Not Quite Forever (Not Quite series) (6 page)

“Tomorrow night. I need your address.”

She was silent.

His heart sped.

She started spouting off numbers and a street.

He scrambled to write it down, the half-empty bowl of cereal tilted and fell to the floor.

Shit.

“What time, Doc?”

“Six,” he told her.

“And how should I dress?”

“Casual.” Because he had no earthly idea what they were going to do.

“You’re making this up as you go along.”

“Maybe.”

Her laugh brought a smile to his face. “Again with the honesty. I didn’t used to think that was a desirable quality in a man.”

“Glad I can shift that character profile for you, Miss Laurens. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

“I look forward to it, Doctor.”

“Dakota?” He caught her before she hung up.

“Yes?”

“It’s Walt. Not Walter . . . not Doctor. Just Walt.”

“Whatever you say . . .”

He waited, knew it was coming.

“Doctor.” And then she hung up.

Seduced by Pizza
might be the title of her next book.

Pizza and bowling.

Did anyone bowl anymore?

“A woman prides herself on her shoes.” Dakota glanced at her two-inch heels that complemented her designer jeans and silk shirt.

Walt pushed dollar bills into a sock vending machine. “Bowling shoes are very retro.”

She reached into the machine, removed the plain white socks, and tapped them to his chest. “Good thing you’re cute.”

“C’mon.” He pulled her toward the lane he’d just paid for. “Nothing says
successful first date
like a little friendly competition.”

“What if I told you my average is two hundred?”

He stopped and she bumped into him. “You just grumbled about bowling.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m not awesome at it.” She wasn’t. At least she hadn’t been when she last played. That had taken place in college, well over five years ago.

They stared each other down for about ten seconds and Dakota slipped, let a smile spread over her lips.

“You’re bluffing.”

She moved around him and set her purse on the table assigned to their lane.

“You’re so easy.”

He blew out a breath as she moved to the rack of house balls and picked out one that fit her hand and wasn’t so heavy she’d lose control and toss the thing behind her.

Walt disappeared long enough to get them a couple of drinks and order a pizza. A good ten lanes of the bowling alley were packed with a league of some sort. From the scores on the digital boards, the league was serious about their game.

She picked at the tiny laces that both had knots in them from the previous careless bowler who simply tugged the shoes off.

Bowling shoes really did have a lot to be desired, she told herself once they were laced and she rolled a small cuff at the bottom of her pants to avoid tripping.

The digital display started to flash their names when Walt returned with the drinks.

He wore a pullover shirt and jeans. He had sandy brown hair that looked like it would bleach out if he spent any time on the beach. She couldn’t decide if his eyes were a shade of blue green, or gold green. She settled on hazel. The question was, what triggered the color change?

Walt set the drinks on their small table. “Pizza in thirty minutes.”

“Everything but fish?”

He flashed a smile. “What one wants on their pizza is important.”

Dakota picked up her ball and stepped up
to the lane. “Almost as important as what they drink.” She knocked down a whole two pins on her first throw.

“When was the last time you bowled?” he asked.

“College. You?”

“Couple years ago.”

Her ball rolled up and she knocked down another three before she let Walt take his turn.

His ball flew down the lane at what seemed like Mach speed, taking out eight pins. “I played a bit in medical school. I think it had something to do with cheap entertainment and late hours.”

A roar went up to their right where the league players were watching someone manage strike after strike.

“Were you ever on a league while in medical school?”

Walt tossed his second ball, missed both pins. “No time for anything at that point in my life.”

“But you wanted to.”

There was a slight hesitation and she inched past him to get her ball. “Anything other than golf.”

“Avoid the cliché?” The next ball knocked down a few more pins than the last. Maybe by their second game she’d break a hundred.

“Golf-playing doctors . . . not my thing.”

“Let me guess . . . your dad plays golf.”

His blue-gold eyes turned a little darker. “How did you know?”

“He’s a doctor, isn’t he?”

Was it her imagination, or did his ball actually crush the pins at the end of the lane?

“Lucky strike,” he said as he sat beside her.

She managed a sip of her drink. “He is, right?”

“Cardiologist. Took over my grandfather’s practice, built it up.”

Dakota leaned forward. “Was medicine a birthright or did you really want it?”

Walt twirled the ice in his drink. “I always wanted to be a doctor.”

There was something missing from his statement, she’d bet money on it. “But?”

“Cardiology just wasn’t for me. Emergency cases . . . fine. But day in and day out? Nawh . . . not me. Imagine going to school for ten years of your life to learn everything about how the engine on a car works and dedicating your life to the fuel pump when it was all over.”

“Fuel pumps are important.”

“They are. And eventually every one of them will need to be replaced or overhauled or the car doesn’t run. But there’s so much more to the car that keeps it running.”

“Emergency medicine or bust.”

He laughed. “You might say that.”

“I’ll bet your parents are proud.”

Walt sipped his drink . . . didn’t meet her eyes.

“They’re not?” She was certain her jaw hit the table.

“They wanted the practice to go to me . . . eventually.”

She didn’t see that coming. “But you’re a doctor. You volunteer for humanitarian relief. How can any parent be anything but overjoyed with that?”

“C’mon, Dakota, I’m sure some of your characters come from less-than-perfect parents.”

“That’s fiction.” Fiction based loosely on facts that she’d picked up from people she’d met, research on personality traits.

“My story isn’t unique. My dad wanted me to follow in his footsteps, literally. I became a doctor but not the kind of doctor he wanted me to be. My mom has only ever been his wife. Supported his desires.”

