MCKENZIE HADN’T THOUGHT about how much Ryder would have to be alone due to her duties as part of the wedding party.
Now, for instance, she was seated at the wedding party table rather than next to him for the rehearsal dinner.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—her brother had taken it upon himself to keep Ryder entertained.
Or perhaps her brother was entertaining himself at her expense.
Certainly, Mark had taken great pleasure in torturing her throughout their childhood and teen years.
She also knew her big brother would feel it his obligation to thoroughly interrogate Ryder and no doubt already had. What was Ryder telling him?
Or worse, what was Mark telling Ryder?
She shot them a worried glance.
Both men looked relaxed, deep in conversation, and to be enjoying the moment. Mark threw his head back with laughter at something Ryder said.
Interesting. Mark and Paul had gotten along okay enough when Mark had flown into Seattle and they’d all gone to dinner. But she couldn’t recall them ever sharing any laugh-out-loud moments. She’d always thought they mostly tolerated each other for her sake.
“Reva’s not the only lucky woman here tonight.”
Surprised at the comment, McKenzie glanced toward Callie.
Yes, she was lucky Ryder had agreed to this pretense. She almost felt guilty that he had and was being subjected to her family’s questioning, guilty that she was using him to stave off pity and perhaps to curb her jealousy at her cousin’s good fortune.
Ugh. She hated that seeing Reva had brought a jealousy to surface that she’d not acknowledged she’d had.
“Is he as good in bed as he is to look at?”
McKenzie’s gaze went back to Callie. Her high school friend watched Ryder with hungry eyes, probably the way McKenzie had been looking at him that morning when he’d stepped back into her room after his shower.
Yeah, that just-showered look that morning had been outright sexy.
Very sexy.
As had their kiss in Aunt Jane’s front yard. Why had she felt the need to lay that one on him? For show in front of her cousin and the other women to say, hey, Reva’s not the only lucky one? If so, how petty of her. But maybe Ryder had been right in thinking the champagne had played a role. Had it given her just enough gumption to kiss him that way, not for show, but because she’d wanted to kiss him and doing so in front of her cousin and the bridesmaids had given her the perfect excuse?
McKenzie swallowed, then, remembering Callie waited for an answer, shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “We’ve only been seeing each other a few weeks.”
Callie’s perfectly drawn-on brow lifted. “Girl, what are you waiting on? I saw that kiss earlier. Hot. Hot. Hot. If that man was within my hands’ reach, I’d know everything about that body of his and he’d definitely know every inch of mine.”
Um, yeah, that put a few images in McKenzie’s head. Images of exploring Ryder’s body, of his exploring hers.
Images that should not be in her head.
Because he was a pretend boyfriend, not a real one. Only more and more she hated the pretense, wished Ryder really wanted her, that everything about this weekend was real.
“Leave her alone,” Reva ordered, leaning over toward them from where she sat on the other side of Callie. “McKenzie’s just getting out of a long relationship. It makes sense that she’d be hesitant to move too quickly even with a man as wonderful seeming as Ryder.”
Reva’s quick defense shot guilt through her. Reva had always dragged McKenzie along to all the popular places, had always defended her to anyone who said the slightest negative thing. Her cousin was a much better person than she was and deserved to be happy.
And so did she.
McKenzie’s gaze shifted back to Ryder. Was there even a chance of their pretense growing into something real?
She’d have to be dead inside not to react to his overabundance of testosterone.
Not to notice how her body came alive when they kissed or even when he smiled at her.
Perhaps that’s why she’d gone for the kiss at Aunt Jane’s, because she’d needed the surge of energy his kiss shot through her.
What would he say if she told him she found him attractive, both physically and as a person?
Callie gestured toward where Ryder sat and gave a wistful sigh. “Like I said, lucky you. That man there is the perfect solution to forgetting every other man who ever walked the face of the planet.”
All three women looked toward Ryder. He must have sensed their gazes on him as he glanced their way, gave McKenzie a slight look of question, then winked.
