Try - The Complete Romance Series

TRY
– THE COMPLETE SERIES

By
Nella Tyler

This
book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are
products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not
to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual
events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright
© 2015 Nella Tyler

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PART 1

Chapter One - Mackenzie

Fifteen minutes after work ended for the
day, I made my way to my favorite bench, not far from the children’s physical
therapy center where I worked. It was cold outside, of course, but I’d been
stuck in the stuffy, heated office for long enough that it was a nice change,
especially with a hot drink in my hands to keep them from freezing in my
gloves. I sat down and took a sip of the thick, sweet hot chocolate, looking
into Amundsen Park. It was late enough—and dark enough—that the park itself was
mostly deserted, but the quiet was nice.

I took another sip of my drink and thought
about Thanksgiving; it had seemed to come so much faster than usual this year,
and I’d been taken by surprise when the office announced the closure.
Nobody—least of all kids—wanted to do physical therapy on Thanksgiving, and
very few people wanted to do it the day after. The holidays were a little
different; with vacation happening and parents trying to get their shopping
done, they were more than happy to schedule as many sessions as their insurance
would allow. All day at work I had been debating whether or not to put myself
on the on-call list for overtime during the week of Christmas; I had a few days
to make up my mind still, but I didn’t know how I felt.

I sighed, snuggling deeper into my coat,
trying to convince myself to get up and start for home. I had a ton of shopping
to do—and of course, with Thanksgiving being over, and the first full week of
the holiday season starting, it was going to be a madhouse anywhere I wanted to
go. I was tired just thinking about it, especially after a long day of working
with kids who were almost frantic between one school holiday and another. I
grinned to myself as I drank down some more hot chocolate, remembering little
Ruby-Lee; she had made a lot of progress since I had started working with her
three months before, and she had wanted to show off the fact that she could
actually walk a straight line finally—by trying to run along a balance beam set
on the floor until she’d nearly twisted her ankle.

Helen, who’d come in with unbearable
sciatic nerve pain, was starting to make progress too. It made my heart ache to
have to tell her that she wasn’t likely to ever be able to continue her ballet
instruction—at least, not enough for her to become a professional danger—but
she was slowly coming to terms with the idea on her own. The twelve-year-old
girl had given me a look while we went through the back stretches at the
beginning of her session and said, “They’re doing
The Nutcracker
starting this week. I’m already too old to play half
of the parts and too young to play the rest of them.” I had given her a quick
hug and told her that there were a lot of things she could still do; the fault
in her spinal alignment that caused her sciatica wasn’t something that could really
be cured—but at least she could get back into dance for fun if she kept moving
along at the rate she had been.

My phone vibrated in my pocket,
interrupting my thoughts, and I cringed as I slipped my glove off to answer it.
I really—really—wanted a pair of smartphone gloves, but they were so expensive
that I hadn’t bought myself a pair yet.
Add
it to your Christmas list,
I told myself as I slipped my phone out of my
pocket and tapped the accept icon, without even really looking to see who it
was calling me. I set my cup of hot chocolate down and balanced my phone on my
shoulder while I put my glove back on; it was way too cold to leave it off for
longer than a few seconds.

“Hello?”

“Hey Mackie-sweetie!” My mom’s voice
filled my ear and I smiled. “It’s officially the holiday season, and you know
what that means.”

“You’re asking everyone to turn in their
lists by tomorrow or risk having no Christmas presents?”

My mom laughed on the other end of the
line.

“That is one thing,” she agreed. “The
other is that I need to know whether I can expect you here for the holidays.” I
frowned, worrying at my bottom lip for a moment. I definitely wanted to see my
family for Christmas—and there would be a big New Year’s party to go to as
well—but I knew that if I spent as much time with them as possible over the
holidays, I’d have to avoid a bunch of questions about my love life…or more
accurately, my lack of a love life.

“I’m definitely planning on being there
for Christmas,” I said quickly. The office would be closed on Christmas day;
there wouldn’t be any reason for anyone to be there anyway. “And I’m hoping
that nothing will come up on New Year’s Eve that would mean I have to come in.
But in-between I’m not sure.”

“It was such a shame last year that you
had to leave during the week,” Mom said.

“Well we had a lot of people in,” I
pointed out. “Everyone was pulling overtime.” It wasn’t exactly true; I’d
signed up and along with everyone else who had signed up, I’d gotten called in.
It had been a bit of a relief; being around my family was nice, but the fact
that my cousin—three years younger than me— just had a baby and then had been
planning to get married in another three months, meant that the entire time I
was home everything became speculation about me being a bridesmaid yet again. I
had lost track of how many times I was
asked
 
when
it would be time for me to don a
white dress of my own. “I’ll try to make sure I can stay for the whole
holiday,” I said.

The office didn’t entirely close between
Christmas and New Year’s, but we tried to schedule as few sessions as possible.
Of course, physical therapy required a lot of consistency, which is something
we explained to all of our young patients’ parents, but even people in the
medical field like to be with their families during the holidays if they can.

