I had the mother of all crushes on you?”
“A crush I had a damn hard time not reciprocating!”
She blinked, then released another laugh, this one softer. Sadder. “And marriage would’ve made it all okay? Au contraire, my friend. It would’ve ruined everything.”
“Except I did that anyway, didn’t I?”
On a cross between a groan and a growl, Mel clamped her hands to her head, tromping down off the boardwalk to the parking lot. “God, why are we even talking about this? Like we can somehow change what happened? It’s done, it’s over, and the second this business with Nana’s house is straightened out, I’m outta here. So you tell your mother she has absolutely nothing to worry about, the last thing I want to do is make waves.”
Nearly to the car, Ryder grabbed Mel’s hand. If she was shocked, she didn’t let on. Instead she calmly met his gaze, her brows slightly raised.
“I know I can’t even begin to fix what my family broke. Or even what I broke. But to at least honor what we had—”
“What we had doesn’t exist anymore,” Mel said softly, reclaiming her hand. “And it hasn’t for a long, long time. We’re not those two kids anymore, Ry.” She smirked. “Can’t go back, no way to go forward. So. Think this is what they call a non-starter—”
At the sound of some ridiculous ringtone, she dug her phone out of her pocket. “Huh. It’s April …” She put the phone to her ear. “Yeah?” Ryder saw her brows crash, then she yanked open the car door. “We’ll be right there.”
“Everything okay?” he asked after getting in beside her, barely getting his seat belt fastened before she zoomed out of the sandy, unpaved lot and back onto the street.
“I didn’t quite get it all, April wasn’t making total sense, but apparently Quinn sliced her hand open on a nail or something.” At Ryder’s silence, she let out a sigh. “I suppose logically I should let you take a look, huh?”
“Up to you. But the nearest E.R.’s a good half hour away. And I have my bag in my car.”
“Of course you do,” she muttered as they flew into the weed-cracked driveway and she cut the engine. But before he could get out, she snagged his wrist. “Not one word—”
“Can I at least tell her we were friends? She’s going to wonder why we were together,” he said when she opened her mouth to protest. “She knows you lived here before, right? So we happened to run into each other—”
“Fine, fine, whatever.” She shooed him toward the door. “Just get in there before my kid bleeds to death.”
Ryder slammed shut the car door and trudged up the porch steps behind Mel, thinking he’d never been so angry, at so many people, for so many reasons, in his life.
With his own sorry hide easily taking first place.
Chapter Three
Mel was grateful to see that her cousin—who as a teenager would scream like a banshee if she nicked herself shaving—had either overcome her heebie-jeebies at the sight of blood or was doing a damn good job of hiding it from Quinn, seated on the counter and looking a little woozy herself. April had hidden the boo-boo, as well, wrapping it tightly in a paper towel and holding Quinn’s arm up over her head.
“Oh, sweetie …” Mel rushed to her blood-smeared daughter—yeah, that top was history—forking her fingers through Quinn’s curls as April, bless her heart, beat a hasty retreat. “What happened?”
“There’s a dumb nail sticking out of the back door, I didn’t see it,” Quinn mumbled, then squinted at Ryder, who’d plunked his coat and bag on the kitchen table and was now rooting around inside it. “Who’re you?”
“An old friend of your mother’s,” Ryder said with a kind—and yet, still killer, go figure—smile for the kid as he carted a bottle of antiseptic and assorted packets over to lay beside Quinn on the counter. One hand propped on the edge of the worn laminate, he hooked the other on his hip. “I’m also a doctor. Convenient, huh?”
Quinn shrugged. “I guess.”
On a soft chuckle, Ryder washed his hands and dried them on a paper towel, then ripped open a package of latex gloves, snapped them on. “Mind if I take a peek?”
“April said to keep my hand up ‘cause of the bleeding.”
“Lots of blood, huh?”
“Like you would not believe.”
“Then April did good. But I think it’s okay to lower it now.” When she did, he carefully removed the blood-soaked towel. Aiyiyi. Mel told herself it would be very uncool to throw up, even if the sink was right there. “It seems to have pretty much stopped now, so that’s good. You’ll be back to playing the violin in no time.”
Quinn giggled. “I don’t play the violin, I play the piano.”
“You don’t say?” Another smile. “You any good?”
Not nearly as good as you are, Mel thought ruefully as her daughter’s shoulders bumped. “Not really. But I’ve only been taking lessons for a year.”
“Yeah. I took ‘em for ten. Loved every minute of it.”
“Really?”
“No,” he said, and Quinn laughed again, and Ryder’s smile melted Mel’s heart, dammit to hell. Especially when he turned it on her and all—well, most—of her man-hating crazies scurried away, whimpering. “I assume her tetanus is up to date?”
“Not sure. She might be due for a booster?”
“We can take care of that, too. Okay, honey, I want you to hold your hand over the sink, I’m going to pour a bunch of this antiseptic over the wound to clean it. It’s probably going to sting, but it won’t last long. You ready?”
Quinn sucked in a deep breath, then nodded and gingerly stuck out her hand, wincing as Ryder cleaned it. “Almost done, you’re doing great … there. Now I can see what’s going on.”
As he carefully inspected the gash, Quinn actually leaned closer to get a better look. As opposed to Mel, who was perfectly happy to let someone else tend to this side of things, thank you. Especially if that person was the same one who’d always been the one to patch up her various scrapes and cuts and owies when they were kids. That inline skating thing? Hadn’t exactly been a natural talent—
“I’m gonna need stitches, huh?” Quinn asked, sounding more curious than worried.
“Oh, I’d say at least a hundred,” Ryder said, deadpan, and Quinn giggled, and Ryder lifted his eyes—all sweetly crinkled at the corners, of course—to the little girl, and Mel saw in those eyes … too much. That while she didn’t doubt that Ryder was every bit as kind and funny with all his younger patients, it was patently obvious Quinn had already grabbed his heart.
And, judging from the grin on her daughter’s face, the feeling was mutual.
