A hint of pink darkened her cheeks. “That’s all very nice of you to say, but still…you and I couldn’t be more different.”
“Oh.” He smiled crookedly. “So I’m not smart, attractive or competent?”
She gave him a look of censure. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I haven’t moved around at all, I’m close to my mother and sisters and I basically do bone carpentry for a living. In my spare time, I play some soccer. Sure, that’s a different background than yours, but you still haven’t convinced me why you think we’re so unsuited. Unless, of course, it comes back to you being completely uninterested in me.”
“It’s not that exactly—”
Taking encouragement from the murmur, he moved a little closer again. “Or that you find me unattractive.”
“Obviously you’re a good-looking man. But I—”
“So answer this. If I weren’t Meagan’s brother, would you go out with me if I asked?”
“If you weren’t Meagan’s brother, we’d have never met,” she pointed out somewhat brusquely. “Surgeons and housekeepers hardly move in the same circles.”
“If I repaired cars instead of bones and we’d met, say, at the grocery store in the produce aisle, would you go out with me?”
Her mouth twitched with what might have been a reluctant smile. “That’s a lot of ifs.”
He shrugged but didn’t look away from her face.
“Okay, maybe,” she said after a moment. “If all those things were true—which they aren’t—I might consider going out with you. But even then, I doubt it would go anywhere. There are other things that would get in the way.”
He figured they could work on those other things later. At least they had established that she wasn’t entirely indifferent to him. He smiled. “Then let’s pretend and see what happens. If it doesn’t work out, then there’s nothing lost, right?”
“I’ve never been very good at pretending.”
He lifted her chin and brushed a light kiss over the lips he had been wanting to taste for much longer than he’d acknowledged even to himself. The kiss was too fleeting for her to really respond,
but he thought he felt her lips move just a little before he drew away.
Stepping back, he grinned. “I’m going to take that shower now. I have a couple of broken cars to check on this morning.”
“Mitch—”
He thought it best to just keep walking. She didn’t try to detain him again.
Mitch’s rounds at the hospital didn’t take long. He had no surgeries scheduled for that Sunday morning and wasn’t on call, so he just checked on a few patients, consulted with some parents and had a quick meeting with a couple of residents before calling it a day before noon.
“I was just going to grab an early lunch, Mitch. Want to join me?” a friend asked when they met in the hallway.
“Thanks, Dan, but I have plans. Next time, okay?”
“Sure. See you.”
Nodding, Mitch walked on toward the elevators. He liked to keep moving when he was on his way out. Stopping to talk was just asking to be detained for one reason or another.
Connor Hayes, a second-year resident in pediatrics, was already on the elevator when Mitch stepped in. Connor had rotated through the surgery unit when Mitch was a resident and Connor still a med student. They were close to the same age. Connor hadn’t started medical school until he was thirty, unlike Mitch, who’d entered right after college.
“How’s it going, Connor?”
The other man nodded a greeting. “I’m good, thanks. I heard about the fire, Mitch. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Thanks, but I’ve got everything under control. Sort of,” he added with a chuckle. “Still have some shopping to do, but I’ve got enough to get by for a while.”
“Were you able to salvage anything?”