Matthew knew plenty of physicians who preferred to get in their rounds early in the day—some of them before the sun even came up—but he wasn’t one of them. He’d never been a morning person by nature, and contrary to the desires of some doctors, he liked to see his patients when their family members might be visiting, to answer any questions or alleviate any concerns they might have. So he rarely began his own rounds before ten in the morning, which often meant he ate lunch late.
Monday was no exception, except that he never ate lunch at all. For some reason, his rounds took longer than usual—possibly because Mrs. Harold Asgaard had roughly a million more questions and concerns than the average patient’s family members did—so it was after three o’clock before Matthew had a chance for lunch. By then it was so late, he decided he might as well hold off a bit longer and have an early dinner.
Until he went to the hospital cafeteria for a cup of coffee to tide him over and saw Rita Barone seated all alone at one of the far tables.
She wasn’t eating, and was instead wrapped up in reading a fat paperback. She was still dressed in her blue scrubs, and still had her hair woven into one of those elaborate braids she favored for work. There were other times, Matthew recalled, when she wore her hair twisted up at the back of her head in a style that reminded him of Grace Kelly—though Rita Barone was much more exciting and exotic-looking than the pale, fragile Grace. Invariably, at work, she had her hair tightly bound in one way or another.
It occurred to him then, not for the first time, that he’d never seen her wear her hair loose. He’d never even seen her in street clothes. Because he’d never seen her anywhere other than work. He knew her hair must be long, because her braid fell past the base of her neck, and he knew it must be thick, because a wealth of the dark tresses fell over her forehead. But he didn’t know if it was straight or wavy or curly. And for some reason, suddenly, he wanted very badly to know which it was.
But that wasn’t the reason why he strode over to her table after buying his cup of coffee. No, the reason for that was…
Ah, hell. He didn’t have a reason for that, he realized as he came to a stop beside her. Which posed a problem for him when she glanced up to see him standing there.
“Dr. Grayson,” she said when she saw him, an unmistakable note of surprise lacing her voice.
“Rita,” he replied in his usual terse way, wishing he knew of some other way to be besides terse. It made him uncomfortable that all the nurses addressed him as “Dr. Grayson” when he addressed all of them by their first names. But it made him even more uncomfortable to extend an invitation to them to address him less formally. He just wasn’t sure how to go about being informal, as much as he might like to try it on occasion.
Like this occasion, for instance.
She waited for him to say something more but, God help him, his mind went completely blank. All he could do was gaze into her dark, soulful eyes and try not to lose himself completely in their bewitching depths. Rita continued to gaze at him expectantly, however, so when he was finally able to grasp some semblance of coherent thought again, he said the first thing that finally popped into his head.
“Is this seat taken?”
Immediately after uttering it, Matthew cursed himself inwardly. He had revealed way too much about himself in that one short question. That he was an idiot, because he’d just asked a question for which there was an obvious answer. That he was trite, because the question was such a cliché. And, worst of all, that he might potentially be hitting on Rita with that clichéd, idiotic question, because why else would a man ask to sit with a woman unless he was interested in her?
She arrowed her dark eyebrows down in confusion, then glanced over at the obviously empty chair he indicated, then around at the obviously empty cafeteria surrounding them before she finally returned her attention to him.
“Ah, no,” she said. “No, it’s not taken. Help yourself.”
To walk away now would really make him look like an idiot. Not that he wanted to turn down her invitation, anyway. He just wished he was a more socially adept person. And he wished he could spend more than a few seconds in Rita Barone’s presence without feeling as nervous as a teenager.
“Thank you,” he managed to mutter, and with a surprising amount of dignity he seated himself across from her. But for the life of him, he could think of nothing else to say.
Rita closed her book, then looked at Matthew expectantly again.
“I, ah, I hate to eat alone,” he said by way of an explanation for his inexplicable behavior.
Rita smiled at him, and something inside Matthew went zing. Honestly. Zing. How unmanly. If strangely pleasant.
“You’re not eating,” she pointed out, and suddenly the zinging stopped, only to be replaced by what felt like crashing and burning.
