LITMIR.BIZ

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I was skinny and scrawny and kind of a geek.”

      “You were not,” she said, taking another fry, eyeing his burger with a look of longing. She had barely touched her salad, but she’d already eaten half his fries.

      “I’m serious. I was a total nerd. Remind me and I’ll dig out some old pictures.” He slid his plate closer. “Take a bite.”

      She blinked. “Of what?”

      “My burger. You haven’t taken your eyes off of it, and I think I see a little drool in the corner of your mouth.”

      She hesitated, looking a little embarrassed, but her stomach won the battle. “Well, maybe a little bite...”

      There was nothing little about the bite she took.

      “I didn’t start to really fill out until my third year of college,” he said. “When I started weight training.”

      “So you were what, like, twenty-one?”

      “Eighteen. I graduated high school when I was fifteen.”

      “Wow, you really were a geek. But your dad must have been happy about that.”

      “My dad was never happy about anything. He was a tyrant. Thankfully I saw more of the nanny and the house staff than him.”

      “I went through sort of the same thing when I was a kid. Although not the tyrant part. Everyone assumed I would work on the ranch after high school, but I wanted to be a nurse. I knew from the time I got my first play doctor kit as a kid that I wanted to work in medicine. I wanted to help people.”

      “Did you ever tell your family that?”

      “Probably a million times, but I was more or less invisible. No one ever listened to what I had to say. Hell, they still don’t. If it isn’t ranch business, or my various nieces’ and nephews’ academic accomplishments, they don’t discuss it. So I worked my butt off in school and got a scholarship to a college far away from home and haven’t looked back since. My parents were not very happy with me.”

      In what universe did that make even a lick of sense? “Aren’t most parents proud when their kids go to college?”

      “Like I said, they’re very traditional. Nothing was more important to them than their children ‘paying their debt to the family,’” she said, making air quotes with her fingers. “Whatever the hell that meant. I didn’t ask to be born. I never felt as if I owed my family anything.”

      It amazed him that despite their very different upbringings, their childhoods weren’t really all that different. “I felt the same way about my father. He had my entire life planned out before I was out of diapers. With no regard whatsoever to what I might want. But that was just who he was. People were terrified of him and he used that to manipulate. No one dared deny him anything.”

      “Stubborn as I am, my parents’ archaic thinking probably only pushed me further from the fold. The thought of staying on the farm and working with my family for the rest of my life gives me hives. And they have no respect for what I do. To this day I still hear snide remarks about going into medicine just to snag—” She stopped abruptly, but it was already too late. He knew exactly what she’d been about to say.

      “A wealthy doctor?” he said.

      Her cheeks flushed a deep red and she lowered her eyes to her salad, her juicy bottom lip wedged adorably between her perfect teeth. He’d never seen her blush, but damn, she sure was pretty when she did. But then, she always looked good to him. And suddenly her attitude toward him made a whole lot more sense.

      “I didn’t mean to tell you that,” she said, looking mortified.

      “At least now I know why you spend so much time pretending you don’t like me.”

      She lifted her chin, getting all indignant on him. “Who says I was pretending?”

      He laughed. “Sweetheart, I’ve dated a lot of women. I know the signals.”

      She opened her mouth to argue—because she always argued when he was trying to make a point—then must have had a change of heart and closed it again. “Okay, yes, that is part of the reason I can’t see you. But there are other factors, as well, things I’m not comfortable getting into right now.”

      “So you do like me,” he said.

      “I respect you as a physician and peer, and you seem like a good person. I could even see us eventually becoming friends, but it can never be more than that.”

       Four

      “Do you want to be friends?” Parker asked her.

      She wanted that and so much more, and it wasn’t fair that she couldn’t have it. But she of all people knew that life was not often fair. She also realized that neither of them had said a word about Janey. Not that it surprised her. It was all just a ruse to get her alone. And she’d fallen for it. Willingly. She looked at her phone to check the time. “It’s late. I should go home. I want to get up early tomorrow and go jogging.”

      Her very obvious brush-off didn’t seem to faze him. “You don’t strike me as the jogging type.”

      “I like it. There’s a cute little park behind my house.”

      “Are you one of those die-hard joggers who’s on the road before the sun’s up?”

      “God, no. If I’m on the track at seven thirty it’s a good day.”

      He just grinned and said, “Could you be more intriguing?”

      She didn’t even know how to respond to that. She led a pretty unexciting life. What did he see that was so special? So interesting? If he was just looking to get laid, he was seriously overplaying his hand.

      Parker motioned Emily for the check, and refused to let Clare pay her portion.

      “You can buy next time,” he said, but she didn’t think there was going to be a next time. It was stupid to think that she could ever be friends with Parker without wanting more. So. Much. More. So she figured, why tempt herself? Out of sight, out of mind. Wasn’t that the way it was supposed to work?

      “Where to?” he asked when they got into the car. He blasted the heat and switched the seat warmers on.

      “We’re just outside of town. Turn left.” Thankfully this time he followed her directions.

      “Didn’t that area get hit pretty hard by the tornado?” he asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.

      “Our house was leveled,” she said, realizing that she could look at his mouth all she wanted now; he was focused on the road.

      “Tell me you and your aunt weren’t in the house,” he said.

      “My aunt was away on a trip and I was at the hospital.”

      “Were you able to salvage anything?”

      “We lost everything. Clothes, furniture, keepsakes. My aunt travels extensively and she had things from all over the world. Things she’d been collecting for decades. By the time it was over, they were scattered all over the city. Wet and broken. My aunt’s file cabinet, with the papers still in it, was found over a mile away. The tornado picked her car up and launched it through the house across the street. It was utter devastation.”

      “I can’t even imagine,” he said. “I’ve seen some major hurricane damage on the East Coast, but nothing that bad. And you saw it? The tornado, I mean.”

      She nodded. “It was surreal at first. I kept thinking that it couldn’t happen to Royal, that at the last second it would change course or blow itself out, then the debris started to hit things. Windows started breaking and cars in the hospital lot were getting pummeled with softball-sized hail and we knew we were going to be right in the middle

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