Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (148 page)

“Once or twice,” I said, looking away.
With Joanne.
“It tends to get pretty
messy.”

“So whipped cream in certain places, and
then maybe sex in the shower afterward?”

I laughed. “That’s as good a plan as I
could think of,” I said. I tightened my grip on her. Just thinking about
getting her alone—about the different ways we could have sex together—was
enough to make me warm in a way that all the jackets and sweaters I was wearing
couldn’t do on their own. I leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, giving her
shoulder a squeeze. “Start thinking about the different things you want to
try,” I suggested. “If we can make it back out of the park, maybe we can start
working on them.”

We started talking about other things—like
books and movies and music again—while I tried to cool down a bit. The
conversation drifted back onto the subject of Landon, and I remembered that before
I’d left the house to take him to his grandparents’ house, he’d asked me if I
thought that Mackenzie might want to spend Christmas with us. It was something
that had come absolutely out of the blue, and I’d pushed it out of my mind as
soon as I’d told him I would think about inviting her.
Things are going really well. What’s the worst that could happen? Four
and a half good dates, that’s enough to justify asking someone to come over for
the holiday, isn’t it?

“Hey—I just remembered, when I was talking
to Landon earlier, getting ready to drop him off and come get you, he suggested
that maybe you could spend Christmas with us. He’s really into it this year;
he’s even been making presents for all his friends in the school.”

 
“I
think he told me about that the other day,” she said, looking up thoughtfully.
“Isn’t it a picture or something that he’s doing?”

“Yep,” I confirmed. “He’s making each one
of his friends a painting that is all about them. Jessica is getting a picture
of cookies, Alex is apparently going to get a painting of dinosaurs.” I shook
my head, remembering the sight of all the different pictures my son had been
working on with a combination of paints, colored pencils, and markers. “His
grandparents are helping him pick out actual presents for members of the
family, with money I set aside for him to do his shopping.”

“At least you’ll be surprised with
whatever he gets you,” Mackenzie pointed out with a little grin.

“I will be! That’s right!” I realized she
hadn’t exactly answered my question—or given me a response to my invitation.
“So do you think maybe you’d like to spend Christmas Eve, or Christmas day,
with me and Landon? I know it’s kind of a big day and we’ve only gone on four
dates, but it could be a lot of fun.” Mackenzie’s face twisted into a grimace.

“I wish I could,” she said, frowning. “My
family makes a huge deal about the holidays; they party it up from Christmas
Eve right up until the morning of New Year’s Day. It’s a really important thing
for us to get together.” Mackenzie laughed with a little bit of guilt and
bitterness in her voice. “Last year I had to spend a few days away from the
festivities; I was on the on-call and voluntary overtime lists.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding.

“So they’re putting a lot of pressure on
me to be there the whole time.”

“I totally understand,” I said, leaning in
to give her a quick kiss. “Family can be persistent.”

“My parents? Totally.” I chuckled again.

“Do they know you’re seeing someone?”
Mackenzie looked away and I saw her face light up with a blush.

“Not—not exactly,” she admitted. “I didn’t
want to tell them anything until I was sure that this was going to last, that
it would be serious. They pester me a lot about settling down with someone, you
know?”

“I can picture that,” I said. “So you’re
going to tell them when you get there, right? I’d hate to think you’re putting
up with them bothering you for a week where I can’t even help.”

“Well, if things get too bad, you can
count on me to text you and ask for sanctuary,” Mack told me. We were getting
closer to the entrance to the park.

“Or if you change your mind for whatever
reason,” I said with a shrug. I felt a little disappointed, but I could
understand family obligations. Landon and I both had an obligation to different
parts of my family and Joanne’s; I couldn’t exactly assume that Mack didn’t
have anything at all going on just because she didn’t have a kid and wasn’t
married.

But part of me wondered if she really did
want to spend the holiday with her family—who she had told me once or twice in
the few dates we’d been on had pressured her to date around for years—or if
instead she was using it as an excuse because she thought that a holiday
together was too intense, or because she was iffy about seeing me. I walked
Mackenzie to my car, holding her hand; I’d set Landon up with family members so
that I could hopefully enjoy the thrill of having sex with Mackenzie again, but
I had a lot of food for thought now that Mack had given me an excuse for not
coming over for the holidays. I told myself that she was just busy—a lot of
people were—and that I just had to be patient. But thinking about what Landon
wanted from me, and what I wanted for myself, it seemed to me that Mackenzie
might just not be all that interested in spending a holiday with an almost stranger.
I couldn’t blame her.

I took her straight to her apartment,
instead of driving her back to my place; it didn’t seem like the right
opportunity. I gave Mackenzie a long, hungry kiss, and then we were parting
ways, Mack going into the building and me watching to make sure no one mugged
her. By the time I was alone again, I was mostly happy—but also a little bit
worried. We’d have to talk soon.

PART 3

Chapter One - Mackenzie

“Got any Christmas plans, Mack?” I looked
up from the file in front of me on the computer; Charlotte, one of the other
therapists, had stopped at my desk on her way to the therapy area.

“Just going to be with my family, I
think,” I said with a shrug. I couldn’t tell her the little hope that I harbored,
even if most of the people in the office were now aware of the fact that I was
dating Patrick.

“You’re not going to hang with that tasty
guy and his son?” Charlotte clucked her tongue against her teeth, shaking her
head. “No better way to spend the holidays than an early wake-up by a kid,
followed by an afternoon of making love while the tyke plays with the new
toys.” I laughed.

“I’ll get the early wake-up either way,” I
told her. “I’ve got nieces and nephews.”

“Not the same,” Charlotte said, shaking
her head. “Not the same at all. But do what you will with your life, girl.” She
went on her way, back to the therapy area to clean up after her previous
patient’s session.

