Read the book: «He's Still The One»

Chapter One

Zoe Russell had created hundreds, no thousands, of scenarios that had her face-to-face with Ryan O’Connor once again. None, however, had her wearing mud across her cheeks and heavy metal cuffs around her wrists.

She looked at her shackled hands, and tried not to wince at her twenty-five dollar manicure gone wrong. Zoe had no idea what Ryan was doing back in Riverbend, but it appeared for the moment he was all that stood between her and freedom. Showing any sign of weakness would be a mistake. He needed to remember Zoe Russell wasn’t a woman to be pushed around or trifled with.

Zoe squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and letting it out slowly, walked to the front of the cell keeping her gaze locked on his. “This has all been a terrible misunderstanding.”

Ryan cocked a brow, rubbed his index finger along his chin. Yep, she could see that the all-too-sexy cleft was still there. Along with the little scar from a baseball thrown awry. He rocked back on his heels, smiled. “That’s what all crooks say.”

Oh, and that smile, bracketed by dimples that still sent shivers down her spine. The little stubble across his jaw didn’t hurt, either. The man sizzled sex. Zoe steeled herself. No weakness. Especially not in front of the man she’d once considered her best friend—the man who’d broken her heart even if he hadn’t realized it at the time. Hadn’t she promised herself she wasn’t ever, ever going to be taken in by his smile again?

She wouldn’t think about what her hair must look like, or that a decent burial—not dry cleaning—likely would be the fate of her designer denim overalls. Forget about making a fashion statement. She was wet, tired, hungry and late for her dress fitting for her sister Kate’s wedding.

And from the uncompromising coplike look on Ryan’s face, she also was in big trouble. She still couldn’t understand why she was the only person arrested at the senior citizen’s rally. All she’d been doing was her job, interviewing the protesters, thinking she might have a good story for Wake Up, America.

“Shouldn’t you be catching criminals in Philadelphia?” She winced at the petulance in her voice.

“I’ve discovered that the more interesting—” he paused and threw her a pointed look “—criminals visit Southern Ohio.”

“I’m not a—”

“Save it for the judge. I’ve read the police report. Resisting arrest. Punching an officer…”

“He tripped and fell.”

“Then you wrestled with him in the mud.”

“He handcuffed me.”

“Before the both of you landed flat on your faces in the fishpond. Rumor has it that’s going to be the front-page color picture in tomorrow’s Riverbend Tribune.”

She took a deep breath to steady herself, trying not to imagine how much damage a photo like that could do to her TV career. And took another deep breath because seeing Ryan had shook her to the core. “As usual, you’ve got your facts wrong.”

“So, enlighten me Ms. New York City TV star.”

“I would rather eat snails.”

“There’s a new French restaurant in town.” He paused. “Want me to check and see if they have take-out?”

Her stomach rolled. She couldn’t stand the slimy things. And he knew it. “No,” she said faintly. Then she steeled her voice. “But thank you.”

“Guess it’s pretty hard to look and sound haughty when you’re dressed in mud.” Ryan smothered a grin, but barely. Oh, if she only had these handcuffs off she’d wipe that silly, sexy grin right off his face!

Patience had never been her strong suit. She closed her eyes, mentally counted to ten. “If you’re not going to help me, go away.” And opened them when she heard his full-bodied laugh.

With a shrug, he started to do as she asked. Then he paused, turned, and cocked a brow in her direction. “Nah.” He shook his head and walked away.

“I know my rights,” Zoe shouted after him. “I want my phone call. And my lawyer. I want to talk with the person who’s in charge here!”

“That person—” Ryan turned to face her “—would be me.”

She stared at him, trying hard not to let him know he’d caught her off guard. Again. But inside she was reeling. Ryan O’Connor was in charge of the Riverbend Police Department? The last she’d heard—not that she’d been paying attention to any gossip about Ryan—he’d received some commendation for heroism and was headed for the top-cop spot in Philadelphia.

So what was he doing back in Riverbend? It wasn’t as though she cared…or did she?

She had to let him know she meant business. She held out her cuffed hands. “You have no grounds to arrest me. I didn’t break any laws. I want these off, and I mean now.”

“Actually, I do have grounds. You disturbed the peace. Something, I recall, you’re very good at. The key’s at the bottom of the pond,” he said with an exaggerated patience that didn’t fool her. She just knew he was enjoying her predicament. “My deputies are searching for it.”

