.

she was wrong. Maybe he hadn’t been on a date but at something more serious, like a funeral. She helped herself to a salad while Rick went for the barbequed spare ribs. She added a cup of soup to complement her salad, and then stood in line to pay.

      “I’ll take care of it.” Rick spoke up from behind her.

      She swallowed another flash of irritation. Would he offer to pay for Chuck’s lunch? Or Frank’s? Or Dirk’s? She highly doubted it.

      He must have sensed her mood because he quickly handed a twenty-dollar note to the cashier. “Please. To help pay you back for covering me yesterday.”

      She arched a brow as they walked to the nearest table. “Don’t think you’re going to get off that easily. I plan to make you cover one of my call nights in return. Maybe even on a holiday,” she threatened.

      Rick’s laugh was a low, rusty sound and she couldn’t help but smile as she sat down opposite him.

      “I’m not kidding,” she warned.

      “I know.” He took a bite of his barbequed ribs, not looking too worried.

      They ate in silence for a few minutes. When her curiosity got the better of her, she glanced at him. “Should I offer my condolences?”

      Startled, he gaped at her. “Why?”

      “I thought maybe you attended a funeral, the way you were dressed up when you came in last night.” She tried to sound casual, instead of intensely nosy.

      “No funeral.” Rick stared at his plate for a long moment before meeting her questioning gaze. “I do appreciate you covering for me. I needed to spend time with a very special person.”

      Her jaw dropped. What nerve! She had been right. He had used her so he could go out on a hot date.

      Stabbing the lettuce and tomato in her salad with more force than was necessary, she offered a thin, brittle smile. “Glad you had fun. Who’s the lucky woman?”

      “Fun might be stretching it a bit,” he said with a grimace, seemingly unaware of her ire. “But the lucky woman is Lizzy, my ten-year-old niece. Her father took off right after she was born and she needed a surrogate father to escort her to the father-daughter dance. I know a silly grade-school dance may not seem important to you, but Lizzy means the world to me and I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her to sit at home alone.”

      His niece? She swallowed hard, ashamed to realize she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion. Not a hot date after all, but family. How could she argue with putting family first? She remembered the father-daughter dance at school. She would have loved to have gone, but her father had been too busy defending a big client at his law firm and hadn’t taken time off for such frivolities.

      Her stab of resentment faded, replaced by a softening in the region of her heart as she imagined Rick at the dance with a ten-year-old. “I think it’s wonderful you cared enough to find cover so you could take your niece to the dance,” she said in a low voice. “Lizzy is very lucky to have you.”

      Their gazes caught, held, and she’d swear every last bit of oxygen had been sucked from her lungs at the steamy intensity of his gaze.

      His pager went off and he read the text message. “Ah, excuse me for a moment while I answer this.” He rose to his feet and headed for the nearest phone.

      She stared at her food, realizing how close she was to making a fool of herself over a man. Again. So what if Rick was sweet, kind, and hotter than burning jet fuel? She’d always avoided dating doctors, her schedule was crazy enough the way it was, and juggling two call schedules was just asking for trouble.

      Even her accountant husband hadn’t loved her enough to put up with her schedule. Or her infertility. And the few men she’d dated after her divorce hadn’t been much better. She’d actually confessed her problems to Denis, but he’d backed off so fast, she’d realized she’d made a huge mistake.

      So she’d stopped looking for a relationship. Besides, even if she had been looking for a relationship, Rick was her boss, which meant he was completely off limits. She needed to concentrate on her plans for the future, which included hopefully becoming pregnant and having a baby. A child she’d love with her whole heart.

      Not a man.

      Rick listened as the resident explained how Tristan Brown, Emily’s brother, was insisting on being placed in the same room as his sister. The fact that ICUs didn’t have double rooms wasn’t a good enough reason. Tristan was insisting on spending the rest of his hospital stay in the parent bed provided in each of the PICU rooms, but there was no way to manage the external fixation device for his open femur fracture on a tiny pull-out bed.

      He’d extubated Tristan that morning, and the boy had immediately demanded to know how his sister was doing. Tristan had gotten so agitated, Rick had feared he might need to intubate and sedate him again, in order to prevent more damage to his lower leg fractures. Despite the traction pinning him to the bed, Tristan had threatened to pull himself over to Emily’s room, on his elbows if need be.

      Rick had believed him.

      “I’ll be up to see Tristan as soon as I’m finished with lunch,” Rick replied. “Emily is still in surgery, getting her Heartmate anyway, so tell Tristan he needs to be patient. We’ll have to do some investigating to see if what he’s asking for is even possible.”

      “Will do.” The resident hung up the phone.

      He returned to the table, taking his seat again.

      “So what goals do you envision for the community education committee?” she asked, pushing her half-eaten salad away.

      He tried to bring his attention back to the point of their lunch. “I don’t know for sure, but I think we need a few different campaigns.”

      “There’s been quite a bit of press already around drinking and driving, but as eighty percent of our teenage motor vehicle crash patients come in with alcohol in their systems, it’s worth repeating.”

      “Yeah.” He knew exactly how Tristan felt. He figured he’d be just as protective with his younger sister, Jess. But at the same time, compromising Tristan’s care wasn’t an option either.

      “Rick? Are you okay?” Naomi asked in concern.

      He nodded, realizing he’d been staring down at his half-eaten food. “Yeah. Sorry. Ah, the other big problem we see is that people simply don’t pay attention while driving.” Gabrielle and Sarah had died in a car crash, they’d been wiped out by some guy who’d run a red light while talking on his cell phone. The guy who’d killed his wife and daughter had been convicted for vehicular homicide, but the knowledge hadn’t helped to ease the pain of his loss.

      “Cell phones are a menace.” Naomi snapped her fingers. “I know we could run some sort of ‘Just Drive’ campaign. No eating, no make-up, no cell phones. ‘Stay Alive, Just Drive’ could be our slogan.”

      “Sounds good.” Stay alive, just drive. If only the guy who’d killed Gabrielle and Sarah had done that. His appetite vanished, so he gave up trying to finish his lunch. Just thinking about the accident that had cost his family’s lives made him feel ill. He’d thought he could do this, work on something productive to help get over his past, but he’d been wrong. There was no way he could work on this community education campaign after all. “Why don’t you see if you can get one of the ED doctors and nurses to help as I’m going to be pretty busy with the whole trauma re-verification process?”

      Momentary confusion crossed her features, but she nodded. “Sure. No problem.”

      “Are you finished?” He suddenly needed to get back to work, to stop fixating on the lingering, ache of his past. “I have to go upstairs to deal with a family issue.”

      “Yes.” She stood when he did and carried her empty tray over to the sideboard. “Is the family issue one of the three from last night?”

      “Tristan