“Lord help me,” Callie said, fanning her face. “If you decide you don’t want him, send him my way. I’ve not just gotten out of a long relationship and have no reservations about letting him rock my world.”
McKenzie fought the urge to fan her own face. Ryder’s wink did funny things to her insides. Like make them get all warm and squishy.
Warm?
That was like calling a volcanic eruption a lit match.
“I’d mention your brother,” Callie continued, “but we both know that would never work since he’s gone so much. I’d get lonely and end up making us both miserable.”
Had her mother gotten lonely before her father’s death? McKenzie hadn’t really thought about what her parents’ lives were like before her father died. She’d known her mother had gone through numerous relationships. Had she been trying to curb loneliness? Or had Roberta been lonely long before due to the often out-of-town nature of her father’s work?
“Is Ryder going with us after we leave here?” Reva asked. “Lunch was fun, but I hope to get a chance to get to know him while y’all are here and tomorrow is going to be busy.”
“Just a little busy. It’s kind of your big day.” McKenzie smiled at her cousin. “But on Ryder, I honestly haven’t had a chance to ask him about tonight.”
“I feel guilty I monopolized you all day.” Reva’s painted lips pouted a little. “Then again, Ryder gets you all the time and this is the first time I’ve seen you in a couple of years so it’s only right he has to share.”
Point taken. McKenzie would do better on coming home for visits.
Especially now that she knew she could get through a flight without going into full panic attack mode.
“But, seriously, you’ve done your bridesmaid duty. Go eat your dessert with your guy and Mark,” Reva insisted, having caught McKenzie watching the two men talking and laughing together again.
“Sorry.” She glanced toward Reva. “You’re sure?”
Reva nodded. “Absolutely. We’ll catch up when this is over when we’re out on the town.”
“But we can’t stay out too late on the night before your big day,” McKenzie reminded her. She wasn’t tired at all, but knew she’d feel the time difference come morning.
“We won’t. But going out dancing for a couple of hours will be fun. Besides,” the bride assured her, “it’s not like I’ll sleep if I try going to bed early. Not when I’m so wound up.”
Probably not, McKenzie admitted, appreciating Reva’s okay to leave the bridal party table to go to Ryder and Mark.
“Care if I join you two for dessert?”
“You get kicked out of the wedding party already?” Ryder teased, pulling a chair over for her to sit next to him.
“I think they were worried about leaving you two alone too long and agreed I should come see what was so funny.”
Her brother’s eyes twinkled. “I’ve been telling him about that time you ran through the house naked at Christmas.”
“Ah, the infamous naked at Christmas story.” McKenzie scowled at her grinning brother. “I was two.”
“I might have left that detail out,” he admitted, not looking a bit remorseful.
“Ignore ninety-nine percent of what he tells you.” McKenzie turned to Ryder. “Are you okay with going to the Wild Horse Saloon? Reva wants the whole gang together for one night of fun on the town, even if for just a couple of hours.”
Ryder’s eyes lit with surprise, but he nodded. “What’s a trip to Nashville without a visit to a honky-tonk?”
“Do you line dance?”
Ryder shook his head. “Is it a deal breaker if I say no?”
“Not really,” she admitted. Paul had been a lovely dancer, but they’d danced only when attending social events that just happened to have dancing.
“Is Callie still single?” Mark asked. “I noticed her looking this way several times.”
“I think so.” After all, she had been drooling over Ryder. “But it wasn’t you she was looking at.”
Mark’s gaze met hers and he grinned. “That jealousy I hear in your voice? Afraid she’s going to move in on your man?”
“No,” she assured him, her chin lifting in defiance of his claim. “Why would I be jealous?”
Why indeed? Because her brother knew her too well and had called her out on it. Right or wrong, she was jealous at the thought of Callie making advances on Ryder.
Ryder reached out to take her hand. “You know, I’m not interested in anyone but you,” he added, lifting her hand to his lips and pressing a kiss to her fingertips.
