Dirty: The Complete Series (Secret Baby Romance Love Story) (37 page)

I spent the rest of my impromptu break
thinking about Landon and Patrick Willis, and trying to focus on the next
patient that I had coming in. He was a little boy with cerebral palsy, who had
moved to the city recently and had already had years of physical therapy in the
hopes of managing his health problems more effectively. I knew his parents
hoped that he might eventually be able to walk completely unassisted, but from
the progress he’d made so far I thought that the boy would need to have a
walker or possibly even a wheelchair at his disposal for the rest of his life.
There was a limit to what we could accomplish; that fact was something that a
lot of parents didn’t want to believe.

Patrick, at least, had come in with
realistic expectations, I thought as I pulled up the patient chart for the
little boy with cerebral palsy. I thought—though I wasn’t going to say it yet,
at least not to Patrick—that Landon might actually be able to take a week or
two off of his therapy at the end of the scheduled sessions. I might be able to
transition him to twice-per-week sessions by early January, and get him
finished up before Valentine’s Day. That would please both of them; but I
didn’t want to suggest it before I was absolutely sure. It was always a
terrible idea to suggest that a kid might recover faster, only to have a
setback arise or to see him or her hit their plateau sooner than you thought
they would. But I looked forward to seeing the widower and his son, whether or
not I wanted to think of how cute Patrick was.

Chapter Eight - Patrick

I told myself that there was nothing
different about the latest session with Mackenzie, that Landon was just the
same as he had always been and so was Mackenzie, but ever since Landon had asked
me if I thought Mackenzie looked like his mother, something had been eating at
the back of my mind. I sat on one of the benches, watching the two of them as
they went through one exercise after another, talking like they always did.
She doesn’t look anything like Joanne.
Nothing at all.
I watched Mackenzie guiding Landon through another
exercise, encouraging him with her soft voice full of enthusiasm. “You’re doing
great, Landon,” I heard her say, patting my son on the shoulder. “Two more of
these and we can take a break.”

Landon told Mackenzie about his school day
as he caught his breath, and I listened in too, even though I’d gotten all the
news from him as we’d driven to the center from the school only a few minutes
before. “One of the third graders said that Jessie is my girlfriend,” Landon
told her; that was one thing he hadn’t mentioned to me.

“Oh? Did you ask him why he thought that?”

“He said it was because I always spend
recess with her, and I share my afternoon snack with her.” Landon made a face.
“She’s just nice.”

“Don’t feel bad,” Mackenzie advised him.
“I doubt that third grader boy even know what he’s talking about.”

“But he’s so much bigger and older!”

Mackenzie shrugged. “I’m bigger and older
than him, aren’t I?”

Landon considered the question and then
nodded and I stifled a little laugh. “You must know a lot more about boyfriends
and girlfriends then,” my son concluded.

“I know a little bit,” Mackenzie admitted.
My heart beat a little faster in my chest with a kind of dread; I just knew Landon
was going to ask a question that I’d have to talk Mackenzie’s way out of. “I’ve
had a few boyfriends in my time.”

“Did you share your toys with them?”

Mackenzie laughed, leading Landon over to
a new machine. “When I had toys to share, yes, I did,” she said, nodding
sagely. “But a boyfriend or girlfriend is really just a special kind of friend,
a different friend. Is Jessie different from your other friends?”

“Not really,” Landon said after thinking
about the question for a moment. “She’s just a normal friend.”

“Then she’s probably not your girlfriend,”
Mackenzie said. I didn’t know why, but I was glad she wasn’t taking the tactic
of telling my son that he was too young to have a girlfriend; that was exactly
where most people’s heads would have gone—hell, it as where mine went—but the
way she was explaining it to him made so much more sense, and she dodged the
issue of things that weren’t right for him to know yet.
She works with kids all day,
I reminded myself.
She probably hears all kinds of talk about
boyfriends and girlfriends, especially in the older kids.
There were a
couple of pre-teens in the area with us, working on balancing exercises, and I
could tell that the girl was making eyes at the boy.

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

My stomach dropped to my knees at the
question.
Oh god, Landon…
it was
exactly the kind of question that I’d hoped Mackenzie’s explanation would
avoid. I’d hoped that Landon would move onto something else before he thought
to ask it.

“Landon, that’s not a good question,” I started
to say. “Mackenzie is…” but she glanced at me, humor in her big, bright eyes,
and held up a hand.

“It’s okay,” she said, laughing a little
bit. “I don’t mind being asked about it. Kids are always curious. I’d rather
have kids asking me than adults anyway.” She turned back to pay attention to
Landon. “I don’t have a boyfriend right now,” she told him. “Can you hop on up
here for me?” Landon did as he was told, and in minutes they were back on task,
the question of Mackenzie’s love life forgotten.

Except by me. I wondered why Mackenzie was
single; was it by choice? She was a beautiful woman, and obviously patient and
kind, as well as smart. If I had ever really thought about it, I would have
probably just assumed that she was seeing someone—maybe someone in medicine
like she was, who would understand her stress and her lifestyle. A guy would
have to be really special to deserve a woman like that. If she wasn’t single by
choice, then what was wrong with her? She didn’t seem to have any red flags—no
crazy vibe to her, nothing awkward about the way she talked to either me or
Landon. She seemed fine.

I made myself forget about the question
and focus on what Landon and Mackenzie were doing. I thought she might be going
through some evaluation of him even while they went through the exercises
together; she kept looking at a clipboard and marking things off on it that I
couldn’t see. I couldn’t help but wonder what verdict she was coming to.

Landon was full of energy, and he got
through the exercises easily; even the stretches that normally bored him. He
asked Mackenzie about a wide array of subjects as they went through the
session—but thankfully he didn’t touch on the subject of her single status ever
again. In spite of what she’d said, I couldn’t imagine that Mackenzie was
really all that okay with the fifth degree about her love life. I knew I’d get
irritated if it came up for me.

