“I’m sorry…I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
She hesitated. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, exactly. It’s…”
“What?”
She sighed and glanced his way, doubt and anxiety flashing in those baby-blues. “I let my emotions, hormones, whatever, guide my decisions once. Then spent five years regretting it.” She looked forward, face tense, hands gripping the wheel tightly. “I won’t make the same mistake again.”
He’d let emotions control his decisions a time or two himself so didn’t argue the point. Could be they were more alike than different after all. “Maybe we could start over?”
She missed a gear as she drove through the intersection and had to try again. “What?”
He rubbed his hands on his thighs so he wouldn’t reach for hers. “I think it’s safe to say we’re attracted to each other, and both have…issues to deal with which will no doubt require some time to work through.”
“…Um…agreed.”
“And, unless you take over Doc’s practice, which I hope you’ll consider doing, you’re only here for a couple of weeks.”
She nodded without replying or looking his way.
“How about we see if we can be friends? For Now.” The question surprised the hell out of him. Friendship was the last thing on his mind.
Unless it turned into friends with benefits.
Widened eyes flickered his way. “Friends? You want us to be friends?”
“What? You don’t think we can?”
She waited so long to reply, he wondered if she would.
“I’d really like us to be friends,” she said at last.
Silence surrounded them for the remainder of the short drive to his office. The very normalcy of the action soothed his soul, lightened the burden he carried.
She pulled into his designated spot and killed the engine. “Did you put me to bed last night?”
Her whispered question stopped him in the act of reaching for the door handle. It was rhetorical at best because who else would have? “Jack woke me. I thought something might be wrong. I found you on the porch.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
He turned toward her slightly, arm resting on the console.
Cheeks flushed with color, she nonetheless met his steady gaze.
A man could get lost in those azure depths. “I tried. You were dead to the world. Never even flinched when I picked you up.” You fingered the hair on my chest and nearly sent me over the edge.
She chewed on her lower lip, eyes dipping down. “Is that all?”
Oh shit. The kiss. “I covered you up.” As an afterthought, he nodded toward the dog who dozed in the back. “Jack can vouch for me. He was there.”
One perfectly arched brow lifted, and she shook her head. “My dad is the only other man Jack has anything to do with.”
“Animals, especially dogs, are great at reading people.” He flashed her his best smile. He hoped. “So…friends?”
She hesitated. “Yeah. Friends.”
“So, friends can have dinner together, right?”
Blinking quickly, she stared at him. “You want to have dinner?”
“And a movie. If we can take your car. Can I drive?”
After a slight hesitation, she giggled, and his spirits lifted.
“I’ll have to think about letting you drive Ethel.”
“Ethel? You call your car Ethel?”
She shrugged. “My grandmother’s name.”
“Well, I let you drive mine, so turnabout is fair play.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“How about tomorrow night? It’s Friday and the football game is in McKinney so the town will, hopefully, be quiet. We can have an early dinner, maybe catch a movie at the drive-in.”
“What’s playing?”
“Jaws, I think. Last Friday late show is always old scary movies.”