“I hate to drink alone, too,” he quickly countered. Oh, score one for the surgeon, he thought wryly. Quite the quip-per he was today.
Rita eyed him thoughtfully for a moment, as if she were trying to decide whether she should say what she was thinking. “Interesting you should say that,” she finally said. “Because I rarely see you drinking or eating any way but alone.”
Matthew was too busy digesting the implication of her statement to be bothered by the statement itself. Obviously she’d noticed that he generally spent his time alone. She’d noticed him. He couldn’t imagine why a woman like her would pay attention to a man like him.
“Just because I drink and eat alone,” he said, “doesn’t mean I like it.” He was surprised by both having spoken the words and by the discovery that they were true.
Rita dipped her chin forward in acknowledgment. “Then by all means, stay as long as you like. I’ll be glad to keep you company.”
That surprised him, too. But before he had a chance to ponder her statement further, she continued.
“I’m off the clock,” she told him, “but I’m waiting for my sister Maria. She’s supposed to meet me here at three-thirty to take me shopping.”
She uttered the last word as if it were the cruelest punishment inflicted in the deepest circle of hell. Matthew couldn’t help but smile in response. “Don’t like shopping?” he asked.
She made a face. “Well, let’s just say there are other things I’d enjoy more. A lengthy discourse on the mating rituals of the common earthworm, perhaps. Or an in-depth introspective on the Monroe Doctrine. Or watching cheese age. That kind of thing.”
He chuckled in spite of himself, and was again surprised by how good it felt to do that. He really should do it more often, he thought. Problem was, he didn’t often have the opportunity. “I thought a love for shopping was encoded into that second X chromosome you women have,” he said lightly.
“Ah, ah, ah, Dr. Grayson,” she chided playfully, “that narrow-minded assumption about women encoded into your Y chromosome is showing.”
“Touché,” he said, grinning. And then he realized how strange it felt to be doing that, too, because he so rarely did.
What was even stranger was that Rita grinned back. Women hardly ever smiled at Matthew. Probably, he thought, because he rarely gave them a reason to. But Rita Barone was a woman he would like to have smiling at him more often. And not just because she had such a beautiful smile, either. But because of the astonishingly good way it made him feel to see it.
“Maria, though, is not only a good shopper,” Rita continued conversationally, “she has good fashion sense, which I utterly lack.”
“And you’d be needing fashion sense because…?”
She made another face, this one even more eloquent than the first. “I have a family thing,” she said.
Funny, Matthew thought, his grin failing, but she sounded like she enjoyed family gatherings about as much as he did.
“Not into family values?” he asked, hoping his voice betrayed none of the sourness he felt.
“No, it’s not that,” she hastened to clarify. “I mean, I love getting together with my family. They’re wonderful. It’s just…”
“What?”
She sighed fitfully. “Well, the Barones are a big family,” she began.
Which, of course, was something Matthew already knew. In fact, everyone in Boston knew that. The Barones were well-known even beyond Boston as the founders of Baronessa Gelati, an Italian ice-cream business they’d built up from a single ice-cream parlor in the North End to a chain of popular stores across the country. Baronessa Gelati was also available in all major grocery stores in dozens of flavors. Matthew’s favorite, for instance, was double chocolate mocha raspberry mint.
They were well-known for other things, too, Matthew knew. Like their long-standing feud with the Conti family, another renowned Boston family. Matthew wasn’t entirely sure what the source of the feud was, but he, like everyone else in the city, was aware of bad blood between the two families over something that had happened decades ago.
“…and anyway, I need a dress for it,” Rita was saying, and only then did he realize that his mind had been wandering—probably because he’d been gazing so deeply into her soulful brown eyes—and he’d heard scarcely a word of what she’d said.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but what kind of function did you say it was?”
Rita smiled again. And again went the zinging of his insides. And somehow, it didn’t feel quite so unmanly this time. On the contrary, this time, when Matthew noted Rita’s smile, he felt very manly indeed.
“I guess I didn’t say, did I?” Rita said. “I was so busy going off on trying to avoid all the family prying that goes on at any gathering of the Barone clan.”