Instead, they chatted about movies and
video games.

“I don’t really play that much anymore,”
Mackenzie admitted. “But I was a total champ when I was in school.”

“What kind of games do you like to play?”
Landon had only liked video games a little bit before his broken leg; but I’d
bribed him with a few new games when he’d had to keep off of his leg for a few
days, so I could get him to stay on the couch with his leg propped up to help
it heal. Ever since then he’d been more and more into them.

“I like puzzle games,” Mackenzie said.

“Dad likes those! Don’t you dad?”

 
I
laughed, standing up and joining them at one of the machines. “I like all kinds
of games,” I said. “I even like card games.”

“Dad is so good at Uno,” Landon told
Mackenzie. “I can only beat him sometimes, not all the time.”

“Well that’s pretty impressive then,”
Mackenzie said, glancing at me. I could see she was fighting back the urge to
laugh. “I could never beat my dad. But my mom was always really easy to
beat—she hated to make people mad at her by making us draw four or anything
like that.”

“I love those cards,” Landon said
excitedly. “I win by using them every turn for like, five turns!”

“That will definitely help you out,”
Mackenzie agreed. “Not a bad strategy. Maybe I’ll use that the next time I play
against my dad.”

Eventually the session came to a close and
Mackenzie gave Landon permission to use the restroom as she went back to her
desk. “I’m really pleased with Landon’s progress,” she told me, sitting down.

“He seems to be doing well,” I agreed. I
felt weirdly awkward and didn’t know why; I’d been attracted to many women
before, it wasn’t like Mackenzie was any different.
You’re awkward because Landon asked the weird question. That’s the only
reason.

“I don’t want to get your hopes up too
much,” she said slowly, “but he’s actually beating my original expectations. He
may finish PT early by a few sessions.”

“That would be great,” I said, smiling. It
occurred to me that if Landon did recover completely ahead of schedule, that I
wouldn’t have an excuse to see this woman several times a week anymore; part of
me thought that was for the best, while the rest of me hated the idea.

“Dad! We have to go home! We’re going to
miss the show!”

I turned to see Landon hurrying as much as
his still-weak leg would allow him, coming up to me from the restroom.

“Did you wash your hands?” I asked him.

He held his hands up for inspection; they
looked clean, but of course I didn’t have a positive way to know whether they
were or not. “I’m going to trust you this time,” I told him, and Landon dropped
his hands at his sides, swinging them a little bit. I turned back to Mackenzie;
she had picked up a bottle of water and was in the midst of taking a sip from
it. “Thank you so much for the good news,” I said, at a loss for anything else
to mention.

“It’s my job,” Mackenzie said with a
little smile. “And with a patient like Landon it’s a lot of fun.” She set the
bottle down and stood, gesturing that she would follow us to the door leading
into the lobby. “I’ll see you guys again soon; I think maybe tomorrow, right?”
She looked at the woman in charge of the front desk.

“I think that’s right,” I said, nodding.
“Let’s get going, bud. Mackenzie has more work to do.”

I helped my son up into the back seat of
the car and made sure his seatbelt was buckled properly before climbing into
the driver’s seat to start back from home. I had a lot of shopping ahead of me;
in addition to Landon’s Christmas list, I had other families I had to buy for,
and I thought I would probably order most of it off of Amazon if I could—that
way I could have it giftwrapped and make sure I got it on time.

“Dad, I want to add something to my
Christmas list,” Landon told me from the back seat.

“Is that so? You know I’ve already started
shopping for you,” I said. “But maybe Santa can work something out, depending
on what it is.”

“I don’t think Santa can do it,” Landon said,
his voice surprisingly serious. “It’s not a toy.”

“Sometimes Santa makes things that aren’t
toys,” I pointed out. “Remember last year he got you that fish.”

“Yeah,” Landon said. In the rearview
mirror I saw him nodding thoughtfully. “But this is different.”

“What is it?” Landon pressed his lips
together.

“I’ll ask Santa.”

I frowned. If there was something my son
really wanted, I definitely wanted to know what it was—and if I could get it
for him, then I would. Anything that Landon was this serious about, if it was
really possible, I wanted him to have.

“What’s on your mind buddy?” I changed
lanes to avoid a snarl in the traffic and bit back the angry comment that rose
to my lips at a near miss. I’d made a promise to myself that Landon would never
see me having road rage—I didn’t want him to ever feel afraid in the car, and I
didn’t want him to inherit my tendency in that respect.

“I was thinking,” Landon said after a
moment. “I have a lot of things on my list, right?”

I shrugged; Landon’s list seemed to be
fairly standard to me. He had about five items he had told me he
really
wanted, and a few more that he
“only sort-of” wanted on top of those. It would be pretty easy to get them all.

“It’s a respectable list,” I said.

“I want to bet you something,” Landon told
me.

“Oh? That sounds interesting.” I was torn
between feeling amused and worried about the fact that my son wanted to make a
wager with me.

“The thing I want to add to my Christmas
list is a mom,” Landon said quickly. “But Santa can’t bring me that, can he?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That’s not
really in his wheelhouse.”

“So you’d have to get it for me.”

I cringed slightly at the unfortunate
phrasing. “You want a mom for Christmas?”

“I want a mom,” Landon confirmed. “If…if
you could find me a mom, I would be willing to not have the rest of my list.”

“Really?” It hadn’t occurred to me that
Landon could be that interested in having a new mom.

“So I want to bet that you can’t find me a
mom,” Landon explained. “If you can find me a new mom by the New Year, then
I’ll…”he hesitated. “I’ll give my toys from my Christmas list to someone else.”