Lover Eternal

His body's response to her scent was immediate. His erection punched at the fly of his leathers, straining, pushing. He shifted around to make some more room in his pants.

God, he couldn't wait to get her home alone.

CHAPTER 12

Mary stopped breathing as Hal released her hand. Maybe she was dreaming. Yeah, that had to be it. Because he was too gorgeous. Too sexy. And way too focused on her to be real.

The waitress came back, getting as close to Hal as she could without actually being in his lap. And wouldn't you know it, the woman had freshened her lip gloss. That mouth of hers looked like it had had an oil change with something called Fresh Pink. Or Curious Coral. Or something equally ridiculous.

Mary shook her head, surprised she was being so bitchy.

'What can I get you?' the waitress asked Hal.

He glanced across the table and lifted an eyebrow. Mary shook her head and started flipping through the menu.

'Okay, whadda we got here,' he said, opening his own. 'Let's have the Chicken Alfredo. The NY strip, rare. And a cheeseburger, also rare. Double on the fries. And some nachos. Yeah, I want the nachos with everything on them. Double that, too, will you?'

Mary could only stare as he closed the menu and waited.

The waitress looked a little awkward. 'Is all that for both you and your sister?'

As if family obligation was the only reason a man like him would be out with a woman like her. Oh, man…

'No, that's for me. And she's my date, not my sister. Mary?'

'I… ah, I'll just have a Caesar salad, whenever his' — feeding trough? — 'dinner comes.'

The waitress took the menus and left.

'So, Mary, tell me a little about yourself.'

'Why don't we just make it about you?'

'Because then I won't hear you talk.'

Mary stiffened, something bubbling below the surface of her consciousness.

Talk. I want to hear your voice.

Say nothing. Over and over and over again. Do it.

She could have sworn this man had said those things to her, but she'd never met him before. God knew, she would have remembered that.

'What do you do for a living?' he prompted.

'Er… I'm an executive assistant.'

'Where?'

'A law firm here in town.'

'But you did something else, didn't you?'

She wondered how much Bella had told him. God, she hoped the woman hadn't brought up the illness. Maybe that was why he was staying.

'Mary?'

'I used to work with kids.'

'Teacher?'

'Therapist.'

'Head or body?'

'Both. I was a rehab specialist for autistic children.'

'What got you started in it?'

'Do we have to do this?'

'Do what?'

'All the let's-pretend-to-get-to-know-you stuff.'

He frowned, leaning back as the waitress put a huge plate of nachos on the table.

The woman bent down to his ear. 'Shhh, don't tell anyone. I stole these from another order. They can wait, and you look very hungry.'

Hal nodded, smiled, but seemed uninterested.

She had to give him credit for being polite, Mary thought. Now that he was sitting across the table from her, he didn't seem to notice any other women at all.

He offered the plate to her. When she shook her head, he popped a nacho in his mouth.

'I'm not surprised small talk annoys you,' he said.

'Why's that?

'You've been through too much.'

She frowned. 'What exactly did Bella tell you about me?'

'Nothing much.'

'So how do you know I've been through anything?'

'It's in your eyes.'

Oh, hell. He was smart, too. Talk about the total package.

'But I hate to break it to you,' he said, making fast but neat work of the nachos, 'I don't care if you're annoyed. I want to know what got you interested in that line of work, and you're going to tell me.'

'You are arrogant.'

'Surprise, surprise.' He smiled tightly. 'And you're avoiding my question. What got you started in it?'

The answer was her mother's struggle with muscular dystrophy. After seeing what her mom went through, helping other people find ways around their limitations had been a calling. Maybe even a way to work off some guilt at being healthy when her mother had been so compromised.

And then Mary had gotten hit with some serious compromises herself.

Funny, the first thing she'd thought of when she'd been diagnosed was that it wasn't fair. She'd watched her mother do the disease thing, had suffered right alongside. So why was the universe requiring her to know firsthand the kind of pain she'd witnessed? It was right then and there that she'd realized there was no quota on misery for people, no quantifiable threshold that once reached, got you miraculously taken out of the distress pool.

'I never wanted to do anything else,' she hedged.

'Then why did you stop?'

'My life changed.'

Thankfully, he didn't follow up on that one. 'Did you like working with handicapped kids?'

'They're not… they weren't handicapped.'

'Sorry,' he said, clearly meaning it.

The sincerity in his voice popped the lid off her reserve in a way compliments or smiles never would have.

'They're just different. They experience the world in a different way. Normal is just what's average, it's not necessarily the only way of being, or living—' She stopped, noticing he'd closed his eyes. 'Am I boring you?'

His lids lifted slowly. 'I love to hear you talk.'

Mary swallowed a gasp. His eyes were neon, glowing, iridescent.

Those had to be contacts, she thought. People's eyes just didn't come in that teal color.

'Different doesn't bother you, does it?' he murmured.

'No.'

'That's good.'

For some reason, she found herself smiling at him.

'I was right,' he whispered.

'About what?'