“You know, if you have a guest you’d like
to bring, we’ll welcome them too—and of course they can stay even if you have
to step into work for a few hours,” Mom suggested. I tried not to sigh at the
obvious undercurrent to her comment.

“If I have a guest, I’ll make sure to let
you know so that you’ll have enough food for five guests to come with me,” I
joked, brushing aside the question she hadn’t quite asked.

“We’ll make sure to have your favorite
cookies,” Mom continued on, and I let her sweep me along in conversation for a
while, listening to her plans for the different dishes she would serve for Christmas.
“I was thinking that maybe this year we could to a
feast of the seven fishes
theme,” Mom told me.

“That sounds like fun—but probably pretty
expensive if everyone’s going to be there. What about the kids?”

“Well we’ll have some of the normal stuff
too,” Mom said, “and your nieces and nephews will eat anything that isn’t
moving.” I thought that was doubtful, but I didn’t say anything about it.

“What are you thinking of making?” My
hands were starting to go stiff in spite of the gloves, and I could feel my
toes becoming numb in my boots. I didn’t want to talk to Mom for too long; I
still had to go home and get dinner made. But I knew that she’d think I was
just brushing her off if I didn’t ask the question.

“I was going to do a bouillabaisse,” Mom
replied, “and some chilled raw and steamed seafood: shrimp, crab, maybe some
lobster if I can get it for a good price. And smoked fish dip. I am still
working out all the details, but if you can get here a day early maybe, I’d
love your help.” I grinned to myself, rolling my eyes slightly. Mom wanted me
to spend as much time at home as possible at every holiday.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I promised.
“Look—Mom, I’m outside right now and I’m freezing my ass off. Let me call you
back, okay? I need to get on my way home before I turn into a Popsicle.”

“Okay, sweet pea,” Mom said, sounding
mostly content. “Let me know if you need me to help you out with anything. And
make sure you get me your Christmas list!” I agreed to call her and then
managed to finally get off of the phone, slipping it back into my pocket. I sat
on the bench for a few minutes longer, in spite of the cold that cut through my
clothes, and I stared out at the park. I took a deep breath and sighed.

I thought about the overtime signup sheets
in the office and wondered if I should sign up again to cover any emergencies.
It was always hard to tell if we would be busy—and there were emergency
physical therapy cases, as well as those who really couldn’t risk the setback
that would come along with skipping a session or more. Some of our patients
came in several times a week for long-term health conditions, and they needed
to keep making progress even though they might prefer to simply go sledding or
hang out at home. Some of the other therapists at the office I worked in were
occupational therapists too; they had patients who had been born with fetal
alcohol syndrome or other conditions that had long-lasting effects on motor
skills and other functions. Occupational therapy wasn’t my specialty, but I
knew enough to be able to cover a shift, at least.

I finished off my hot chocolate and threw
the paper cup into the garbage bin when I stood up. The cold was starting to
get into my bones; I needed to get moving or I would—as I’d joked to my
mom—freeze up and just stay there until I could find someone to help me up. As
I started to walk back towards the office and my car in the parking lot, I
thought to myself that just for once it might actually be nice to have someone
to take home to meet my parents and siblings. I didn’t want it badly enough to
fake it, but almost. It would be nice to have a break from people worrying out
loud that I was working too hard and missing out on my best years of adulthood.

“If I had a boyfriend—even if I didn’t
date him enough to be able to bring him home—it would probably help matters,” I
said, thinking out loud. In spite of how cold I was, I admired the fresh layer
of snow that had coated everything sometime after lunch but before the end of
day; it was obviously going to be a beautiful holiday season—I just wished I
could enjoy it as much as I always wanted to. “Oh well,” I told myself,
starting to think about all the other things I had going for me to keep from
getting into any kind of slump. “I have my health and I have my work and the
kids are great. I am way too blessed of a person to go around moping because I
don’t have time to date.” I was sure that I’d be saying almost exactly that to
a handful of questions in a few weeks; but for the moment at least, I was happy
to get in my car and get back to my warm apartment. Everything else was just an
extra.

Chapter Two - Pat

“Hey, Pat. You’re in a rush to get out of
here.”

I gave Alicia at the reception desk in the
lobby a quick smile, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to keep going, even
though I was in a hurry. “How’s Landon?” she asked.

“He starts physical therapy today,” I told
her, smiling a little more warmly. “That is actually why I’m cutting out early.
I need to get him to his PT appointment.”

“Don’t let me hold you up then,” Alicia
said, beaming at me. “I hope he makes a full recovery!”

I nodded and continued on my way, heading
for the revolving door at the front of the lobby. My son was almost as excited
about doing physical therapy as I was dreading him having to do it; he wanted
to make sure he could get back to practicing with his team as soon as the
league started up again.

I walked up the ramp to the parking garage
outside, my keys already out of my pocket.
I’m
cutting it close,
I thought irritably. I had wanted to leave fifteen
minutes before I’d actually walked out of the office, but something had come
up—something always seemed to come up whenever I had plans of some kind.