2. Emma
2
Emma
“See you next week,” I say, waving a farewell to Donnie.
“Thanks, Emma. By the way, my coach thinks you’re a miracle worker.” He grins, pushing on the door and heading out into the street.
“That’s because you are a miracle worker, Emma Carter,” Sharon says, beaming a smile across the waiting area of my clinic.
She’s sitting behind the desk, the huge Mac nearly obscuring her entire person. One of my closest friends in school, she’s also as sharp as a tack, and thus, she was the obvious choice when I needed someone to run the other side of the business. While she might look like my secretary, Sharon Langley is far more than that.
“Nope. Just three years of hard work and a bunch of extra learning,” I quip back as I walk over to the desk. Leaning over it, I say, “What’s my schedule like this afternoon?”
She taps a few keys and eyes the screen. “You have a 1:30, a 2:45, and a 4 pm. But right now, you need lunch.” She lifts her eyes and gives me a pointed look.
“I know,” I reply.
“Yeah, sure you do. That’s why I’m going to go and get it, so I can make sure you actually eat today.”
“Yesterday was just a bit crazy,” I defend myself with a smile.
“Sure. So was two days before that, and the day before that. I know you want to help people, Emma,” Sharon continues, sliding her arms into her coat and wrapping her scarf around her neck, “but you can’t help them if you starve to death.”
“I’m hardly starving.”
“Course not. I mean, that slender figure of yours can totally take one less meal,” she quips, grabbing her bag and whisking by me. She’s at the door when she suddenly spins around. “Did you hear the news?”
“I’m too busy starving myself.” I smirk back.
“Ryan Steele is back in town.”
Okay, I didn’t quite expect that, and as my jaw slackens with surprise, Sharon lifts her eyebrows. “Your nemesis.”
“Just go and get lunch.”
She leaves the office with a giggle.
Ignoring my initial thoughts at Sharon’s sudden announcement, I round the desk and tap a few keys, checking to see how many clients I have for the rest of the week. As I bend to look at the computer, my wayward locks fall forward. Even though I’m a redhead, I don’t have the typical fiery personality we get pigeonholed with. Quite the opposite, actually. But my hair is a different story. I swear, it has a personality of its own.
It doesn’t help that I slept in this morning, something I rarely do. Running out the door with it still wet means my ordinarily tamed curls are wilder than usual. Like they went to a club last night and left me at home.
“Sharon’s bound to have a hair band around here somewhere,” I mutter, my eyes searching her desk for the one thing I flew out of the house this morning without.
I’m still looking when the clinic doors open again.
“That was quick,” I say. “What did you do—?”
But as I lift my head, my eyes fly wide open, and I nearly freeze solid. For a second, I can’t speak, but suddenly remembering who I am and the fact that this is my clinic, I cross my arms over my chest and stand with my shoulders back.
“Hello, Emma,” Ryan Steele says.
I can’t believe he’s standing here only two minutes after Sharon’s quip. It’s nearly like she summoned him. I haven’t even had a chance to figure out how I feel about him being back. He’s returned to his hometown before, but we’ve never spoken. We’ve never had a need. I’m still reeling when my astonished silence prompts him to speak again.
“We used to go to Maple Springs High together. Maybe you remember me.”
“Barely,” I reply tersely.
And we certainly did not go to school together. We might have attended the same educational establishment on the same days, but “ together” is a stretch.
It’s not the first time I’ve seen him since school. We’re both in our late twenties now, so I’ve seen him around when he comes back here. Just not close up. His deep brown eyes haven’t changed at all, nor has the chiseled jaw. It’s a bit weird seeing him with a cane, though, and not being a groupie who follows his career, I deduce that he’s been injured.
“I was hoping you could fit me in,” he says, taking a limping step forward. “I’m back in town for a while, and I could do with a physio nearer home.”
Is that right?
My lip curls, and I tilt my head. “Surely, you have a whole team of medics who could do a far better job than me.”
“Well, that’s the thing—”
Suddenly, the door bursts open, and Sharon whisks in, shivering with cold. “Oh, my word, it’s freezing out there. I swear if I stopped moving I’d freeze on the—”
As though her words have materialized, she actually comes to a dead stop, like she’s frozen on the spot. Looking from Ryan to me and back again, her jaw drops.
“Ryan Steele,” she gasps, like he’s some sort of movie star.
Of course, he loves her reaction, and with a beaming smile of perfectly white teeth, he says, “The very same. And you are?”
“Busy,” I interject brusquely.
Sharon spins her head to look at me, and seeing my thunderous expression, she realizes her limbs actually work and scurries across the floor. “Yes. Yes, I’m busy.”
