Heart Like Mine (15 page)

“Sorry,” she blurted, then felt her cheeks heat. Good Lord, she'd blushed more in the past week than she had in years.

“No, I am.” He grimaced. “I always forget how—cozy—these booths are. I should have chosen a table, but I figured it'd be easier to talk back here.”

Just then, his girlfriend appeared at the table, smiling widely. “Hey there. I'm Molly. Can I get you a drink?”

Delaney suddenly felt stupid for wasting those precious minutes on mascara and perfume. Molly here was a petite little Italian beauty with gorgeous hair and a killer bod, and Delaney had watched her flirt up customers for years. She and Dr. Mackenzie would make adorable children.

Delaney cleared her throat nervously, kicking herself for doing so. “Could I just have some seltzer? With a lime?”

“Absolutely.”

She saw Molly bite her lip in amusement as she turned to Dr. Mackenzie. What was so funny about seltzer with lime? “And for you, doc?”

Doc?

He tipped his head in consternation, rolling his eyes. “The usual, Mols.”

“Coming right up.” Molly spun and headed back to the kitchen, and Delaney picked up her menu, trying not to look at the man who was clearly already spoken for.

But it was impossible. As he glanced down at his own menu, she took in his dark brown, thick hair and impossibly long eyelashes that she knew hid those gorgeous blue-green eyes. He'd removed his tie, leaving his shirt open at the neck, and an image of her lips on his collarbone made her swallow hard.

He looked up, catching her watching, and she felt heat envelop her cheeks.

Again.

“See anything good?” His eyebrows were up, and she couldn't tell if he meant the double entendre, or if she was just hearing it that way.

“Um, yes.”
God, yes
. “Everything looks good … here.”

She closed her eyes and slid the menu upward to hide her face. She needed to get a grip. It wasn't like she hadn't dated, like, ever. She had proverbial notches on her bedpost. A few, and they were faded, but still.

Sitting here in this booth, in this dimly lit pub, with this drool-worthy man was kicking off all sorts of fantasies she hadn't even known she harbored.

Molly chose that moment to arrive back at the table with their drinks—Delaney's seltzer and some sort of foamy draft beer for him. She flipped open her pad, and after Delaney ordered a salad, she
knew
she saw Molly wink as she turned to get Dr. Mackenzie's order.

“I'll have the special.” He slid his beer over. “Delaney? Don't you want something besides rabbit food?”

“You know what? Actually, I do. I'll have the special, too. Thank you.”

She saw a triumphant look pass from him to Molly, and now she
knew
they'd been talking about her before she'd come in. She just wished she knew what he'd said.

When Molly headed back to the kitchen, Delaney reached for her notebook. She was getting the strong sense that he was anxious to be free of this dinner—and her—so she might as well get started putting him out of his misery.

However, when she set the notebook on the table and went fishing for a pen, he picked up the little pad and put it down on the seat beside him.

“Later,” he said. “Until I have food, I can't think. And since you've worked at least as many hours as I have today, I imagine you could use an hour of downtime before we tackle this, right?”

“Maybe?” She wasn't sure what to answer. He suddenly didn't sound like a man quite so eager to be free of her.

He picked up his beer and handed her the glass of seltzer. “Shall we toast?”

She laughed uncomfortably. “Depends on whether you still think I'm the enemy.” She peered into her drink. “Did you have your girlfriend spike this, by any chance?”

“My—” He looked confused until she pointed at Molly. “Oh. Molly. No, not my girlfriend.”

“Oh. Sorry. I thought—”

“Just friends,” he said, and was she imagining the firmness in his tone? Was he making really sure she knew? Her stomach commenced its earlier gymnastics at the possibility he really was single.

He sipped his beer. “And no, I am pretty convinced you're not the enemy. Never thought you were. As for the spiking, as far as I know, you haven't given her any reason to take out her Italian temper on you.”

“I hear a
yet
at the end of that sentence.”

He laughed. “She
is
sort of a mama bear in a tiny package. Better be careful.”

