“Your house is incredible.”
“Thanks. My parents built it. No real Alaskan would build up here, it’s absolute lunacy, and that explains why they live in South Carolina now. But I still love it.” He held out his hand for her coat. She slid off her parka, and he whistled appreciatively.
“I take that back about dressing warmly. You look amazing. Whoever this Ian dude is, he doesn’t stand a chance.”
And that, more than any of her sister’s pep talks, filled her with confidence.
Chapter Fourteen
Nate kept forgetting to act like Gretel’s date. He blamed the dress Bethany was wearing, even though she’d confessed that it was another one of Gretel’s outfits. Obviously, Gretel had a great wardrobe. But Bethany was the one he couldn’t tear his eyes away from. In that silver dress, with her hair curling loose around her shoulders, she was magical.
And that damn neuro-doctor didn’t seem to appreciate her at all.
Nate liked most people until he had a reason not to. He liked to give people the benefit of the doubt. Once they showed their asses, then he dealt with that.
But this guy, Ian Finnegan—fuck it, Nate didn’t want to give him a chance. Didn’t he see the beauty that was right in front of him? Didn’t he see the wistful way Bethany looked at him? Didn’t he care that she was clearly eating her heart out over him?
The dude didn’t deserve her. No matter how many medical degrees he had.
He must have been glaring at the man, because Gretel dragged him onto his back deck, where his grill was set up in a nook sheltered from the wind. Clouds of steam from the sizzling steaks condensed in the chilly air.
“Stop frowning at Ian. You’re scaring him.”
“That’s ridiculous. If I wanted to scare him, I’d challenge him to a tickle fight. You’d be surprised how much that freaks a guy out.”
She laughed, then sobered again. With her turquoise hair and eyes nearly the same color, she was a knockout. But he preferred Bethany’s subtler beauty, with her moonlight hair and rounded cheeks.
“And that’s another thing,” Gretel scolded him. “Your charm isn’t helping.”
“My charm? How is that the problem?”
“You’re distracting Bethany.”
He perked up at that news. “Am I? Oh well. What can a guy do?” He checked the steaks, saw they were still too bloody, and closed the lid of the grill. “Let’s get back inside.”
“Promise not to get in the way. You’re not interested in Bethany, so give her a chance with the neurosurgeon.”
Nate gritted his teeth as he led her back into the warm kitchen. He wasn’t so sure anymore that he wasn’t interested in Bethany. “I think you have it all wrong here. The problem is that guy. What’s wrong with him?”
She leaned to one side to peer through a whimsical pass-through his mother had designed for the kitchen. It offered a perfect view of the living room, where Bethany and Ian were chatting. “Not much, as far as I can tell.”
Nate’s mood dropped again. He didn’t want to hear praise for Ian Finnegan. He opened the fridge and pulled out salad makings. “What I mean is, why isn’t he falling over his feet for her?”
“I don’t know. What should we do about it?”
He set out a cutting board and a knife and thrust a tomato at her. “Slice that.”
“Nope, I’m supposed to be your date, not your sous-chef. Although we both know neither of those things is happening.”
Well, at least they were on the same page about that. His instinct had been correct. Gretel didn’t want him; this was about Bethany and Ian.
Gretel peered through the pass-through again. “Oh no. They stopped talking. Ian is looking at his pager.”
“Maybe he’s getting called in for an emergency brain tumor operation,” Nate grumbled as he finished chopping the tomato.
“Are you seriously rooting for a brain tumor?”
Nate moved on to an onion. Why had Bethany ever thought he would hit it off with Gretel? They were already squabbling like brother and sister. “It was a joke. Are you seriously pretending to be offended?”
“Whatever. I’m going in. This is a disaster.”
He handed her a dish of salmon dip and a plate of crackers he’d forgotten to offer up. “Take some appetizers with you. That’ll break the ice. And watch that charm Bethany says you have.”
