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CHAPTER SIX

LUCY HELD RYAN’S hand as they exited the boat and entered the Ellis Island National Monument. The warehouse-type building had housed immigrants who had funneled through on their way to gaining freedom and new citizenship. Still hand in hand, Ryan showed her around the different levels, wandering past black and white pictures of people who had stayed on the island.

She probably should have removed her hand but didn’t want to. His friendly but secure clasp gave her a feeling of belonging. What would it mean to truly belong to Ryan O’Doherty?

“I often wonder what it must have been like to leave everything you know and love behind and pick up and move somewhere else,” Ryan commented as they looked at a picture of a man holding a child in his arms. “I don’t know if I could do that.”

Hadn’t she done that very same thing? Just not on as grand a scale as leaving the country where she had been born. In many ways, she was no different. She was struggling to find her place in the world.

“They had to work to rebuild their lives.”

She was doing that also. The job was there but she floundered with the other aspects. Today had been the first day that she’d felt like her old self in a long time. She liked it.

“Let’s go have a look at that book.” Ryan directed her toward the center of the large building. He stopped before a glass case. Inside lay an old register with names written in faded ink.

“Come on.” He grabbed her hand and gently pulled her towards a computer screen on a wall nearby. He sounded as excited as a kid wanting to show off a toy. “All you do is type your last name in and see what comes up.”

“You do yours first.” She didn’t know much about her family tree. That hadn’t been a priority when her parents had been together. Certainly hadn’t been mentioned after their divorce. Even her grandparents had deserted her.

“All right.” Ryan tapped the keys.

A list came up on the screen of all the O’Dohertys who had passed through Ellis Island.

“See, this is my grandfather.” Ryan pointed with his index finger. “He was just a baby then. These are his siblings. All nine of them.” He ran his fingertip down the list of names. “I can’t imagine having nine children,” he said in wonder.

“That does seem excessive.” Her heart caught. She’d given birth to a child.

“A couple sounds like plenty to me,” he said offhandedly.

Pain filled her. She’d already had a baby. “That sounds about right,” she said dryly.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

She shrugged. “It’s okay. I have to learn to live with it. Move on. It’s a fact and I can’t change it.”

He gave her a quick hug. “I think you’re doing a great job.” He kissed the top of her head and let her go.

She appreciated his show of support. If she wasn’t careful she could get too used to it. “Tell me about this grandfather or great-grandfather who picked up and moved his whole family.”

“Well, he was pretty much like everybody else who came through here. He was Irish and wanted a better life. Settled in Brooklyn, worked hard but had little other than family. And family is everything.”

“And your dad and mom?”

He looked away as if he wouldn’t answer then he turned back to her. “Mom was the local girl who married the big Irish policeman who came into the café where she worked. Mother used to say she fell in love with his Irish brogue and the rest of him just came with it.”

“So that’s where you get the hint of an inflection intermingled with your Brooklyn clip.”

He chuckled. “That’s a nice way of putting it. Mostly the Brooklyn has taken over but every once in a while the Irish really shows through.”

“How old were you when your mother died?”

“Thirteen.”

She didn’t miss the hitch of pain in the word. “Your sisters?”

“My sisters were a number of years younger. Dad became both parents.”

“That must have been tough, on all of you.”

“It was, but I think it was toughest on Dad. He’d lost the love of his life. He wasn’t only the breadwinner but he had to be the stable factor in our lives when his was crumbling.”

“Crumbling?”

He hesitated as if he didn’t want to say more. “He got sick. He developed motor neuron disease.”

“You had said he’d died but not that he’d died so slowly. That must have been horrible for him. You and your sisters.” She grasped one of his biceps and squeezed, hoping to relay her sympathy.

As if he’d gone off into the past, he continued, “I saw him struggle to keep his job for as long as he could. Then be forced to give up one more thing he loved.”

He needed to talk. She knew not only from her experience as a counselor but because she’d been in the same place when her parents had divorced and again when she’d left Alexis and Emily. Ryan and she had both known loss.

