tried not to wince. “Did I say she was a redhead?”
“Yep.”
Ryan shifted on the picnic bench. Pizza Pete ought to think about getting some cushions for the damn things. “There’s nothing more to tell. I liked her. She was very…understanding about the whole episode.”
Tanner wasn’t fooled. “Right. Understanding.”
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“You’re interested.”
“All right. Maybe I am. But where can it go? I work a sixty-hour week, and I’m always thinking I should spend more time with the kids.”
“It doesn’t have to go anywhere. You ask her out, that’s all. If you have a good time, you ask her out again.”
“Right, but—”
“I’ve got it. The Heart Ball.” The Heart Ball was a major annual fund-raiser put on by the Friends of Memorial. “It’s two weeks away. Have you got a date?”
“No, but—”
“You are going, aren’t you?”
“Of course.” He was on the agenda, as a matter of fact, to give a little look-how-far-we’ve-come speech about the new wing.
“So ask her,” Tanner said. “Do it today. I want a commitment, and I want one before our family-size pepperoni pizza arrives.”
Ryan decided he’d better make a joke of this. “Commitment? That’s an interesting word, coming from you.”
Tanner’s eyes went dark as the middle of the night. And Ryan felt like a jerk. Tanner had always played the field. And Ryan had always ribbed him about it, just as Tanner always gave him a hard time for being a one-woman man.
But commitment jokes were in bad taste these days. Tanner had a big problem concerning the issue of commitment. He was dealing with it as best he could, but the whole situation had him tied in knots.
“Tanner, I—”
Tanner shook his head. “Don’t apologize. Sometimes, the truth hurts. That doesn’t mean you can’t tell it.” He drummed up his best give-’em-hell grin. “Besides, I know your tricks. And they’re not gonna work this time. We’re talking about you right now. You and a cute little redheaded M.D. And that date you really do need for the Heart Ball.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t think, act.”
“Tanner. I’ll think about it.”
“Well then, think fast. Here comes our pizza. And don’t look now, but three hungry kids are headed this way.”
Ryan did think about it. For the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. He thought about how he had no business getting involved with anyone right now. He thought about how, if he did get involved with someone, she ought to be like Patricia, a woman ready, willing and eager to do big-time duty on the home front.
And he thought how he’d met a number of women in the past year or so who would have been happy to try to fill Patricia’s shoes, lovely, graceful women who had good educations and undemanding careers. Women who would have done their best to mother his children and take care of him, too.
He’d had zero interest in the subtle overtures of those women.
He also thought about what Tanner had said.
It doesn’t have to go anywhere. You ask her out. If you have a good time, you ask her out again….
That night, once the kids were finally settled into bed and Lily had retired to her room, Ryan let himself out the back door, sprinted down the driveway and around to the front porch of the little house.
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