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Kate laughed. “I’m your older sister. Nice has nothing to do with it. I just want what’s best for you.”
“Then stay out of my love life.”
“Just pretend you met him today for the first time.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “I was dressed in mud. He was dressed in perfectly pressed tan chinos and a T-shirt that hugged his muscles. Yes, I noticed how good he looks. He called me a crook and I insulted him right back.” And I wanted him to kiss me. Zoe’s breath caught in her throat. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped open. There was that traitorous thought again.
Kate briskly clapped her hands. “Besides, Ryan meets the Zoe Russell list of dating qualifications. He’s single. He’s breathing. He’s straight. He’s here.”
“That’s low, Kate, even for you.” Zoe shuddered, determined not to try and follow what passed for Kate’s logic. Let Ryan O’Connor back into her perfectly ordered life? No way. Never. She wasn’t that desperate, wasn’t ever going to be that desperate, for a relationship.
She held up her glass. “No, iced tea the way Mom makes it is perfect for me, but I know the sugar she dumps into it is bad for me.” Her voice caught in her throat. It was important Kate understood her feelings and didn’t do something Zoe would live to regret. “I’m not one of those women who need a man to make her complete. I’m happy with my friends and my family.”
“Ryan’s always going to be a part of our family. Even though we’ve been divorced longer than we were married. You were good friends once. You can be friends again.” Kate reached for Zoe’s hand and gently squeezed. “At least talk to him. Clear the air between you.”
When hell freezes over. “Soon as I see him.”
“Promise. It’s important to me.”
Zoe sighed. The always tenacious Kate wasn’t going to let go. “Okay. One little talk. Just for you.”
Kate wrapped her in hug. “You won’t regret it.”
I already do. Zoe knew she owed it to Kate to be the best maid of honor she could be. She’d be careful so that she wouldn’t run into Ryan. If she did, she would be—she wracked her brain for a word—pleasant, she’d be pleasant.
“And then,” Zoe said brightly, “I won’t have to see him for the next two weeks, until I’m forced to stand across the aisle from him on your wedding day.”
Meanwhile, she wouldn’t think about what it might be like to kiss Ryan, be the recipient of his sexy smiles or caress his dimples. But she was intrigued about the haunted look on his face when she demanded to know why he’d left Philadelphia. She’d get to the bottom of that soon enough.
“There is one more thing you should know…” Kate’s voice trailed off.
From the ominous tone in her sister’s voice, Zoe wasn’t sure she was ready for the one more thing. “And that is…?”
The sound of male voices downstairs had Kate running to the top of the staircase. Zoe followed, curious.
“Anyone home up there?” called a deep voice Zoe knew she hadn’t heard before.
“Alec?” Kate frantically brushed her hands through her hair, checked her appearance in the hall mirror. “Zoe’s finally arrived. And there’s a problem with the caterer.”
Zoe sighed, returned to the bedroom and closed the door. She just bet the one more thing Kate had failed to tell her had to do with Ryan. She slipped out of her terry-cloth robe and into a pair of well-worn jeans and a Wake Up, America T-shirt. Her eyes caught the mud-caked tennis shoes she’d tossed on top of the clothes hamper. She gingerly picked them up by their shoestrings and dropped them into the waste can by the bureau. No time like the present to get rid of unnecessary luxuries.
And no time like the present to meet her future brother-in-law. A quick glance into the hallway mirror told her she was as presentable as she could possibly be, under the circumstances. Maybe her cheeks were a bit too flushed, her eyes a bit too bright, but she’d spent twenty minutes in a hot shower.
She jogged down the stairs into the living room to find her sister wrapped in the arms of a dark-haired man a few inches taller than Kate. The look on Kate’s heart-shaped face was one of a woman deeply in love and secure in the knowledge that her feelings were returned.
Kate quickly made the introductions before spiriting away Alec so they could discuss wedding plans. Zoe walked into the kitchen. She wasn’t surprised to see Ryan seated comfortably at the kitchen table with an open pizza box in front of him.
