She curled a hand around the open window as the truck bucked to life and bounced down the gravel driveway. The balmy air tossed her hair over her shoulder. The breeze filtered through the easy knit of her cotton sweater and wrestled with the hem of her skirt. The cab was set high so that despite the jouncing of the ride, she felt as if she were floating above it, as lighthearted as the sixteen-year-old girl she once was, anticipating an evening of hot petting.
She hazarded a glance toward Logan, his arms slung across the steering wheel as he stared at the road with all the intensity of a race car driver. The roar of the engine and the rattle of the vehicle precluded any easy conversation, but she could sense the tension in him. There was no other traffic on this winding, country road, shaded on either side by old-growth trees, so she could only assume he was trying not to look at how high her skirt had ridden up her thighs
A half-hour later, Logan turned the truck to a stop in front of a whitewashed building that looked more like a run-down country home than a restaurant. A painted sign hung swung from a post, with the single word ‘Pizza’ on it, painted in big red letters.
“It doesn’t look like much.” Logan turned off the truck. “But it’s the best pizza in town.”
“You told me it was the only pizza in town.”
“True.”
“You know I’m a pizza expert,” she said. “You can’t grow up in New York City and not be.”
“Great,” he said, with a flirty wink. “Then you’ll be thoroughly disappointed.”
Knocked askew by the wink, she followed him across the lot to the restaurant. Inside, country music wheezed out of tinny speakers, the air smelled of stale beer and red sauce, and the place was packed with plaid shirts. Logan led the way to the only available table, a rickety one in the far back corner of the room. A very small table, she discovered, once she settled down on the well-worn chair. Her bare knees bumped Logan’s under the table. With a start, she slid her legs around to avoid the contact.
He pretended not to notice as he waved a hand at a woman in a grease-stained apron heading toward them.
The older woman granted Logan a bright, friendly smile.
“There you are, Mac, I’ve been wondering where you’ve been.”
“Been busy, Nora.”
“I see that.” Her brown gaze slipped to Jen. “But this isn’t a sister of yours, that’s for sure. Never seen this pretty thing before. What are you thinking, bringing her into town?” Nora delivered her words with a teasing smile that hid more than a little curiosity. “You’re going to disappoint every woman under sixty, Logan, when they see her and you sitting all cozy here.”
Did they look cozy? She felt like she was sitting on pins.
“Jenny’s a city girl who claims to know everything about pizza,” Logan said. “How about bringing her something that will blow her hair back?”
“Honey, there’s already something at this table that’ll blow her hair back. But if you don’t know what that is, I’m not going to be the one to tell you.”
The woman turned away and shouted an order to the kitchen before stepping to the next table.
She raised a brow to hide her flush. “Local character, huh?”
“Yup.” He spun a glass dispenser of hot pepper flakes on its base. “But you won’t be getting boring pizza.”
“Good. I hate boring pizza.”
His brows rose. “To think I pegged you for a plain cheese kind of girl.”
“You pegged me wrong.” She rested an elbow on the table. “I like it thick and spicy.”’
He pinned her with that clear, green gaze. She suppressed a grin. Flirting could be kind of fun.
“So,” she said, drawing in a gulp of air, “we don’t get to choose toppings? Or crust?”
“You get whatever Nora has in the kitchen. I guarantee you there won’t be pineapple or goat cheese. What you see is what you get.”
“Too bad the men around here aren’t the same.”
His jaw tightened. “I’m not from around here, Jenny.”
“Right. You’re a cowboy photographer with a medical degree.”
A waitress clattered two beers between them, striding away before the mugs stopped rattling. Logan curled a hand around a frosty glass and lifted it to his lips. When he finished taking a long drag on the lip, he placed the mug with great deliberation back on the table. He may as well have teleported a thousand miles from this intimate little table. Even she could tell she’d probed a sensitive subject.
But they’d committed to this odd sort of date, and that freed her from years of social etiquette that demanded she change the subject when a guest was uncomfortable. “What kind of doctor are you, exactly?”
“No kind of doctor at all.” His knuckles whitened around the mug. “I quit my job as an emergency physician six months ago and I have no intention of going back.”
Hmmm. “You quit?”
“Yup.”
“You needed a change of pace?”
“No.”
“Plan on going back to school for a new specialty?”
“No.”
“Give me something.” She took a sip of the tasteless but refreshingly ice-cold beer. “You wanted to knock the shine off the diamond, right? Then you can’t leave me burning with curiosity.”
A muscle in his cheek flexed. “I’m just done with the career.”
“Burnt out?”
He paused, and then nodded, and shut down so fast she practically heard the walls falling. She’d known assistant professors who’d crumbled under the demands of classes, lab work, and grant applications, who’d