She stuck her tongue out at him, which made it official. Gretel was in the “little sister zone,” as far as he was concerned.
He watched Gretel dance into the living room with the platter. With her unusually sober outfit of black leggings and oversize knit electric-blue dress, he guessed that she had deliberately dressed down tonight. She was doing her best to support Bethany—which gave her some points in his book. Not enough to want to date her, however.
Ian’s dark, chiseled features brightened as she plopped the platter onto the coffee table. Bethany busied herself with distributing the napkins he’d already left there. God, the way her dress slithered across her curves like water…he couldn’t drag his eyes away from her.
He remembered the soft touch of her lips when she’d kissed him on the cheek in his truck. Even though she’d meant the kiss as a friendly, grateful gesture, it had felt like something more. Was it all in his imagination?
Maybe it was, because around Ian, Bethany acted completely different, almost like a nervous student anxious for approval. She never behaved that way around him. Did that mean she didn’t want his approval? Or that his attention wasn’t worth vying for?
He went back to the grill and filled a plate with perfectly charred steaks.
What was this weird feeling he kept experiencing? Was this what people called jealousy? He wasn’t familiar with it. Normally if a woman didn’t want him, he simply moved on. He never got jealous. He never saw the point. People should only be together if they both wanted to be, in his opinion.
Did he want to be with Bethany? If so, maybe he should make his move before that doctor got a clue.
With his pile of juicy steaks, he strode into the living room to join the party. The dining table occupied a nook at one end, surrounded on three sides by picture windows.
“Steaks are up,” he told them. Everyone eagerly followed him to the dining nook, as if he was the pied piper of meat.
As they took their seats around the table, they all ooh-ed and aah-ed over the steaks. Gretel poured everyone more wine, giving Ian and Bethany especially generous amounts.
Ian adjusted his glasses and lifted his wine glass. He had an absentminded professor look about him, as if he were diagnosing complex cases in his head at the same time as he was trying to hold a conversation.
“Here’s to a great-smelling steak, and to forgetting everything I know about Mad Cow disease.”
Which seemed like a weird toast, but whatever. Both the Morrison sisters laughed.
Nate ground his teeth. Making people laugh was his thing, not the damn neurosurgeon’s.
“Grass-fed local beef,” he told Ian. “We’ve never had an incidence of Mad Cow here. But thanks for the reminder. Always good to keep in mind.”
Bethany looked at him expectantly, as if waiting for a quip. But his sense of humor seemed to have deserted him.
Try harder.
He cleared his throat. “I don’t usually get such an educated crew up here. Usually it’s fishermen who end up sleeping on the couch.”
Both the sisters laughed, but Ian’s expression didn’t change much. His gaze strayed to Gretel, or more accurately, to her hair.
Gretel must have noticed the same thing. “There’s salad too, right Nate?” She turned to him. “I’ll give you a hand with it.”
But he wasn’t falling for her distraction. He intended to stay right here where he could block the doctor. He was going to be a doc-blocker. A doc-cock-blocker.
He realized that Gretel was making faces at him, and he pushed his chair back in frustration.
“What?” he demanded when they both
reached the kitchen.
“Plan B.”
“What’s plan B?”
“I think you should flirt with Bethany.”
He grinned. “Now you’re talking. But what’s your logic?”
“If Ian sees you giving attention to Bethy, maybe he’ll wake up and smell the coffee.”
“I don’t know…” Nate rubbed his forehead. This evening was already a fiasco and they hadn’t even had a bite yet. “That kind of thing can backfire. To me, as a guy, it says ‘hands off.’ If Ian backs off because I’m flirting with Bethany, she’ll blame me.”
“How can he back off when he never backed in?”
“What?” Damn, he should have brought his glass of wine in here.
“You know what I mean. Do you have any better ideas?”
Nate lowered his voice. “Did you ever think that maybe he’s just not interested in her?”
