“The only way to find out is to show up. Sundays are good, so how about three o’clock tomorrow afternoon?” He didn’t want her to come up with a reason why tomorrow wouldn’t work—like her date with Levi, for example—so he rushed on as if she’d agreed and the matter were settled. “I’ll drive Jack home for you. He only lives a few miles from the ranch so it’s not as if it’s out of my way.”
He glanced toward Jack, looking for him to back him up by accepting the offer, only to find the other man had fallen asleep on his stool while they were talking, endangering his new hip.
“For the love of—” Dallas muttered a curse word under his breath and reluctantly edged away from the bar, afraid Jack might tumble off the stool and undo the surgeon’s hard work. “Pardon me. I’ve got to go protect an insurance company’s investment. Ask for Marsh at the nursing station,” he tossed over his shoulder.
Hannah, however, trailed right along behind him.
“I don’t think—” she began, still sounding doubtful, but Dallas cut her off before she could protest either his driving Jack home or her visiting Marsh. Maybe both.
“It’s not a problem at all,” he cheerily assured her, getting his shoulder under Jack’s arm and levering him to his feet. “I’m happy to do it.”
He hustled the older man outside and boosted him into the Jeep, which he’d parked a few spaces down from the Grand Master Brewery. Hannah didn’t follow.
The neighborhood was quiet and dark, its streets almost empty. Clouds slithered around in the night sky, randomly obliterating stars. Jack slumped in the seat as Dallas made an illegal, three-point turn to get back onto Yellowstone Drive. Luckily, traffic was light because his mind was on Hannah more so than his driving.
Every vivid detail of their first meeting danced through his head.
Patterson’s mother had hosted a meet-and-greet for the bridal party at the Bar-No Sweetheart Ranch. When Dallas walked through the Campbells’ front door, he’d immediately zeroed in on the taller, more gorgeous, blue-eyed version of Jessica Alba stationed next to the buffet. Process of elimination pegged her as one of the bridesmaids, and since he knew everyone else, her identity wasn’t hard to figure out, especially since she was engaged in a friendly argument with her brother Blaise.
The three Brand sisters were all lookers. Claire, the eldest, was a cool beauty with an intelligence that made most men feel too stupid to live. How a cowboy like Ben Nichols ended up with her, Dallas had yet to figure out.
The youngest sister, Alayna, was generally considered the prettiest. She had a country-girl innocence to her that brought out a man’s protective instincts. He had no trouble at all seeing her with Patterson Campbell. They’d take care of each other for the rest of their lives.
But Hannah, the middle sister…
While equally pretty, at first glance, there didn’t appear to be much to set her apart. As a man moved into her orbit, however, her presence became more magnetic. In kindergarten, she would have been the little girl all the other kids wanted to sit next to. As an adult, men and women alike drifted gradually toward her. She gave off the same aura of sweetness as Alayna, but without all the shyness, and the intelligence in her eyes was similar to Claire’s, but with none of the coolness. Everything about her screamedlet’s be friends.
He hadn’t approached her right away. Instead, he played it cool, stopping to chat with Patterson’s parents, and waited for Blaise to shove off before finally sauntering over.
He made her laugh. He forgot how. He did remember her laughter as it rose from her belly and slid into her eyes, where it ignited a sparkle that lit up the room. He must have started breathing again at some point, because he didn’t pass out. Thank God for the autonomic nervous system. He’d never been one to pass up an opportunity, so he dug out his phone, opened his playlist, and selected a song. Then he took her by the hand and spun her into the middle of the room. She turned out to be a good sport, and between them, they soon had everyone else up and dancing, too.
After that, they’d both been busy with their respective roles as bridesmaid and groomsman, but the few times they’d gotten together in the days leading up to the wedding, she acted as if she enjoyed his company every bit as much as he enjoyed hers. He’d been clear about his interest in her, too. She’d been somewhat less so, but still, coaxing her away from the reception so they could go somewhere private had proven easy.
Too easy, in retrospect, maybe. What had gone wrong?
“Hannah’s pretty,” Jack, half asleep beside him, mumbled under his breath.
“She is,” Dallas agreed. The Jeep had picked up a rock in one of its treads and it clicked on the pavement.
“She don’t seem to like you a whole lot.”
He couldn’t argue with that either, although there was more to it than simple dislike on her part. Nothing about what had happened between them made any sense. He could have sworn she wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of woman—he’d banked on it, in fact—and yet, it turned out that was all she’d expected or wanted. Didn’t that make him the one who’d been wronged?
Jack opened one bleary eye. “How come she don’t like you? You’re young, good-looking, and rich. Decent doctor, too. Your bedside manner ain’t half bad. Callie”—that was Jack’s daughter—“speaks highly of you.” Callie worked as a part-time, certified nurse assistant at the hospital. Dallas planned to hire her away for his clinic.
“Maybe the problem’s with Hannah, not me.”
Jack laughed. “Seriously, Doc. What did you do?”
“Darned if I know,” Dallas said.