Dakota couldn’t help but laugh straight out with that. “Really? She didn’t exist before him?”

“She lives to be in his life.”

Dakota rolled her eyes as she stood and grabbed her ball. She let the ball roll, thought about what Walt was saying.

“Did she go to college?”

“Yes.”

“What did she study?”

When Walt didn’t say anything she knew he had no idea what his mom wanted before marrying Dr. Walter Eddy II.

Fascinated, she didn’t even mind that her second ball rolled down the gutter.

“I’m sure your mother has other things on her mind than being your dad’s wife.”

Walt shook his head. “She called two days ago to remind me of my dad’s birthday celebration and to make sure I was coming. She only calls for things like that. Dad doesn’t really call at all.”

“So in short . . . you became a doctor because you love it and managed to piss off your family because you didn’t follow in the family business. Let me guess . . . your parents don’t live close by.”

He frowned. “Colorado.”

Walt was still frowning when he returned from knocking out another seven pins.

There was obvious tension from the conversation, something she really didn’t want and imagined Walt didn’t either. “My parents don’t approve of me either. You’re not alone in that.”

It was Walt’s turn to let his jaw drop. “You’re a successful author.
New York Times
bestseller . . . millions of readers.”

She laughed. “You read my bio.”

He raised his hand. “Guilty.”

“All that and I even make amazing money. Still, my parents are less than thrilled.” She turned on her best Southern accent and lowered her voice to a whisper.
“ 
‘She writes those porn books.
’
 ”

“You’re kidding.”

Dakota shook her head, left a smile on her face but felt her parents’ disapproval even at a distance. She might laugh about it openly, but deep down . . .

Walt reached over and took her hand in his. The color of his eyes took on a pale shade of golden brown. Warmth ran up her arm, and some of the noise from balls hitting pins and the shouts of excitement disappeared.

Walt looked at her. “What I read wasn’t pornography. More detailed than anything I’ve read before, but nothing so trite. Your characters were really fucked up, serious issues, and in the end, I was hoping they’d work it out. Of course I have to wait six months until the next book comes out to find out if they do.”

A warm laugh shook her. “It’s a romance novel, Doc. Everything will work out . . . eventually.” They dug into the pizza and had yet to finish one game. They both sucked at bowling. Well, Walt did a much better job, and if Dakota had to guess, his last couple of gutter balls were totally thrown on purpose.

They were both enjoying a second drink and Dakota had to admit that bowling was a great first date. Well, second if she counted drinks in Miami with friends.

“How often do you get home?”

“To my parents?” she asked, snaking a long string of cheese with her tongue.

Walt’s eyes caught the movement and he paused.

The attraction, the one that made her say yes to a date, shivered up her spine. She felt her skin tingle, and she knew it wasn’t from the forced air in the bowling alley. She had to concentrate on chewing.

“South Carolina, right?”

“Yeah.” She chewed quickly. “As little as possible.”

“That bad?”

“You have no idea. The South is vicious. And the women. For the love . . . the women gossip about you from two feet away. California is so much easier.”

“No one gives a crap here.”

“Right!” She pointed her pizza at him before taking another bite. “Or they look right at you and can call you a bitch. So much easier to deal with.”

“I can’t believe your parents don’t approve.”

Dakota shrugged. “When my very first book was released, seemed everyone in my hometown managed to get a copy and read it all at the same time. My phone started ringing by the time chapter ten made its rounds. My mother was furious. Some of my close friends, those I’d known since grade school, started talking smack.” The memory of that time crawled over her spine. She’d been so ecstatic about her first novel, only to have those she thought would be the most supportive turning their backs.

“Did everyone shun you?”

She shook her head. “Not everyone. But enough negative vibes were flying around to make me leave. I was in an apartment just outside of Savannah at the time. I took my advance and moved here, worked hard to drill away my Southern accent. I go back when I have to. Holidays, that kind of thing. Some of my old friends have come around with the success of my work.”

Walt flashed a smile. “I like it when the South slips into your words.”

She laughed. “There are times I can’t contain it. If you go around talking like this all the time”—she let her accent fill every syllable—“no one would take me seriously.”

“And you want to be taken seriously.”

She sipped her drink. “I’ve worked hard to get where I am. I don’t want anyone trivializing my efforts because of an accent or a bias because of the genre I write.”

“I guess I hit your hot buttons when I called romance novels
bodice rippers
.”

Dakota narrowed her eyes and Walt sat back, tossing his hands in the air.

“I’m an educated reader now . . . I’ll never make that mistake again.”

She shook a finger in his direction. “If you know what’s good for you, you won’t.”

When she stopped laughing, she sat back in her plastic chair and sighed. “We have a lot in common.”

He lifted his glass. “To avoiding our parents.”

She could drink to that. “So when is this birthday bash for Dad?”

Walt rolled his eyes. “Two weeks.”

Dakota found herself groaning for him. “Will it be awful?”

“Oral surgery might be better. Birthdays bring out family.”

“You’ll get it from all ends.”

“Yeah. I’ll get off easy if my mother doesn’t set me up on a blind date.”

Dakota patted his hand. “Oh, Walt, that’s awful and deliciously funny at the same time.”

“My mother’s taste in women and mine couldn’t be further apart.”

“You have to give her points. If she sets you up with a local girl, you might just move back home and pick up the practice for your dad.”

Walt ran a hand through his hair, picked up his drink. “I was trying so hard to think she just wanted grandkids, but you’re probably right.”

“Not the grandkid guilt. Try being a woman. My mother thinks that if a uterus isn’t used before the age of thirty it’s going to shrivel up and fall out.”