He's Still The One. Cheryl Kushner
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think that if their roles had been reversed, she’d graciously have called the locksmith, even if his workday was officially over.
Zoe tried to curl up on the cot. The lumpy cot. With a pillow missing its crucial foam or feathers. She hoped Kate got here soon to bail her out. She couldn’t take much more of Riverbend’s unique blend of hospitality.
She closed her eyes, then immediately opened them when the image of Ryan’s face appeared. Those perfect features. Chiseled chin. Deep-set blue eyes. Thick blond hair that seemed kissed by the sun. It had been ten years since she’d last seen him in the flesh. Photographs and family home videos didn’t count.
He looked better than she remembered, sexier than she’d imagined possible. She tried to picture him at sixty-five, potbellied, gray-haired—no, make that bald—limping down Main Street chasing after a criminal, banned from driving a car because his vision was so bad.
She smiled at the image she had created of a not-so-perfect Ryan O’Connor. Too bad men like Ryan usually aged like fine champagne, not cheap wine. She stood and paced the tiny cell. Why was it taking him so long to find that key? And who did Ryan think he was dealing with, anyway, claiming Riverbend was not a 24/7 town? She knew full well that locksmiths everywhere lived for being called after hours so they could charge outrageous overtime fees.
“He owes me a phone call,” Zoe muttered. “I should call the locksmith, just to prove him wrong. Ryan! I want my phone call!”
When Ryan didn’t materialize, Zoe shouted out his name again. She heard footsteps and braced herself. But it wasn’t Ryan. It was Jake.
“Uh, Zoe,” Jake said with a wariness Zoe could understand. After all, they had tangled in the fishpond and ended up wet, dirty and slightly shaken by the encounter. And she’d punched him, a fact she deeply regretted. “Uh, Ryan hasn’t let you out yet?” He glanced right, then left, everywhere except at her. Finally their gazes met.
Zoe motioned him closer until they stood face-to-face. “You don’t want to be the one who tells me he’s found the key but hasn’t unlocked the cuffs.”
“Can I…I mean…is there something else I do can for you?”
“You can accept my apology for hitting you. And I want my phone call.”
“Apology accepted.” Jake warily handed her his cell phone through the bars, then reddened in embarrassment when she waved her still-cuffed wrists in front of his face.
“I can hardly punch out numbers while my hands are otherwise occupied, Jake. Maybe,” she said gently, “you could help Ryan find the key.”
Jake slowly backed away. “I’ll get Ryan.”
“You do that,” Zoe said, trying to keep her voice bright.
She watched Jake disappear around the corner. He was tall, like Ryan. Had an athlete’s body, like Ryan’s. Handsome features, including deep-set blue eyes, also like Ryan’s. But when she stood face-to-face with Jake, she felt nothing, there was no sizzle between them. Unlike the sizzle that had unexpectedly snapped, crackled and popped when she and Ryan had stood on opposite sides of the jail cell door.
What she feared most was caring for Ryan again, maybe even falling head over heels for him again, because in the end, he’d pick up and leave.
As she impatiently waited for the man to appear, Zoe pondered why the Ryan she’d met today had sizzled and every man she’d dated during the past year in New York had fizzled. She’d chosen them, she admitted wryly, because they hadn’t sizzled, hadn’t captured a portion of her heart and soul. And when they left, as all the men in her life inevitably did, she’d been left whole and emotionally untouched. And alone. Very, very alone.
But that was preferable, she told herself, than to be left alone and heartbroken. The way she’d felt when her father left, when Kate left, when Ryan left. Okay, so the all-too-sexy Ryan O’Connor could still made her sizzle. Nothing wrong with that, as long as she didn’t act on it.
Zoe lay back on the cot, letting her eyes drift shut again. This time the image was of the night of her high school graduation. Her parents were seated as bookends to the two empty chairs in the otherwise packed Riverbend High School auditorium. She’d never forget that June night when her world had turned upside down. Her parents had announced they were separating. And Kate and Ryan had eloped. She’d been eighteen, hurt, crushed, devastated and determined never to forgive any of them, especially Ryan.
She was twenty-eight now. Long ago she’d made peace with Kate, and accepted but still couldn’t claim to understand the reasons for her parents’ divorce. But she hadn’t let herself answer why she still felt the sting of Ryan’s betrayal.
Maybe, she admitted to herself, it was because she didn’t want to accept that their friendship, which had meant the world to her, hadn’t been important enough to him.
The sound of approaching footsteps—very different male footsteps from Jake’s—helped clear her mind. She waited until she heard the cell door open before she raised her head to look at him. Keep it light and breezy, she reminded herself. If he sizzled, she would definitely ignore it.
“So nice of you to visit,” she said brightly as he stepped inside the jail cell. “I’ll ring for the coffee or tea while you tell me what you’ve been up to the past ten years.”
“Ms. Zoe Russell, always ready with a joke.”
She sat up, held out her cuffed hands. “I don’t consider this situation funny at all.”
Ryan joined her on the cot. If it surprised Zoe that she let him, she could tell by the expression on his face she’d surprised Ryan even more. “Don’t you think it’s time you let me loose?”
“Jake found the key.” Ryan fumbled with it before unlocking the cuffs. He cleared his throat. “I see you every morning on TV.”
“Oh?” Zoe stood, stretched her aching arms over her head. Out of the corner of her eye she watched as Ryan tidied up the cell, folded the blanket, punched up the pillow. “You watch Wake Up, America?”
“Not exactly. The only way I could get our community liaison here at seven in the morning was to install a TV so she could watch her favorite show. Even without the TV, though, it’d be hard to miss you.”
Her voice chilled. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Magazine ads. TV spots during prime time. I’m not criticizing. Just observing how you got what you wished for. Fame. Fortune.” He cupped her shoulder and turned her to face him. “A chance to ham it up in front of millions of people.”
“Is that what you think of me? That all I care about is being a celebrity? I’m a serious journalist. I worked hard to get that spot on Wake Up, America.” She paused, raising herself to her full height of five feet seven inches, but she still fell short of Ryan by almost half a foot and had to tilt her head back to meet him eye-to-eye.
She stared up at him, fascinated by the specks of gold in his blue eyes, the way his dimples deepened when he smiled. For one inexplicable moment she was torn between wiping that smile off his face and kissing him senseless. Then, thankfully, Ryan cleared his throat and broke the moment.
“You’re standing on my foot.”
Zoe glanced down to see her left mud-splattered sneaker on top of his right shiny black boot. She stepped back, horrified to discover large chunks of dirt on his toe.
Ryan took his handkerchief out of his back pocket and Zoe immediately reached for it. After a slight tug-of-war she sighed and let it go. Ryan brushed the dirt off her cheeks and from the tip of her nose. That brief touch made her insides quiver and the goose bumps run up and down her arms. His smile made her weak in the knees. Looking into those blue eyes made her want to kiss him. Which would be wrong. Which would be totally inappropriate. Which would be a giant mistake.
Which was why she had to get away from Ryan before she did something they’d regret. But it was