She was in charge of her life. Dr. Darby Phillips, a woman worthy of respect and admiration. A woman who’d come a long way from wearing a dumpy armadillo suit and longing for a man she couldn’t have.
Her gaze fell on the man keeping stride next to her.
Well, no one could accuse her classy navy pants and cream-colored blouse of looking like a scaly animal, at any rate.
“Ah, come on, Dilly, surely you aren’t still mad at me?”
Why had she told him the mascot’s name?
Blake being Blake, of course he’d tease her, call her by that name. She spun to where he’d followed her into her office.
Knocking his hand away from her plastic heart model, she straightened to her full five feet three inches and poked his thick chest. “Don’t you ever make fun of my having been an armadillo again—do you hear?”
His eyes widened slightly at her outburst, but a smile curved his full lips. “Ah, Darby, come on. I’m sure you were a cute armadillo.”
She glared. He was supposed to be groveling, shaking in fear, apologizing, not still laughing.
“Too bad I didn’t go to your school.” He tweaked her chin, his fingers sending shivers over her flesh. “I’d like to have seen you in that costume. Maybe you could wear it for me this weekend? I promise to show my school spirit.”
Couldn’t he be serious? Or at least pretend as if he felt threatened? Of course he couldn’t. Blake was one of those annoying perpetually positive folks. As much as that did annoy her at times like these, his disposition was also one of the things she liked most about him. One of the things that had always drawn her to him.
He made her laugh. Had from the moment they’d met. She’d been so serious, so determined never to let a man make a fool of her again, so focused on getting her medical degree, she’d forgotten how to laugh until she and Blake had been assigned an emergency room rotation together. She might have been up to her eyeballs in work, but one wink from Blake could reenergize her sleep-deprived body and have her smiling from the inside out.
No one had ever been able to make her feel good the way he could.
Fighting to hang on to her angry bravado, she rolled her eyes. “The only costume you need to see me in is a white lab coat.” She forced her brows into a scowl. “Isn’t it time for us to get started seeing patients?”
He sighed with exaggerated effort. “You’re in a foul mood this morning, Dilly.”
She pursed her lips, crossed her arms and glared up at him. Way up. Why had she worn flats? “No more armadillo jokes.”
She refused to back down. She didn’t want Blake seeing her in the same light Trey had. After a moment of their facing off—her feigning anger, him grinning—he nodded.
“Fine, no more school mascot jokes.” He put his fingers up in a Scout’s Honor symbol. “If I get the urge to tease you, I’ll just dill with it.”
She looked heavenward. “This isn’t funny.”
He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. “From where I’m standing, it’s pretty funny.”
“Because you weren’t the one wearing that horrible suit.”
Perhaps she’d let too much of her past pain bleed through, because Blake stared at her a little too closely.
“Last I heard, folks aren’t forced to be school mascots,” he pointed out. “They volunteer for the job.”
“Well, Mr. Know-it-all, sometimes there are extenuating circumstances that cause a girl to wear ugly suits and play a fool.”
“What extenuating circumstances?” His dark eyes saw too much, and Darby fought from shifting her weight.
“It’s complicated.” Complicated? Yet another word for humiliating herself in an effort to get Trey’s attention
Looking way too serious, Blake crossed his arms in a similar stance to her own. “I’ve got time.”
There were some things that shouldn’t be repeated. Her high school blunders were just a few of them. She glanced at her watch. “I don’t. I need to see my morning patients. Bye.”
She grabbed her stethoscope and rushed from the office. Without turning to check, she could feel his gaze burning into her, could feel the heat scorching her cheeks.
She also sensed his amusement. His curiosity.
“See you later, Dilly,” he called from behind her, no doubt brushing his fingers over her heart model.
What had she been thinking when she’d told him about that wretched costume? About her nickname? Next thing she knew she’d tell him she’d been voted most likely to die a virgin and had yet to do anything to prove her classmates wrong. For a woman who prided herself on her intelligence, she sure was making a lot of stupid choices.
But there came a time when a woman had to either don an armadillo suit—or invite a man to spend a weekend in a hotel with her in hopes of being noticed or accept not registering on his radar.
As insane as her frustration was, Darby was tired of not making a bleep on Blake’s radar.
She wanted his radar bleeping. For her.
Which just went to prove how little intelligence she really had.
Bleeping on Blake’s radar would likely ruin everything she held dear, so why was she bleep, bleep, bleeping in her heart?
The closer Darby and Blake got to Armadillo Lake on Friday afternoon, the more Darby’s stomach churned.
What was wrong with her?
She should be looking forward to the opportunity to return home and show her old schoolmates they’d been wrong about her on most accounts. And she should be excited at the prospect of maybe making Blake see her as a desirable woman…
After all, hadn’t that been the idea behind her last-minute shopping trip to her favorite lingerie shop? She should be a lot of things, but she suspected if Blake wasn’t the one behind the wheel she’d turn the SUV around and head back to Tennessee pronto. For so many reasons—not the least of which was that she was afraid of what the weekend might do to her and Blake’s relationship.
But if she wanted more than what she had—and she did—she had to shake things up. Sleeping in the same bed should do that—had he even considered their sleeping arrangements when she’d invited him?
Darby stole a glance toward him and fought a very feminine sigh of appreciation. God, he was breathtaking. And, for the weekend, he was all hers.
“You’ve barely spoken the last thirty miles of our drive.”
“You’ve talked enough for the both of us,” she pointed out.
He had. Blake could carry on a conversation with a stump. His gift of the gab was a trait she envied. Although she’d taken classes to help her overcome her shyness, she’d been introverted for the earlier years of her life. She hadn’t wanted to be shy, but when you preferred to have your nose stuck in a book than to drive into Pea Ridge to cruise the shopping mall—well, popularity wasn’t your middle name.
“Didn’t your mom tell you not to do that? Your face might get stuck like that.”
Designer aviator glasses protected Blake’s eyes from the blazing sunshine brightening their drive. If the manufacturer could hire him to model those shades, they’d sell billions. He made them look that good.
“Like what?” she asked, thinking life was unfair if one man could have been blessed with so many talents. Looks,