He finished chewing a bite of chicken and swallowed. “One of those traditions is the feud?” he asked.
“It’s not that simple,” she told him. She wasn’t about to go into detail. There were personal reasons why she wasn’t a huge fan of the Fitzgerald family.
“What about Katie?” he asked. “Do you hate her?”
Katie Fitzgerald was the oldest daughter and someone Nora had known since she started school. Katie was currently involved with Jack, Nora’s oldest brother, and showing signs of being in love with him.
At one time Nora would have said yes, that she didn’t like Katie very much, but now she wasn’t so sure. For one thing, Katie had a son, Shane, who was the most amazing boy ever born. He and Nora had become friends. Some of Shane’s charm and intelligence just might have come from his mother. For another thing, while they’d been growing up the Fitzgerald kids had seemed to have everything the Darby kids didn’t. Reason enough for a young child to dislike someone. But things were different now. The Darbys finally had enough money. There weren’t anymore worries about feeding and clothing seven kids. Besides, Nora had gotten to know Katie and had found out she wasn’t such a horrible person. And she did seem to make Jack happy. Nevertheless she was a Fitzgerald. Which made the situation confusing.
“Let’s talk about you for a change,” Nora said, glaring at him. “Tell me the deep, dark secrets from your past.”
He laughed. “You mean what’s a good-looking, unmarried doctor like me doing in a place like this?”
“I’ll accept the last part of the question.”
“Fair enough.” He set down his fork. “I was born and raised in New Jersey—the part that’s not close to New York City. I wanted to be a doctor from the time I was little and I made it into medical school. I had a vision of being a simple country doctor. I wanted to take my patients from birth to death.”
“Only if you’re not planning on them living very long,” she murmured.
“I’m talking,” he complained. “You’re supposed to listen attentively and then act suitably impressed. You’re not supposed to interrupt.”
For a second she thought he might be flirting with her, but that wasn’t possible. Men didn’t flirt with her—they ran in fear of their lives. “You don’t know me very well if you expect that,” she said.
“I know you well enough, Nora. I know you’re compassionate, brave, determined and beautiful.”
She blinked. He was kidding, right? Did he really think she was stupid enough to fall for a line like that?
“On what planet?” she asked, but her voice didn’t sound as strong or contemptuous as she’d hoped, and instead of looking embarrassed, Stephen only looked knowing. As if he sensed her secrets and made allowances for them.
“As I was saying,” he continued, “I wanted to be a country doctor. The old-fashioned kind of physician who takes care of every emergency, delivers babies and eases the suffering of the dying, along with everything in between. I got sidetracked with emergency room medicine for a few years, but now I’m here.”
He finished the last of his chicken and wiped his mouth with a napkin. “Now you know my life history, why don’t you tell me yours? For starters, why does everyone assume you’re so unapproachable?”
Because she was, she thought, slightly confused by his curiosity. Most men found out about her reputation and went running in the opposite direction.
“I am unapproachable. I don’t suffer fools gladly, I don’t cater to male egos and I’m not interested in playing games.”
Stephen looked at the woman sitting across from him. She’d gone from looking like a confident companion to glancing around like a trapped animal. She wasn’t comfortable talking about herself and she wasn’t comfortable with him. He half expected her to bolt from her seat and race to the door. Except he guessed that Nora would rather die than let him see that she was rattled by their dinner conversation.
He studied her smooth skin, the glossy dark hair spilling over her shoulders, the way her mouth gave away every emotion. Her mother was his patient and adored talking about her children, so he knew that Nora was twenty-eight. What had happened in her young life to make her so wary of men? And why did everyone in town know her secret but him?
Nora wasn’t cold, he thought, remembering the waitress’s comment that she could freeze a man to death. His nurse had implied that no one got to Nora. What he wanted to know was, why?
His interest surprised him. In the past two years he’d managed to avoid feeling anything for anyone except his patients. Emotionally he’d been numb inside. While he wasn’t ready to care again—in fact he’d promised himself he would never fall in love with anyone else—he felt a stirring of interest that had little to do with the heart and much more to do with the mind…and the glands.
Nora engaged his brain and heated his blood. It was a tempting combination.
“You’re not married,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
She set down her fork and pushed away her plate. “I don’t actually think that’s any of your business. Nor am I comfortable talking about my personal life with you.”
“But you asked me all kinds of personal questions.”
“I asked why you’d chosen to open your practice here.”
He leaned forward and grinned. “Actually you asked about deep, dark secrets in my past. Sounds pretty personal to me.”
“Fine. You chose to answer and I didn’t.”
She was prickly, all right, he thought. A challenge. Maybe he needed a good challenge in his life. Imagining Nora yielding to him, hissing even as she purred, stirred more than his blood.
“I’d like to see you again,” he said. “How about dinner tomorrow night?”
She looked at him as if he’d suddenly sprouted purple horns and a tail. “You’re insane. I don’t date.” The word was laced with both incredulity and contempt.
“Why not?”
It was a simple-enough question. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Sound emerged, but it was more of a splutter than a reply. Finally she simply tossed her napkin on the table, slid out of the booth and hurried toward the door.
Stephen watched her go. He wasn’t looking for the love of his life. He’d had that once and lost her. But he was willing to admit that he was lonely. Maybe it was time to change that. As the ever-prickly Miss Nora Darby didn’t seem to be looking for anything permanent, either, maybe they could find a way to help each other.
Because he was willing to bet that if she didn’t date much, she didn’t get a chance to do other things. And just watching her move had told him she would probably do those other things very, very well.
Nora felt too crabby to sleep. She wanted to pretty up her emotions with words like angry or keyed up, but the truth was she was just plain crabby. Who was that man and what made him think that he had the right to…to…
She collapsed onto a sofa in her living room and sighed. Okay, all he’d done was ask her out. Was that so terrible? Didn’t men ask women out all the time?
Maybe, she thought, trying to hang on to crabby in favor of feeling wistful. But men didn’t ask her out. Not anymore. Not when she could verbally eviscerate them and frequently did. Not when she had a reputation of being difficult, stubborn and the kind of woman a man left at the altar.
She sighed and grabbed one of her floral-print