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“It got worse,” Wayne went on. “She brought one idiot home from college her first Christmas break. He was into conspiracy theories. Thought Kennedy had been shot by some baseball player.”
“He was a philosophy major. He enjoyed theoretical problems. Anyway, I was sure I could change some of his radical ideas. He was really nice, if you’d only given him a chance. It was wicked of you to make fun of his ideas.”
“He was a jerk.”
“Daddy! He had great potential. Anyway, Eric knows all about me, and he doesn’t want to hear your prejudiced opinions about a boy you scared away.”
“What is that nut doing now?” her father asked, never one to give up on a subject until he’d fully vented.
“I wouldn’t know.”
This was her year to lie, which made her feel anything but good. There was no way, though, that she was going to tell her father that an old boyfriend had lost everything when his dotcom company went under and was now part owner of a mall taco stand, something she’d accidentally discovered.
“How about you, Eric?” Wayne said. “Have you been married?”
He meant, are you really a married man out to seduce my innocent daughter and ruin her life?
“No, I came close once, but it didn’t work out.”
“Happens sometimes.”
He meant that a good prospect like the doc was better off with his daughter. She could read her father like a supermarket tabloid. Would this evening never end?
Eric looked at his watch, a complicated one with lots of extras, great if you wanted to know what time it was in Siberia. Big mistake. Her father had spent his career working with tiny details like commas. He didn’t miss Eric’s sneak peek.
“Are we keeping you from something?” he asked. He was eating his beans two or three at a time, stretching out the interrogation in spite of hovering busboys eager to clear.
“No, not at all, Wayne, but I may have to help with a delivery later tonight. The bitch has had a hard time of it in the past….”
Whoops! Mindy grabbed his thigh under the tablecloth and squeezed, but it was too late.
“You call your patient a…” Wayne sputtered.
“Dad, you must have misunderstood. Eric isn’t a human doctor,” she tried to explain, her face getting hot.
“I’m human, but my patients aren’t,” he said, trying for humor, but striking out with Dad.
“He’s a vet…a veterinarian.” She said it so emphatically people for tables around stopped eating to eavesdrop.
“Hey, there’s a friend of mine.” Eric stood up and gestured wildly to a man and woman just entering the dining room.
As the couple made their way toward them, Mindy tried to gauge how her father was taking the vet news. He was stone-faced, fussily scraping beans away from the side of the pot.
A tall lanky man with a hawkish nose and a broad smile stopped by their table, a short strawberry blonde hanging on his arm.
“Wayne, this is Guy Dillard and Tammy Jamison. Wayne is Mindy’s father,” Eric said. “Guy is one of the first people I met after I moved here. He’s a pharmaceuticals rep.”
The three men did the hand squeezing thing, her father making it a contest.
“Where’ve you been keeping this gorgeous woman?” Guy asked, ignoring his pouting date.
“We’ve both been busy at work,” Eric said, valiantly trying to make it sound as though the couple already knew her. “The four of us will have to get together soon.”
“I’m hungry,” Tammy whined and pulled Guy toward the waiting hostess. They moved on after a quick nice-meeting-you routine. Mindy couldn’t tell what her father was thinking.
“How long have you two been seeing each other?” Wayne asked.
“Quite awhile,” Eric said.
“More than a year,” she could honestly say, thinking back to Peaches’s first appointment.
“I’m pretty sure you never mentioned Eric is a vet,” he doggedly insisted.
“I have my own practice. Specialize in small animals, especially dogs.”
“Good profession,” her father grudgingly admitted. “Now, about tomorrow. I thought the three of us could do some sight-seeing. I’d like to visit some ancient ruins.”
“I don’t think Eric’s free, but I’d love to take you north to Walnut Canyon or Montezuma’s Well,” Mindy said.
To Eric’s credit, he didn’t even blink.
“I’ll have to see how my patient does,” he said. “Well, I have to run and make sure everything’s okay at the clinic. I’ll call you, sweetheart.”
He stood, shook her father’s hand, thanked him for the dinner, and planted a warm, unexpected kiss on the corner of her mouth.
“Your leftovers…” she gasped.
“Take them to your place,” he said, then practically sprinted away.
He did turn and wave before he was out of sight. She couldn’t have asked for a better performance.
3
ERIC GOT IN LINE to claim his vehicle, a process slowed by a platinum blonde with a face as rigid as porcelain from too much plastic surgery. The woman insisted on giving detailed instructions to a red-jacketed kid on how to deliver her Mercedes. A rotund man beside her looked bored and gave a long-suffering sigh.