“And you’re not guarding the master key?”

“They tell me it was lost the day the jail opened. That would be…let me think…some twenty-five years ago.”

She tried to keep calm. “What about a locksmith?”

He shrugged. “Closed. It’s Friday, after five o’clock. Riverbend isn’t New York City. We don’t do 24/7.” With a smile that indicated he was anything but apologetic, he disappeared around the corner.

“Wait! Where do you think you’re going?” She awkwardly raked the bars with her handcuffs. The resulting noise sent shivers through her teeth. “We’re not finished here. You can’t just walk away. Ryan! Get back here!”

She was sure she heard him chuckle. Otherwise, she got no response. Not that she expected one. Great. She was being held hostage in her hometown jail, and it appeared her jailer was none other than the last man on earth she’d ever ask for help.

It had been ten long years since she’d seen him. But she’d never been able to erase him from her thoughts. Now—suddenly, unexpectedly—he plops back into her already complicated life and for just a moment, a brief ridiculous moment, she felt tempted to ask him the one burning question left unanswered for the past decade.

She considered it a miracle he hadn’t listened when she demanded that he get back here. Lord only knows what she would have said and how he would have responded.

Zoe gazed around the eight-by-twelve-foot cell. About as much room as her upper West Side studio apartment. And with about as much warmth. The single cot with its regulation flat pillow and scratchy gray blanket screamed uncomfortable. The tiny-screened window barely allowed in a stream of sunlight, let alone any fresh air.

“And let’s not forget the fashionable iron bars on the windows and doors,” Zoe muttered as she paced the cell once, then paced it again before flopping down on the cot.

She turned her face into the pillow and tried not to worry about how she felt as much a prisoner in her outrageously expensive apartment as she did here. She wasn’t going to think about New York now. Or her job as on-air columnist at Wake Up, America that she loved, but which was slowly beginning to eat away at her heart and soul. Not that she’d ever admit that to any of her colleagues or friends. She found it hard enough to admit to herself.

They all thought she had the perfect life. They celebrated her most recent success last month with a party at the hottest club in the city when she was promoted from mere entertainment reporter to the coveted weekly morning spot on Wake Up, America. People she hadn’t heard from in years had called or e-mailed when they’d read about that party in the “Sunday Styles” section of the New York Times. She’d been thrilled when her mother had sent her the front page Riverbend Tribune article on her promotion, with the less-than-original headline Local Girl Makes Good.

She had achieved the goal she’d set when she’d graduated from college six years ago. She worked and lived in Manhattan. She had plenty of twenty-something friends and acquaintances. And because of her work she was considered a celebrity of sorts.

But she couldn’t put out of her mind how New York City’s tabloids had referred to her last week when the network announced she would be hosting a two-hour nighttime entertainment special in addition to her appearances on Wake Up: Ms. Perky Goes Prime Time. The phrase still distressed her. Whoever called her perky hadn’t been paying close attention to her recent Wake Up segments.

She wasn’t just promoting glitz, glamour and celebrity faces. She sought out serious stories, about real people and how they were dealing with their complicated lives. She knew more than she wanted to about complicated lives. Like her own.

Zoe sat up and took a deep breath. If only her colleagues on Wake Up, America could see her now. They’d never recognize the woman they’d only seen as perfectly polished, not when she remained handcuffed, wet and wearing mud from head to toe, behind bars in a tiny jail cell in the one place she’d sworn she’d never return to. If she discovered another woman in a similar situation, Zoe was certain she’d find a way to turn that woman’s tragedy into a two-minute TV triumph for Wake Up.

She looked down at her mud-caked hundred-dollar tennis shoes in dismay. Whatever had possessed her to buy them? They were expensive, trendy and downright uncomfortable. They were perfect for New York, but so out of place here in Riverbend. Was she out of place in Riverbend, as well?

Zoe shook her head to clear it of troubling thoughts. Oh, what she’d give for a cup of latte and one of Andre’s full-body massages. She needed her wits about her to convince that certain someone with the sexy cleft in his chin and perfectly dimpled smile that she was the victim of an unexplained case of amnesia.

She could pretend she’d never taken part in the senior citizen rally, tussled with the police, ended up in the fishpond, been arrested or found herself the subject of Ryan O’Connor’s penetrating blue-eyed stare that probed too deep and saw too much. While she’d happily parade all her triumphs in front of him, she’d prefer to keep her missteps to herself.

