Page 5 of Paging Dr. Breakup
“Literally, huh.”
Billy.She shook an imaginary fist at the sky. If only that busybody would use his powers for good instead of evil.
Straightening, she laughed the story off like it was no big deal. “Nothing like spilling an entire cup of hot coffee on another person to remind us why we’re friends. Just like old times.”
“Friends?”Poke.“Old times?”Poke, poke.
Mav might be thirty-four—only two years younger than her—but he was a master of pushing her buttons. Deirdre stiffened her spine. She was having none of the teasing by her younger brother.
Stopping dead in her tracks in the empty admin hallway, she crossed her arms. “Friends.” She pinned Mav with what she hoped was her scariest human-resources-about-to-make-a-performance-improvement-plan expression.
“Well, there are worse things to be,” he mumbled.
She didn’t believe his mildly chastened act for a minute. “Come on now, don’t dig for gold that isn’t there. I don’t have time for this. Don’t you have enough going on with your own social life to occupy you?”
“Speaking of digging for gold, no word from that asshole speculator from a month back?”
“Good riddance,” she said. “Oh, hey, did you receive the USGS survey paperwork for us to file?”
He nodded. “Should be here today or tomorrow. I’m not letting anyone else take another swing at our land ever again.” He faced her with a gleam in his eyes and patted his chest. “Did you like how I changed subjects? You thought I was distracted by a new topic, and you were off the hook. Wrong. Now I’m back.”
Damn.
He continued, “Here’s the deal. If I can find time in my busy schedule to court Lee, then you could find time to get out there socially as well.”
“First of all, I’m an administrator here at the hospital. It’s important that I remain professional.”
“Sis, I’m dating Dr. Tipton, and we keep things strictly professional in the workplace.” He grinned from ear to ear. “And strictlyunprofessional outside of the workplace.”
Deirdre clapped her hands over her ears. “No. Please, no. I don’t want to know the details of my brother’s personal life. Dammit to hell, I’m going to have to bleach my eardrums if you keep talking.”
He lifted his chin, as if tempting her with a target. “All I’m saying is, it’s healthy to date. It’s not hard to date. It’s not wrong to date. Dating might be good for you.” Waving the arm that wasn’t holding his jacket, he motioned around them. “Yes, we are in the middle of nowhere. Yes, it’s a small community. But people understand that work and personal lives can overlap. Even the lives of, say, a hospital administrator and an ED doc.”
Meeting and dating someone, she could tolerate that—even with the small-town microscope.
But the worst-case scenario? Breaking up? Deirdre didn’t have enough of a stiff upper lip to face the town’s dissection of the emotional fallout. Too many times in her painful past, she had suppressed raw emotions while presenting the veneer ofnothing to see here. No way would she risk that pain of public assessment again.
“Mav, you’ve made a lot of assumptions.” Walking slowly toward the meeting room with him keeping pace, she said, “Listen, Calvin walked away from Yukon Valley and from Elijah’s and my friendship years ago. The only time he came back was when Elijah’s impending death forced him to return. Now he’s here because of his parents, then he’s gone again.”
Mav bumped her shoulder with his. “In the meantime, you could still have fun, right?”
First of all, the thought of havingthatsort of fun again? The idea hit her like a kick to the gut. Her husband had died five years ago, and he’d been ill for a year before that. Basic math demonstrated that it had been a long time since she had hadthatkind of fun.
Taking matters into her own hands, so to speak, worked, but it only got a gal so far.
She and Calvin having fun? She gulped and tried to ignore a hot zing of excitement that arrowed straight down to her… fun… center.
Nope. Not having this conversation right now. Not thinking those thoughts right now.
Deirdre spun and stretched to as close to her five-foot, six-inch frame as she possibly could, wishing that her laser glare could burn the smirk off of Mav’s face. “You seem like a busy guy, what with being EMS director and running a tourist business. Not much time for anything else.”
“Um.” His light brown eyebrows drew together.
“So why don’t you focus on Mav’s life, and I’ll work on Deirdre’s life. Got it?”
“But—”
“Got. It.” She maintained eye contact as she put her hand on the door handle.