Eric would prefer to get the SUV himself, but even if he had the key, it was probably blocked by other cars in the tightly packed lot east of the restaurant. Unfortunately, people were leaving in droves, and four or five drivers were ahead of him. If the pair of attendants didn’t hustle, he’d have to say goodbye to Wayne all over again.
He could see why Mindy needed someone to palm off as a boyfriend. Her father had changed from a nice, normal guy to a fascist meddler when the subject of her relationships came up. No wonder she’d escaped to Arizona for college and stayed there. She certainly seemed like a woman who could run her own life.
A lead-footed valet delivered a sky-blue Cadillac, and Eric moved a couple of steps closer to the podium where they kept the keys. He rolled his claim slip and a five-dollar bill for the tip between his palms and remembered his tie.
He could go back for it and lose his turn, but he’d probably never wear it again anyway. He was way over Cassandra and knew he never should have gotten involved with her in the first place. They had met when she hit a dog that ran out into the road. He’d been driving behind her and stopped to help. He had saved the dog, got engaged to the horse fanatic and spent a frustrating six months trying to convince her he didn’t want to give up his practice and be her live-in horse-doctor.
He’d die a grizzled old bachelor before he let another woman try to make him over.
“Eric, glad I caught you!”
He turned to see Mindy hurrying toward him, the tie she’d insisted on retying for him dangling from her fingertips.
“Thanks,” he said with feigned enthusiasm as he accepted it.
“I wanted to thank you. Dad likes you.”
“Good. Where is he?”
“He went out on the back patio for a better look at the view while I get the van. I can never thank you enough. He grudgingly admitted you might be okay even if you are an animal doctor. Coming from him, that’s better than an Emmy, an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize wrapped into one. Well, I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate what you did.”
“My pleasure.”
“Oh, and sorry about your tie.”
“I probably won’t wear it again,” he admitted. “A little too cute for me.”
“No, I mean I’m sorry about straightening it. When I’m nervous…”
“I know. You fuss.”
“Well, I’ll see you again when Peaches needs to see a vet,” she said.
He smiled weakly, determined not to encourage her but hard-pressed not to respond eagerly. She was a patient’s owner, and he didn’t mix business with pleasure, not since that starry night when Cass had overwhelmed him with gratitude for saving her from a guilty conscience. The dog she hit turned out to be a cherished pet, and she hated to be in the wrong even when she was.
“It was a great dinner.” He had to say something since they were trapped together by slow valet service.
“Yes, enough food for a week. Are you sure you don’t want any leftovers? Dad has them.”
“No, no thanks.” He tried, but couldn’t think of any neutral conversation topic.
The big surprise of the evening was hearing about her abysmal record with men. Unless her father was a full-blown liar, she specialized in loonies and losers.
She was attracted to men she could make over, he realized, wishing she wasn’t so darn cute. Besides being dark-haired and adorable, she had perfect palm-size breasts, a slender waist that made him ache to take her in his arms and a butt that would nicely fit his lap.
“When you see him coming, tell me,” he said impulsively. “We should maybe, you know, kiss good-night.”
“He’s coming toward us now, but I don’t know if we should. All these people…”
She didn’t exactly say no, so he went for it anyway. He wrapped one arm around her shoulder and dropped his free hand low on her back, his fingers brushing the delectable little hollow at the end of her spine.
He’d have to be numb from the neck down to pass up the startled O of her mouth. Daddy wanted a man for his daughter? Let him mull over this on the way back to Pittsburgh.
He gave her a hard, noisy kiss that knocked her off balance on the spiky heels she was wearing and forced her to grab his arms to keep from tottering.
“Thank you,” she whispered breathlessly.
“Anytime.”
That was the most stupid thing he’d said since he proposed to Cass. He backed away feeling scorched and silly. Her father wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the robust kiss. He’d provided entertainment for the bored diners waiting for their vehicles and deserved their amused titters.
“Good night, Wayne. Thanks again for the dinner,” he called over to her father as he hurried to the podium where, thankfully, it was his turn.
Tipping the valet double for letting him go to the lot with him, he got in his car and headed home. His next appointment with Peaches was going to be damned awkward after the chemistry of that kiss.
