know what it means,” he said. “But what I’m wondering is why you feel the need to tell me that you know what it means.” She arched her eyebrows at him and what he noticed was that they were perfectly sculpted, a lovely frame for the sparkling eyes beneath them. Eyes he stared at for the span of a full five seconds. When he realized that he was staring so intently, he forced a hard blink that shattered the rising sizzle of the moment. Crazy thoughts, he scolded himself. Crazy and stupid.
“No particular reason.”
The heck there wasn’t. She was serious about auditing his class, and if he were a betting man, he’d bet a week’s pay that she was memorizing a medical dictionary or something as equally bizarre. “I have a hard time believing that you do anything without a reason, Mrs. Blanchard.”
“Call me Angela. You’re going to be seeing enough of me over the next few months that I don’t think we need the formalities standing between us.”
“Then you’re really serious about this?” As if he didn’t already know. Angela Blanchard exuded determination. One look said it all. She squared her shoulders, held her head high, and plunged right into the middle of whatever she wanted, and he doubted an army could stop her. “You’re really going to spend the next year and a half of your life sitting in the back of my class, only to reap no benefit?”
She laughed. “Depends on how you define benefit, doesn’t it, Mark?”
A chill, caused by the way she’d said his name, shot up his arm. Her pronunciation had been crisp, deliberate… rolling off lips he didn’t want to look at but caught himself staring at like he’d stared at her eyes an instant ago. And her voice, with just a hint of huskiness… What was it about her that was drawing him? Certainly, she wasn’t his type. He liked them long, slim, blond… she was short, rounded in ways he didn’t want to think about, athletic. So, after a year or so without a woman, that’s all it could be. His retreat into self-imposed celibacy. He was out of his comfort zone, not that he’d had much of a comfort zone lately, and Angela was… tempting. Any man would admit that, and that part of him wasn’t in retreat quite as deeply as he’d thought. Although he’d been happier when he’d believed it was.
But he could deal with this like he dealt with everything else these days… with indifference. God knew, he’d practiced that to perfection. “Benefit, in practical terms, is the certificate I’ll be issuing that will validate eighteen months of study and hard work, that will enable its recipient to become an advanced member of the mountain rescue team and even coordinate rescues on his or her own. Which is a benefit you won’t be reaping.”
“Your choice, not mine.”
“Ah, we finally agree on something.”
“Trust me, we don’t agree on this. But that will change.”
“As in you’ll finally come around to my way of thinking?”
She shook her head. “I spent eight years of my life chasing around Europe after a man who, like you, thought I’d come around to his way of thinking. And, foolish girl that I was, I did after a while. So count on my words when I tell you that the last thing I intend on doing now, or ever again, is coming around to your, or anybody else’s, way of thinking. It isn’t going to happen. For me, now, it’s all about my way of thinking, and doing what I need to do to make a better life for my daughter.” She smiled sweetly, her nose wrinkling as the corners of her lips crinkled up. “And I’m really good at that. Better than I ever thought I could be.”
Fire and sass. He liked that. In spite of himself, he liked Angela Blanchard. She wasn’t put together like any woman he’d ever known up close and personal, and while he definitely wasn’t in the market for anything up close and personal, not for a long time to come, he was surprised to discover that he appreciated the contentiousness in her. It had been a long time since anything, or anyone, had challenged him the way she did, and it felt good. Made him feel… almost alive again. “So you’re going to content yourself with spending a year and a half that won’t produce the outcome you want? Is that your way of thinking, to waste your time that way?”
“I’m going to content myself with learning, which is never a waste of time. Whatever happens after that happens.” She thrust a packet of papers into his hand. “In the meantime, read this. I’m working on a hospital-sponsored camp for children with diabetes. It’s in the last planning stages, and I’m looking for staff support for when I present the final ideas to Neil and Eric. A word from you, in favor, would be appreciated. They’re going to listen to my presentation tomorrow afternoon, and if things go well, I’ve already lined up the means to launch the trial run of the camp in a couple of weeks. Take a few kids out and see what works, and what doesn’t. The plan was conditionally approved weeks ago and now everything is in place but the hospital’s final consent for the trial run, so I’d appreciate you being there to speak up for what a good idea it is.”
He smiled—something he hadn’t done much of lately. “And you’re assuming that I’ll support this program?”
“Read the information. It makes sense because it’s all about putting the children in charge of their physical condition and their choices. Teaching them to be smarter about their diabetes than the people around them. So, after you’ve read the literature, you’ll support it.” A devious little glint flashed in her eyes, and she added, nearly under her breath, “If you’re as good a doctor as everybody says you are.”
Again, that attitude. There was so much of it contained in such a tiny package. He was almost on the verge of finding it sexy. Almost. “I’ll read the information if I have time. No promises.”
“Fair enough.” With that, she walked away. No goodbye, no other arguments, and Mark caught himself watching her practically march her way down the hall, almost disappointed when she turned the corner and disappeared from his view without turning back and challenging him one more time.
“Staring at something interesting?” Eric Ramsey asked, coming towards Mark from the opposite direction.
“Not interesting so much as unusual.”
“Well, she’s certainly a force to be reckoned with. I married her sister, and they’re just alike in that aspect. And once you get hooked—”
“Not hooked,” Mark interrupted. “And not going to get hooked.”
“Just as well, because Angela’s living off the list, and there’s not a man on it.”
“The list?”
“A list of things she wants to accomplish. When she was a chef, she ran her kitchen with the same precision, which is why we wanted her here, in charge of our dietary department at the hospital. She lives by her lists, and she doesn’t get sidetracked.”
A result of those years she’d followed some loser of a man through Europe? He could definitely imagine Angela living by the list, but what he couldn’t imagine was the carefree Angela who’d followed the man she’d loved all over Europe for years. Admittedly, that was a side of her he found intriguing, a side he wouldn’t mind having a peek at. “We all get sidetracked,” he said, half to himself. “Sooner or later, we all get sidetracked.”
Eric patted him on the shoulder then hurried off to tend a case of bronchitis in exam three, while Mark grabbed up the next patient chart in the stack. Stomachache. Damn, he wanted to be somewhere else other than in exam three, treating a case of nausea.
