“It’s Saturday. You don’t normally work on Saturdays, do you?”
“Not every Saturday. Sometimes I come over for a couple of hours when the family needs help with something.”
“You probably wouldn’t be staying here this weekend with Alice gone if you didn’t feel you have to cook for me.”
“Not just that,” she corrected him. “The new carpet is being installed in my apartment Monday. I could stay there if I had nowhere else to go, I suppose, but it’s easier for all involved for me to stay out of the way.”
“You don’t really want to wash windows today, do you?”
She eyed him suspiciously. “You have something else in mind for me to do?”
Resisting all the inappropriate responses that popped into his head, he gave her what he hoped was a winning and totally innocuous smile. “Actually, I do. How would you like to help me look for a place to live?”
Her brows rose. Maybe he hadn’t phrased that very well. “I need to spend today looking at apartments and houses,” he explained. “I have a list of several possibilities and I’ve made arrangements to see them, but it’s really not something I want to do alone.”
Jacqui frowned a little. “Why would you want me to go with you?”
“If I go alone, I’m going to get bored and overwhelmed and I’ll either just pick one to get it over with—which could be a big mistake—or I’ll get distracted by something else and I’ll end the day no closer to having a new place than I am now. It’s pretty much what I did last time I had to find a place. I just grabbed the first available rental. Fortunately, that worked out pretty well—until the ditz burned it down,” he added in a grumble.
“Why would you get bored looking for a place to live?” she asked in apparent bewilderment.
He shrugged. “Lack of interest to start with, I guess. I mean, it’s not like I’m home all that much, wherever I stash my stuff. I’m either at the hospital or some professional function or at my mom’s or hanging out with friends when I get the chance. I know I need to find someplace quick. Seth and Meagan don’t want a permanent houseguest. My aunts are leaving today, so I could stay with Mom for a while, but that doesn’t seem right, either. Work’s going to be hectic for the next few weeks while I try to clear my calendar for my trip to Peru, so I should take advantage of this free weekend to make living arrangements.”
“But why would you want me to go along?”
“As I said, I’d like the company. Objective opinions. Madison was going with me, but she called very early this morning and had to cancel because something came up. You always seem so practical and logical about things. I would value your input. I’m sure looking at apartments and houses is hardly your idea of a good time, but I’d buy you a very nice lunch to make it worth your while,” he added hopefully.
If it bothered her that she hadn’t been the first person he’d asked to accompany him, she gave no sign. He wondered if that actually made it easier for her to accept—making the whole suggestion less personal. More impulsive. It was hard to guess the thoughts that flashed through her mind before she finally replied. “It does sound more interesting than washing windows.”
He chuckled. “Thank you for that, anyway.”
“If I go, I should warn you that I tend to say what I think. I tell my friends not to ask my opinion about anything unless they really want the truth about what I’m thinking.”
“That’s exactly what I want you to do,” he assured her, taking encouragement from the warning rather than the opposite. “You wouldn’t let me sign anything just to get the whole process over with more quickly, would you?”
She shook her head in what might have been exasperation. “Honestly, you’d think a competent surgeon would take important decisions like this more seriously.”
He grinned sheepishly. “I do take work decisions seriously. It’s other stuff I have trouble concentrating on. Especially something I don’t really want to do. It wasn’t my choice, you know? I feel like I’m having to do something because of the ditz’s stupidity, not because it was something I decided on my own to do right now.”
She studied his face for a few moments in silence and he wondered what she saw there that seemed to intrigue her. “Do you feel like a lot of your decisions are made for you?” she asked after that pause.
Caught off guard by the question, he answered without
stopping to think. “For almost all of my life.”
Then, because that sounded whiney and ungrateful—neither of which suited him—he chuckled lightly and said, “But isn’t that the way it is for just about everyone?”
She merely shrugged, then asked, “What time do you want to leave?”
He glanced at his watch. “Whenever you’re ready.”
She stood to carry her empty bowl to the sink. “I assume this is a casual-dress outing, so all I have to do is grab my bag.”
Her yellow-and-white knit top and jeans looked fine to him. Very fine, he added mentally, surreptitiously admiring the way the jeans hugged her slender bottom. He lifted his gaze quickly before she turned back toward him, not wanting her to catch him checking out her backside.
“I’m ready, too,” he said, rising with his own empty breakfast dishes. “I’ll get the list and meet you at the door.”
“Fine.”