Casting one last scowl at her sister, Samantha led the way onto the deck at the side of the restaurant and headed toward the railing where they’d have a view of the ocean across the street. Thanks to an offshore storm, the surf was churning, reflecting her own emotions. She drew in a deep breath of the refreshing, salty air and turned to face Ethan.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have figured out that Emily and Grandmother had hatched some kind of plot the minute Emily started insisting we come here for lunch.”
Ethan’s hard expression eased slightly. “Not entirely your fault. This is your family’s restaurant, and I did come here, after all. I knew there was a chance you’d be around.”
She regarded him curiously. “So, why did you come?”
He shrugged. “Lost a bet, to be perfectly honest.”
Samantha’s lips twitched at his resigned tone. “To whom?”
“Greg,” he admitted sheepishly. “I’m thinking his matchmaking gene just might rival Emily’s and Cora Jane’s. If I’d had any idea he had such a devious, romantic streak, I’d never have opened that clinic with him.”
“So, what are we going to do about this? We’ve been warned. We know what they’re up to. Just hours ago we vowed to end the madness, and here we are again. Are we naive or just no match for their ingenuity?”
“No idea,” he conceded. “I’m way out of my element here. Oh, there have been a few people who’ve tried to set me up ever since my engagement ended, but most of them gave up eventually. If you say no often enough and forcefully enough, people stop trying.”
“So, you’re dead set against ever getting involved in another relationship?” she asked, hoping there was no hint of disappointment in her voice.
“Pretty much.”
“All because of a woman who, if you’ll pardon me for saying so, sounds about as sensitive as a slug?”
Ethan smiled at that. “That pretty much sums up Lisa.”
“Well, that’s just crazy,” she said. “If you can see her for the kind of woman she was, then you shouldn’t let her have any influence whatsoever over the choices you make now.”
He gave her a wry look. “So I’ve been told.”
“You don’t buy it?”
He hesitated, then said, “Maybe we should come at this from a different direction. You’re younger than I am, but if you’ll pardon me for stating the obvious, you’re not a kid. Why aren’t you married? Or have you been?”
Samantha winced at having the tables turned on her. “No marriages,” she conceded. “I guess I never met the right man.”
“So it’s not because some insensitive clod broke your heart?”
She thought about it, not sure how to explain the choices she’d made. “Amazingly, I don’t have any ill will toward any of the men I’ve dated, not even toward the man I was pretty sure I loved.”
“What happened with him?”
“He was an actor, which isn’t always the smartest match for an actress, even though you both understand the demands of the business. That’s the upside.”
“And the downside?”
“My career took off for a time. His tanked. He couldn’t handle it.” It sounded so simple, but it had been the most painful period of her life. No matter how she’d fought to keep silent about her own successes to keep him from feeling like a failure, it hadn’t been enough.
Ethan gave her a sympathetic look. “Pride can be a pain, can’t it?”
“Masculine pride surely can,” she responded agreeably. “I’m surprised you can admit that. After all, wasn’t it your pride your fiancée hurt, as much as your heart?” She studied him with a worried gaze. “Or did she really break your heart?”
For a minute the look on Ethan’s face suggested she’d gone too far. His jaw tensed, his eyes sparked and then, in an instant, a smile tugged at his lips.
“You don’t mince words, do you?”
“I don’t see a lot of point in it, no.”
“That’s a refreshing change,” he told her. “I’ve spent a lot of time in recent years with people who are way too careful about speaking their minds around me. Even if what they want to say has nothing at all to do with my injury, they seem to think I’m too fragile to be challenged.”
“So they think you can’t take the truth?”
“Probably. And, to be honest, when I first got back and was going through rehab, I probably couldn’t. If anyone even looked at me the wrong way, I’d explode. Believe me, I was impossible to get along with.”
“I imagine that’s just as much part of the healing process as learning to deal with the prosthetic.”
He looked surprised once more by her insight. “It was. A few people, like Boone and Greg, figured that out and never gave up on me. I’d kick ’em out, but they kept right on coming back.”
“Unlike your fiancée?” she said, disliking the woman intensely.
Surprisingly, he shook his head. “It wasn’t my temper that pushed her away. I don’t think I could have blamed her for that. No, she stuck it out until I was on my feet, so to speak. Then she bailed. She said she couldn’t cope with me not being the man she’d fallen in love with, as if my leg were the most important part of my anatomy and losing it made me less of a man.”
Samantha shook her head. “The woman was an idiot.”
Ethan laughed. “Thanks for the ardent defense, but maybe we should get back to our immediate problem. What do we do about the meddlers?”
“Stay alert. Let them do their thing, I guess,” she suggested, though she was unconvinced that the strategy would work.
“Seriously?”
“It’ll make them happy to try,” she said, “and there’s nothing that says we have to get with the program, right?”
He held her gaze for a minute, just long enough for a spark of sexual tension to sizzle between them. “Nothing,” he agreed, though he too sounded a little unsure of
