Midnight Kiss (Virgin River #12)(8)

She sat back on her heels and eyed him warily. “Is this just more inertia?”

His grin widened. “No, Sunny. This is part chivalry and part animal attraction.”

“Oh, God…. I just got dumped by an animal. So not looking for another one.”

He gave her a gentle punch in the arm. “Buck up. Be a big girl. I bet you haven’t let an interested guy buy you a drink in a long time. Take a chance. Practice on me. I’m harmless.”

She lifted one light brown brow. “How do I know you’re harmless?”

“I’m going back to sacrifice myself to the gods of residency in two days. They’ll chew me up and spit me out. Those chief residents are ruthless and they want revenge for what was done to them when they were the little guys. There won’t even be a body left. No one will ever know you succumbed to having a beer with me.” And then he smiled with all his teeth.

She tsked and rolled her eyes at him.

He sat up. “See how much you like me? You’re putty in my hands.”

“You’re a dork!”

He got to his feet and held out a hand to her, helping her up. “I’ve heard that, but I’m not buying it yet. I think if you dig deep enough, I might be cool.”

She brushed off the knees of her jeans. “I’m not sure I have that kind of time.”

CHAPTER THREE

ONCE DREW GOT UP AND MOVED, he limped. He claimed a wounded hip and leaned on Sunny. Since she couldn’t be sure if he was faking, she allowed this. But just as they neared the steps, the doors to the bar flew open and people began to spill out, laughing, shouting, waving goodbye.

“Careful there,” he yelled, straightening up. “I just slipped on the steps. They’re iced over. I’ll get Jack to throw some salt on them, but take it slow and easy.”

“Sure,” someone said. “Thanks, Drew.”

“Be careful driving back to Chico,” someone else said.

“Say hello to your sisters,” a woman said. “Tell them to come up before too long, we miss them.”

“Pinch that cute baby!”

“Will do,” Drew said in response, and he pulled Sunny to the side to make way for the grand exodus. The laughing, joking, talking people, some carrying their plates and pots from the buffet table, headed for their cars.

“What the heck,” Sunny said. “It’s not even nine o’clock!”

Drew laughed and put his arm back over her shoulder to lean on her. “This is a little town, Sunny. These folks have farms, ranches, orchards, vineyards, small businesses and stuff like that. The ones who don’t have to get up early for work—even on holidays—might stay later. And some of the folks who are staying are on call—the midwife, the cop, the doctor.” He grinned. “Probably the bartender. If anyone has a flat on the way home, five gets you ten either Jack or Preacher will help out.”

“Do you know all these people?”

“A lot of them, yeah. I’ll give you the short version of the story—my sister Marcie was married to a marine who was disabled in action and then later died. She came up here to find his best friend and sergeant—Ian Buchanan. She found him in a run-down old cabin up on the ridge, just over the county line, but the nearest town was Virgin River. So—she married him and they have a baby now. My oldest sister, Erin, wanted a retreat up here, but she couldn’t handle a cabin with no indoor bathroom or where you’d have to boil your bath water and chop your wood for heat, so she got a local builder to renovate one into something up to her standards with electricity, indoor plumbing and a whirlpool tub.” He laughed. “Really, Marcie’s pretty tough, but if Erin risked breaking a nail, that would make her very cranky.” He looked at Sunny and smiled. “It used to be a lean-to, now it should be in Architectural Digest. Anyway, I’ve been up here several times in the past couple of years, and Jack’s is the only game in town. You don’t have to drop into Jack’s very many times before you know half the town. I’m hiding out in the cabin for a few days to get some studying done, away from my sisters and the baby. I have to go back on the second. I just swung through town for a beer—I had no idea there was a party.”

They just stood there, in front of the porch, his arm draped across her shoulder. It was kind of silly—she was only five foot four and he was easily six feet, plus muscular. He didn’t lean on her too heavily.

“Is it very hard, what you do? Residency?”

“It doesn’t have to be. It could be a learning experience, but the senior residents pile as much on you as they can. It’s like a dare—who can take it all and keep standing. That’s the part that makes it hard.” Then he sobered for a second. “And kids. I love working with the kids, making them laugh, helping them get better, but it’s so tough to see them broken. Being the surgeon who puts a kid back together again—it’s like the best and worst part of what I do. Know what I mean?”

She couldn’t help but imagine him taking a little soccer player into surgery, or wrapping casting material around the arm of a young violinist. “Your sister was married to a soldier who was killed…?”

“She was married to a marine. Bobby was permanently disabled by a bomb in Iraq. He was in a nursing home for a few years before he died, but he never really came back, you know? No conscious recognition—the light was on but no one was home. They were very young.”