Sheesh, did she have to relate everything she saw to the man belting out bar tunes beside her?
All the same, she owed him an explanation. "About the cab—"
"Forget it," he said as they passed a restaurant on stilts by the Low Country's bog, the site of their second date.
"No. I won't. It just seemed … safer to meet at the hospital."
His knuckles whitened around the steering wheel. "What? You can't even sit in the same car with me for a few minutes?"
"Gray?" Water lapped high along the shore. Moonlit walk. Their third date.
"Forget it."
Anger snipped her already ragged emotions. What had happened to Doctor Lighthearted? "I don't understand. It's not like we're some kind of couple. I don't have to answer to you."
"Nope. We're not, and you don't."
She couldn't resist asking, "Then why are your shorts in a knot?"
His grip slackened, and he hooked his wrist over the steering wheel. "I don't know."
Her anger deflated. She could always count on Gray's honesty. He never kept his feelings from her, and if she didn't like them, well, at least she wasn't in the dark. "You don't know?"
"Nope." He shook his head slowly. "I just know when that cab stopped in front of my door, I was so mad at you I forgot my mother was three seconds away from walking into a damned embarrassing situation."
"Oh."
"Yeah, oh."
They passed her favorite hole-in-the-wall deli, their last date. "I hurt your feelings?"
Gray winced. "Well, I wouldn't put it that way."
"How would you put it?"
Pulling into the doctors' parking lot, he left the car running, air conditioner blasting. His face tipped to the sky, his brows meeting. Sunlight streamed over the strong planes of his lean face, his broad forehead and square jaw. Lori didn't realize she was holding her breath until her vision dotted with dizziness. Why was his answer so important?
His gaze slid to meet hers. "I understand you have to go. Just show me the courtesy of saying goodbye first this time, okay?"
Guilt pinched her breathing like a too-tight seat belt. Why hadn't she realized today echoed the past, how she'd left him, with no note, no goodbye?
How unlike her, too. She was seasoned in farewells. Why hadn't she given him something she'd perfected through countless childhood moves?
She should have known a vagabond like Gray would appreciate an appropriate goodbye as much as her gypsy parents did. People like them could turn off relationships as easily as they stamped their passports as long as farewells were exchanged.
Throat closing off, she nodded. "Okay."
After a curt nod, he reached into the back seat. His broad chest brushed her arm, and it was all she could do not to wrap her arms around him and apologize. Regardless of how their relationship had ended, no matter that she needed peace and he craved adventure, she respected this man and for the first time realized he had been hurt, too.
He twisted front with a bag in hand. "Sorry I was late today. I swung by the BX after debrief and picked this up for Magda. Maybe you should give it to her, though. She probably won't be too excited to see me after the scene on the flight line."
Lori opened the bag and peered inside.
A dark-haired Barbie peered back up at her.
Uh-oh. Now she knew why she had walked away without saying goodbye a year ago, tried again today. Resisting Gray while he wore boxers and a smile had been hard enough. Holding strong against the man who bought Barbies for babies could be a near impossible task.
* * *