“I had to watch this rock of a man slowly die. He had to be put into a nursing home. I thought it might kill him to go but I was the one it almost killed. I hated it that he needed to be there.”

Ryan was pouring out his pain like water that had been dammed and needed a place to go. How long had he been keeping all this pain to himself? No wonder he’d isolated himself from the families of his patients. She felt troubled. She’d pushed him to be more open.

“You carried the responsibility, didn’t you? For everything. Him, your sisters. For holding things together.”

He looked at her as if amazed. As if for the first time he recognized that someone understood.

“Yeah. I visited him as often as I could. Took care of my sisters.”

Ryan’s reaction to what she’d told him about Emily suddenly made sense. He’d supported others’ emotions for so long that he didn’t want to carry hers. She hadn’t once heard anyone at the hospital talk about his father having just died. She bet he’d never let on to anyone what he was going through. He’d just shared a part of himself that few saw. She was honored to be one of those people.

“You’re a good man, Ryan O’Doherty.” She would have hugged him but she didn’t think he would appreciate that much pity. He was also a proud man.

“Are you through?” a man with a wife and couple of kids standing nearby asked.

“Yes,” Ryan said, stepping away from the computer.

He took her hand again and she gave his a squeeze. She didn’t want him to close himself off like he’d done before.

As they walked toward the entrance, Ryan said, “We didn’t look up your family name.” He turned as if to go back.

She tugged on his hand. “We’ll do it next time.” Would there be a next time? It would be nice if there was. She was enjoying her day with Ryan.

They boarded the ferry that would take them back to Manhattan and found a spot inside, out of the late afternoon wind.

“Are you hungry?”

Lucy found to her surprise she was, in more ways than one. “I’m getting that way.”

“If we have another hot chocolate, will that hold you over for an hour or so?”

“I think I can survive that long.”

“Do you like Chinese?”

“I do.”

“Then Chinese it is.” He pulled out his phone and made a call before he left to order their hot drinks.

They said little as they sipped their hot chocolate. Lucy was surprised how quickly she’d become comfortable in Ryan’s presence. They had bonded in a way she’d never expected they would or could. After their first meeting she would have said it was impossible for them to find common ground.

“Look here,” Ryan said.

“What’s wrong?”

He leaned over and kissed her, his tongue lightly brushing her upper lip. It was quick and warm and, oh, so short.

When he pulled away she said, “Why did you do that? You could have told me and I would have used a napkin.”

His blue eyes danced with mischief. “If I’d done that I wouldn’t have gotten that last extra sweet taste of chocolate.”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t have.”

She was having fun. She looked into the eyes of the big, sensitive, caring and highly intelligent man beside her with the devilish sense of humor and knew she’d lost her ability to be rational about him. She had real feelings for the guy. It was an intoxicating while at the same time disturbing reality. Would there be more heartache in her future?

* * *

Ryan licked his lips as if getting every last drop of chocolate from them and grinned at her. “You have any more to share?”

“I do not.” She looked so indignant that he laughed. She grinned at him.

He couldn’t believe that he’d told Lucy so much about his father. He’d never confided to anyone outside his family and for the most part he’d not even done that. His father had been an intensely proud man and Ryan had been gifted with that same propensity, good or bad. It was an issue of pride for Ryan that he could handle his own problems. He’d never shared his innermost feelings with anyone before but Lucy made him feel secure enough to do so.

Why had he? He should feel naked and vulnerable now that she knew so much about him. Instead, relief had washed over him at being able to tell someone about the burden of loss and pain he carried. He found it rather liberating.

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you where you learned to speak Spanish so well. I don’t think of Georgia as the go-to place.”

“I learned it from my father’s Mexican housekeeper at his home in LA. Alexis and I spent a lot of time with her. I just picked it up.”

He pulled her to him and smiled down at her. “And it came in handy a few times.”

“Just a few?” She smiled shyly back at him.

He wanted to kiss her, not a quick peck or a teasing brush but a real kiss right there in front of everybody. He brought her against him. His lips met her soft warm ones that tasted faintly of chocolate.

