For whatever reason, she had just assumed that someone as successful as Parker would come from a well-adjusted and happy home. She imagined him as the golden child, probably captain of the football team, valedictorian and loved by all.
It would appear that she was wrong. Again. That’s what she got for drawing conclusions without facts.
“Have I got something between my teeth?” Parker asked suddenly.
She blinked. “No. Why?”
“Are you sure? Because you haven’t stopped staring at my mouth.”
Her cheeks went hot with embarrassment. Was she really doing that?
“It’s either that, or you’re thinking about kissing me.”
She was almost always thinking about kissing him. She really had to be more careful in the future where she let her eyes wander. And her thoughts.
* * *
“I don’t suppose you played football in high school?” Clare asked, and Parker laughed.
“No, I didn’t. But if I had, boy, my father would have loved that.” The only thing that would have pleased his dad more than Parker taking over the family business was if he’d become a professional athlete. But it had been obvious from a very early age that Parker had no interest, and more important, no natural talent.
He was barely out of diapers when his father began pushing him into various sports. First soccer, then T-ball, but he’d sucked at them both. He’d been more interested in sitting on the sidelines, searching the grass for bugs and snakes.
His dad had enrolled him in tag football when Parker was six, and had forced him to stay for the entire season. Luckily Parker had had a sympathetic coach who’d let him spend most of his time on the bench. Because as fanatical as his father had been about his son’s physical abilities, he’d never once made it to a practice or even a game.
Swimming lessons had come next, but Parker got so many ear infections as a result that the doctor told his father the lessons had to stop. Parker’s equestrian training was probably the least horrible thing he’d been forced into, and though being so high up on the horse’s back had always made him nervous, he loved animals. Until his horse was spooked and threw him, and nearly trampled him to death. That was the last time he’d ever gone near a horse.
“My father played ball in college,” Parker told her. “I guess he just assumed that I would want to play, too. He was real big on me following in his footsteps. He wanted a mini me, and I seriously didn’t fit the bill. I was skinny and scrawny and kind of a geek.”
“You were not,” she said, taking another fry, eyeing his burger with a look of longing. She had barely touched her salad, but she’d already eaten half his fries.
“I’m serious. I was a total nerd. Remind me and I’ll dig out some old pictures.” He slid his plate closer. “Take a bite.”
She blinked. “Of what?”
“My burger. You haven’t taken your eyes off of it, and I think I see a little drool in the corner of your mouth.”
She hesitated, looking a little embarrassed, but her stomach won the battle. “Well, maybe a little bite...”
There was nothing little about the bite she took.
“I didn’t start to really fill out until my third year of college,” he said. “When I started weight training.”
“So you were what, like, twenty-one?”
“Eighteen. I graduated high school when I was fifteen.”
“Wow, you really were a geek. But your dad must have been happy about that.”
“My dad was never happy about anything. He was a tyrant. Thankfully I saw more of the nanny and the house staff than him.”
“I went through sort of the same thing when I was a kid. Although not the tyrant part. Everyone assumed I would work on the ranch after high school, but I wanted to be a nurse. I knew from the time I got my first play doctor kit as a kid that I wanted to work in medicine. I wanted to help people.”
“Did you ever tell your family that?”
“Probably a million times, but I was more or less invisible. No one ever listened to what I had to say. Hell, they still don’t. If it isn’t ranch business, or my various nieces’ and nephews’ academic accomplishments, they don’t discuss it. So I worked my butt off in school and got a scholarship to a college far away from home and haven’t looked back since. My parents were not very happy with me.”
In what universe did that make even a lick of sense? “Aren’t most parents proud when their kids go to college?”
“Like I said, they’re very traditional. Nothing was more important to them than their children ‘paying their debt to the family,’” she said, making air quotes with her fingers. “Whatever the hell that meant. I didn’t ask to be born. I never felt as if I owed my family anything.”
It amazed him that despite their very different upbringings, their childhoods weren’t really all that different. “I felt the same way about my father. He had my entire life planned out before I was out of diapers. With no regard whatsoever to what I might want. But that was just who he was. People were terrified of him and he used that to manipulate. No one dared deny him anything.”
“Stubborn as I am, my parents’ archaic thinking probably only pushed me further from the fold. The thought of staying on the farm and working with my family for the rest of my life gives me hives. And they have no respect for what I do. To this day I still hear snide remarks about going into medicine just to snag—” She stopped abruptly, but it was already too late. He knew exactly what she’d been about to say.
“A wealthy doctor?” he said.
Her cheeks flushed a deep red and she lowered her eyes to her salad, her juicy bottom lip wedged adorably between her perfect teeth. He’d never seen her blush, but damn, she sure was pretty when she did. But then, she always looked good to him. And suddenly her attitude toward him made a whole lot more sense.
“I didn’t mean to tell you that,” she said, looking mortified.
“At least now I know why you spend so much time pretending you don’t like me.”
She lifted her chin, getting all indignant on him. “Who says I was pretending?”
He laughed. “Sweetheart, I’ve dated a lot of women. I know the signals.”
She opened her mouth to argue—because she always argued when he was trying to make a point—then must have had a change of heart and closed it again. “Okay, yes, that is part of the reason I can’t see you. But there are other factors, as well, things I’m not comfortable getting into right now.”
“So you do like me,” he said.
“I respect you as a physician and peer, and you seem like a good person. I could even see us eventually becoming friends, but it can never be more than that.”
“Do you want to be friends?” Parker asked her.
She wanted that and so much more, and it wasn’t fair that she couldn’t have it. But she of all people knew that life was not often fair. She also realized that neither of them had said a word about Janey. Not that it surprised her. It was all just a ruse to get her alone. And she’d fallen for it. Willingly. She looked at her phone to check the time. “It’s late. I should go home. I want to get up early tomorrow and go jogging.”
Her very obvious brush-off didn’t seem to faze him. “You don’t strike me as the jogging type.”
“I like