father that an old boyfriend had lost everything when his dotcom company went under and was now part owner of a mall taco stand, something she’d accidentally discovered.
“How about you, Eric?” Wayne said. “Have you been married?”
He meant, are you really a married man out to seduce my innocent daughter and ruin her life?
“No, I came close once, but it didn’t work out.”
“Happens sometimes.”
He meant that a good prospect like the doc was better off with his daughter. She could read her father like a supermarket tabloid. Would this evening never end?
Eric looked at his watch, a complicated one with lots of extras, great if you wanted to know what time it was in Siberia. Big mistake. Her father had spent his career working with tiny details like commas. He didn’t miss Eric’s sneak peek.
“Are we keeping you from something?” he asked. He was eating his beans two or three at a time, stretching out the interrogation in spite of hovering busboys eager to clear.
“No, not at all, Wayne, but I may have to help with a delivery later tonight. The bitch has had a hard time of it in the past….”
Whoops! Mindy grabbed his thigh under the tablecloth and squeezed, but it was too late.
“You call your patient a…” Wayne sputtered.
“Dad, you must have misunderstood. Eric isn’t a human doctor,” she tried to explain, her face getting hot.
“I’m human, but my patients aren’t,” he said, trying for humor, but striking out with Dad.
“He’s a vet…a veterinarian.” She said it so emphatically people for tables around stopped eating to eavesdrop.
“Hey, there’s a friend of mine.” Eric stood up and gestured wildly to a man and woman just entering the dining room.
As the couple made their way toward them, Mindy tried to gauge how her father was taking the vet news. He was stone-faced, fussily scraping beans away from the side of the pot.
A tall lanky man with a hawkish nose and a broad smile stopped by their table, a short strawberry blonde hanging on his arm.
“Wayne, this is Guy Dillard and Tammy Jamison. Wayne is Mindy’s father,” Eric said. “Guy is one of the first people I met after I moved here. He’s a pharmaceuticals rep.”
The three men did the hand squeezing thing, her father making it a contest.
“Where’ve you been keeping this gorgeous woman?” Guy asked, ignoring his pouting date.
“We’ve both been busy at work,” Eric said, valiantly trying to make it sound as though the couple already knew her. “The four of us will have to get together soon.”
“I’m hungry,” Tammy whined and pulled Guy toward the waiting hostess. They moved on after a quick nice-meeting-you routine. Mindy couldn’t tell what her father was thinking.
“How long have you two been seeing each other?” Wayne asked.
“Quite awhile,” Eric said.
“More than a year,” she could honestly say, thinking back to Peaches’s first appointment.
“I’m pretty sure you never mentioned Eric is a vet,” he doggedly insisted.
“I have my own practice. Specialize in small animals, especially dogs.”
“Good profession,” her father grudgingly admitted. “Now, about tomorrow. I thought the three of us could do some sight-seeing. I’d like to visit some ancient ruins.”
“I don’t think Eric’s free, but I’d love to take you north to Walnut Canyon or Montezuma’s Well,” Mindy said.
To Eric’s credit, he didn’t even blink.
“I’ll have to see how my patient does,” he said. “Well, I have to run and make sure everything’s okay at the clinic. I’ll call you, sweetheart.”
He stood, shook her father’s hand, thanked him for the dinner, and planted a warm, unexpected kiss on the corner of her mouth.
“Your leftovers…” she gasped.
“Take them to your place,” he said, then practically sprinted away.
He did turn and wave before he was out of sight. She couldn’t have asked for a better performance.
3
ERIC GOT IN LINE to claim his vehicle, a process slowed by a platinum blonde with a face as rigid as porcelain from too much plastic surgery. The woman insisted on giving detailed instructions to a red-jacketed kid on how to deliver her Mercedes. A rotund man beside her looked bored and gave a long-suffering sigh.
Eric would prefer to get the SUV himself, but even if he had the key, it was probably blocked by other cars in the tightly packed lot east of the restaurant. Unfortunately, people were leaving in droves, and four or five drivers were ahead of him. If the pair of attendants didn’t hustle, he’d have to say goodbye to Wayne all over again.
He could see why Mindy needed someone to palm off as a boyfriend. Her father had changed from a nice, normal guy to a fascist meddler when the subject of her relationships came up. No wonder she’d escaped to Arizona for college and stayed there. She certainly seemed like a woman who could run her own life.
A lead-footed valet delivered a sky-blue Cadillac, and Eric moved a couple of steps closer to the podium where they kept the keys. He rolled his claim slip and a five-dollar bill for the tip between his palms and remembered his tie.
He could go back for it and lose his turn, but he’d probably never wear it again anyway. He was way over Cassandra and knew he never should have gotten involved with her in the first place. They had met when she hit a dog that ran out into the road. He’d been driving behind her and stopped to help. He had saved the dog, got engaged to the horse fanatic and spent a frustrating six months trying to convince her he didn’t want to give up his practice and be her live-in horse-doctor.
He’d die a grizzled old bachelor before he let another woman try to make him over.
“Eric, glad I caught you!”
He turned to see Mindy hurrying toward him, the tie she’d insisted on retying for him dangling from her fingertips.
“Thanks,” he said with feigned enthusiasm as he accepted it.
“I wanted to thank you. Dad likes you.”
“Good. Where is he?”
“He went out on the back patio for a better look at the view while I get the van. I can never thank you enough. He grudgingly admitted you might be okay even if you are an animal doctor. Coming from him, that’s better than an Emmy, an Oscar and the Nobel Peace Prize wrapped into one. Well, I just wanted you to know how much I appreciate what you did.”
