The One Real Thing (Hart's Boardwalk) (15 page)

This certainly felt like a date, and I was suddenly reminded by his warning the other night,
This isn’t over, Doc.

It was wrong and confusing for me that I was so turned on and thrilled by the idea that this sexy man might be pursuing me. I pushed the thoughts out, preferring to bury my head in the sand so I could just enjoy my time with him.

I insisted on buying Cooper an ice cream and I was glad to see he had meant it earlier. He let me pay. We strolled through the park with our cones, the sun growing stronger as the morning wore closer to noon.

“You know, I would never have pegged you as a fun-park kind of guy.”

He was quiet so long I wondered if I’d inadvertently offended him, which seemed strange since Cooper didn’t strike me as the easily offended type.

A few seconds later I was relieved to see my impression had been right when he said, “I have a lot of good memories from here. Spent a lot of time here as a kid. The last time I was here I was about twenty-four.”

“Why did you want to come here today?”

“For you,” he said, completely serious. “I can only imagine what your life is like, Doc—the kind of responsibility you bear every day. Working in a prison infirmary can’t be easy on top of that. I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of bad shit in your time. I wanted to take you away from all that for a few hours.”

“Thank you,” I said, the words soft with too much emotion. “I really appreciate it.”

Too much. Much too much.

I wanted to kiss the thoughtful bastard.

“Why medicine?”

I was drawn from my inner turmoil at the abrupt question. “Why did I become a doctor?”

He nodded.

Some of that warmth I’d been feeling shriveled up at the thought of telling him the biggest reason I became a doctor. But I didn’t want all the warmth to go away so I found myself needing to tell him at least a little of the truth. “I guess I wanted to make enough of a difference so that whenever I leave this world, I leave it knowing I was here. Really here. Being a doctor . . . saving someone’s life . . . knowing that that person will forever remember me . . . I know I’ve left a mark. The kind I can be proud of.”

I felt his gaze on my face and looked up at him. The look he gave me made me want to jump him. “Good reason, Doc.”

I smiled because he had this wonderful habit of making me feel great about myself without even trying. I looked away before he could read in my eyes what I was feeling. “What about you? Are you happy with Cooper’s?”

“It’s a simple life—not a noble cause—but I’m good with it.”

I caught on his words “not a noble cause” and found myself wanting to reassure him that I didn’t believe everyone needed to have a noble cause to have a good life or to be a good person. “Since I was eighteen years old I’ve been surrounded by hungry ambition. Because of that I couldn’t see any other way for the longest time. Being a surgical resident only made it worse because it’s a way of life. And yet . . . not even two weeks here and I’m questioning some of those people that I’ve worked with and I wonder if they are as content with their lives as you and Bailey seem to be with yours. Honestly, it makes me a little envious.”

Cooper drew to a halt and turned to face me. He licked his ice cream as he studied me and I studied him licking his ice cream . . . naughty, naughty thoughts entering my mind and heating my blood.

I could feel the heat in my cheeks and hoped to God he couldn’t see it.

I wrenched my gaze from his mouth to his eyes and found that thankfully he was too busy with his own thoughts to recognize mine had taken a wander down “dirty sexy alley.”

“You’re not happy.”

I frowned at his words. “I’m having a great time,” I insisted truthfully.

Cooper’s eyes warmed. “Glad to hear that, Doc, but I’m not talking about now. I’m talking about in general.”

Uncomfortable with his observation, I turned away and started walking toward the pendulum ride.

“Jess?”

It was the first time he’d ever said my actual name instead of “Doc.” For some weird reason that made me feel guilty about ignoring his probing comment. “I don’t know,” I suddenly said, an overwhelming melancholy settling upon me. “I don’t know.”

And I didn’t anymore.

He was looking at me again. Really looking. Before I could start squirming at the thought of being psychoanalyzed and questioned more, he said, “This is a shit ride, Doc”—he nodded to the pendulum ride—“let’s try Wipeout next.”

I smiled gratefully.

“I should warn you, us being here together for dinner, there will be speculation,” Cooper murmured in my ear as Iris led us to a booth in the back of Antonio’s.

By the way Iris grinned at us and said, “Well, well, well,” as we wandered in together I was already getting that. I gave him a look to tell him so and I saw the humor in his eyes.

“Here you go,” Iris said as she laid down our menus.

We slid into opposite sides of the booth and looked up at her. She was grinning at us. Her eyes landed on Cooper. “Moving on and moving
up
, son.”

Cooper didn’t say anything to correct her. I didn’t say anything
to correct her because what she said was so nice I was internally
aww
-ing too much to do so.

“Drinks?”

“Water,” Cooper said.

“Same.”

“Okay. I’ll be back to get your orders in a bit.”

Cooper recommended the Italian hot dog so that was what we got.

“They should name this ‘Dogs Go to Heaven,’” I moaned after swallowing a mouthful of deliciousness.

Cooper shook with laughter as he ate. He swallowed and said, “Ira will love that. You should suggest it for real.”

I chuckled. “Will do. Once I eat this mother-effing goodness.”

“Mother-effing?” He grinned.

I shrugged. “It would be inappropriate to use the actual word in a family place.”

He shook with more laughter as he chewed and I felt a rush of something warm and fuzzy go through me. I liked making him laugh.

“So did you enjoy returning to the fun park?” I said.

“Yeah.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin and sat back against the booth, looking content in a way a person does when he’s just eaten really good food. “Because I was with you. It loses something, though, when you get older.”

“I don’t think it loses anything. It’s us that lose something.” I wondered what it was that he had lost that made the place special. Was it his ex? And why did that thought make the hot dog in my stomach turn to ash?