Although she knew the gesture was just for show, electricity shot through her as she stared into his eyes.
Electricity and a desire so strong for his words to be real that her knees weakened. Pretend boyfriend Ryder was better than any real boyfriend she’d ever had.
If only he really was her boyfriend and had meant what he’d said.
He didn’t, but she was thankful he was here, that his generosity had given her a peaceful visit home.
She rewarded him with a smile, then, giving in to whatever that volcano-like warmth inside her was, she leaned in, meaning to press a kiss to his mouth.
“McKenzie!”
Pausing mid-pucker, she glanced toward the direction she’d heard her name called from.
Across the room, an elderly man was lying on the floor with several people huddled over him. Jeremy’s uncle Daniel!
McKenzie and Ryder rushed over to where he lay. “What happened?”
“We’re not sure. One minute he was talking and the next he went pale, then collapsed to the floor.”
Jeremy’s uncle and aunt had come over to her soon after they’d arrived and given her a big hug, asking her about her life in Seattle, and saying how proud they were of her and her accomplishments. Now, the sweet man in his early sixties was unconscious.
“He’s breathing, but shallow,” Ryder told her from where they stooped over him.
They loosened his shirt buttons and Ryder bent to listen to his chest.
“His heartbeat is bradycardic.”
“Pulses are faint, thready,” she added, her finger against the unconscious man’s left radial artery.
“Is he okay?” someone asked as McKenzie continued to press her finger against the man’s wrist.
“We’re not sure,” she admitted, propping his feet up onto a nearby chair to increase blood flow to his heart. “Has he ever blacked out before? Any known health problems?”
She was used to dealing with kids but had done multiple adult rotations during her residency. Some things were basic medicine. This was one of them.
“Diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol,” an older woman began spouting out. His wife looked as if she might collapse herself any moment.
“He had a stent placed in his right coronary artery a few years back but has done well since that time. I don’t recall him ever having passed out, not even before his stent.”
Had the stent placed in one of the main arteries supplying his heart with oxygenated blood become blocked again?
“Grab my purse,” she ordered Callie, for the sole reason she was the first person McKenzie made eye contact with when she glanced up. She had a resuscitation mouth guard in her bag that she carried with her at all times.
Just in case.
She motioned for her brother to help Jeremy’s aunt sit down as McKenzie dialed 911. Regardless of why Uncle Daniel had passed out, he needed a full medical workup as his risk factors were high. They needed to get an ambulance on the way STAT.
“Do you have his blood sugar meter with you?”
It was unlikely the man’s sugar had bottomed out since they’d just eaten, but anything was possible.
Ryder had leaned down and was pressing his ear against the man’s chest to listen to his heart sounds.
“I have one in my purse,” someone else said, grabbing her bag and dumping the contents onto a nearby table so she could quickly hand over a clear bag that held a glucometer, a tube of test strips, some lancets and a few disposable gloves.
“Daniel,” she said to the unconscious man just in case he could hear her. “I’m going to check your blood sugar. In just a minute you’re going to feel a stick in your finger.”
With her cell phone held between her shoulder and her ear, McKenzie reported his status to the dispatcher while she slipped on a glove, pulled the protective cover off one of the lancets and poked the tip of the man’s finger. Taking one of the test strips, she pressed the edge to the drop of blood.
Within seconds, the machine flashed with the reading.
“Two hundred and sixty-one.” Much too high, but not the cause of the man’s syncope.
What worried McKenzie the most was his lack of response to her sticking him with the needle. He’d barely made a sound at what should have triggered a pain response.
Her gaze met Ryder’s and she knew he was thinking the same thing.
The dispatcher said he had an ambulance on its way and McKenzie handed her phone to someone else to talk to the man so she could focus on the patient.
“Mr. Carter?” Ryder shook the man, trying to get a response. “Can you hear me? I need you to open your eyes.”
Nothing.
Ryder rubbed his knuckles across the man’s sternum with good force which should have elicited a grimace.