“Gotcha. Did you work out some sort of signal before I got here, in case I try to talk about cutting your favorite programs? Like, one blink—add chili pepper to her mostaccioli—two blinks—chili pepper
and
jalapenos?”

“Absolutely.” He laughed softly as he set down his beer and looked at her intently. “So just a request for you. Any chance you could stop calling me Dr. Mackenzie and use my first name? I'm pretty sure you know what it is by now.”

Delaney cringed. “I'm not sure I can.”

“Because?” He drew his eyebrows together.

“Because the voice of my father—who is very much alive, I should clarify—will haunt me. He beat a lot of things into my head over the years, and one of them was
thou shalt always address doctors with their appropriate title
.”

“I'm going to take a wild stab here and guess that he's a doctor?”

“Surgeon, actually.” She nodded. “Cardiothoracic.”

He raised his eyebrows. “I'm impressed.”

“That's a pretty standard reaction.” She tried to quell the feeling that always rose when people got unduly impressed with his position, but had never met the man.

“One that's gotten old over the years?”

“Little bit, yeah.” She tipped her head, feeling guilty. “But he deserves it. He's worked hard for a long time to get where he is.”

“That's quite a pair of shoes to fill.” He shrugged. “Unless he's one of those dads who'd be happy with whatever career choice you made, of course.”

“He's not. Doctor or bust.”

“Ouch. But you're in medicine, at least.”

“Not the same, unfortunately. I don't get any fancy initials after
my
name.”

Dr. Mackenzie tipped his head. “MBA doesn't count?”

“They're not the
right
initials.”

“Ah, I see.” He took a sip of his beer. “Finance is a perfectly respectable field. I mean, it's no secret between us that it's my least favorite department at Mercy, but it's—necessary.”

She rolled her eyes. “Thank you.”

He laughed. “Sorry. So did dear old dad have med-school dreams for you?”

Delaney nodded. “Despite the fact that I fainted on frog dissection day in tenth grade, yes.”

“You didn't.”

“Oh, I did.” She lifted her hair and pointed at her right temple. “I still have the scar from where I hit the lab table on the way down.”

He leaned closer, then reached out his index finger to trace the scar. She swallowed hard at his touch.

“Ouch,” he said. “You must have gone down hard.”

He brushed her hair back down over the scar, and maybe it was her imagination, but he didn't seem to want to pull his hand back.

“Ten stitches. That should have been my first sign that med school would be a disaster.”

“Wait. Did you actually
go
to med school?”

“Did.”

He drew his eyebrows together. “Did you
want
to go? Or did you have to?”

“A little bit of both, probably, but I really did want to be a doctor.”

“Wow.” He raised his eyebrows as he drank another swallow of his beer. “What happened?”

She took a deep breath, still feeling the choke of failure every time she pictured herself throwing up in the ladies' room outside the dissection suite. “I dropped out during hands.”

He set down his beer, studying her, but instead of making her feel uncomfortable, it made her feel—warm. Then he reached across the table and touched her fingers with his—just a light stroke, not even a squeeze—before he pulled back.

“Hands were the worst for me, too.”

“Really?”

“Totally. And I didn't expect it. That was the hardest part.”

“Exactly.” She sipped her seltzer, grateful for his understanding.

“So that was it for you? You never went back after that?”

Delaney shook her head. “I just—couldn't. Straw, camel's back, you know. Other—stuff—had happened, too.” Like two weeks before that, when she'd seen the bulletin board in the oncology suite's break room, full of pictures of children who were no longer here, and had run out of the building in tears.

“And yet after all of that, you still chose to work in a hospital?”

She nodded. “In the executive wing, as you've pointed out on more than one occasion. We deal with numbers up there, not humans.”

Molly appeared with their salads, sliding them onto the table and setting down silverware. “Enjoy! Dinners will be out in a few minutes.”

Delaney tossed her salad with her fork, dying to dig in, but not wanting to appear half-starved. “Does anyone call you Joshua?”

