Notorious D.O.C. (Hope Sze medical mystery) (20 page)

I clicked "I accept" on the
website. It didn't seem to have a record of this morning's order.

"—and I thought I'd look you
up while you were here."

"I'm glad you came," I said,
which was true. "Do you have Lisa's phone number?"

"Why?"

"Is it unlisted?"

"No, she's in the book. But
why?"

I shrugged. No sense getting him more
worked up. But our old nemesis, the phone, rang again. Ryan grimaced while I
picked it up.

This time, I thought I heard a soft
breath before a click.

If I'd been alone, I might have been
spooked. As it was, I tried to look on the bright side. "Well, I
definitely don't think it's the hospital."

Ryan stood up. "Hope. This is not a
joke."

"I know. I'm going to keep a phone
log for the police."

"How about for yourself?"

"Yeah, that too."

"If this steps up, will you call the
police again?
 
'Cause I'm not going to be
here to look out for you. I guess I could change my ticket—"

"No, Ryan. You've done enough for
me." I gestured at the barred windows. "This has probably been the
world's worst vacation for you."

"Oh, I don't know. It had its
benefits." He grinned.

But guilt had finally kicked in for me,
punching through my fatigue and Mrs. Lee mission and panic attacks and lust
attacks. I jumped to my feet. "I'm serious. You hardly saw Lisa or your
friends, you cloistered yourself here doing a computer model and changing my
locks, and every time we, uh, try to get down, I get called away." I
paused. "I officially suck. You are free to go."

Ryan threw his head back and burst out
laughing. "Yeah, right."

I grabbed his hands and held them like I
could transmit my determination to him. "Ryan, I am so serious. Get out of
here. There are a thousand better women here for you. You know the T-shirt,
'Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go to Montreal.' I'm toxic to you. I bet
you could find a good girl who'd marry—"

He silenced me with a kiss. A kiss hard
enough to stop my brain, tender enough to stop my breath for a second. Then he
broke it off. "Hope."

My lips were still turned upward for
more. I had to reprogram myself for speech. "Yes?"

He smiled. "I wanted to do all that
for you. I mean, yeah, you get called away more often than Superman and it's
annoying. But when I heard you almost died..." He shook his hands loose,
then fiddled with the mouse, drawing zig-zags across the screen before he spoke
again. "It made a lot of things clear to me. I'm glad I got to do your
windows and locks. I'd rather do that than go fry on a beach somewhere. And
even this thing with Mrs. Lee, I got an idea why you do this stuff. I just want
you to be safe."

I had to swallow the lump in my throat. I
still thought he was too good for me.

"I don't know about the people you
hang around with. Especially that Tucker guy."

My eyebrows jerked upward, not to mention
my stomach. "What about him?"

"Well, he seemed pretty mad you were
hanging around with me." He shrugged but met my eye steadily. "Do you
think he might hold a grudge about it? He knows where you live, right? He's got
your number."

"Uh huh." In my best "Your
point is?" voice.

He shrugged again. "I don't know. I
think he might be the one leaving you those messages and hanging up and
whatever."

I didn't know whether to laugh or choke.
I ended up sounding like a rooster being strangled. "I don't think
so."

"Just keep an eye on him. That's all
I'm saying."

"Will do." Oh, God. Now I was
close to cracking up. I mean, the thought of Tucker spying on me, that was
hysterical.

The right side of his mouth cocked up in
a grin. "Awright. That's enough talk. So can we get busy?"

Chapter
19

I laughed, like I was meant to, and we
both relaxed. But instead of reaching for me, Ryan perched on the edge of my
desk and said, "You still have Henry!" He pointed to the wooden
artist's model to his left. Henry lounged on his back with his head between his
hands and his knees bent. "Is he doing sit-ups?"

I swatted Ryan. "He's supposed to be
relaxing, since everyone tells me I'm so uptight."

"He could be relaxing while doing
sit-ups. Sounds like you." Ryan smiled. He already knew the back-story. I
didn't have to explain how I bought Henry for a drawing class years ago, only I
sucked at is, so I turned him into a kind of emotional barometer and
procrastination tool.

Ryan picked Henry up and straightened him
into a standing position, keeping just one arm folded. It looked like Henry was
scratching his head. "What do you think?"

"He has lice?"

Ryan grinned. "Yeah, right. He's
supposed to be thinking of how to put you in the mood."

I was embarrassed, but refused to admit
it. Instead, I reached for Henry. I'd never used him as foreplay before.
"Well, this is a start." I twitched the bent arm so the ball hand was
more where the ear would be, if there'd been an ear.

Ryan's brow crinkled, but he poked my
left ear with his fingertip.

I giggled. "No, I meant that you
should listen to me."

"I'm listening." He kissed my
earlobe. Then he licked his tongue along the edge of my ear.

I was starting to forget what I wanted to
say. With the functional part of my brain, I extended Henry's arms at shoulder
height and raised him so Ryan could see.

Ryan got it and slipped his arms around
me.

I pushed Henry back on to my desk without
checking where he landed.

Ryan and I could take it from here.

Then my conscience prodded me just one
more time. I had to tell him about Tucker. "Ryan—"

He shook his head and kissed me until
neither of us could speak. Then he lifted me on to the desk. It creaked
slightly. I lifted my eyes to the glow of the lamp light on the ceiling. The
heat and humidity of the day had dissipated, leaving only cool, lovely night
air. This felt so right. His hands dropped on either side of my hips, blocking
me in. He bent to kiss me again.