She grabbed his coat and pulled, going up on her toes. Her acceptance fed his desire. He requested admission with the end of his tongue, and she granted it. Entering, he found a heated cavern of pleasure. This was a kiss.

“Hey, buddy. Get a room,” someone called.

Lucy jerked away, but she still had handfuls of his coat. Her eyes were large and awestruck, her lips cherry red from his kiss.

“Was that a friendly kiss?”

He laughed. “The friendliest. Come on...” He took her hand.

“Where are we going?”

“My place.”

“I’m going to see those lights?”

“Yes.”

“Ryan, I don’t think—”

“I said fun and no pressure, remember? I keep my word.”

“That would be the O’Doherty way.”

“Yes, it would.”

* * *

Lucy was still reeling from Ryan’s kiss as she followed him out of the subway into the early evening air.

They had shared a real kiss. The kiss of a man who wanted a woman. Was she stepping into water over her head? If she was, would she sink so far under Ryan’s spell that she’d never come up?

They were in an area of small privately owned stores. People milled on the sidewalks in front of the stores. She’d never been to Brooklyn but she’d not expected to find the small-community feel within a large metropolis. Ryan’s stride changed, became more leisurely, as if he’d returned home.

“I live about a half a mile from here. Would you like to walk or should I call for a taxi?”

“Walking would be nice. I’d like to see where you grew up.”

As they strolled hand in hand Ryan spoke to a shop owner, introduced her to a former high school teacher and her husband. Others waved or called out to him. It was a community proud of their home-grown boy done well.

“You love living here, don’t you?”

“What’s not to love? And I’ve known nothing else.”

“Never thought of moving on up? The super-neurosurgeon who outgrew his roots?”

“No, here suits me just fine.”

And it did. What was it like to be that secure in those around you that you knew you belonged?

They walked down a small hill that had a line of new-looking condos that had not been constructed to look so modern that they didn’t blend with the rest of the buildings along the waterfront. At the one closest to the East River, Ryan stopped in front of a door stained a dark color. He fished in his pocket and pulled out keys.

“You live here?” Lucy made no effort to hide her amazement. “What a beautiful spot.” Across the East River was Lower Manhattan with all its enormous buildings, including those around Wall Street.

“Come on in,” Ryan said as he opened the door. “Our Chinese should be here soon. We’ll eat out on the deck.”

He led her straight through the living room, stopping long enough to flip on a light in the kitchen before they went out a glass door to a deck. It ran the length of the condo out the back and had a privacy fence separating him from his neighbor. There was a small table with two chairs and an oversized and wide lounge that faced the city.

“I think we timed it just right for dinner and a show.”

She put her hands on her hips and gave him a skeptical look. “So you’re sticking with that story?”

“I am.”

“We eat and then the light show begins.”

The doorbell buzzed. “That will be our supper.”

While Ryan was gone, Lucy looked across the river, watching the shadows begin to fall across the buildings and the orange of the western sky become the backdrop. Ryan had a lovely place to live.

He returned with two paper bags filled with wonderful-smelling food. “I thought we’d have a picnic. Eat out of the boxes. Share.” Going back inside, he brought out two glasses and a bottle of wine. With minimal effort he opened the bottle and poured them both drinks. He then pulled boxes and other items out of the sacks and placed them on the table. “Have a seat.”

She pulled out a chair and sat. “Is there a fork?”

“Fork! There are no forks with Chinese food.” He grinned at her as he picked up chopsticks covered in paper and handed them to her with a flair of a magician. “Have any experience?”

“A little.”

“I’ll help you.” He opened a box of rice, pushed it toward her and opened another for himself. A larger container with chicken and broccoli he placed between them. He stripped the paper off the chopsticks and manipulated them like a pro between his lean fingers. She shouldn’t have been surprised. The dexterity he used to do delicate brain surgery would lend itself to using chopsticks to eat.

