender and could eat without gaining an ounce, Kate was shorter by several inches with an hourglass figure and had to watch every calorie. Growing up, Zoe had been impulsive, Kate cautious.
As adults, Zoe had become the more conservative, while Kate seemed to be throwing all caution to the wind. Which might explain, Zoe considered as she gazed around the room that had once been hers, why Kate was marrying a man she barely knew.
She walked over to the single window, now framed by sheer white cotton panels. Zoe vividly remembered the day she’d climbed out the window into the tree and somehow lost her balance. A gangly twelve-year-old Ryan, who’d just moved in next door, had carried her inside to treat her scraped hands and knees. She’d been eight, and had developed a full-blown case of puppy love, which had turned into hero worship when they were teens. She’d lost count of the number of times she’d climbed down that tree and joined Kate and Ryan on their adventures.
She and Ryan had climbed the tree together the night of her sweet-sixteen birthday party and he’d kissed her. Zoe hadn’t thought so at the time, but she’d come to realize he hadn’t meant it as a romantic kiss, but one of friendship and affection. But for a starry-eyed Zoe, the kiss had been a turning point. Her feelings about Ryan began deepening into something more than a childish puppy love.
Zoe wouldn’t dwell on the past. Couldn’t. Because then she’d have to answer questions she’d prefer to ignore. Questions that had bounced around in her thoughts from the moment she’d seen Ryan O’Connor on the other side of that jail cell door.
Zoe tossed the towel at her sister. She saw the worried look in Kate’s eyes and chose to ignore it. “All I’m saying is that it would have been nice if someone, like you, had kept me in the loop about Ryan.”
“Nice?” Kate chided.
“Prudent,” Zoe conceded. “It was a shock to see him again.”
“So prudent you would have found some silly excuse not to be my maid of honor? Stop blaming Ryan for something that was both our faults. We never meant to hurt you.”
Zoe winced at the truth in Kate’s words. She’d never told anyone she’d had a king-size crush on Ryan. That she’d dreamed one day he’d see her as more than a pint-size pal. That, at the time, she hadn’t seen Kate and Ryan’s teenage elopement for what it was, as a form of rebellion. And that after Kate and Ryan divorced, Zoe and Ryan had never been able to regain anything resembling their once-close friendship.
But Zoe was just as certain if she’d known Ryan was back in town, she’d have come home for the wedding. Ten years ago, the night of her high school graduation, she’d heaped the blame for all her pain on Ryan’s wide shoulders. He’d let her. He’d never offered an excuse, or tried to shift the blame.
Zoe settled at the foot of the bed and reached for one of the glasses of iced tea. She sipped and sighed. Lots of sugar. Just the way Mom made it. “How long did you say he’s been back?”
“A few months.”
“As police chief? Philadelphia get tired of him and take away his key to the city?”
“You’ll have to ask Ryan for the details because he’s told me next to nothing. But I gather it was the other way around. Maybe you should take the time to get to know the man he’s become.” She looked at Zoe slyly. “He’s not seeing anyone.”
“Not interested,” she said quickly. “What makes you think I would be? What is it about brides-to-be? Is it your mission in life to fix up every single female you know? Am I so lacking in male companionship that you’re offering me your ex-husband? And that’s supposed to cheer me up?”
“I want you to be as happy as I am.”
“Having Ryan be your best man isn’t a step in the right direction,” Zoe said dryly. “You’ve only known Alec Carmichael a few weeks. Three dates and you’re engaged.”
“A few months,” Kate corrected. “Time is irrelevant when you’re in love. Alec is perfect for me. Ryan’s perfect for you.”
“I’d rather not have this discussion. Ever.”
“It’s time we did.” Kate tossed her a look that brooked no argument. “Ryan and I were never meant for each other. And who’s been complaining she’s always a bridesmaid and never a bride?”
“What I meant was…” Zoe scowled. “It’s not nice of you to bring that up.”
