if you’d miss me.”
She stared at him, then shook her head. “Boy, we’re a real pair, aren’t we? Even when we swear we’re not going to get involved, we keep playing crazy games. Is it just the nature of the male-female dynamic?”
“I certainly hope not, though I wouldn’t doubt it. Men and women have been messing up for eons.”
“And here I thought we were special,” she teased, setting the plate on the table, then gesturing for him to sit. “Want an omelet? Or a waffle?”
He shook his head. “Just some company.”
“How about a mimosa? Word is they’re lethal.”
“I’m on call at the clinic, so no,” he said. “You haven’t tried the mimosas?”
“Nope. I’m starting to realize I need to keep a clear head these days, especially after that little performance I put on the other night, collapsing at your feet on the front lawn.”
“All that told me is that you’re not a heavy drinker under normal circumstances. Otherwise a few glasses of champagne wouldn’t have knocked you on your butt.”
“I’m not much of a drinker,” she confirmed. “I never really saw the point. And after the other day when I woke up feeling as if there was a full-blown orchestra of kettledrummers in my head, I don’t think that’s going to change.”
“Yeah, there’s not much to love about a hangover,” he agreed.
“Did you ever turn to alcohol when things were tough during your therapy?” she asked.
“Nope. It wouldn’t have mixed well with the drugs I needed for the pain. I didn’t even like taking those, but they did allow me to work harder at rehab, so I put up with the side effects for a few weeks, then tossed those, too. I like being in control.”
Her eyes lit up. “Aha!”
“What?”
“That’s the piece of the puzzle I was missing. You’re a control freak,” she said triumphantly. “And people who like control have lots of trouble with emotions, which are usually messy and unmanageable.”
Ethan could hardly deny the truth of that. “Okay, sure. I do like things to be orderly.”
“How’d you reconcile that with emergency medicine? From what I gather, there’s nothing nice and neat about working in a trauma unit.”
“Ah, but you’re wrong,” he insisted. “The cases may be unique and the scene totally chaotic, but the doctor’s job is to bring order to it, to focus on the details that will lead to a positive outcome for the patient. We cut through the chaos, because we know how to tackle anything that’s likely to happen.”
“Even the unexpected?” she inquired doubtfully.
“Even that,” he said. “We train to expect the unexpected, just so we can control the situation. Lives depend on us being calm and in control.”
It was ironic, really, because in that most stressful of environments, he’d never felt the kind of uncertainty he felt when dealing with the woman seated across from him right now. She was trying so hard to figure him out, to pin a label on him that could make sense of his reluctance to get involved.
The truth was actually quite simple. She represented something he’d once wanted with all his heart. Now, though, life had taught him that a man couldn’t always have what he most desired. As soon as he dared to reach for it, there was every likelihood it would be snatched away.
And though he’d coped with an injury that could have destroyed a weaker man and a loss that had torn him up inside, something told him that he might not be strong enough to deal with losing Samantha.
12
Samantha slipped into the back of the high school auditorium and was suddenly assailed by a hundred memories. Even the way the room smelled—some sort of mix of greasepaint, wood shavings from the set design and the mustiness of old costumes—seemed familiar. So did the giddy sense of anticipation and nerves she could feel emanating from the stage.
It was in an auditorium much like this one where she’d honed her skill and developed her love of live theater. TV, modeling and all the rest took a backseat in her heart compared to the immediacy of being onstage in front of an audience.
She smiled as the girl onstage succumbed to a bad case of nerves, her mind obviously going blank as she stared into the darkened auditorium with a hint of panic in her expression. Samantha could relate. At that age, she’d suffered her share of memory lapses.
An impatient voice from the wings fed the girl the right line. Even with that help, the teen looked