She's the One: COunting on Love, Book 1 (21 page)

Ryan’s eyes widened. “Wow. That’s kind of…” But he didn’t finish with
over the top
. Or anything else.

Amanda had already yanked a file drawer open and picked up her phone. She dialed, then settled the headset against her shoulder as she rummaged for a folder. As she pulled it from the drawer, she looked up at him. “I can’t…do anything right now. But thanks for the chips.”

Ryan plopped down in one of the two chairs on the other side of her desk. “I’ll wait.”

She frowned at him. “This could take a while.”

“That’s okay.” He had a strong sense that if he left that office without a kiss, he wouldn’t be getting any future kisses either. This was a turning point. Or something. The way they parted right now, today, would set the tone for what happened—or didn’t happen—between them after this.

“Ryan, I really—” She paused, listening to something on the other end of the phone. “Dammit.” She smacked the headset back onto the cradle.

“No answer?”

“Voice mail.” She sighed. “I have to
work
.”

But she wasn’t upset about Jill and determined to talk to the girl because it was her job. Ryan knew that it was because of the stuff Amanda had said, and obviously believed, about Jill needing to stay in the program for a greater good.

“Is she sick or something?” he asked.

“No.”

“Is someone in her family sick?”

Amanda shook her head. “No. I spoke with her mother an hour ago. There’s nothing going on with the family.”

“Is she homesick? Maybe she has a boyfriend back home or something.”

“She’s from here in Omaha.”

Ryan shrugged and sat back in his chair. “Then maybe she just wants to quit.”

Amanda frowned. “You don’t just quit something like this. This is a career. A major commitment long before you ever get to the point Jill’s at.”

Amanda propped her hands on her hips and gave him a stern look Ryan was sure more than one student had received from across that stretch of mahogany.

“Getting into a program like this isn’t easy,” she went on. “Jill was one of forty students chosen out of a pool of three hundred and sixty-seven applicants. She had to have impeccable grades and a history of service and letters of recommendation to even get to the interview process. Then she had to go through three levels of interviews. Even getting here is a lot of work. And now she’s in her second year. The first year is the hardest academically and she got through that with flying colors. She’s put so much into this. I can’t let her give up on it.”

The passion in Amanda’s voice was impressive. She believed every word she was saying, and only a person with equally strong beliefs could not get completely sucked in.

“What’s different about this clinical rotation than the others she’s been on?” Ryan asked.

“It’s the longest one so far. This one is twelve weeks.”

“Maybe she’s finally realized that this isn’t really what she wants to do.”

Amanda scowled at him. “She loves it. She’s told me that herself.”

“Sure, so far. Things are getting tougher, I assume. More is expected of the students at this level, right? Maybe it finally clicked that this isn’t what she wants to do for the rest of her life.”

Amanda smacked her hand down on her desk. “No. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Sometimes it does.” He leaned in. “No matter how passionate you are, you can’t
make
other people feel and act and think the way you want them to, Amanda. And Jill’s choices aren’t about
you.
It doesn’t mean that she doesn’t respect you or that you’ve somehow failed.”

Amanda sat up straight, her breathing becoming ragged. “But it does.”

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The choices we make
are
about the people who’ve influenced us. The choices I make are about my mom and my brother and everything they taught me and modeled for me and sacrificed for me and…and…” She seemed to be searching for words. “And
prayed
about for me,” she finally finished. “My mom and my brother both worried and worked so that all of us girls would turn out well. My mom prayed every single night that we would be okay. My brother lectured and checked up on us to be sure we would be okay. And every choice I make reflects that.”

Ryan was staring at her, he knew. But this was…a lot. Certainly more than he’d expected to learn when he’d come to her office today.

“And everything that those kids go out and do, both while they’re in school and after they graduate, reflect on the program. And our profession. And on me. At least in part. I’m part of teaching them and mentoring and counseling them. I believe in what this university does and what our profession does. I work my ass off to make sure this program turns out the best PTs in the country. Our whole faculty puts their hearts and passion into this program. So, yeah, I do think that you can influence the choices people make, and I do think their bad choices, and the good—thank God—are a little about me.”

Ryan shook his head. He admired her passion. He really did. He hadn’t felt that way about something…ever. He loved his job and he was damned good at it, but he didn’t feel like he was changing the world. He helped save lives. Literally. That was something. That was big. He knew that. But he also knew that if he wasn’t doing it, someone else would. He had just never felt the way Amanda felt about something.

“That’s a lot of pressure and stress to put on yourself,” he said. He didn’t like that she was feeling directly responsible for Jill’s decision, or feeling like she’d failed somehow. Amanda was amazing and if this girl didn’t realize that—and realize that she wanted to be like Amanda—then it was her loss.

“Yes. And it needs to be on me. I’m in charge of the students’ success at these clinical assignments.”

“But Jill’s her own person. She’s an individual with her own life to live. You can’t beat yourself up about this.”

“So I should let her quit?” Amanda asked. “I should let her walk away?”

“If that’s what she wants.”

Amanda studied him for a several seconds. Then she nodded. “Live and let live, right?”

“Right.” But he shifted on his chair, suddenly uncomfortable.

“And that’s the real reason why you and I should only be a one-weekend thing.” She sounded depressed as she said it.

He frowned. “Why?”

“Because I think your mom was wrong—people are worth sticking with, and walking away when things change or get hard isn’t always the right thing to do.”

Ryan felt his gut clench and his heart thump. Dammit.

“Amanda, I—”

“Huckleberry.”

She said it softly. She looked sad as she said it. But he felt like she’d punched him in the face. Hard. He opened his mouth, trying to come up with some words, but too stunned to think any word but
huckleberry
.