McKenzie wasn’t surprised when it didn’t since he’d failed to react to the lancet.
She placed her finger over his radial pulse again and couldn’t find it.
“Ryder,” she said firmly to get his attention, not wanting to alarm everyone crowding around them, but becoming alarmed herself. She moved her fingers to his carotid, searching for a beat in case she’d just missed it, but knowing she hadn’t.
Reading her mind, Ryder bent his ear to the man’s chest again.
“Mr. Carter?” he repeated, shaking the man vigorously. Nothing.
He checked Daniel’s airway, then muttered a low curse as he pressed his hands over the man’s chest and began doing compressions.
Thankful she’d sent Callie to retrieve her purse, McKenzie grabbed the mouthguard, ripped off the plastic covering and gave two breaths.
Ryder counted out loud and McKenzie gave the two person CPR recommended two breaths to his every fifteen compressions.
In between breaths, she checked for a carotid pulse, for any sign he’d resumed breathing.
Nothing.
She and Ryder worked together, keeping the rapid lifesaving rhythm going in hopes of reminding Daniel’s body of what it should be doing.
After the fourth set of delivered breaths, her own breath caught.
“There’s a pulse! Faint, but it’s there,” she excitedly told Ryder, relief coursing through her entire being.
“Thank God,” someone in the crowd said, reminding McKenzie that they had an audience surrounding them. As she and Ryder had worked, she’d completely forgotten where they were. Everything had faded away except for her and Ryder and their efforts to save the man’s life.
McKenzie was thankful, too, for the pulse, but knew they were far from out of the woods. Ryder continued to do the compressions, and as McKenzie bent to give her two breaths, the man finally took one on his own. She waited to see if he was going to take another, didn’t like how much time passed and went ahead and delivered two more.
“I hear the ambulance sirens,” someone unnecessarily said as the distant wail couldn’t be missed.
Now, that was something McKenzie was also thankful for. Daniel needed medical attention fast as she was almost positive he’d had a myocardial infarction.
They continued to assist the man’s basic vital functions while they waited on the ambulance to arrive. Time seemed to drag but it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two in reality.
As his breathing and pulse were sporadic at best, neither she nor Ryder stopped their cardiopulmonary resuscitation efforts.
Just as the emergency sirens came to a halt outside the building, Daniel opened his eyes.
They were blurred, staring up in dazed confusion. McKenzie wasn’t sure they were registering much, if anything, but, oh, how she rejoiced at seeing the flicker of movement quickly followed by his taking a deep gasp of air on his own trailed by another.
“Oh, honey.” His wife could apparently no longer stay back in her nearby chair and knelt next to him, leaning over, tearful as she continued to talk almost incoherently. “Love you...so scared...please don’t...”
McKenzie could make out only part of her words they were so muffled with tears, and she felt moisture pricking at her own eyes. How much the woman loved her husband, how scared she was, poured from her shaking body.
McKenzie dealt with a lot of sad things in pediatric cardiology but hadn’t dealt with an acute heart attack adult patient since residency. It was unlikely that Ryder had either. He seemed to be taking it all in his stride.
McKenzie stayed crouched next to the man, closely monitoring his vitals. Ryder stood to make room for the emergency medical workers to rush to the patient’s side. He began filling them in with who he and McKenzie were and what had happened while the crew completed a quick assessment of their own.
“Daniel, it’s McKenzie Wilkes. I’m Reva’s cousin and a doctor. We’re at Jeremy and Reva’s wedding rehearsal dinner,” she told him to help ground him to where he was and hopefully help keep him calm. “You passed out and we called for an ambulance. The paramedics are here now. They’re going to take you to the hospital to be checked further to find out why you lost consciousness.”
“I’m okay,” the man mumbled low, garnering everyone’s attention at his whispered words and weak attempt at sitting up. “Just my chest feels heavy. Sharp pain.”
As if to confirm his words his hands went to his chest.
