Decker's Daughter - Caroline Lee Page 0,7
her an evening of babysitting, so why not?
She took a deep breath. “Okay.” And then, because it felt good to agree, she nodded. “Okay, I’ll go out with you.”
To her surprise, he gave a little fist pump, like he’d accomplished something really remarkable.
And when he smiled, she returned it.
“How does Japanese sound? I’ve been wanting to try that new hibachi place.”
Her brows rose. “Well, that’s a surprise. Most cowboys I’ve met are all about steak.”
“You mispronounced bacon, there.”
“You prefer bacon to steak?”
His shocked expression was obviously exaggerated. “It’s the Heavenly meat, Bobbi.”
“Heavenly?”
He nodded seriously. “Like little baby angels crawling across your taste buds.”
A laugh burst out of her, and she shook her head, still grinning. “I think this will be a fun evening, Decker. How does Thursday evening work?” Neither she nor Laura worked late on Thursdays.
“Even if it didn’t, I’d make it work. Can I have your number?”
As Jim led CJ around the corral one more time, Decker and Bobbi bent over their phones to make the arrangements.
Once, she glanced up and caught him looking at her, and found a smile on his wide lips and an excited sparkle in his green eyes.
And she had to swallow. He was handsome, alright, but she was drawn to his quiet joy for life. Unconsciously, her right hand squeezed into a fist, remembering what it felt like to touch him.
Could she afford to touch him again? Could she risk this life she’d made here with CJ—this good life—for a handsome smile?
This date is either a great idea, or a very terrible one.
She’d find out which on Thursday.
Chapter 3
Decker couldn’t recall being this excited about a date in a long while.
Of course, he couldn’t recall having a date in a long while. Oh, there’d been some ladies here and there, but for some reason, he couldn’t think of a single one at that moment.
Not with Bobbi standing in front of him, smiling and looking as amazing as she did.
“Are you hungry?” he asked, offering her his arm, as they turned to the front door of Tokyo House, Cauldron Valley’s latest addition.
And when she took his arm, he felt that same zing shoot straight to his chest.
“I am,” she confessed. “I had to skip lunch today, but then when we got home, I didn’t want to ruin my appetite, so I just had some grapes.”
“Grapes, ooh,” he teased, shooting her a smile. “Living large, huh? Why’d you skip lunch? Was it that busy at work?”
He held up two fingers to the hostess, and she nodded and grabbed their menus—after doing that stupid thing where she licked her fingers and thrust them into the air. Deck tamped down his shudder, thinking of the germs on those menus being held by the same fingers she’d just stuck in her mouth. But as the hostess led them toward a table in the back, his attention quickly returned to focus on Bobbi.
She was biting her lip, but then shrugged. “The office can get busy, yeah. But it’s not like there’s a pandemic going on or anything. We just had a complicated insurance claim come in, and I wasn’t hungry yet, so I offered to take it.” She kept speaking as he held her chair out for her, and she slid in. “And then, by the time I was hungry, the patients were lining up again.”
Remembering her in her scrubs, Deck nodded as he sat across from her. “CJ says you’re a nurse?”
She nodded. “My specialty is pediatrics. I work for a pediatrician two streets that way.” She pointed. “Of course, he’s the only pediatrician in town. Cauldron Valley is bigger than Black Aces though. At least we have a pediatrician here.”
Black Aces wasn’t too far away, and Decker couldn’t wait to hear about her life there, but for now, he was distracted by her description of work. “Do you like it?”
“I love it. I’ve always known I wanted to work with kids, and be a nurse, so it seemed like a no-brainer.”
His smile slowly grew. “I totally get that.” He’d love the chance to work with kids. “And it sounds as if you stay pretty busy. Must be nice to get out of the scrubs every once in a while though.”
Unbidden, his gaze dropped to her shoulders, then lower.
Whereas last time he’d seen her, she’d been wearing those cute purple scrubs, now she was in a light silk blouse, and the pale pink looked amazing against her darker skin. And it was cut to emphasize all the right