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“You’re not going to renege on your promise, are you?”
“I don’t recall making a promise.”
“Then it’s a good thing I do.”
And that’s how they ended up at The Ranch with plates overloaded with quarter-pound burgers and spicy spiral fries. They didn’t talk much while they ate, or not about anything of significance, and when Gage finally pushed his empty plate aside, he noticed that Megan had nearly cleaned hers, too.
“You have an impressive appetite for a skinny little thing,” he noted.
“I like food,” she admitted. “It just never seems to stick.”
“What else do you like?”
She nibbled on a fry. “What do you mean—like books, music, movies?”
“Sure, we can start there.”
She sipped at her cola—the regular kind, not diet. “I’ll read almost anything, though I lean toward nonfiction.”
“Music?” he prompted.
“Blues-rock.”
“Movies?”
“Anything that I don’t have to think too much about. If I’m going to spend twenty bucks, which is what it costs by the time you add a bag of popcorn and a soda to the price of the ticket, I want to enjoy it. No dark war settings or depressing social issues or complicated psychological thrillers.”
“If it was my twenty bucks, could I pick the show?”
She frowned over his question as she sipped her cola again. “Are you inviting me to a movie?”
“Well, you did spring for dinner,” he said. “And there’s a new Vin Diesel movie playing. You know the kind, with lots of car chases and big explosions and very little plot.”
“Sounds like my kind of entertainment,” she said.
“Then it’s a date.”
She was okay until he called it a date.
Grabbing a bite to eat with a coworker—even if that coworker was Gage Richmond—wasn’t a big deal. Deciding to catch a movie together because they both had nothing else to do shouldn’t have been, either. But as soon as Gage put that label on it, all of her perceptions changed, and the easy camaraderie they’d been sharing suddenly wasn’t so easy anymore.
Unfortunately, she’d already agreed, and as the movie theater was within the same shopping complex as the restaurant, she had neither the time nor the opportunity to come up with a reason to bow out. He took her hand as they walked across the parking lot and Megan tried to be as nonchalant as he was about it, as if she held hands with guys all the time, as if the casual contact didn’t make her pulse race.
Gage was standing in line at one of the automated kiosks to buy their tickets when Megan felt vibrations in her chest. At first she thought it was her heart knocking erratically against her ribs, then she remembered that her cell phone was tucked in the inside pocket of her jacket and set to vibrate.
“Excuse me,” she said to Gage, and stepped away to answer the call.
“I know you had to work late tonight,” Ashley said without preamble. “I just wondered if you could pick up some Motrin on your way home.”
“What’s wrong?” Megan asked, alerted not just by the request for the medication but the obvious strain in her sister’s voice.
“The usual,” Ashley said, then sucked in a breath, and blew it out again. “Okay, it’s hit a little bit harder than usual.”
She moved back to Gage, who had just started scrolling through the movie options on the screen. “I’ll be home in fifteen minutes,” she promised.
Gage looked up and, without any question, stepped away from the machine so the next person in line could proceed.
“Problem?” he asked.
“My sister’s not feeling well.”
“Anything I can do to help?”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but no. You can stay and watch car chases, but I have to get home.”
“Rain check?”
“That’s really not—”
He touched his finger to her lips, halting her protest.
“Rain check,” he said again, and it wasn’t a question this time.
“Okay.”
He insisted on walking her to her car, told her to take care of her sister and watched her pull out of the parking lot.
And though she was anxious to get home to Ashley, she didn’t quite manage to banish all thoughts of Gage from her mind as she drove away. And she couldn’t completely extinguish the little flicker of hope that the interest she’d seen in his eyes could be real.
At home, Megan found her sister on the sofa in the living room, curled up under a blanket and obviously in pain.
When Ashley had first been diagnosed with endometriosis, she’d been willing to try anything that might relieve the pain. It turned out that her symptoms could be treated quite successfully through the use of oral contraceptives. The problem with that, of course, was that she wouldn’t get pregnant so long as she was taking them.
Megan suspected that was why Ashley was suffering now, that she’d stopped taking her pills. It was no secret that her sister wanted a baby and while pregnancy happened easily for many women, it wouldn’t be easy for Ashley. In fact, her doctors had warned that it might not happen for her at all, but she refused to give up on the dream of someday holding a child of her own in her arms.
“Hey,” Megan said, coming into the room.
Ashley managed a weak smile as she accepted the medication and the glass of water her sister held out to her. “Thanks.”
Megan lowered herself onto the coffee table. “What’s going on, Ash? You haven’t had pain like this in years.”
Her sister dropped her gaze. “I stopped taking the Pill.”
Though it was just what she’d expected, Megan couldn’t hold back her sigh. “When? Why?”
“Just a few weeks ago. Because Trevor and I are getting married in the fall anyway and because I really want a baby.” Tears spilled onto her cheeks and she swiped at them impatiently. “And maybe because I feel him slipping away and I don’t know why, but I know if I get pregnant it will make things better.”
Megan wasn’t so sure that was the answer, but she was hardly in a position to offer relationship counseling to anyone. “Why didn’t you talk to me about this?” she asked instead.