She followed suit with the chopsticks but her ability was much more hit and miss than his. Ryan laughed when she must have looked like a snapping turtle going after a morsel before it fell back into the box.

“You’re going to starve at that rate and I’m going to look like a poor host. Let me help.” He scooted closer and offered her a bite on the end of his chopsticks.

She continued to make efforts of her own while he filled in between them. Over one offering she looked up and found him looking at her intently. It was heady to be the center of his attention. One who loved those he cared about so totally. She could be overwhelmed by his magnetism with little effort on his part.

Ryan looked away, breaking the moment, and dropped his chopsticks into an empty container. He stood and put out his hand. “Come on, we’re going to miss the show.”

She put her palm against his and stood. He led her to the lounger. Letting go of her hand, he settled into the chair and stretched out his long legs. “Join me.” He patted the space next to him.

The lounge should have been large enough for two but with Ryan’s size it seemed far too small. “There’s not enough room for both of us. I’ll just pull a chair over here.”

“I’ll make room.” He scooted over as if he planned to give her plenty of room. “The show’s much better from here.”

She sat alongside him. They touched from shoulder to foot. She pulled her coat closer around her. He picked up a blanket from beside the chair and spread it over their legs. “Lift your head.” She did so and he slid an arm behind her neck, resting his hand on her shoulder. He tucked her closer. “Relax.”

“I am relaxed.”

“No, you’re not. You’re as tight as a guitar string.”

She shifted and found a more comfortable position.

“You know, if you keep that up this may not remain just a light show between friends.”

She stiffened. What had she been thinking to agree to this?

Ryan chuckled. “I’m kidding. I’m not going to do anything that you don’t want me to.”

Hadn’t he kept his word so far? The problem was, she wanted him to do plenty. Settling next to him and clasping her hands in her lap, she looked at the horizon. The lights of the city began to flicker on. “Oh, this is amazing. I just saw the lights on the top of the Chrysler Building come on.”

“It’s beautiful.” He fingered the tail of her braid, which was lying against her arm.

“Thanks for sharing this with me. It’s everything you said it was.”

“You’re welcome.”

They continued to watch until the kaleidoscope of colors from the buildings reflected off the water. Could anything be more wonderful than being in Ryan’s arms and watching the sun set to a beautiful light show?

“Wow, this view is something. You must be in demand as a date for this alone.”

“So you think my sex appeal is location-related?” He spoke so close to her ear that his warm breath brushed her skin.

She kept her focus on the lights of the city. “I think you’re fishing for a compliment.”

“Maybe. I thought I told you that I don’t bring people home.”

“By people, do you mean women?”

“Yes. Women. You’re the only woman who has ever shared my view.”

She sat up and twisted around so she could look down at him. “Why?”

His fingers played with the end of her braid, which now fell over one breast. His look met hers. “Because,” he said, his voice low, “you’re the only one I’ve ever wanted to share it with.” Wrapping a hand around the mass of hair, he tugged gently, bringing her down to him. His hand cupped her head as he guided her mouth to his. His breath brushed her lips. “I’m going to kiss you. It won’t be a friendly kiss. If you don’t want this, you need to tell me to stop now.”

“The O’Doherty way? A gentleman always.” Her lips touched his.

He pulled her head closer, slanting his mouth and taking the kiss deeper. His tongue found the seam of her lips and demanded entrance. When she didn’t immediately open he pulled back and placed small searching kisses along her bottom lip. He shifted her until she lay along him. Her body followed the contours of his.

Did heaven feel like this?

When the bill of her cap hit him in the forehead she reached up and pulled it off.

He ran his hand down her braid. “I love your hair. You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to touch it.”

She reached to remove the band. What little light there was spilled out from the kitchen.

“No, don’t. I want to be the one who sets it free.” His voice had gone low and gruff, creating tingles inside her.

Gently he removed the band from the end. He drew a finger between the sections of the braid, slowly releasing them as if he were opening a present he’d been eager to see for weeks. His sure, precise movements told of his skill as a surgeon. What she did to her hair every day he turned into a sensual experience.