I'd missed him. This man. These lips,
warm and smooth and firm, and the way he moved them, both tender and knowing.

He tasted a little spicy, like his
favorite cinnamon gum, as well as his own familiar tang. His fingers trailed along
the back of my neck, making me shiver. He chuckled a little and pulled me
closer, exploring my mouth while his fingers followed along my dress strap,
brushing my exposed shoulder and back. I wrapped my hands in his thick hair as
his palms swept across my back. He chuckled again.

I drew back, trying to break myself out
of the mood. "What's so funny?"

He dropped slow kisses down my neck in
answer. I quivered and closed my eyes.

He murmured, against my skin,
"Hope." I could hear the smile in his voice.

My heart beat so hard, I was sure he
could feel it in my throat.

He slipped a hand down the back of my
dress. "I didn't
think
you were
wearing a bra." Since I was small-built, I skipped the bra if my top was
skimpy. His palm pressed against the bare flesh of my back. I arched my body
toward his.

He smiled down toward me, his hips
nudging between my legs. I tried to press them back together, but he refused to
budge, and after a minute, I relaxed and tilted my head back for another kiss.
When he reached for the buttons on my cap-sleeved top, I helped slip it off. I
was still wearing my black spaghetti-strapped dress underneath.

He gave a low whistle. I grinned and
kissed him some more. Flatterer.

I felt his hand move up to my shoulder,
stroking my collarbone and the line of my neck. Exquisite. I slid my arms down
his back, remembering his slim, muscular build with my hands.

He slipped the left strap of my dress off
my shoulder.

I shook my head.

Ryan quirked an eyebrow and paused. When
I didn't move, he flicked the right strap off my shoulder.

I clutched my elbows in to my sides to
keep my dress up, still mute, still torn between
hell, yes
and
no way
.

Ryan grinned and looped his index finger
in the front of my dress. He was touching the fabric, not my skin, but he was
so close to both my breasts, I held my breath so I wouldn't accidentally brush
them against him.

Our eyes met. Oh, yes, he was enjoying
this, too.

I teased him by taking a deep breath
myself, increasing the gap. I chuckled at the way his eyes were instantly drawn
south.

In retaliation, Ryan hooked down the
front of my dress down, thoroughly exposing my cleavage and probably eighty
percent of my breasts.

I yelped and jumped backward, which
inadvertently flashed all of my goods before he let go.

We were both breathing hard and laughing
at ourselves when he rubbed his forehead and said, "Hope, there's just
this one thing."

Chapter
20

I immediately pulled up my straps,
crossed my arms, and leaned away from him. "What."

He tried to reach for me. "It's not
that bad."

"Just tell me, Ryan."

He ran his hands through his hair.
"Bad timing, I know."

I was the master (mistress?) of bad
timing. I waited.

"I just wanted you to know I'm
very..." He exhaled. "...interested in you. I didn't want to get
carried away."

"Uh huh."

"Because I'm not—I mean, this
time I really am waiting for marriage."

It took a second for my lust fog to
dissipate, but from the look in his dark brown eyes, he meant it. I stopped to
calculate what this meant.

He was saying no.

He was
saving himself
.

Holy crap.

"It's a decision I made in the last
two years. It's not personal."

They say that when you do a guy and he
turns gay, it has nothing to do with you. That's never happened to me. (Yet.
With an n of two.)
 

So what does it mean if you do a guy and
he swears off premarital sex? I couldn't see it as a compliment, but I
struggled to act mature about it. I twisted my legs to the side, away from him,
and said, "Thank you for telling me."

He looked up at me from under his
eyebrows. "Should've kept my mouth shut, right?"

I sighed and shook my head. "I'd
rather know."

He touched my hair. I tensed, but let
him. He said, "The last thing I want to do is hurt you. I just couldn't
figure out how to tell you before."

I exhaled. I couldn't fault him on that one.
It seemed like I was always running off. Still, it's kind of presumptuous to
tug on your ex's sleeve and say, Guess what? I'm a born-again virgin!

I tried to smile while I adjusted my top
and repeated, "Thanks for telling me."

"Nah. I screwed the pooch on this
one."

I had to laugh. Sometimes he surprised
me.

"Because I really did want to see
you and, uh..." His eyes flickered, but he didn't look it away. "Take
it from there."

I nodded. In his own way, Ryan was as
confused as I was.

"Do you want me to go?"

I thought about it and shook my head.

"We could just play Cranium or
something."

I managed to laugh.

***

Two hours later, I awoke on the futon, my
legs tangled with his, my head tucked under his shoulder, breathing his skin,
with my contact lenses cemented to my eyeballs.

I blinked, trying to force tears into my
eyes, and turned my chin to look at Ryan. We'd forgotten to pull the blind. The
streetlamp light, filtered through the leaves of the trees in the front yard,
spilled over both of us.

He wasn't sleeping. He was wide awake and
looking back at me. He stroked my hair.

I kissed the tender skin under his arm
and closed my eyes again.

***

The next morning, I was running late, but
I stopped when I caught the eye of a patient smoking in the front circle outside
the hospital. She waved at me, shaking out her long, dark hair.

Wait. That wasn't a patient. That was
Reena Schuster's sister, Wendy.

"Hi," I said. "How are you
doing?"

She shrugged. "Been better."

"Yeah." I held my breath
against the smoke.

Her eyes laughed at me while she held her
cigarette in the air. "You going to give me a lecture?"

I shook my head. "You know the
drill. And now's not an easy time to quit. How's Reena doing?"