“Prying?” Matthew asked.
“You know, all the questions the older generation asks about when I’m going to get married and start a family because my biological clock is ticking and I won’t be young forever, and there are so many handsome young doctors at Boston General, why haven’t I caught one yet?”
Despite the fact that he himself wasn’t one of those handsome, young doctors, Matthew stopped himself from asking Rita that very question himself, even if he wanted to know the answer to it. He did sometimes wonder why she wasn’t married. A woman like her should at least be involved in a long-term relationship. But he knew she didn’t have a boyfriend.
So instead, he found himself commiserating with her. “I have the same problem with my family,” he told her. “Only I imagine it’s even worse, since I’ve held out much longer than you have.”
“Hey, I bet I can hold out as long as you,” she said, smiling even more broadly.
Somehow, though, Matthew couldn’t bring himself to smile back. Probably because her assertion didn’t make him feel particularly happy for some reason. “I just meant that my family wouldn’t mind marrying me off, too,” he said.
What he didn’t add was, provided it was to the right sort of woman. Well, what the Graysons considered right, at any rate, which meant old-moneyed, blue-blooded, upper-crusted, fair-haired and fine-boned. Someone at the completely opposite end of the spectrum from Rita Barone.
“I guess it’s one of those things you just have to put up with once you get out of college,” he added, nudging thoughts about his family from his brain, since there were other, infinitely more enjoyable things to think about. Like, say, Rita Barone. “The nosy questions from relatives, I mean.”
Just as it occurred to Matthew that he’d spent several minutes making perfectly harmless, wholly comfortable conversation with another person—something he couldn’t recall ever doing—he saw Rita glance over his shoulder and lift a hand in greeting to someone. When he turned around, he saw a young woman who looked very much like Rita striding toward them. Her sister, he presumed. Which meant Rita would be leaving now, and he’d be left on his own, alone again.
Normally, it would have made Matthew feel better, since solitude was what he craved most in his life. Suddenly, though, for some reason, he didn’t want to be alone. Not unless Rita Barone was alone with him.
Rita’s sister—Maria, he recalled her name now—was the epitome of the professional businesswoman, dressed in a smart gray suit and low-heeled pumps. She stopped at the side of the table, leveling first a curious gaze on Matthew, and then a meaningful one on Rita.
With what sounded like a much-put-upon sigh, Rita introduced the two of them. “Maria Barone, Dr. Matthew Grayson. Dr. Grayson, my sister Maria.”
“Nice to meet you,” Maria said cordially. Then, to her sister, she added pointedly, “Why don’t you ask him?”
Rita’s eyes widened in clear horror at the suggestion. Whatever it was, Matthew thought, since he had no idea what Maria was talking about.
Rita, however, evidently did, because she colored furiously and hissed, “Maria!” with a note of unmistakable warning.
The second Barone, though, clearly unfazed by her sister’s outburst, turned to Matthew. “Rita needs a date for a big shindig we Barones are putting together this weekend. Otherwise, the rest of the family is going to badger her mercilessly about coming alone. She always comes stag to these things, and I think the older generation is beginning to wonder if she’ll ever have a date with anyone.”
In response to this, Matthew noticed that Rita blushed even more furiously—at least, he noticed that before she covered her face with her hands. Then she hissed an even more vicious, “Maria!”
“Personally, I don’t see anything wrong with a woman going stag to a party,” Maria continued blithely, clearly oblivious to—or else totally unconcerned about—her sister’s reaction. “But we Barones are very traditional. We’re big on old-country values. Especially marriage. And children. Which, of course, is obvious, since Rita and I have six brothers and sisters, not to mention four cousins.”
Instead of hissing her response this time, Matthew noticed Rita only groaned.
“Not that I expect you two to get married and have eight kids,” Maria continued, “but since you are sitting here talking, I figure you must be friends, so why shouldn’t Rita ask you to be her date, you know?”
Logically, it made sense, Matthew thought. Sort of. Socially, it was totally acceptable. In just about every other way, however, it was completely undoable. Because…because…
Well, just because, that was why. And it was a good reason, too, dammit.