Gretel arched an eyebrow at him. “No. Why wouldn’t he be? My sister’s awesome. She’s brilliant and she’s kind and she always tries to do the right thing. Unfortunately, that’s also her biggest problem.”
Before he could ask her to explain that, she whisked herself out of the kitchen, whispering “don’t forget to flirt” over her shoulder.
But when Nate made his way back the dining nook, he discovered that his flirting skills had gone dormant. He and Bethany were beyond flirting. It felt wrong, as if he’d be disrespecting her sister and her in one fell swoop.
So instead of flirting with Bethany, he turned his focus on Ian. If this was the man Bethany wanted, he was going to make sure he deserved her.
“So, Ian, where are you from?”
“Nebraska.”
Nate waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. “How long have you—”
“That’s why I know good beef,” Ian said at the same time. “I grew up on a ranch. My compliment about the steak wasn’t an idle one.”
“Wouldn’t have occurred to me,” murmured Nate. A pause followed. He waited for Ian’s next comment, or for one of the women to say something, but both of them had their mouths full. “What kind of cattle did you raise, Ian?”
Inadvertently he caught Bethany’s glance. She looked like she was trying hard not to laugh. Were his attempts to find common ground with this dude that amusing? Was she laughing with him or at him?
Bethany finally finished her mouthful of steak and turned to Ian. “I had no idea you grew up on a ranch. I guess we’ve never swapped life stories.”
Ian startled, as if he’d forgotten about Bethany until she’d spoken. Nate wanted to wring his neck for that. No one should ever forget that Bethany was in the room. Especially not when she looked like moonlight personified.
“Should we have? My apologies. I generally assume people prefer to discuss more interesting subjects.”
“Like Mad Cow disease?” Nate asked innocently.
“Which is extremely interesting,” Gretel interjected, waving a fork in the air. “I read about it when I was considering becoming a vegetarian. Then Daddy took me to a steakhouse in Japan and that was the end of that.”
“You find Mad Cow fascinating?” Ian scratched at his chin uncertainly. “I’m never a good judge of what people like to discuss. Its technical name is Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. ”
“Who doesn’t enjoy a good brain disease convo?” said Nate lightly. “I bet you know all kinds of gruesome horror stories. They go over especially well at dinner parties, don’t you find?”
Bethany shot to her feet. “Nate, can I talk to you for a second?”
Uh oh. Between her and Gretel always dragging him away, how was he supposed to eat a meal? “But I just sat down.”
“It won’t take long,” she said through clenched teeth.
Chapter Fifteen
Bracing himself for her wrath, Nate followed Bethany into the foyer. Good, a change of scene. This time he was going to get lectured in the foyer instead of the kitchen or the back deck.
“I’m sorry,” he said before Bethany even opened her mouth. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’m being an ass.”
Two spots of color burned in her cheeks. “I know he’s kind of …awkward. But so what?”
“I didn’t say—”
She kept going. “This is hard enough as it is. Do you know long it took to get him away from the hospital?”
“If it’s so hard, maybe it isn’t meant to be.” He said it gently, but still managed to infuriate her.
“You don’t know anything about it. It’s all so easy for you. Women just fall over themselves to be with you. Some of us have to work a little harder.” He caught the sheen of tears in her eyes.
He shoved his hands in his pockets because he wanted to touch her so badly. “You shouldn’t have to work at all,” he said fiercely. “You should only have to stand there, or smile, or not smile, just be. That’s all it should take.”
She blinked at him for a moment, as if trying to turn his words into something she could comprehend. The sunlit brown of her eyes drew him in, deeper and deeper.
“What do you see in that guy, anyway?”
The brief magical moment of connection evaporated. “How can you even ask that? He’s perfect. Find a flaw. I’ve tried, and he has none.”
“Okay, then what’s his best quality?”
She flushed. “He’s—brilliant. He’s one of the top neurosurgeons his age.”
