“My sisters were a number of years younger. Dad became both parents.”
“That must have been tough, on all of you.”
“It was, but I think it was toughest on Dad. He’d lost the love of his life. He wasn’t only the breadwinner but he had to be the stable factor in our lives when his was crumbling.”
“Crumbling?”
He hesitated as if he didn’t want to say more. “He got sick. He developed motor neuron disease.”
“You had said he’d died but not that he’d died so slowly. That must have been horrible for him. You and your sisters.” She grasped one of his biceps and squeezed, hoping to relay her sympathy.
As if he’d gone off into the past, he continued, “I saw him struggle to keep his job for as long as he could. Then be forced to give up one more thing he loved.”
He needed to talk. She knew not only from her experience as a counselor but because she’d been in the same place when her parents had divorced and again when she’d left Alexis and Emily. Ryan and she had both known loss.
“I had to watch this rock of a man slowly die. He had to be put into a nursing home. I thought it might kill him to go but I was the one it almost killed. I hated it that he needed to be there.”
Ryan was pouring out his pain like water that had been dammed and needed a place to go. How long had he been keeping all this pain to himself? No wonder he’d isolated himself from the families of his patients. She felt troubled. She’d pushed him to be more open.
“You carried the responsibility, didn’t you? For everything. Him, your sisters. For holding things together.”
He looked at her as if amazed. As if for the first time he recognized that someone understood.
“Yeah. I visited him as often as I could. Took care of my sisters.”
Ryan’s reaction to what she’d told him about Emily suddenly made sense. He’d supported others’ emotions for so long that he didn’t want to carry hers. She hadn’t once heard anyone at the hospital talk about his father having just died. She bet he’d never let on to anyone what he was going through. He’d just shared a part of himself that few saw. She was honored to be one of those people.
“You’re a good man, Ryan O’Doherty.” She would have hugged him but she didn’t think he would appreciate that much pity. He was also a proud man.
“Are you through?” a man with a wife and couple of kids standing nearby asked.
“Yes,” Ryan said, stepping away from the computer.
He took her hand again and she gave his a squeeze. She didn’t want him to close himself off like he’d done before.
As they walked toward the entrance, Ryan said, “We didn’t look up your family name.” He turned as if to go back.
She tugged on his hand. “We’ll do it next time.” Would there be a next time? It would be nice if there was. She was enjoying her day with Ryan.
They boarded the ferry that would take them back to Manhattan and found a spot inside, out of the late afternoon wind.
“Are you hungry?”
Lucy found to her surprise she was, in more ways than one. “I’m getting that way.”
“If we have another hot chocolate, will that hold you over for an hour or so?”
“I think I can survive that long.”
“Do you like Chinese?”
“I do.”
“Then Chinese it is.” He pulled out his phone and made a call before he left to order their hot drinks.
They said little as they sipped their hot chocolate. Lucy was surprised how quickly she’d become comfortable in Ryan’s presence. They had bonded in a way she’d never expected they would or could. After their first meeting she would have said it was impossible for them to find common ground.
“Look here,” Ryan said.
“What’s wrong?”
He leaned over and kissed her, his tongue lightly brushing her upper lip. It was quick and warm and, oh, so short.
When he pulled away she said, “Why did you do that? You could have told me and I would have used a napkin.”
His blue eyes danced with mischief. “If I’d done that I wouldn’t have gotten that last extra sweet taste of chocolate.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t have.”
She was having fun. She looked into the eyes of the big, sensitive, caring and highly intelligent man beside her with the devilish sense of humor and knew she’d lost her ability to be rational about him. She had real feelings for the guy. It was an intoxicating while at the same time disturbing reality. Would there be more heartache in her future?
* * *
Ryan licked his lips as if getting every last drop of chocolate from them and grinned at her. “You have any more to share?”
“I do not.” She looked so indignant that he laughed. She grinned at him.
He couldn’t believe that he’d told Lucy so much about his father. He’d never confided to anyone outside his family and for the most part he’d not even done that. His father had been an intensely proud man and Ryan had been gifted with that same propensity, good or bad. It was an issue of pride for Ryan that he could handle his own problems. He’d never shared his innermost feelings with anyone before but Lucy made him feel secure enough to do so.
Why had he? He should feel naked and vulnerable now that she knew so much about him. Instead, relief had washed over him at being able to tell someone about the burden of loss and pain he carried. He found it rather liberating.
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you where you learned to speak Spanish so well. I don’t think of Georgia as the go-to place.”
“I learned it from my father’s Mexican housekeeper at his home in LA. Alexis and I spent a lot of time with her. I just picked it up.”
He pulled her to him and smiled down at her. “And it came in handy a few times.”
“Just a few?” She smiled shyly back at him.
He wanted to kiss her, not a quick peck or a teasing brush but a real kiss right there in front of everybody. He brought her against him. His lips met her soft warm ones that tasted faintly of chocolate.
She grabbed his coat and pulled, going up on her toes. Her acceptance fed his desire. He requested admission with the end of his tongue, and she granted it. Entering, he found a heated cavern of pleasure. This was a kiss.
“Hey, buddy. Get a room,” someone called.
Lucy jerked away, but she still had handfuls of his coat. Her eyes were large and awestruck, her lips cherry red from his kiss.
“Was that a friendly kiss?”
He laughed. “The friendliest. Come on...” He took her hand.
“Where are we going?”
“My place.”
“I’m going to see those lights?”
“Yes.”
“Ryan, I don’t think—”
“I said fun and no pressure, remember? I keep my word.”
“That would be the O’Doherty way.”
“Yes, it would.”
* * *
Lucy was still reeling from Ryan’s kiss as she followed him out of the subway into the early