She looked so pretty, too. He liked the brightly patterned clothes she seemed to prefer. Pediatric nurses wore the same cheerful colors and bold patterns because their little patients were attracted to them, but while he’d been accused more than once of being a big kid, he felt fairly certain that her choice of clothing wasn’t what attracted him to her.
He’d be the first to admit that he wasn’t always a good date. He’d been told that more than once, too. He felt guilty for bringing her to a street dance for their first date. He’d wanted to do something special for her, but he’d hated to disappoint the kids, and this was the only way he could figure out how to work everything in. The visit to the nursing home, on the other hand, had been a win from the start because she’d intended to go anyway, and all it meant was that he got to pick her up early and spend extra time with her.
Hannah smiled up at him as he waited while she slid into her seat. The candlelight caught blue eyes that sparkled with mischief. “You should bring the Screaming Wolverines to the nursing home for one of their activity hours. They’d make an excellent backup in case any pacemakers malfunctioned.”
“They would. We could also add them to the code blue team at the hospital. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about keeping the defibrillators charged, either.” He took his own seat across from her. “Thank you for being such a great sport.”
“There’s no need to thank me. I’m having a good time.”
She meant it.
Relief tempered some of the guilt and lifted a weight from his shoulders. They ordered steaks, then talked about the fundraiser he had yet to put any real thought into.
“I have no idea what’s involved in fundraising,” he admitted. “I’ve always avoided anything even remotely related, although I get that it’s necessary. Kind of like having chicken pox when you’re a kid. Don’t hospitals usually hire people for things like that?”
Hannah studied him across the table. “You don’t have time for it, do you? Would you like me to take care of it for you?”
“You’d do that?” He sounded almost as pathetically grateful as he felt. “I don’t want to impose. You have a business to run.”
“Luckily for you, it’s part of my business. If you have to hire someone to organize it for you, it might as well be me.” Her brow puckered in thought. “I’ll donate my fee and write it off as a tax deduction. You’ll have to pay the expenses for the event, though. I’m not in a position to carry those yet, although I hope to be, in a few years.”
“You’re a far better business person than I am,” he said. “If someone hadn’t given me money, I’d still be running a small country practice in Sweetheart.”
“Is that what you’d rather be doing?”
“It was at first. I miss my patients. Most of them have known me since I was a kid and I liked that I was giving back to my community. But I still get to help people, and now I have the money to do even more, so I have no reason to complain,” he said. He tried not to, at least.
“Most people don’t complain about having too much money.”
“Most people don’t have Ryan O’Connell managing it for them.”
That brought out another one of her pretty smiles. The waitress delivered their meals, interrupting the conversation. Hannah toyed with her plate, shifting it around the table.
“About the other night. I should apologize,” she finally said.
Dallas looked up from his steak. “What for?”
“I had way too much to drink.”
“Did you wake up naked with a hangover the size of Montana and a bull’s-eye tattooed on one of your glutes?”
Her lips curved up at the corners. “I don’t think so.”
“Then you didn’t havewaytoo much to drink. Just alittletoo much. Trust me on that. I can show you my tattoo so you can see the difference.”
“You do not have a tattoo of a bull’s-eye on one of your ‘glutes,’” Hannah said. “I’d have noticed.” She blushed as she said it. She was such fun to tease.
“You must not have been paying close enough attention,” he said.
“I paid attention.”
The pink on her cheeks deepened until it matched the hue of her boots, but her gaze connected with his, and gamely, didn’t waver. He nearly dropped his fork when he realized she was flirting with him.
“Excuse me, Dr. Tucker,” a pleasant voice interrupted. “I happened to notice you when I walked in and thought I’d say hello.”
Adriana Gallant. The Energizer Bunny of television tabloid reporters.
Approaching her mid-forties, but able to pass for ten years younger, she wore her dark hair in a smooth knot and sported a neutral suit on a body the camera would love. Dallas’s lungs squeezed together in prayer that she was in Forsyth because she was a huge country death music fan. He muttered “Hi,” before she zeroed in on Hannah.