He’d promised to leave her alone if she ever said the word.

Fuck.

Fine.

He took a deep breath, then pushed himself up out of the chair. But instead of going to the door, he stomped around her desk, spun her chair, leaned in and kissed her.

It was only a few seconds but he poured his feelings into it—desire, affection, respect, frustration. Then he pulled back, straightened, stared into her eyes for three heartbeats, nodded and walked out of her office.

Because walking away when feelings changed and things got hard was what he knew how to do.

Chapter Seven

“I think you have to consider the chips,” Emma said.

Olivia nodded thoughtfully. “I was wondering about that. What do you think?”

“I think it’s a big gesture,” Emma said. “I think it deserves some attention.”

Amanda took another drink of her mojito and tried to ignore her sisters. Of course, ignoring any one of the Dixon girls was hard, but when they had her cornered in a booth at Trudy’s it was impossible. Especially when they were talking about her. Blatantly.

“Okay, so you know Ryan pretty well,” Isabelle said. “What do you think it means?”

For some reason it didn’t bother Amanda that her younger sisters knew that she’d had a not-even-quite-a-one-night stand with Ryan Kaye. That was strange. Typically she wouldn’t have wanted them to know she’d been reckless and wild, even if it had only been for a few hours. Typically she wouldn’t have
been
reckless and wild, even for a few hours.

It did bother her that they refused to talk about anything else though.

But her sisters had been there after she’d gotten home from work and demanded to know what was going on. So she’d told them everything. Including that Ryan had visited her office the day before.

They’d promptly dragged her to Trudy’s and plied her with mojitos.

This one was her second. Or maybe it was the third. She sipped. She didn’t care—they were tasting better and better.

“They’re chips,” she finally said. “Potato chips. It wasn’t even a big bag. It doesn’t mean anything.” For God’s sake. Emma was acting like Ryan had brought her a diamond ring.

She laughed at that and her sisters looked at her quizzically. Ryan Kaye was not a diamond ring kind of guy. At all.

“But he came to your office,” Emma said.

“So?” He’d interrupted her day. He’d made her forget about the fact that one of her students—one of her at-risk students—had decided to quit the program.

“So, Ryan doesn’t do that,” Emma told her. “He doesn’t go after girls.”

“He doesn’t really have to,” Isabelle commented, gesturing toward the bar where Ryan was, as always, surrounded by women.

Amanda was also trying to ignore that.

She’d said
huckleberry
. It had been her choice to end things. And she knew—had heard it from Ryan’s own mouth—that he let people walk if that was what they wanted. That was how he thought it should be.

But she was surprised by how much it bothered her seeing him with other women. Not that she thought he’d be serious about any of them either. Ryan didn’t do serious. He didn’t do long-term. He didn’t do complicated.

And relationships were, if nothing else, complicated.

She looked around the table at her sisters. Boy, were they.

“Exactly,” Emma said to Isabelle’s observation. “He doesn’t have to. And when someone’s ready to move on, he lets them move on. He’s not into angst or arguing.”

He’d argued with her. Amanda frowned. Kind of, anyway. He’d argued with her about Jill. And he’d shown up on her doorstep and asked her to let him stay. He’d said he wouldn’t complicate things, that he’d leave her alone if that was really what she wanted, but he’d asked to stay. He’d even said
please
.

And then he’d come to her office yesterday.

“He never showed up at your house or work unannounced?” she asked Emma.

Emma shrugged. “Well, we just messed around that one night. When we decided it wasn’t going to be anything more than that, it was over.”

“But maybe that was you. You’re pretty laid-back about relationships too. Surely he’s
dated
other women,” Olivia said before Amanda did. “Surely he’s called a woman up and asked her out on a date.”

Emma shrugged. “Maybe. But if he has, I don’t know any of them.”

“You know
all
the women Ryan’s gone out with?” Amanda asked.

Emma looked around Trudy’s. “A lot of them.”

Amanda looked around too. Trudy’s was a local place. It wasn’t a chain or in a location where people would necessarily find it if they weren’t looking for it. In truth, it looked a bit like a dive from outside. But inside it was clean, had good food, a large selection of liquor, wine and beer, and everyone knew everyone. The patrons were mostly employees of St. Anthony’s since it was right across the street, along with their family and friends, so it was hard to find a stranger in the place. Most of the women were nurses, paramedics, physicians, lab techs and such from the hospital, or their sisters and friends who had gotten dragged in at some point.

Trudy’s easily won them over though. The margaritas and mojitos were awesome and the men were…even more awesome. They were hot doctors, paramedics and their hot friends, after all.

It was true that there was a lot of intrahospital dating. And why not? St. A’s was a huge place with lots of options.

So it stood to reason that a lot of the women Ryan had dated were here in Trudy’s.

Amanda looked around. It also stood to reason that she would know a lot of them.

“You’re telling me that Ryan Kaye just waits to bump into women?” Olivia said. “He never actually calls them or shows up at the door with flowers and takes them out to dinner? Seriously?”

Emma laughed. “Why would I lie about that? As far as I know, Ryan runs into women everywhere he goes. If he gets to talking to one he’s interested in, they make plans and meet up somewhere. He doesn’t have to work very hard.”

Olivia shook her head and sat back in the booth. “Wow. Poor guy.”

Isabelle laughed. “Yeah, everyone feels really sorry for Ryan Kaye. I know that Shane’s always saying what a rough life Ryan has.”

They all chuckled, but Amanda couldn’t stop thinking about all of it. Ryan never had to work for relationships? It made sense. The guy drew women like honey drew bees and then when things weren’t fun anymore, he walked.