“Don’t try talking,” one of the paramedics advised, covering his mouth with an oxygen mask.
Quickly, they had an intravenous line in, and he was being rolled to the ambulance on a wheeled stretcher.
Jeremy’s aunt and a couple of other family members stayed close to the stretcher, planning to drive to the hospital. McKenzie and Ryder moved along with the stretcher as well, available in the unlikely case they were needed further, but far enough back as to not be in the way.
Most of the guests followed the procession, watching as Daniel was loaded into the ambulance and as it noisily took off with two cars of family members on its tail. Slowly, the guests began returning to inside the rehearsal dinner venue.
Once they were inside, everyone looked around at each other in an anticlimactic way of not knowing what to do next, their over joyous celebrating from earlier having taken a nosedive at Daniel’s scary episode. Did they all just pack up and go to the hospital? Or did they proceed with the rehearsal dinner and afterward plans as if nothing had happened to keep from spoiling Jeremy and Reva’s rehearsal?
Apparently knowing everyone would look to the bride for guidance, Reva took a deep breath.
Pride filled McKenzie as her cousin spoke.
“Anyone who wants to go on to the hospital, please do. No worries about us. As long as Uncle Daniel is okay, we’ll be fine.” She smiled at the crowd. “We’ll finish here, pack up the leftover food and send it back to Aunt Roberta’s house for anyone staying or visiting there to munch on over the weekend. Then, we’ll check on Uncle Daniel before we decide whether or not to cancel the rest of our plans.”
“Not our wedding plans,” Jeremy quickly clarified, shooting his bride-to-be a concerned look. “Regardless of what happens, those plans are noncancelable because I’m marrying you tomorrow.”
He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss there.
A collective sigh resounded across the room, McKenzie’s included. Another ping of jealousy also hit her.
Had Paul ever looked at her that way? She wondered. With such love shining in his eyes?
If so, he hadn’t for some time.
She’d been so caught up with her career that she hadn’t noticed. Or maybe, she hadn’t wanted to notice that Paul was no longer enamored of her.
Nor had she noticed that she hadn’t been head over heels in love with him. She’d cared deeply for him, had been content with the life she’d believed they’d have together, but had she been with Paul to appease her worried family and fallen into habit rather than love?
When she got back to Seattle, she was going to find more balance in her life. Hadn’t she moved to Seattle because she’d loved walking along the pier? Loved feeling the wind in her face and the sea breeze filling her soul? Because she loved just meandering through Pike Place Market people watching and browsing the goods? And always she’d left with a huge bouquet that made her smile each time she saw it in her house? How long since fresh flowers had adorned her kitchen table?
That balance might not include Ryder or any man, but McKenzie planned to make a few changes, including making time to come back to Tennessee at least annually.
Ryder held out his hand toward her, leading her away from where the crowd lingered, discussing what had happened and how calm Reva was about the ordeal.
Glancing toward Ryder, McKenzie’s breath caught as it seemed to have started always doing when he came into view. Truly, he literally took her breath away.
Was it just him and his supersized pheromones that made her so aware of how much a man he was, how much a woman she was?
“Are you okay?”
McKenzie blinked at Ryder. “Yes, thank you,” she told him and meant it. She really was. Better than she’d felt in weeks. “How did it take me so long to notice what a good man you are?”
Probably because he’d avoided her, and his overt masculinity had made her uncomfortable when patient care required they interact.
“Good question and one I often ask myself. Let’s just be glad you finally noticed.”
No doubt his words were for their observers’ benefit, as were his next actions. He leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to her lips.
Which left her confused. Had she purposely not acknowledged her attraction to Ryder due to her relationship with Paul? Because the uncomfortableness she always felt she now knew to be sexual tension.
She’d be lying if she didn’t admit to feeling electrified at where his lips had pressed against hers. And disappointed the kiss hadn’t been more than a swift peck.
Because McKenzie wanted to kiss Ryder. For real.
She wanted to do lots of things with Ryder. For real.