“Why are you here?” Zoe asked crossly before she had a chance to check her emotions. “I think we’ve spent enough time together for one day.”
“Best man stuff.” He cocked a brow, surveyed her up and down several times before turning on that devastating smile. “You clean up well.”
“How nice of you to notice.”
“Almost didn’t recognize you without the mud.” He glanced down at her hands. “Or without the cuffs.”
“I save the more sophisticated look for prison.” She sighed, took a step back. Ryan stood and took one step forward. He was much too close. She thought about her promise to Kate. Make peace? Not tonight. “Go home, Ryan. I’m too tired to play clever repartee with you.”
Zoe yanked open the refrigerator door with more force than necessary. She pulled out two beers. It appeared Ryan wasn’t going home. She tossed one bottle in his direction. “No reason to let pizza with the works go to waste.”
He caught the bottle before it made contact with his head and gently set it on the table. He eased himself back into one of the high-back oak chairs. “Your aim hasn’t matured along with the rest of you.”
Zoe wanted to snarl at him. She really did. It wasn’t good manners that kept her from doing so. It was that marching band with its percussion section at full volume that had just begun rumbling through her head.
She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples trying to ease the pain. Just pretend you met him today for the first time. Right. If life were simpler, and Zoe years younger, she’d happily take Kate’s advice. Ryan had grown from a gangly cute teenager into a devastatingly handsome man. She knew Kate would ignore her plea that she wasn’t interested in Ryan, and would still find a way for them to spend a lot of quality time together during the next two weeks. She wondered if she’d survive the experience.
Zoe ordered herself to keep the conversation light but on point. She needed all her wits about her. “Kate thinks we should talk. Clear the air. Put the past behind us.” Date. No, dating Ryan O’Connor was not a viable option. Not now. Not ever.
Then he smiled. And Zoe’s heart beat a tattoo. She thought back to earlier in the day, and the effect he’d had on her senses. From the moment they’d met, she’d been on the defensive. It was past time to turn the tables and put Ryan O’Connor in his place. “Let’s play Truth or Dare.”
“Truth or Dare. And I’ll live to regret it.” Ryan’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I admit I’ve followed your career because I take pleasure in your success. You tell me why you’ve treated me like a pariah the past ten years.”
She sputtered as she fought to swallow a gulp of beer.
“I know why.” The patience in his voice didn’t fool her. He was angry and trying hard to keep his emotions under control. “I’m not an idiot. I just need you to tell me why. Actually, you need for you to tell me why.”
Zoe swallowed the gulp, but it was a few more seconds before she finally found her voice. “I’m not going to let you reduce the last ten years of my life into some sixty-second commercial for…”
“You wouldn’t have offered up Truth or Dare if you didn’t have something important to say to me.”
She hated it when he was right. When they were teenagers, playing Truth or Dare was the way they dealt with sensitive issues they’d rather not—but knew they had to—talk about. She didn’t want him to be right. She didn’t want him to be a handsome, sexy and available man.
Zoe wanted him to be going bald, with bad skin and a paunchy stomach. With a nagging wife and several snot-nosed brats who drove him crazy. She wanted him to be a thousand miles away and not upsetting her already much too complicated life. But he was here. And she had no choice but to deal with him.
He looked so comfortable sitting at her family’s dinner table as though he’d always had a place. He’d always belonged there, and when he’d gone, he’d left a hole no antiseptic could heal, no Band-Aid could begin to cover. She resented him for making her feel anything, even anger and most especially desire, for him. But she didn’t know what to say to him.
“You’ve always underestimated me. You’ve never taken me seriously. You’ve never really known me. How would you like it if I ripped into your life?”
Ryan’s expression hardened. He stood, leaned over the table so they were face-to-face, mere inches apart. “There’s nothing to rip into.”