Eric called the Drummonds as soon as he got back to his office and was pleased to hear their border collie had given birth to five healthy pups without the difficulties of her first litter. He wouldn’t have to go out tonight.
It was too early for bed, and he was too restless to catch up on reading his professional journals. He checked the TV listings and decided he didn’t feel like watching some animal nut risk his life for the camera. He was always leery of shows that inspired kids to make friends with the neighborhood rattler.
He could pay the household bills or run a load of laundry, but it would take more than domestic drudgery to get his mind off Mindy. Funny, during her visits to the office with Peaches he’d never noticed the little dimple in her right cheek that showed when she smiled.
He wandered into his bedroom in his second-floor quarters. His mother had decorated the room where he slept as a housewarming gift when he opened the clinic. With a whole furniture store to choose from, she’d picked a bamboo and rattan dresser, night table, and headboard. The curtains looked like mosquito netting and the throw rugs were tawny shag, which reminded his Mom of a lion’s mane. He could live with the jungle decor, but the four sets of leopard and zebra print sheets had long ago lost their miniscule appeal. Cassandra had thought they were hilarious. One of these days he had to buy some restfully plain white ones.
Why did women assume he wanted to drape himself and his surroundings in animal images just because he was a vet? He tossed the doggie tie on the dresser and stripped down to his white cotton briefs. Someday he was going to yank off the border strip with silhouettes of African animals that ran around the tops of the walls. It belonged in a kid’s room, but he wouldn’t hurt his mother’s feelings by telling her that. Both of his parents doted on their only son, much to his discomfort sometimes. It never occurred to them he might want to be on his own, and he cared about them too much to enlighten them.
He flopped down on zebra-print sheets and pillows and flicked on a cable news station. Stocks down, temperatures up, politicians squabbling, nothing there to take his mind off Mindy. He surfed channels and wondered how he could possibly be attracted to another control freak. The woman had retied his tie. If that wasn’t an ominous sign, he didn’t know what was. Even Cass hadn’t tried to redress him, and she had their whole future planned like a paint-by-number picture in a kid’s coloring book.
A basketball game caught his attention, but the Suns were leading by thirty-two points. No excitement there.
The phone rang, and he reached over to the bamboo stand to get it.
“Eric Kincaid,” he said giving his name because patients sometimes called his home phone.
“Dr. Kincaid…Eric…It’s Mindy Ryder. I just wanted to thank you again.”
She sounded a little breathless which gave her voice a sexy quality he found disturbing.
“You don’t need to. I enjoyed…” He hesitated, not sure whether to admit he’d liked being with her. “The dinner.”
Which was, he thought with some consternation, only partly the truth. During the meal he’d caught himself hanging on everything Mindy said as though they were having a real date. He’d even gone out of his way to be congenial to Wayne, although he found her father good company except on the topic of his daughter’s love life.
“Dad’s gone to bed,” she said, “but he won’t take no for an answer about having you come sight-seeing with us. Can you help me out and give me a plausible reason why you can’t go? What do vets do on weekends?”
Good question. He had some tedious paperwork he’d been putting off, and he’d promised to go to a party Saturday evening.
“Tell him,” he began, then couldn’t think of a single reason why he wouldn’t be eager to spend the day with Mindy if she were his girlfriend.
“Tell him I’m not available tomorrow, but I’ll go along Sunday morning if he wants to wait until then.”
“Oh, I’m not trying to rope you into actually going.”
“You’re not roping me. I’m volunteering.”
Why, he didn’t know. Wayne would probably want to know everything about him from how often he brushed his teeth to whether he’d slept with his daughter.
“No wonder Peaches adores you,” Mindy said. “You are so nice.”
“No, I’m not,” he denied truthfully.
Crazy maybe, for having anything at all to do with a woman who liked to reform her men, but he had an ulterior motive. His mom was giving a little dinner party Sunday evening, and he very much wanted a reason not to go. She’d joined the Mesa Civic League to get acquainted in the new city and, typically, thrown herself into their activities. They held a big fund-raiser every December to raise donations for the Maricopa County Animal Friends. It was a good cause. The money was used to get homeless pets ready for adoption. That meant spaying, neutering, grooming, shots, licenses, all the costly essentials. Last year he’d gotten away with making a cash contribution. This year Mom wanted him on the committee, and the dinner was a meeting to finalize what needed to be done.
It was no coincidence that the committee was mostly women, many of them young, single and eager to meet Felicia and Ray Kincaid’s bachelor son.