Cooper nodded. “You’re right.”

When he didn’t elaborate I felt a surge of disappointment. I hoped to God he wasn’t talking about his ex.

“So tell me about the bar,” I said, changing the subject.

“What do you want to know?”

“How did you come to be the owner of a bar on the boardwalk? From what I hear that’s prime real estate.” I grinned cheekily.

He chuckled. “You been talking to the Devlins?”

“No. Bailey.”

“But she’s been talking about the Devlins. Everything she said is true. They’re a pain in the ass.”

“Have they been bothering you about the bar?”

He shrugged. “Nothing I can’t handle, Doc.”

I frowned at that because I hated the idea of anyone trying to disrupt the contentment Cooper seemed to have.

“The bar used to be called the Boardwalk and it was owned by my mother’s brother. My great-grandparents owned it and it’s been passed down since. My uncle died in a car crash when I was just a boy and he left the bar to my mom. She kept the same management on to run the place for her and then when I was twenty-one she gave it to me. I wanted to make it my own. The place was dog tired, needed a face-lift. I did all that and renamed it Cooper’s. I added a menu and hired a cook and the place is doing well.”

“It’s hard work owning a bar.”

“It’s hard work owning any establishment, but at the same time I get to hang out with people I like every night.”

I grinned at the way he looked at it. “So no downsides?”

“Oh, there are a few.”

“Such as . . .”

He ran a hand through his hair, suddenly looking uneasy, and he leaned in closer, his voice quieter as he said, “I currently have a waitress who is constantly late for work. She’s a good girl, though, just a bit of a flake. I don’t want to fire her, but my bar staff has to carry her weight. I’m stuck on what to do. I’ve fired waitstaff before if they weren’t keeping up, but Lil is different. She’s a good worker when she is there, and she gets great tips. I keep going back and forth on it because I hate the thought of taking away anyone’s livelihood—especially a kid who does do a good job when she actually makes it in on time.”

At that moment I found myself completely lost in the blue of his eyes.

Physically this man was the most masculine, rugged man I’d ever been around. He was the complete opposite of the slim, athletic, perfectly coifed Andrew.

In more ways than one.

Andrew would fire that girl without even thinking about the consequences for her. I’d seen him make both male and female interns cry at the hospital.

Cooper didn’t want to fire a girl who was hurting his business in case it hurt
her
.

God, I liked this man. I
really
liked this man.

I didn’t think I kept a very good job of keeping the admiration off my face, because Cooper’s eyebrows suddenly shot up in question.

I pulled back a little, clearing my throat, as I tried to regain focus. “How many times has she been late?”

“Every shift for the past two weeks.”

“And she was never late before that?”

He thought about it. “Not continually like this.”

“Okay, then something may have changed in her personal life. Figure out what that is and then make a decision from there.”

He contemplated this. “How so?”

“Well, if she’s late because she has . . . say . . . a new boyfriend or girlfriend that is distracting her, then you may have to fire her or issue a warning that she’s going to get fired if she doesn’t clean up her act. If there’s something more serious going on—an illness in the family—then you help her work something out. It’s all about context.”

Cooper stared at me a moment too long . . . so long I felt myself growing warm all over. The warmth in his eyes didn’t help. In fact, it was the cause of the flip low, low in my belly. “Right you are, Doc,” he said, his words coming out a little thicker, a little deeper.

Quite abruptly, inexplicably, sexual tension hung in the air as we stared at one another, and I wanted to wrench myself out of the sudden spell but couldn’t.

“Can I get you anything else?” Iris suddenly appeared at the booth, shattering the moment.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief and gave her a shaky, grateful grin. “All good here.”

“The check, please, Iris,” Cooper said.

“I’m paying,” I said, reminding him.

“I know, Doc.” He grinned. “Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

I flushed at the mention of the word “panties.”

He grinned knowingly and I threw him a dirty look that only made him laugh harder.

Not five minutes later we were back on the boardwalk.

He grabbed my hand before I could stop him and the slide of his callused palm against my softer one sent a rush of images through my brain.

Those hands skimming my bare arms, fingertips tickling my spine, thumbs brushing my nipples . . .

“Let’s take a walk, Doc, before I have to get you back,” he said, either oblivious to what he was doing to me or deliberately prolonging my torture.

I was struck dumb by my intense sexual awareness of him, realizing the physical attraction was only growing stronger the more time I spent with him and the more I got to know him.

While I was freaking out, Cooper seemed just as at ease in our silence as always.

And then he brushed his thumb over the top of my hand and I involuntarily squeezed his in return. He looked down at me in question.

We stared at each other in silence for a few steps and I saw the heat start to darken the blue of his gaze.

His grip tightened and he bent his head closer to mine. “What’s life like back in Wilmington? You got a nice place? Friends?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Nice apartment. Good colleagues. Long hours, though.” I looked out at the beach where people were just starting to pack up. I smiled, watching them. “It must be so nice to work all week and then head to the beach on your day off, or even head to the beach for a walk after work. Unwind.”

“Yeah. I run on the beach every morning. It’s a nice way to start the day,” he agreed.

A pithy comment about it being a nice way to pick up women, too, trembled on my tongue, but I swallowed it, not wanting him to tease me again for being jealous.

“And then there’s Emery’s,” I said instead. “Now that is a place to unwind.”

“Emery’s?” He looked surprised. “The bookstore and coffee place next to mine?”

“Yup.”

“Unwind . . . there?”

I laughed at his confusion. “Yes. Emery is a very soothing person. I’ve been going there a lot to curl up and read and drink her amazing coffee.”

“Does she talk to you?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“You sound as surprised as Bailey.”