“Because I didn’t think it was fair to always run to my little sister with my problems.”
“Forget the big and little part. You’re my sister.”
“I’m sorry I pulled you away from the lab.”
This time it was Megan who looked away. “I wasn’t actually at the lab.”
“Where were you?”
“I just went to grab a bite to eat.”
“Based on the deliberate vagueness of that response, I’m guessing you didn’t go alone,” Ashley said. “In fact, I’m guessing that you were with Gage.”
“So?”
“So … good for you.”
Megan frowned. “You’re making a big deal out of something that isn’t.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Her sister managed a smile. “I’m sorry I ruined your dinner.”
“You didn’t.” Megan jumped up when the microwave dinged, grateful for the reprieve from her sister’s questioning. She came back with a warm bean bag, which she laid gently across Ashley’s abdomen.
“Thanks.”
“Can I get you anything else?” Megan asked. “Do you want me to call Trevor?”
Ashley shook her head. “I tried calling him before I called you. I tried his office and his cell and got his voice mail both times.”
“You knew he was working late tonight,” Megan pointed out reasonably. “It makes sense that he would turn his phone off if he was with a client.”
Her sister nodded, though she didn’t look convinced. “You’re right. It’s just that he’s seemed so distracted and inaccessible over the last few weeks.”
“It’s tax season,” Megan reminded her.
“You’re right,” she said again.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” Megan asked, hoping a mug of chai and a change of subject would smooth the furrow in her sister’s brow.
Ashley shook her head. “I want to hear more about your date with Gage.”
It was a change of subject but not quite the one Megan was hoping for.
“It wasn’t a date.”
Her sister’s brows lifted. “You were having dinner with a man yummier than anything on the menu—what would you call it?”
“A burger and fries.”
Ashley shook her head. “You wouldn’t have had the nerve to ask him out again—not without some serious bribery or blackmail being involved—so he must have invited you. Which means, obviously, that he’s interested.”
“Or maybe he just didn’t want to eat alone. You said it yourself,” Megan reminded her. “Gage is like the yummiest thing on the menu—the juiciest sirloin burger with all of the fixings. I’m the pickle spear they throw on the side of the plate. No one really wants it and it’s not particularly appealing, but it takes up space.”
“That’s so not true,” Ashley objected, then sucked in her breath and gritted her teeth.
Megan, understanding that another wave of pain had hit, turned the bean bag over. “Okay?”
Ashley nodded, exhaled slowly. “How are preparations for the trial going?”
“They’re under way,” Megan said, relieved to abandon the topic of Gage Richmond for now. “We’re scheduled to begin administration of the drug to the first group next weekend.”
She didn’t often talk to her sister about her work, partly because Ashley had no interest in what she was talking about. But a couple years earlier, she’d started doing some independent research in the hope of finding a drug that would not just help alleviate the symptoms of endometriosis for women who were trying to have children but improve their chances of conception.
About a year earlier, when she’d finally made some progress, she’d taken it to her boss at Richmond Pharmaceuticals and received official approval—and a budget—to continue her research. And now the drug whose development she had spearheaded was going into the clinical-trial phase.
“When will you know if it works?” Ashley asked, obviously anxious for some good news.
“It’s hard to say,” Megan told her. “The subjects will undergo testing at prescribed intervals throughout the next twelve months.”
“A whole year?”
Megan knew her sister felt as if she’d been waiting for forever already, and to wait another twelve months seemed interminable.
“Well,” Ashley said philosophically. “At least you have a reason to look forward to going into work every day.”
“I’ve always enjoyed my job,” Megan reminded her. “But, yes, I am anxious to see the results of this trial.”
Her sister smiled. “I wasn’t referring to the trial. I was referring to you spending a lot more time with Gage Richmond.”
Megan refused to admit how much she was looking forward to that. Because she would never hear the end of it if her sister had the slightest clue about how hard and how fast her heart beat whenever Gage was near, how her knees got weak if he stood close, and how everything inside of her felt all hot and quivery if he so much as smiled at her.
No way would Megan admit any of that to her sister. She wasn’t sure she was ready to admit it even to herself.
Chapter Seven
It had been years since Gage had worried about asking a woman out on a date. Maybe he’d been spoiled in that it was rare for an invitation he’d issued—be it for dinner or dancing or a more private evening—to be refused. Or maybe he hadn’t really cared one way or the other. When he thought about calling Megan Saturday afternoon, though, he was unexpectedly apprehensive.
But he’d promised her a rain check, and he intended to deliver. Of course, she might already have plans, and he could accept that. Or she might simply not want to go out with him, but he didn’t want to acknowledge that was a possibility.
When the phone rang, he was both annoyed and relieved by the interruption. He snatched up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Gage Richmond, it must be my lucky day that I managed to catch you at home.”
The sultry feminine voice was vaguely familiar, but Gage was having trouble filling in the details. “Who is this?”
The laugh was rich and warm. “I should be offended that you have to ask, but it has been a while. It’s Norah Hennesy.”
Norah Hennesy.