“Um, my mother used to when I was in trouble. Millie does sometimes when she's perturbed at me. Why?”

“Because I've been thinking of you as Dr. Mackenzie all week, and you just asked me to call you Josh, and … I'm sorry. It's just—you seem like more of a Joshua to me.”

“Huh. I don't know what to say to that.”

“I'm sorry.” She waved her fork. “Just struck me. I'll try to call you Josh.”

“I answer to either, but if I twitch first, it's because I think I'm in trouble.” He winked. “However, I think it'll sound much better coming from you than it does from Millie.”

Delaney felt her cheeks heat up at his words. Was he flirting? Sort of? It'd been so long since she'd played the dating game that she couldn't even tell anymore.

Not that this was a date. Of course it wasn't.

But in the garlic-scented air, in a booth small enough that they kept bumping knees, just close enough that she could tell he'd jumped in the shower before coming here to meet her, it was hard not to imagine what it might be like if this
was
a date.

And despite the professional ethics that should have had her running the other way, all she wanted to do was stay.

 

Chapter 13

Joshua pointed to her salad. “You have to be starving. Eat.”

She picked up her fork, grateful for the distraction, and they both dug in like they hadn't eaten all day. Delaney expected the silence to stretch long and uncomfortable between them, but it didn't. The pub was filling up with its second round of diners—those coming out of the early show at the movie theater next door, or getting off a second shift somewhere else in town. Pans clattered in the kitchen, the hum of voices was low and animated, and the smell of garlic was going to stick deliciously to her hair until she washed it in the morning.

“So, what brought you to Echo Lake?” He set his fork down and slid his salad plate to the end of the table.

“My parents, actually. When Dad took the job at Mercy—”

“Wait.” Joshua put up a hand. “Your dad is
the
Dr. Blair?”

“Yes.” She took a breath. “And he would love the way you emphasized the word
the
in that description.”

“Holy—wow. I had no idea.”

“Does that give me points in the positive direction? Or negative?”

“Neither. I don't know him personally. He doesn't do pediatric surgeries, that I know of. I just know him by reputation.”

“Which is?” Delaney braced herself. Her dad was one of the most skilled surgeons in his field—consulting at Mass General, Cleveland, and Johns Hopkins—but his abrasive, condescending manner had never enamored him to his staff or colleagues.

Joshua paused. “That's not really fair to ask, since he's your father.”

“It's okay. I know him pretty well. And I know his reputation. He's not the easiest person to work with.”

“He's a brilliant surgeon.”

“That is true.”

Joshua smiled. “Should we go with that, then?”

She smiled. “Sure.”

“Wow.” He sat back. “I can't imagine the pressure of growing up as
that
Dr. Blair's daughter.”

“I know. Poor me. I lived in a huge house, went to private school, got a car for my birthday, and had med school fully paid for. It was tough, let me tell you.”

He laughed. “Sounds awful.”

“Worst part was the housekeeper and nanny. Oh, and the Olympic-sized pool. I mean, who survives these things, right?”

“I'm so sorry. I had no idea.” He put his hand on hers in mock sympathy, and before she could stop herself, she squeezed his fingers. He smiled. “Should we talk about something else?”

“Please. Yes. Let's. I can hardly bear it.” She rolled her eyes, but didn't pull her hand away. He didn't either—not for a few seconds, when he seemed to realize it was still touching hers.

Molly chose that moment to deliver their dinners—the chicken and mostaccioli special for both of them—and clear their salad plates. Delaney saw her eyes freeze on their entwined fingers, and then go wide.

“Everything good?” she asked.

Joshua looked up, pulling his hand back. “Everything's great.”

“You need any coffee?” Her eyebrows went up, and a tiny alarm rang in Delaney's stomach. It was kind of odd to order coffee mid-meal, wasn't it?

“Nope. Don't need coffee yet, thanks.”

“You're sure?”

He nodded. “Delaney? Coffee?”

Molly turned to her, and Delaney could tell she was straining to do the waitress-smile thing. “Coffee?”