Making her way around the desk, she places her packages down and begins shuffling off her coat. From the corner of my eye, I can see her looking from me to Steele and back again. The silence continues; a thick tension fills the office, and I’m struggling to hold the discomfort.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you, Mr. Steele,” I say eventually. “I’m fully booked for the foreseeable future. If I were you, I would look elsewhere.”
“You don’t have any available appointments?” he presses.
“No,” I reply firmly.
He tilts his head and narrows his eyes. “Right.”
He doesn’t believe me, but I couldn’t care less. This is my clinic, and I don’t want him here.
“If you leave your number, we can let you know if we have a cancellation,” Sharon pipes up.
I drop my gaze and stare at her. Realizing she’s messed up, she flounders, and then the words come tumbling out of her mouth. “Though we don’t get many people who cancel. Emma’s too good. She has a really strong client list, and—”
“What Sharon is trying to say is that we’re fully booked,” I say, cutting over her babbling.
“Yes,” Sharon confirms. “That’s more or less what I meant to…” She trails off, her voice getting quieter until she’s making no sound at all.
“Fine,” Ryan says, jutting out his chin and pinning on a false smile. “Thanks anyway.”
I don’t feel the need to reply as he turns on his heels. He’s moving far more slowly than he’d like, I’m sure. One cannot storm out when one is limping. But he leaves the clinic without looking back.
For a long moment, neither Sharon nor I say anything. I think I’m partly shocked and partly relieved. Not to mention that my stomach is doing somersaults. Yes, admittedly, it does have something to do with the fact that I’ve just sent Ryan Steele away, but also, I have never once, in my whole time as a physio, turned anyone away from my door.
A minute later, Sharon says, “You do know he’s single again, right?”
I can tell by her tone that she’s confused by my decision.
“There’s probably a reason for that. The man’s a pig,” I snarl back.
“I’m going to be honest here, Emma,” Sharon says, her tone betraying astonishment. “I can’t believe you just turned Ryan Steele down. He’s an ice hockey superstar. Imagine the clientele you could bring in if you had a recommendation from him.”
“I don’t need his recommendation,” I retort, a little shortly. “We already have a strong client base. But do you know what’s even stronger than that?”
I lower myself into a chair beside her, unwrapping my sandwich while Sharon looks at me a little cluelessly.
“My pride,” I offer.
For a long moment, my colleague looks at me. I can see she’s trying to work out what on Earth is going on in my head.
Then she says, “High school was a long time ago, you know? What happened between you two is history.”
“It’s not just what happened. It’s the fact that the man has never changed. He’s as arrogant now as he was back then. People are supposed to grow up. Ryan Steele never did. He’s used to getting everything he wants. He always has, and no doubt always will.”
“You don’t care that he’s made such a success of his career?” Sharon pressed.
“Not one bit. Famous or not, I want nothing to do with him.”
The day passes with my concentration waning, but I do my best to stay as present as possible. Now, though, as I sit on my sofa with a glass of white wine in my hand, my mind wanders.
It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about Ryan. Sure, I see Thomas sometimes in the town, but he doesn’t grace us with his presence very often. Completely opposite from his brother, he’s grown up to be quite the businessman. He’s also kind, considerate, and quietly confident.
But it’s not Thomas in my thoughts right now. In fact, as I gaze into the flickering flames of my fire, my mind wanders back to that day when I knew I would never look at Ryan Steele the same way again.
The Bulls had just won their football game against the Lions, an opposing team from a school ten miles away. The park was buzzing with excitement, and whooping and hollering were still going on when the team came thundering off the pitch.
Sharon, Debs, and I were there, cheering on just like everyone else. With Debs’s encouragement—she was always far more outgoing than Sharon and me—we headed down the bleachers to cheer the guys on. We stood there, next to the rest of the crowd, the cheerleaders still jumping around like they had springs in their shoes.
When the team began running towards us, we were surrounded by a bunch of other girls, and Ryan, being Ryan, welcomed them with open arms. Back then, I thought he was charming, the confident bad boy who just loved the attention. He started grabbing girls and, to their delight, lightly kissing them. One after another he went, his teammates cheering him on. But as he got to me, he slowed a little, and giving me a strange glance as he kissed the girl to my right, he hesitated.
“Kiss her,” one of the guys said.
But he just stood there, looking at me. And then he shook his head. “Nah. She’s the geek. If I kiss her, she might run off screaming.”
I mean, he wasn’t wrong. I was pretty studious at school. In fact, I took my studies pretty seriously. Back then, I wanted to leave Maple Springs and make a name for myself.
But at that moment, as his friends laughed along with him, I had never been so humiliated in my life. Some of the other girls laughed; some looked sorry for me. I hadn’t realized I was frozen to the spot until Debs and Sharon grabbed me and dragged me away. Later, they tried to comfort me, but the damage was done.
It’s funny how life works.
Now he needs my geekiness, my expertise, my knowledge. Well, he can just go and find his help from someone else.