“So that’s what you’re after? That’s what—” He cut himself off. He wanted to say, so that’s what I’m lacking, but refused. “Fine. Have it your way.”
“So you’ll be nice to him?”
Tamping down his anger, he flung up both hands. “I just grilled a perfect steak for him. I’m being nice. Are we done?” He turned to head back into the living room, where he could hear Gretel telling a long story about Bethany as a little girl. He actually wanted to hear that story.
“Wait.” Bethany snagged his arm. “Did you really mean what you said before?”
“Unlikely. You know me,” he said lightly.
Too lightly. The shine in her eyes faded.
Damn. Now he knew exactly what she was referring to—when he’d told her she shouldn’t have to work so hard for Ian’s attention. And yes, he’d meant every word. But he’d gone for the quip instead of just answering the question. Damn his flippant tongue.
His doorbell rang. Bethany, who was right next to the door, jumped. She shifted to the side while he peered out the peephole.
Two strangers stood on his door step—a couple. They looked as if they’d stepped out of a Manhattan restaurant, the silver-haired man in his pressed trousers and navy blazer, the woman in a rust suede coat with an elegant shawl draped around her neck. The woman, intimidating in her elegance, was about thirty years younger than the man, who was equally daunting but in an intense power-broker way.
Neither of them looked remotely prepared for the cold wind that whistled across the open ocean right to his front door.
“Did you invite anyone else?” he asked Bethany.
“No. Of course not.”
“Well, I don’t know these people, and they sure aren’t locals, and tourists wouldn’t know how to get here.”
An odd expression crossed Bethany’s face, something between fear and incredulity. “Wait—”
But he was already opening the door. “Hello. Can I help you?”
The woman looked down at her phone, where a green dot blinked on an app. Then she tilted her head back to look at his house. Then his hair. He was very clearly being inspected.
“Is this your house? Is Bethany Morrison here?” She spoke with a touch of British accent.
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “Is that a GPS you have there?”
“Yes, and it says that Bethany’s here in this house.” She paused, as if excepting him to take immediate action. “Aren’t you going to invite us in?”
“I will absolutely invite you in as soon as I have some clue about who you are and why you’re here. No offe
nse, but you seem to be tracking Bethany. For what purpose?”
“Purpose?” The man drew himself up to his full height, which was only an inch less than Nate’s. He looked outraged about being challenged—clearly wasn’t used to it.
Too bad. This was Nate’s house, after all, and he didn’t have to let anyone in that he didn’t want to.
Ian the neurosurgeon was enough annoyance for one night. And all of that irritation was about to boil over.
“Yes, purpose. I’m not sure where you’re from, but around here, you can’t just barge into people’s houses and hunt down their hypothetical guests. Not that I’m confirming or denying anything about Bethany. Or even that I know who that is—”
Something tugged at Nate’s arm, and he tried to shake it off, before realizing it was Bethany.
“Excuse me a moment.”
He half-closed the door and allowed her to tug him down so she could whisper in her ear.
“It’s my father and third stepmother.”
Oops. Just how rude had he been? “Third?”
“I had a very strange childhood. I should talk to them. Just give me a second to figure out what to say.”
“You weren’t expecting them?”
“In Alaska? No. The only cold place they go is Aspen.”
“Okay. Hang on. I got this.”
He opened the door to them again. The man’s face—Bethany’s father—had turned a disturbing shade of ruddy red.
Good thing there were two doctors in the house.
“I beg your pardon,” Nate said formally—almost British-ly. “I was unaware that I was in the presence of Bethany’s parents. I do sincerely apologize for not welcoming you inside immediately.” He glanced at Bethany to make sure she was ready, and got a nod from her. “Do come in. Welcome to Hilltop Homestead.”
He beckoned the couple into the foyer. The pair marched inside, almost as if they owned the place themselves. When they spotted Bethany, the woman exchanged air kisses with her while Bethany’s father glared at him.
“She was right here that whole time, eh?”
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