She kept her gaze locked to his. “I don’t agree. Let’s start with why you’re sitting in the police chief’s chair in Riverbend when all you ever wanted to do was chase crooks in the big bad city.”
“That’s none of your business.” His voice was devoid of emotion.
“You left.” She challenged him to deny her words as she abruptly changed the subject and answered his Truth question. “We were friends, Ryan. Friends don’t desert one another.”
“I graduated from college,” he said patiently. “I moved to Philadelphia to take a new job.”
“You weren’t there on the most important night of my life.”
“Guilty as charged. We missed your high school graduation. But Kate and I had other things on our minds.”
“You eloped! Why?”
“I’ll tell you if you answer why our marriage sent you into such an emotional tailspin that you neatly and deliberately cut me out of your life.”
“I can’t answer that question.”
“Can’t,” he said quietly, “or won’t. It was never about me marrying Kate. Or our moving to Philly. It’s always been about your father.”
Zoe’s heart pounded in her chest. She felt each painful breath as she slowly exhaled, then inhaled then exhaled again. She’d thought the day couldn’t get any worse. She was wrong. “Leave my father out of this. You don’t know anything.”
“Your parents separated. I know it was a painful time for you, but they did what they thought best. Kate was hurting, too. And I was reeling after my parents were killed in that stupid car accident,” Ryan said softly. Now she heard the pain in his voice, and tried to harden her heart against it.
“Kate got me through the grief,” he said. “We were young, impulsive and thought with our hormones.”
All Zoe remembered was that night she’d thought she’d lost three people who’d meant the world to her. And now, here Ryan stood, ten years later, trying to push back into her life and opening wounds she’d only been able to messily bandage.
He slid the plate across the table. Their hands touched. Zoe felt the sizzle and tried to pull away. Ryan kept her hand in place with his for a moment more. “Kate and I were smart enough to recognize almost immediately that we were totally wrong for each other. We married on impulse. I’ll always love her but I’m not in love with her. Your parents divorced because they realized something was missing in their marriage. You were hurting. I let you blame me then. But I won’t let you continue to blame me now.”
Her parents had divorced. Zoe hadn’t wanted to listen to their explanations of why. All she knew was that her comfortable family life had been destroyed. With her father moving to California, and Kate and Ryan married and living in Philadelphia, Zoe had been left alone that summer to deal with her emotionally wrought mother and her own feelings of abandonment.
It had taken many months before Zoe had been able to have a cool but cordial relationship with her father. She was afraid to trust her feelings, afraid of being hurt again. She might have aged ten years, but she didn’t feel any differently today than she had back then. And Ryan O’Connor was a life-size reminder of all she had lost.
“Well, so much for clearing the air between us.” With all the energy she could muster, Zoe brushed past Ryan and calmly walked out of the kitchen, through the living room where Kate and Alec were now cuddled on the couch and out the front door.
She paused at the end of the walkway and turned around. Ryan stood silhouetted in the doorway. Zoe started walking, not expecting, but hoping he’d call out, or come after her and finally admit, after all these years, that he’d been wrong. With a heavy heart, Zoe trudged down the street. The wind had picked up and Zoe was certain she heard it whisper, “little coward,” as it swept past her.
When she came to the street corner she stopped, gazed around and realized she had nowhere to go except home. Not New York, but the cozy bungalow on the aptly named Division Street, filled with memories she’d prefer not to deal with.
Ryan rested his forehead against the closed door. “You sure bungled that one.”
Ten years ago, Ryan had given up the right to call Zoe a friend. When he’d acted rashly following his parents’ deaths, and his elopement with Kate certainly was rash, he hadn’t been thinking of anyone but himself. Of anything but his anger, his hurt, his pain. Zoe’s feelings never entered into any equation.
And he’d regret that the rest of his life.
But no matter how all grown-up Zoe was, there was no way he was getting involved with her. She was practically his little sister! No matter how strong the temptation, she was, he decided firmly, off-limits.
