Their waitress, Emily, was someone Clare knew well. She often brought her autistic daughter to the free clinic on the weekends when Clare was volunteering, and her husband worked at the auto-repair shop. She set their coffees down and Clare didn’t miss the curious look as she said, “Hey, Clare, Dr. Reese. Looks cold out there.”
“So cold Clare’s car wouldn’t start,” Parker told her.
“Are you still driving that old thing?” Emily asked her.
“I know I need to get a new one,” she said, warming her hands with her coffee cup. “I just haven’t had time.”
“Do you know what you’d like to order or would you need a minute to look at the menu?”
“I know what I want,” Parker said, eyes on Clare. From his mischievous grin, Clare knew he wasn’t talking about the food.
“Caesar salad with the dressing on the side,” she told Emily.
“Would you like chicken on that?”
Would she ever, but she was only five pounds away from her high school weight and she wanted to hit that number by swimsuit season. “No chicken.”
“My usual,” Parker told Emily.
“One Caesar, one bacon cheeseburger and fries, comin’ right up.”
When she was gone Parker said, “She knows what car you drive?”
“Everyone around here knows what everyone drives.”
His brows knit together. “That’s weird.”
Not for Royal it wasn’t. “You’ve never lived in a small town, have you?”
“Nope. I’ve always lived in the city, but I like the slower pace. Though it has taken some getting used to.”
“You must eat here often if you have a usual,” Clare said.
“Several times a week at least, and sometimes I come in for breakfast.”
“You eat a burger and fries several times a week?”
“I’m a carnivore. I eat meat.”
“There’s this thing called vegetables...”
He shrugged, sipping his coffee. “Sometimes I order a side salad.”
He was a doctor, for God’s sake. He should have known better. “What do you have the other four days?”
“That depends on who I’m with,” he said, and his cheeky smile said that once again they were no longer talking about food. But she’d sort of walked into that one, hadn’t she?
Why did he have to be so damned adorable, with his stubbled chin and dark, rumpled hair? The soft waves begged to be combed back by her willing fingers and his hazel eyes smoldered, though they looked more whiskey-colored in this light. He’d loosened his lopsided tie and opened the top button on his dress shirt...
“Have you lived in Royal your whole life?” he asked her.
Jarred by the sudden change of subject, she realized she was staring at his chest and lifted her gaze to his handsome face instead. Which was just as bad, if not worse. Sometimes when she was sitting at the nurses’ station and he was nearby she would watch him in her peripheral vision. He had such a nice face to look at.
“I moved here to live with my aunt about a year after nursing school,” she told him.
“Where are you from originally?”
“My parents own a horse farm about an hour from here. Five of my siblings work there.”
He blinked. “Five? How many siblings do you have?”
“Seven. All older. Three boys, four girls.”
“Wow.” He shook his head in disbelief. “That’s a lot of kids.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Catholic?”
“No, just very traditional. My mom has six siblings and my dad has four. They both grew up on farms.”
“What about your siblings. Do they have kids?”
“As of last month I have twenty-two nieces and nephews, and two great-nieces on the way.”
“Wow. That is a big family. And you’re the baby?”
There was nothing more annoying than being referred to as the baby by her family. It was their way of pushing her down and keeping her in her place. But when Parker said it, with that teasing smile, it wasn’t demeaning at all.
“I’m the youngest, yes.”
“Were you spoiled?”
As if. “My parents were pretty burned out by the time I came along. As long as I did my chores and kept my grades up they pretty much left me alone. I would rather be invisible than get sucked into all the family drama.”
“I used to wish that I had a big family.”
“Do you have siblings?” she asked him.
“Only child.”
“I had a friend in school who was an only child and I was always so envious.”
Emily returned to the table with their food and Clare’s stomach howled. Though getting a salad had been the responsible thing to do, Parker’s juicy burger and greasy fries beckoned her.
“Well, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” he said, popping a fry in his mouth, and when he offered her one, she couldn’t resist. Her mouth watered as the greasy, salty goodness sent her taste buds into overload.
She looked at her plate, then his, and thought, Man, I should have ordered a burger.
“Growing up I always wanted siblings,” Parker said, pushing his plate toward her, gesturing to her to take more.
“I had to share a room with three of my sisters. I had no privacy whatsoever.” There hadn’t even been anyone who’d keep things in confidence. If one sibling knew, they all knew. Because of that it had always been difficult for her to trust people to keep her secrets. Her aunt was the only person in her life she could be totally honest with.
“For what it’s worth, I didn’t either,” he said, and she watched his lips move. She loved looking at his lips. It was always the first place her eyes landed.
“My father was very strict throughout my entire childhood,” Parker said. “He controlled pretty much every aspect of my life, like which friends I was allowed to have, what books I was allowed to read. He even chose the classes I took in high school. He was grooming me to take over his business. I always thought that if he had another child he might not be so focused on my every move.”
“What does he do?”
“He was a financial tycoon. He passed away last year.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“We had a very tenuous relationship. I had no interest in finance, and he considered practicing medicine beneath me. He agreed to pay for medical school, but only if I studied to be a cosmetic surgeon. He even set up a job for me with his own cosmetic surgeon when I graduated.”
As amazing as he was with children, that would have been a terrible waste. “Clearly you changed his mind.”
“It was Luc Wakefield who talked me into standing up to my father.”
“How did that go over?”
“There was a lot of shouting and threats. He said he would disown and disinherit me. I said go for it. At that point I was so sick of being controlled I honestly didn’t care.”
Her family may have been a ginormous