Tara Quinn - Trusting Ryan

Well, then… “Are you at work? With someone? Should I call another time?”

“No, Ryan.” She chuckled. “This time is fine. I don’t have to be in court until ten-thirty this morning, and my breakfast meeting canceled.”

Canceled . She was free for breakfast. Unexpectedly. The thought of asking her to meet him somewhere for a quick bite sent alarm signals up his spine. Where was the harm in two friends having breakfast?

They both had to eat.

“So what’s up?” she asked, bringing to his attention the length of time he’d let lapse while he blubbered over the idea of asking her out to eat.

Shifting in his seat, adjusting the pistol digging into his thigh beneath the brown tweed sports jacket he wore, Ryan thought about the case he’d been working on for most of the night.

Focused on the life he’d chosen to live.

The juvenile who’d beaten his stepfather to a pulp, claiming that it was self-defense. He’d claimed some other pretty horrendous things, too.

Reviewing four hours of witness testimony, tapes, doctors’ reports and police records had netted Ryan no more than they already had.

“The prosecutor’s going to charge Markovich.”

“No way.” He heard the drop in her voice and felt as if he’d failed not only the fifteen-year-old boy whom he’d believed, but Audrey, too.

“The kid’s testimony has too many holes,” he said. “He contradicts himself on four separate occasions.”

“But there’s a doctor’s report that proves he was molested.”

“At some point in his life. Not necessarily by his stepfather.”

“He nearly killed the man, Ryan. A fifteen-year-old kid, especially one as sensitive as Scott, doesn’t suddenly get violent unless something pretty vile is going to happen to him.”

“I know.” He was missing something. He just didn’t know what. “But it’s not my job to be the lawyer,” he reminded himself as much as her. “I check out the facts, make the arrests, collect the evidence, then I’m done.”

“You aren’t, though, are you?” The soft question surprised him.

And then it didn’t. He’d called her, hadn’t he?

“No,” he admitted. “The kid’s lying about something, but not about why he unhinged on his stepfather, I’m sure of it. Unless I can find out what else is going on, the kid’s going back to detention. Maybe for a long, long time.”

“They aren’t charging him as an adult, are they?”

Ryan wasn’t sure. But he’d heard a rumor that they might. He let his silence answer for him.

And because he’d called to escape the sometimes hell of his job, he asked another question that had been plaguing him on and off for more than a week.

“Why do you relate so much to The Mirror Has Two Faces? ”

The woman was gorgeous. Not only the classic beauty of long blonde hair, long legs, great figure and big brown eyes, but also the sensitivity that shone through those eyes, especially in one so young, the job she’d chosen to do when, with her law degree, she could be making a mint, made her irresistible.

As a friend only, of course.

“I don’t know.”

It was one of those “I don’t know”s. The kind that really meant, “I don’t want to tell you.”

“I think you do.”

“Maybe.”

“So tell me.”

Another long pause.

“I told you why I like Bruce Almighty .”

“Because you have power envy.”

The more commonly used p -word in that phrase sprang immediately to mind, and Ryan was grateful that Audrey couldn’t read his thoughts.

Glad, too, that they were on the phone and not where she could see the reaction hearing her voice was having on that p part of his anatomy.

Turning, he pulled into the parking lot of his complex. Parked in the covered lot and headed around to his door. His place was only a one-bedroom, but it was two stories with a private patio that looked out over a golf course.

“So why do you?” Delilah, the cat he had because he was gone too much to have a dog, wrapped herself around his legs as he let himself in and dropped his keys on the table by the front door.

“Why do I have power envy?” she asked, the amusement in her voice sending another surge of blood beneath his fly.

With Delilah under one arm, like the football he’d never carried in high school, Ryan entered the kitchen, looking for the opened can of tuna in the fridge.

“Why do you relate to The Mirror Has Two Faces? ”

“You’re like a dog with a bone, you know that?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you ever get sidetracked?”

“Not often.”

Delilah munched from the can. Ryan snagged a chunk of the white fishy meat, dropped it in a bowl and looked for the mayonnaise. Not bacon and eggs, but it would do.

“I’m waiting,” he said.

“What are you doing?”

“Eating.”

“Eating what?”

“I’m not telling you until you tell me why you identify with that movie.”

“Fine.” The word was clipped, but her tone wasn’t nearly aggrieved enough to convey any real irritation. “I’ve always thought that kind of relationship would be perfect.”

“What kind? The kind where they end up dancing in the street?”

“No.” Her voice had quieted. Lost the playfulness. “I’d love to have a best friend, a significant other, someone to come home to, without messing everything up with sex.”

Not what he’d expected to hear. Where was his opportunity to tell her that she was gorgeous? That she had no reason to think herself anything but beautiful? It was all about what you saw in the mirror, right? The way you see yourself, as opposed to how others see you.

“So get a roommate.”

“Roommates leave. Get married. I want a lifetime companion.”

He couldn’t believe she meant that. “A sexless one.” Hell, everyone knew that part of the movie was crazy. Even the stars of the movie found that out.

It didn’t work. Couldn’t work. Unless maybe one of the parties was gay…

“At least one where the relationship isn’t based on sex,” she said slowly, as though choosing her words with great care. “If, after we’ve lived together for a while, we decide we want to do that some time, that would be fine. As long as we both want it. And it isn’t a big deal one way or the other.”

The woman was nuts. Sex, not a big deal? She couldn’t really expect any guy with blood in his veins to live with someone as beautiful as she was and not burn up with a need to make love with her. Could she?

“So you’d do it once?” he asked, out of morbid curiosity. “Or do it once in a while?”

“I don’t know.” She drew the statement out. “That’s the whole point. Whether we ever did it or not wouldn’t matter. If we both wanted to, we could. If one of us didn’t want to, no big deal. The relationship would be based on mutual respect. Trust. Great conversation. Just enjoying being together.”

If one of us didn’t want to . Alarms went off in Ryan’s head. The kind he’d honed to perfection.

“Are you gay?”

The question was inappropriate. Disrespectful. Uncalled for. And not what he’d really wanted to ask at all. He just didn’t know how to find out what he suddenly needed to know.

“No. But that’s a typical guy response.”

“I’m a guy.”

But not a typical one.

“I’m not gay.”

“But you’ve been abused, haven’t you?” He wasn’t pleased with himself, with the words. His tone had lowered enough that maybe she hadn’t heard him.

“If you’re asking if I was raped, the answer’s no.”

Thank God. Thank God in heaven . Shocked at the emotion pricking at the back of his throat, his eyelids, Ryan grabbed a carton of juice from the refrigerator and took a huge swallow.