LITMIR.BIZ

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she was, Carrie was as off-limits romantically as a top secret military intelligence project.

      And with that thought fueling him, he opened the Royal Diner door and prepared to run a little creative interference.

      Nathan Beldon really was quite attractive, in a reserved, sophisticated sort of way, Carrie decided as she settled in across the booth from him.

      “You sure this is all right?” the good doctor asked with a smile that was apologetic and attentive and…interested, she realized with pleased surprise. Interested in a way that Ry had never been.

      She pushed thoughts of Ry from her mind and smiled back.

      “This is fine,” she assured him. And it was more than fine that he actually looked a little shy…uncertain, even.

      Imagine. A man who looked like him, as imposing and as self-confident as him, feeling uncertain of her. Why, it just set her little Southern heart all aflutter.

      She smiled at herself and her silliness all the while covertly assessing her impromptu dinner partner. She’d been leaving her volunteer shift at the hospital when she’d run into him in the parking lot, introduced herself and asked him if he’d like to join her for dinner.

      She’d been pretty proud of herself. She’d been cool, confident, not overly friendly…and he’d very graciously accepted her offer. Eagerly accepted her offer, even.

      And now here they were. She shot a covert glance at him over the top of her menu. Nathan Beldon wasn’t what you’d call blatantly handsome—not like Travis or Ryan with their in-your-face, drop-dead-gorgeous good looks. His was more of a classic, polished appeal. His brown eyes weren’t flirty and warm like theirs; his were far more serious. Not that that was a bad thing, just different from what she was used to.

      He was also very tall. Ryan was tall—an even six feet—but Nathan was perhaps a couple of inches taller. She liked that, she decided. At five-nine, she liked to sometimes feel a little delicate, liked to look up into a pair of interested eyes. And Nathan’s dark eyes were definitely showing some interest.

      He wasn’t built like Ry, either. While Ry was all muscle and sinew and athletic grace, Nathan Beldon was on the slim side and moved with a refined elegance that made her wonder what it would be like to dance with him. Could she be Ginger to his Fred?

      Could it be she’d been watching too many old, classic movies? Again she grinned at herself and all these sappy romantic notions.

      “Next time,” Nathan said, his cultured voice so softly hopeful it dragged her away from her musings, “we’ll go to Claire’s…or am I assuming too much?”

      She smiled, pleased. “No…you’re not assuming too much at all. I’d…like that very much.”

      She also very much liked the way his perfectly styled hair—so dark brown it was almost black—completed the tall dark and handsome look, even if his hair was a little finer, a little thinner than Ry’s, which was a thick, lush sable and always looked as if he’d just run his hands through it in frustration.

      “As a matter of fact,” she added, catching and hating herself for comparing Nathan to Ryan for about the hundredth time since she’d run into Nathan at the hospital earlier, “Claire’s is one of my favorite spots.”

      Royal’s quaint and classy French restaurant was noted for its romantic ambiance and excellent wines. An invitation to Claire’s came with a wealth of implied possibilities.

      “Then we definitely have something else to look forward to,” Nathan said with another one of those smiles that promised more than a casual cup of coffee after a romantic evening.

      “Yes,” she said, determined to focus on him and the attention he was giving her and banish Ryan from her mind, “we definitely do.”

      “Hey, folks.”

      Carrie smiled up at Sheila who appeared with a carafe of coffee and her order pad. “Hey, Sheila.”

      “What would you like?” Nathan asked without acknowledging the waitress.

      Sheila was one of Carrie’s favorite people in the whole world. The bubble-gum-blowing, forty-something waitress was blousy and blatantly sexual in her too-tight uniform and bold makeup. She was also forthright and funny and her cat-and-mouse come-ons to Manny, who flirted and teased with everyone but who, Carrie suspected, secretly had it bad for Sheila, cracked her up.

      “Have you met Sheila?” Carrie interjected, deciding Nathan hadn’t actually meant to be impolite, but instead was simply feeling the weight of “new person in town” syndrome and still felt a little uncomfortable with the locals. “She’s an institution at the Royal Diner.”

      “Sweetie, I’m an institution in Texas,” Sheila informed her with her best Mae West moue. “How you doin’, Doc?” she added as Nathan slowly lifted his gaze from the menu.

      “A…pleasure, I’m sure,” he managed, looking uncomfortable even as he forced a smile that Carrie strongly suspected was for her benefit.

      Determined to be generous and assume his actions were shy, not snobbish, Carrie folded her menu and smiled up at Sheila. “I’ll have the soup. And a small salad.”

      “Ranch on the side, right?”

      “You got it.”

      “And for you, Doc?” Sheila asked.

      His shoulders stiffened slightly then relaxed. As Carrie watched, wondering if perhaps he was a little snobbish after all, he folded his menu, looked at Sheila and manufactured a smile. “I’ll try the sirloin. Medium rare.”

      “Comes with a baked spud and a side of ’slaw.”

      “Fine,” he said and, dismissing her, redirected his gaze at Carrie.

      She’d just decided she’d imagined Nathan’s discomfort when the last voice in the entire free world that she wanted to hear boomed into the confined space she’d carved out for her and Nathan.

      “Fine with me, too, sweet cheeks. I’ll have what he’s having.”

      Carrie froze at the sound of Ryan Evan’s voice.

      With a barely suppressed groan, she looked up to see him standing there—all-American good looks, all-Texas brass, all rough-hewn charisma geared up to charm the socks off the world in general and Sheila in particular.

      His cheeks were ruddy from the chill of the wind and the cool February night. His shearling coat was open at his throat, his hat tugged low over his brow, beneath which his brown eyes danced with intelligence and a blatantly flirtatious sparkle. Every woman with a beating heart had to have felt it stall, then catch at the mouthwatering picture he made standing there…pure animal magnetism, rough-and-tumble cowboy grace.

      “Hello, you handsome devil,” Sheila cooed.

      “You made up your mind to marry me yet?” Ry teased with a grin as he dropped a kiss on Sheila’s cheek.

      “Darlin’,” Sheila drawled, “if I thought you could keep up with me, we’d negotiate, but I’m a realist, not a dreamer…unlike you, who can only dream of what you’re missing out on.”

      “What a woman.” Ry chuckled as Sheila walked away with their orders and, despite Carrie’s death grip on the tabletop and her obvious intention to stay firmly put on the outside edge of the booth seat, he nudged her aside and squeezed onto the bench beside her.

      He smelled of the chilly evening and of leather and everything familiar yet illusive, and she hated him in that moment almost as much as she’d always loved him for his unconscious ability to send her into awareness overload.

      He turned his gaze first to Nathan, who, Carrie noticed from the corner of her eye, appeared to be sliding toward a slow boil over Ry’s unwelcome intrusion.

      “Well, now,” Ryan said, all aw-shucks grin and innocent eyes as he turned

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