She buried her face in her hands. This visit home for her sister’s wedding, Zoe knew instinctively, was going to be the longest two weeks of her twenty-eight-year-old life.

A smart man would have dived into the fishpond and searched for the key himself. Or cajoled the locksmith to make another. And paid her bail himself. Then Ryan could have opened the cell and hustled pretty Zoe Russell out the front door of the Riverbend City Jail and out of his life.

Ryan O’Connor was smart. He was clever. And very, very shrewd. All these traits had saved his butt more than a few times during his years first as a homicide, then vice detective in Philadelphia. So the fact Zoe was still behind bars told him maybe he wasn’t as smart, as clever or as shrewd as he thought.

Physically, she was all he remembered: tall, slender, with green eyes that sparkled like the emeralds she now wore on her fingers and her ears. Oh, and that unforgettable curly red hair. At one time he’d considered her his best friend—and the bane of his adolescent existence. But he had no idea who she was now.

She used to disdain showy jewelry, had been afraid to get her ears pierced and had worn only a simple pearl ring belonging to her grandmother. This woman was much too polished, much too savvy and much too sophisticated for his taste. That’s the way she appeared on morning TV. Not that he’d ever admit to sitting down and watching her, of course.

If he’d met Zoe for the first time today, he’d have been polite, but never taken the time to get to know her past that first hello.

He could tell himself she was the last person he expected to see back in Riverbend. But that would be a lie. He knew she’d be coming to town for Kate’s wedding. He just hadn’t figured on seeing her this soon. Her unexpected appearance in his jail had left him unprepared. Little Zoe Russell—no, make that grown-up Zoe Russell—couldn’t keep out of trouble. It was one of her most endearing and most exasperating traits.

You can’t just walk away.

Except he had. The words were still a punch to his gut. He’d heard them from her before. And still he had walked from his friendship with Zoe, his life in Riverbend and, inevitably, from his youthful marriage to Kate, which had been a mistake on both their parts. Six months ago he’d walked away again, his decision, although not his choice, from almost a decade of fighting Philadelphia’s crime and watching it fight back until he was losing more than winning. More than anything, Ryan hated to lose.

He dropped into the oversize oak chair, planted his feet on top of the scarred desk and, through the open door of his office, surveyed the calm scene before him. The phones were mercifully quiet. His dispatcher sat at her station reading the latest issue of a celebrity magazine. The community affairs liaison was reuniting the Johnson boy with his runaway puppy.

“Ah, suburbia,” he muttered. “A far cry from the mean city streets. I will be happy here.” I will be happy here.

He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. And prayed his mind wouldn’t replay that deadly night in Philadelphia. A drug sting gone wrong. He’d taken a bullet to the side, and through the haze of pain he’d seen his longtime partner, Sean, go down with one to the back.

Everything that had mattered to him had changed that night. He hadn’t been as strong, as heroic, as he’d needed to be. Even though everyone told him he’d been all those things. The professionals also told him the nightmares would go away. As usual, they were wrong.

“Uh, chief?”

He slowly opened his eyes. Jake, his childhood friend, his number one deputy and the man who bravely had wrestled Zoe Russell into an arrest, stood before him, wet and muddy but with key in hand. Ryan rubbed the tired from his eyes. “Care to explain how a peaceful protest about the new senior’s park ended in complete chaos?”

Jake poured his lanky body into the chair across from Ryan’s desk. And grimaced as he dripped mud and water all over the floor. “Zoe started interviewing people. Once they realized who she was, they pushed and shoved to get her attention. I was trying to get to her and we slipped and ended up in the pond.”

“Were the handcuffs really necessary?”

“Jeez, Ryan, she punched me. I did it as much to protect me as her. I had no choice but to arrest her.” Jake wiped the key clean before placing it on Ryan’s desk. “I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to be on the other end of Zoe Russell’s hard right.”

“You were eight and she was six,” Ryan reminded him dryly. “And you’d just stuck a tadpole down her bathing suit. In that very same pond, too.”

“Yeah, well, the tadpole was your idea.” Jake’s scowl turned into a wide grin. “Should I let her out? Or maybe throw away the key for a few more hours?”

“Let me handle her.” Ryan tossed the key into the air and caught it. “Everything under control at the park?”