“So what do you say, Rita?” Maria asked. “Why don’t you ask Dr. Grayson to come to the party with you Friday? Provided he’s not otherwise engaged, I mean.”
This time Rita only shook her head—still buried in her hands—in response to her sister’s question.
“Unless, of course,” Maria went on, “you’ve asked someone else.” She began to laugh, as if she’d just made a little joke. “I was being sarcastic,” she told Matthew. “Rita never dates anyone.”
Another grim sound came from Rita’s general direction.
“So, Rita,” Maria tried again, “what do you say?”
Finally, Rita dropped her hands from in front of her face and turned to look at Matthew full-on. She was still blushing, but she roused a halfway decent smile. “I hope you enjoyed getting to know my sister,” she said. “You’ll be reading about her in tomorrow’s paper. In the obituaries,” she clarified enthusiastically. “Just ignore her,” she added before he had a chance to comment. “She didn’t mean it.”
“Of course I meant it,” Maria said.
“I’d love to go with you,” Matthew said at the same time.
And he was as astonished to realize he had said it as Rita obviously was to have heard it.
Maria, however, seemed completely unsurprised. “See there?” she told her sister. “I got you a date. Now I can get you an outfit. You can thank me for both later. You ready to go?”
But Rita clearly wasn’t listening to her sister, Matthew realized. No, she was much too focused on him.
“Are you serious?” she asked. “You’d really go with me?”
Matthew was surprised by her response. What man would turn down the invitation to accompany Rita Barone to the ends of the earth on bare feet, never mind to a high-profile, high-society party?
But truth be told, he was surprised, too, by his easy acceptance. Usually he didn’t do parties, especially with people he didn’t know. In fact, he avoided large groups of people whenever he could, never having felt comfortable among them as an adult because he’d never been welcomed into them as a youth. The scars on his face might be less horrific now than they had been when he was young, but there had been a time in his life—a critical time, and a time that didn’t feel so far in his past, even though decades had gone by—when he’d been disfigured in a way that had made people instinctively turn away from him, and then deliberately exclude him. And those vivid memories had stayed with him too well.
Somehow, though, he couldn’t bring himself to say no to Rita—or, rather, her sister.
“Of course I’m serious,” he made himself say before he could chicken out. “It sounds like fun. After all, the Barones are something of a celebrity clan in Boston. There would be a certain air of distinction in attending.”
That was true. The event would be high-profile, high-visibility and high-society. As much as his own family might object to the nouveau-riche, scandal-ridden Barones, the Graysons still traveled in the same social circles, and, financially, at any rate, they were equals. So maybe in attending this bash with Rita, Matthew could bridge some small gap between the two families.
He tried not to think about why that might be important.
“What time should I pick you up?” he asked when Rita only sat there staring at him incredulously.
Or maybe she was staring at him distractedly, he thought. No, that was only thinking wishfully. Maybe she was panicked at the thought of spending time with him and was scrambling for an excuse to get out of going with him. After all, it had been her sister who had made the suggestion. Technically, Rita hadn’t invited him at all. So maybe she was just trying to think of a way to let him down gently.
Then she smiled. And only then did Matthew realize he had been holding his breath. He released it in a long, slow expulsion of relief.
“No, I’ll pick you up,” she told him, smiling a smile of genuine delight. “For an event this big, they always send a car for the family members. It’ll swing by for me first, then we’ll come by your place. At, say…seven?” she asked.
Matthew nodded. “Seven it is.”
She smiled again, and he told himself not to get his hopes up. Strangely, though, he didn’t listen to himself at all.
“Great,” she said. “Friday at seven. Be there, or be square.” With that, she rose from her chair and began to follow her sister out of the cafeteria.
He watched her go, mostly because he couldn’t resist doing so, and as she reached the exit, she turned once more to look at him. She smiled one final time and lifted her hand in a quick wave.
Only then did he notice that her wrist was bare, and that she hadn’t been wearing the pin either. The pin and bracelet from her secret admirer. Her secret admirer, Dr. Matthew Grayson.
He couldn’t help wondering what that meant.