There had been several women in his life. He was, after all, a normal healthy man with a normal, healthy sex drive. But he hadn’t allowed himself to get close to any one woman emotionally for any length of time. He wasn’t proud his emotional barriers flashed a red alert whenever a relationship looked like it might get too serious.
The excuse was always the same. He was a vice cop. His life was dangerous. He couldn’t ask anyone he cared for to share the uncertainties. Except he wasn’t a vice cop any longer. His life wasn’t filled with danger or uncertainties.
Still, he wasn’t ready to dive into any depth of emotional waters. He wasn’t afraid, just wary of not being able to live up to someone else’s expectations. It was hard enough, he thought with a frown, to live up to his own.
He turned to find Kate standing in the archway, worry written all over her face.
“Your talk with Zoe cut short?”
“How could you forget to tell Zoe I’m the best man.”
“Oops.” She shrugged slightly. “It’s not that big a deal.”
“It’s a big deal to Zoe. You deliberately didn’t tell her.”
Kate winced. “I had hoped to ease into it. That was before you locked her in jail.”
Ryan wisely decided to ignore that last comment. “Were you going to pull her aside moments before the wedding ceremony began and say, ‘See that guy in the black tux? He’s our best man and you’re walking down the aisle with him. You recognize him? That’s Ryan O’Connor. Your ex-best friend.”’
“Yes.”
“Not funny, Kate.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny. I’m still waiting for you to promise you’ll get along with Zoe over the next two weeks.”
When he didn’t respond she poked him in the chest. “Promise.”
He nodded curtly. “I’ll do my part. You might want to remind her it takes two to end a war.”
“Zoe understands,” Kate said with exaggerated patience. “You just don’t know her the way I do. She feels things differently than you or I do.”
“I’m not even going to begin to try and make sense out of that statement.” He glanced at his watch. “I need to check in at the station. And, Kate, remember that Zoe and I are like oil and water. We no longer mix. And I have no intention of getting involved with her. So don’t play matchmaker. It will just blow up in all our faces.”
Ryan heard the click of the door close behind him, and a few murmured words between Kate and Alec before the porch light flicked on ostensibly for Zoe’s return. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone, punched the three-digit code that immediately connected him with the police station. Once the night dispatcher assured him all was quiet, he hurried down the walkway, turned right and stood on the sidewalk in front of the house next door. The house that had once been his home. And would be again.
He stared intently at the For Sale sign, remembering how he’d seen it shortly after he’d returned to Riverbend six months ago. Winding his way through the backyard, Ryan found the garden of roses his mother had so lovingly tended. He was foolishly pleased to see them still in bloom.
A rustling sound in the bushes behind him put Ryan on alert and he quickly raced to the front yard. And was surprised to see Zoe standing on the sidewalk. Her face, lit by the light of the moon, looked troubled.
Ryan settled on the top step that led to the front porch. And remembered his promise to Kate. “Join me,” he invited, and when she did, he didn’t fail to notice she kept as much distance between them as she could.
“I really don’t want to talk to you.”
He heard the firmness in her voice. “Fine. We’ll just sit here quietly.”
“I always wanted to live in your house.”
Ryan was smart enough not to ask why. He remembered all the shouting coming from the house next door, the slamming doors, her mother crying. “I’m just remembering the first time we met.” He chuckled. “Even back then you left a strong impression.”
He’d plopped down onto the window seat and was gazing into the yard next door where a pixielike red-haired girl, partially hidden by a gnarled oak tree, watched him from her bedroom window, a curious look on her face.
“I was just happy, thinking I now had someone new to play with,” she said dryly. “And was crushed you were a boy.”
She’d climbed onto one of the thick tree limbs and when their gazes connected, they played a silent game of stare down until she unexpectedly laughed, then disappeared from view.
“I panicked when I realized you’d fallen out of the tree.”
“My pride was bruised and battered,” she said.
“And you never shed a tear.”