“The protest fell apart peacefully once we had Zoe in custody.” Jake chuckled. “You should have seen Flora Tyler. Demanded that Zoe pose for a picture with the senior citizen group. Bet it will make the front page of the Tribune.”

Ryan laughed. “That’s what happens when a celebrity comes to town. Have you called Kate about bailing her sister out?”

Jake nodded. “Gave me an earful. Mumbled something about how she hadn’t talked to Zoe yet, and asked if she could beg a second favor.”

“She expects me to post Zoe’s bail,” Ryan guessed and wasn’t surprised to hear Jake still chuckling as he walked out of the office, closing the door behind him. Ryan fingered the key he’d pocketed. Too bad the key wasn’t a coin, and he could toss it into the air, leaving it up to fate to determine whether he would—or should—grant Kate’s second favor.

Because he knew exactly what Kate wanted him to do. She’d been dropping not-so-subtle hints since she’d set her wedding date last month. Make peace with Zoe. At least for the next two weeks until the wedding was over and Zoe headed back to New York. There was nothing in the Ryan O’Connor rule book that said he had to go back and rehash the last ten years. That was history. And since the incident in Philadelphia, Ryan had become very good at ignoring the past.

As Ryan grabbed his checkbook and headed for the court offices next door, he didn’t want to consider whether or not he was strong enough to turn a blind eye to the woman Zoe Russell had become.

Zoe’s limited stock of patience had run out.

She didn’t appreciate being ignored. She didn’t appreciate being locked in this tiny jail cell—still handcuffed—for more than an hour. It felt like days.

She shook her hands to clear them of the numbness, then winced as the cuffs jangled heavily against her wrists. Not her jewelry of choice. Somehow, some way, she’d see that Ryan paid for not having a master key to these cuffs. She’d like to think that if their roles had been reversed, she’d graciously have called the locksmith, even if his workday was officially over.

Zoe tried to curl up on the cot. The lumpy cot. With a pillow missing its crucial foam or feathers. She hoped Kate got here soon to bail her out. She couldn’t take much more of Riverbend’s unique blend of hospitality.

She closed her eyes, then immediately opened them when the image of Ryan’s face appeared. Those perfect features. Chiseled chin. Deep-set blue eyes. Thick blond hair that seemed kissed by the sun. It had been ten years since she’d last seen him in the flesh. Photographs and family home videos didn’t count.

He looked better than she remembered, sexier than she’d imagined possible. She tried to picture him at sixty-five, potbellied, gray-haired—no, make that bald—limping down Main Street chasing after a criminal, banned from driving a car because his vision was so bad.

She smiled at the image she had created of a not-so-perfect Ryan O’Connor. Too bad men like Ryan usually aged like fine champagne, not cheap wine. She stood and paced the tiny cell. Why was it taking him so long to find that key? And who did Ryan think he was dealing with, anyway, claiming Riverbend was not a 24/7 town? She knew full well that locksmiths everywhere lived for being called after hours so they could charge outrageous overtime fees.

“He owes me a phone call,” Zoe muttered. “I should call the locksmith, just to prove him wrong. Ryan! I want my phone call!”

When Ryan didn’t materialize, Zoe shouted out his name again. She heard footsteps and braced herself. But it wasn’t Ryan. It was Jake.

“Uh, Zoe,” Jake said with a wariness Zoe could understand. After all, they had tangled in the fishpond and ended up wet, dirty and slightly shaken by the encounter. And she’d punched him, a fact she deeply regretted. “Uh, Ryan hasn’t let you out yet?” He glanced right, then left, everywhere except at her. Finally their gazes met.

Zoe motioned him closer until they stood face-to-face. “You don’t want to be the one who tells me he’s found the key but hasn’t unlocked the cuffs.”

“Can I…I mean…is there something else I do can for you?”

“You can accept my apology for hitting you. And I want my phone call.”

“Apology accepted.” Jake warily handed her his cell phone through the bars, then reddened in embarrassment when she waved her still-cuffed wrists in front of his face.

“I can hardly punch out numbers while my hands are otherwise occupied, Jake. Maybe,” she said gently, “you could help Ryan find the key.”

Jake slowly backed away. “I’ll get Ryan.”

“You do that,” Zoe said, trying to keep her voice bright.

