She put one foot on the ground and grabbed his shoulder as she brought the other over. He climbed off. Michelle was already in the process of removing her helmet. When she got it off he took it from her and laid it beside his on the seat.
The diner looked like it had been around forever. It was a fifties-type place with silver siding, orange bench seats, and Formica tabletops. He loved the place already.
He held the door open for Michelle. Her hair was mussed and she still wore green scrubs but that didn’t detract from her stately walk or good looks. She could have been a conquering queen by the way she held herself. What made her even more eye-catching was that it was a natural part of who she was, nothing conceited about it.
There were only a handful of people in the place but all eyes turned to her. She ignored them and scooted into the first booth she came to. Ty moved in across from her.
“I thought you might like to sit where you can see your bike.”
“Good plan.”
“How long have you been riding?” she asked as she picked up a plastic-covered menu.
“Since I was about sixteen.”
“That young?” Her eyes widened.
“Yeah. I had to have a way to get to and from school.”
She looked up over the menu. “Your parents let you have a motorcycle at that age?”
“No, my grandfather did.” Whoa, she’d already gotten more personal information out of him than most people did. Usually he steered the conversation away from himself but Michelle wasn’t giving him a chance to as she shot off another question.
“How did your parents feel about that?”
“They didn’t care.”
She looked down at the double-sided card in her hand and mumbled, “I sure would have.”
“They weren’t around to care.” Bitterness filled his voice but, then, it always did when he spoke about his parents. Which he rarely did.
Thankfully the server approached their table. She was in her mid-forties, slightly overweight and had her thin hair tied back in a ponytail. “What you have?”
“Hi, there. I’ll have the breakfast platter. Eggs over easy.”
When the woman looked at her, Michelle said, “And I’d like the mile-high pancakes.”
Ty smiled up at the server. “And a large pot of fresh coffee.”
The woman smiled. “Coming up.”
“You’re amazing. That woman looked so sour when she came over to take our order and she leaves smiling because she has spoken to you.”
“Why, thank you. Nothing but the power of Ty.”
“The power of Ty, uh? Ty is a nickname, isn’t it? I’d guess your full name is Tyrone.”
Michelle was being unusually chatty. Maybe it was the late hour, maybe she was hungry or maybe it was the fact she was stuck with him. Normally he would have complained about all the personal questions but he found he didn’t want to give her a reason to stop. It was good and bad. He liked her attention too much and she was uncovering his secrets.
“I was named after Tyrone, Georgia.”
“Why after a town?’
“Because my parents were passing through it when my mother went into labor. You sure are full of questions.”
“It’s interesting. I’ve never known anyone named after a town. So you were born in Tyrone.”
Ty hesitated a moment before he said more. He’d told maybe three other people about his birth. “No, I was born in a stand of trees beside a cotton field.”
“What?”
“My parents didn’t believe in going to the hospital.” He put his fingers in the air to make quotation marks. “Birth is a natural process. You don’t need a hospital for that.”
“In this day and age I can’t imagine that happening.”
For Joey no doctor and no hospital, going all natural, had been a death sentence. Ty had seen to it that he was no longer associated with those ideas. “Well, it didn’t just happen yesterday. I am thirty-four years old.” Okay, now he’d said enough. For someone who had a difficult time building relationships at work, Michelle sure had him spilling his guts.
“You know what I mean. Medicine has advanced so far. We know so much more than we used to.”
“Yeah, science has come a long way but not everyone embraces it, neither does it have all the answers.” That statement made it sound like he was defending his parents, which he certainly was not.
Michelle’s eyes went dark and a sheen of moisture covered them before she blinked. What had she been thinking about to bring that on?
Her eyes rose to meet his. They held a stricken look for a second before her gaze focused downward. Had he stumbled on a secret? He didn’t want to look into anyone’s dark closet.
To his great relief, the server returned to place Michelle’s plate down in front of her then his in front of him. Now he’d make an effort to turn the conversation to something less personal and certainly more pleasant.
“Whoo, comfort food. I might think you’re feeding your emotions.”
“I like pancakes. Nothing special there.”
He was beginning to think there were a number of things special about Michelle.
“Still an amazing amount of food for such a shapely woman.”
“Shapely?”
“Don’t try to act like you don’t know you’re a fine-looking woman.”
“Thank you,” she said in a humble-sounding voice.
“How do you stay in such good shape?”
“I swim laps three times a week and I have good genes. My mother…”
She put a bit of pancake in her mouth but he had the feeling she had purposely decided not to say more.
“Interesting. I took you for a gym rat. But on second thoughts that would be far too sociable for you.”
‘That didn’t sound like a compliment. More like an insult. You don’t think I can be sociable?”
“I had no intention of insulting you.” This subject was more like it. Less about him and superficial. “I was just stating fact from what I’ve seen. And, no, I don’t think you are particularly sociable.”
Her eyes drifted away to watch the server pour coffee. Michelle looked up at him again. “So how do you stay in shape?”
“So you think I look good?”
“That isn’t what I said. My arms were around your body just a few minutes ago. I have some idea of your physical fitness.”
He knew all too well how close she’d been. How much he’d enjoyed it. His body had taken far too long to recover from the co
ntact. The ice queen was thawing. Nicely.
“I enjoy rock climbing, wind surfing when I’m stationed close enough to the ocean, and I try to pick up a game of basketball in the local park when I can.”
“Sounds like you stay busy.”
“I try to. Moving from town to town can be lonely so I try to get out where people are.” He forked eggs into his mouth.
She gave him a long look he couldn’t quite read.
“So how did you like your first bike ride?”
“I found it exhilarating.”
His lowered his chin and pierced her with a look. “I thought by the King Kong grip you had on my waist that you might be terrified.”
“I was but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t enjoying it.”
He nodded his head in fascination. “You’re an intriguing woman, Dr. Ross.”
“You never call me Dr. Ross.”
“Yes, I do. In front of patients.”
Michelle huffed. Which she did often, but he found that he liked it. “Why do you insist on calling me Michelle when you know I’d rather you didn’t?”
“At first it was to aggravate you, then it was because ‘Dr. Ross’ sounds so stuffy in the OR and now it’s because I like the feel of it crossing my lips.”
Ty didn’t miss her shiver or the fact that her fork came to rest a little too noisily against her plate. He’d pierced that armor she hid behind. The opposite of cold was hot. Maybe beneath that snowcap attitude was a boiling volcano of emotion ready to erupt. It would be exciting to be there when it did.
“I’d take that as praise but for the fact that the hospital Casanova said it.”
“I’m no Casanova. I just consider myself a friendly person.” He took a sip of his coffee.
“With all the women.”
“Are you just a little jealous, Michelle?”
He made her name sound particularly sexy on purpose. Maybe he could light some fire under that snow. Her eyelids fluttered down and up again. Oh, yes, he was getting to her. But why did he want to? There were plenty of woman at the hospital who had made it clear on a number of occasions that they were more than charmed. But who did he find intriguing? Michelle.
That revelation made him sit back in his seat. He watched Michelle for a moment. She was certainly attractive enough but her standoffish ways were perturbing. He wanted to have fun and nothing about this woman said fun. That wasn’t entirely true, he was having a good time right now. Still, Michelle was definitely the wrong person to be interested in. She cried permanence and that wasn’t in his plans in any form.