Alison Kelly - Ryan's Rules

The friendship between the Cosgroves and Talbots stretched back to the childhoods of Kirrily and Ryan’s fathers; they’d grown up next door to each other, married local girls and then proceeded to raise their children within a few blocks of each other. Later it had been friendship rather than economic sense which had prompted Kirrily’s father to inject funds into Bob Talbot’s financially strapped business when the banks wouldn’t; thus a personal relationship had expanded into a professional one.

Ryan slid into the seat opposite, interrupting her thoughts.

‘Here you go,’ he said, putting his orange juice on the small, low table separating their chairs and placing her drink in her hand. ‘Scotch straight up; no ice, no water, and, I promise…’ he smiled, sheepishly ‘…no lectures.’

His subtle reference to the incident at his parents’ party caused Kirrily’s stomach to flip. Then again, the cause might have been the sensation of feeling his fingers close over hers.

‘Don’t tell me you can read my mind now?’ she asked, the idea scaring the hell out of her.

‘God, I hope not!’ He looked aghast. ‘What you do gives me enough headaches, let alone knowing what you think about doing!’

‘Your headaches are self-inflicted. No one’s asked you to keep sticking your nose into my life.’

‘Your big brother did.’

The blandness of his response didn’t disguise the emotion in his eyes and Kirrily lowered her lashes as her mind flashed to the memory of Ryan walking into Steven’s room after the funeral and discovering her sobbing her nine-year-old heart out. She remembered how he’d sat down on the floor next to her and quietly started to tell her that he missed Steven too, that he’d loved her brother every bit as much as she did and that maybe it would be better if they were sad together. It was then that he’d said she was to think of him as her brother now, because Steven had asked him to take care of her for him.

‘And Jayne, too?’ she’d asked.

‘Yes, Jayne too,’ he’d said. ‘We’ll both have to take care of Jayne, K.C..’

That was the first time he’d called her K.C.; until then no one but Steven had ever called her that. Now only Ryan did.

Kirrily stared into her drink and sighed. Strange how Jayne’s decision to get on with her future had made everyone else so much more sensitive to the past…It was the first time in years that Ryan had made reference to her brother’s dying request.

Ryan changed his mind and began wishing he was able to tap into K.C.’s thoughts!

The lines marring her brow bothered him, nearly as much as his urge to reach out and stroke them away. In the past he’d taken pains to avoid mentioning Steve in front of K.C., never again wanting to see her hurting as she had been the night of the funeral, when he’d found her crying, curled up in the corner of Steven’s bedroom clutching his football jersey, all alone. It had ripped his heart out, and with hindsight he’d often wondered if Steve hadn’t somehow foreseen that his little sister would be almost overlooked in the emotional turmoil that had enveloped the adult members of both families. It was cruelly ironic that when Jayne had taken the final step in letting go of the past he’d been the one to toss it carelessly in the face of an already distressed K.C.

But had it really been done carelessly?

Ryan’s gut churned at the unbidden question, but before he could examine where it had sprung from K.C.’s voice distracted him.

‘What?’ he said, trying to refocus his mind. ‘Sorry, I missed what you said.’

‘I know.’ She smiled and lifted her glass. ‘I suggested we drink a toast to Jayne. I think it’s kind of appropriate, don’t you?’

‘Very,’ he agreed, raising his glass. ‘To Jayne. May this be the start of a happier life.’

She touched her glass to his. ‘And may I remember everything she told me about the Talbots’ accounts.’ And she added cheekily, ‘I’m certain you’ll drink to that, Ryan.’

‘K.C., I won’t only drink to it,’ he said, ‘I’ll pray for it.’

The way she sipped her drink then let the tip of her tongue creep across her lips as she savoured the Scotch caused Ryan’s stomach to clench. Desperate to douse the fire erupting there, he tossed his juice back in one swallow.

‘You know, Ryan…’

He told himself that her smile wasn’t intended to be sensual. Nor was the way she hooked a long strand of dark hair behind her ear and exposed the soft young skin of her jaw and neck to him.

‘I might surprise you,’ she continued. ‘But knowing you expect me to stuff up will stop me from feeling guilty if I do.’

Ryan merely grunted. She wouldn’t feel guilt because right now he held the monopoly on it!

When they returned from the airport Ryan dropped Kirrily at the house then went to the office to catch up on some work. He wasn’t back by the time she took herself off to bed at the puritanical hour of eight o’clock and he was gone when she arrived in the kitchen, showered and dressed, at seven-ten on Monday morning.

Which was a good thing, Kirrily decided, picking up the kettle, because even on her best days no one had ever accused her of being a morning person, and after the sleepless night she’d endured she wasn’t in the mood for a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and invariably dry-witted Ryan Talbot She did, unfortunately, find evidence of his regrettable existence in a note shoved under a magnet on the refrigerator.

Expect you on the dot of nine and not a minute later! Try not to dress theatrically—i.e. NO BASKETBALL CAPS! If Jayne’s car needs petrol go to the garage at the intersection—I’ve a company account there.

PS—I’ve already fed Major. But don’t forget to activate the house alarm.

Kirrily screwed up the note and hurled it across the room, her actions sending Jayne’s usually sedate Persian rocketing from the kitchen in a blur of blue fur.

‘Why, you arrogant, patronising, smart-alec jerk!’ Unable to satisfy her pre-caffeine rage with a civil vocabulary, she resorted to a stream of expletives and another shout of frustration. He seemed to delight in treating her like an imbecile!

‘No basketball caps’! Huh! It was bad enough that he considered her brainless, but for him to have the audacity to question her dress sense as well! He whom his mother had practically had to sedate to get him into a dinner jacket so he could escort Kirrily to her debutantes’ ball! He who considered ties as something one put on a garbage bag so stray dogs couldn’t rummage through it!

Why was it that all her life Ryan had felt it necessary to dish out advice to her, to vet her boyfriends, to watch over her like some sort of guardian angel? What did he think she had parents for? A mental picture of her mother asking, ‘Well, what does Ryan think about all this?’ popped into her head and she swore again.

That particular image was only a couple of months old, the comment coming when she’d told her parents that she was donating her acting services to a condom commercial in the interests of safe sex. Kirrily, of course, hadn’t discussed the matter with Ryan, but remaining silent hadn’t protected her from his opinion. Recalling his terse phone call to her after the commercial had been screened was enough to make her cringe…

‘K.C., don’t you make enough on that soap you do without broadcasting your sleeping habits to all and sundry?’

‘I didn’t get paid for doing it,’ she’d hastened to explain. ‘Well, except for the hundred free samples the company sent me!’

Unlike her, Ryan hadn’t seen the funny side of that. She just wished she could have seen his face when the courier had delivered the fifty condoms she’d sent him! She’d included a note stating that she doubted she’d get through all one hundred by the use-by date so she was generously splitting her profits with him! Visualising Ryan’s reaction to that was amusing enough to dampen her anger.