She watched Jake disappear around the corner. He was tall, like Ryan. Had an athlete’s body, like Ryan’s. Handsome features, including deep-set blue eyes, also like Ryan’s. But when she stood face-to-face with Jake, she felt nothing, there was no sizzle between them. Unlike the sizzle that had unexpectedly snapped, crackled and popped when she and Ryan had stood on opposite sides of the jail cell door.

What she feared most was caring for Ryan again, maybe even falling head over heels for him again, because in the end, he’d pick up and leave.

As she impatiently waited for the man to appear, Zoe pondered why the Ryan she’d met today had sizzled and every man she’d dated during the past year in New York had fizzled. She’d chosen them, she admitted wryly, because they hadn’t sizzled, hadn’t captured a portion of her heart and soul. And when they left, as all the men in her life inevitably did, she’d been left whole and emotionally untouched. And alone. Very, very alone.

But that was preferable, she told herself, than to be left alone and heartbroken. The way she’d felt when her father left, when Kate left, when Ryan left. Okay, so the all-too-sexy Ryan O’Connor could still made her sizzle. Nothing wrong with that, as long as she didn’t act on it.

Zoe lay back on the cot, letting her eyes drift shut again. This time the image was of the night of her high school graduation. Her parents were seated as bookends to the two empty chairs in the otherwise packed Riverbend High School auditorium. She’d never forget that June night when her world had turned upside down. Her parents had announced they were separating. And Kate and Ryan had eloped. She’d been eighteen, hurt, crushed, devastated and determined never to forgive any of them, especially Ryan.

She was twenty-eight now. Long ago she’d made peace with Kate, and accepted but still couldn’t claim to understand the reasons for her parents’ divorce. But she hadn’t let herself answer why she still felt the sting of Ryan’s betrayal.

Maybe, she admitted to herself, it was because she didn’t want to accept that their friendship, which had meant the world to her, hadn’t been important enough to him.

The sound of approaching footsteps—very different male footsteps from Jake’s—helped clear her mind. She waited until she heard the cell door open before she raised her head to look at him. Keep it light and breezy, she reminded herself. If he sizzled, she would definitely ignore it.

“So nice of you to visit,” she said brightly as he stepped inside the jail cell. “I’ll ring for the coffee or tea while you tell me what you’ve been up to the past ten years.”

“Ms. Zoe Russell, always ready with a joke.”

She sat up, held out her cuffed hands. “I don’t consider this situation funny at all.”

Ryan joined her on the cot. If it surprised Zoe that she let him, she could tell by the expression on his face she’d surprised Ryan even more. “Don’t you think it’s time you let me loose?”

“Jake found the key.” Ryan fumbled with it before unlocking the cuffs. He cleared his throat. “I see you every morning on TV.”

“Oh?” Zoe stood, stretched her aching arms over her head. Out of the corner of her eye she watched as Ryan tidied up the cell, folded the blanket, punched up the pillow. “You watch Wake Up, America?”

“Not exactly. The only way I could get our community liaison here at seven in the morning was to install a TV so she could watch her favorite show. Even without the TV, though, it’d be hard to miss you.”

Her voice chilled. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Magazine ads. TV spots during prime time. I’m not criticizing. Just observing how you got what you wished for. Fame. Fortune.” He cupped her shoulder and turned her to face him. “A chance to ham it up in front of millions of people.”

“Is that what you think of me? That all I care about is being a celebrity? I’m a serious journalist. I worked hard to get that spot on Wake Up, America.” She paused, raising herself to her full height of five feet seven inches, but she still fell short of Ryan by almost half a foot and had to tilt her head back to meet him eye-to-eye.

She stared up at him, fascinated by the specks of gold in his blue eyes, the way his dimples deepened when he smiled. For one inexplicable moment she was torn between wiping that smile off his face and kissing him senseless. Then, thankfully, Ryan cleared his throat and broke the moment.

“You’re standing on my foot.”

Zoe glanced down to see her left mud-splattered sneaker on top of his right shiny black boot. She stepped back, horrified to discover large chunks of dirt on his toe.

Ryan took his handkerchief out of his back pocket and Zoe immediately reached for it. After a slight tug-of-war she sighed and let it go. Ryan brushed the dirt off her cheeks and from the tip of her nose. That brief touch made her insides quiver and the goose bumps run up and down her arms. His smile made her weak in the knees. Looking into those blue eyes made her want to kiss him. Which would be wrong. Which would be totally inappropriate. Which would be a giant mistake.