I went back to working on my files,
waiting for my next patient to arrive. I had reordered my schedule a little
bit; I’d come in about thirty minutes early, before the clinic opened, so that
I’d be able to leave thirty minutes early at the end of the day. Patrick had
hinted that our date was going to be somewhere relatively fancy that night, and
I wanted the extra time to prepare.

There was only a week and a half before
Christmas, and I’d gotten about half of my shopping done; I was still going
back and forth in my mind on the topic of whether I should get Patrick
something. Sometimes I thought that a little token gift wouldn’t be a bad
idea—something to show that we were dating, that I had faith in the
relationship, but not something huge and expensive. But then I always stopped
short of actually thinking of anything in particular, because I thought that
we’d only been dating a couple of weeks—not even a full month. If I bought him
a gift, he might think I was taking things more seriously than he was
comfortable with.
This is the real reason
you shouldn’t date patients’ parents, Mack: you don’t have the milestone of
meeting their kid to show you how serious things are.

I had started debating it in my head
again, going back and forth on the issue of whether a small gift would really
be all that much of an indication that I thought things were serious, when I
heard the buzz of my phone vibrating in my desk drawer. I opened the drawer and
took my phone out; flashing on the screen was Patrick’s name and number. “Hey!”
I said, keeping my voice as quiet as I could in spite of the excitement that
welled up at me just at the thought of him calling. “I was just thinking about
you.”

“My timing is excellent,” Patrick told me,
his voice dry. “I really hate to do this, Mack, but I have to cancel tonight.”
I frowned.

“Is something wrong with Landon? I can
come over and check him out if you want,” I suggested. “I mean—I don’t have to
go out somewhere.”

“I wish I could have you over, but I’m not
even going to be home,” Patrick said. “I got pulled into this stupid business
dinner thing. I’m on my way to pick up Landon and drop him off at the
babysitter’s place.”

“That sucks,” I said, feeling my stomach
give a lurch inside of me. I swallowed against the tightness that began to form
in my throat and blinked a few times to get rid of the tears that started to
form in my eyes.
It must be close to that
time of the month—I’ve never gotten this emotional over a guy canceling on me
before.
“I wish you could get out of it, but I’m not going to give you a
hard time,” I said, keeping my voice level by sheer force of will.

“If I’d had a little more notice I would
have had time to ask if you wanted to come with me,” Patrick said, sounding
regretful. I smiled weakly, trying to imagine what use I could possibly be to
Patrick at a business dinner.

“I’d probably just sit there and try to
look pretty,” I told him. “I don’t know if I’d give you any boost in
conversation.”

“Sitting there and looking beautiful would
be enough on its own,” Patrick said, and I could hear the warmth in his voice.
He sighed. “I really hate canceling on you so last minute. I’ll make it up to
you, I swear.” I shrugged, glancing around to make sure no one in the office
was obviously eavesdropping on me.

“I can’t really talk for long,” I told
Patrick. “If the office manager comes through and sees me on my phone she’ll
give me hell.”

“I figured as much,” Patrick said. “I just
didn’t want to leave you hanging or put it off until after you’d left for the
day.” He sighed again. “I wish I was seeing you tonight, Mack. I’m sorry I
can’t follow through with our plans.”

“It’s okay,” I said, making my voice
lighter than I felt. “These things happen. I’m sure you didn’t expect to get
pulled into something tonight. We’ll see each other in a couple of days at
Landon’s next appointment.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” Patrick told
me. “If it wouldn’t be totally unprofessional I’d bring you the biggest bouquet
of flowers the florist shop has.” I laughed in spite of myself, picturing
Patrick in my mind trying to carry a huge bouquet into the office while Landon
ran circles around him.

“Bring the flowers to our next date,” I
suggested.

“I’ll do it! And I’ll come up with
something even better than my plans for tonight to give you double the date.” I
smiled in spite of how disappointed I felt and said goodbye to Patrick, hanging
up before I either got caught or stopped being able to cover up how upset I was
that I’d come to work early only to end up with no plans at the end of the day.
I put my phone back into the drawer and closed it, trying to think of things
that I could do when I got out of work thirty minutes early.
There’s always the Christmas shopping,
I
told myself, though it didn’t seem all that great a way to spend my evening.

“You staring off into space again?” I
looked up to see Amie carefully hobbling down the short hallway that led
between the waiting room and the therapy area.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I
stood up quickly, looking Amie up and down. “You’re still injured. You should
be resting.”

“You know as well as I do that getting up
and moving around within reason is the best thing someone can do during
recovery,” Amie told me. She took the chair next to my desk and sat down in it,
crossing her arms—one of which was in a cast—across her chest. “Besides,
someone’s got to keep an eye on the likes of you.” I rolled my eyes.

“Right, because you’ve done a great job of
that in the past,” I said, sitting back in my chair.

“I knew that you were going to date
Landon’s dear old dad before you even did,” Amie said, sticking her tongue out
at me. “I’d say that’s a decent track record.”

“Not true,” I said, grinning. “I had
already gone out on a date with Patrick when you suggested I should go out with
him.”

“You sneaky thing!” Amie looked at me in
shock for a long moment. She shook her head, laughing. “So how many dates have
you been on with him?” I shrugged.

“I’ve been on a few,” I said. I felt my
cheeks warming up with a blush. “I mean—it’s not really serious or anything, we
just go to dinner or go out and do something.”

“What’s been the best date so far?” I grinned,
unable to help myself.

“We went ice-skating together,” I said. “I
got to pick the restaurant we went to beforehand, so I took him to that Indian
place around the corner from here, and then we just went to the park and went
skating.”