“Come on, Dr. Beth,” Tony encouraged. “It’s not that hard.”
“Tell it to someone who’ll buy it,” she grumbled, not taking her eyes off of the small screen. “You hustled me, kid. You told me this was easy.”
Tony laughed. “It is,” he insisted, his gaze moving to Mack, who stood frozen in the doorway still trying to understand his unexpected reaction. “Show her, Mack.”
“I don’t need his help,” Beth retorted.
Tony rolled his eyes. “She keeps getting killed at level one.”
“Uh-oh, that’s not good,” Mack said, shaking off the disconcerting mood and moving across the room to stand behind her.
He leaned down to whisper a few tips in her ear, but the scent of a faintly sexy, musky perfume caught him by surprise. He was pretty sure she usually smelled of antiseptic and something vaguely flowery. This was something new. He wasn’t sure he liked it. It made his thoughts stray directly toward rumpled sheets and pillow talk. He mentally cursed his brother for planting that idea in his head.
“Go away,” Beth said, not even glancing at him. “I can do this.”
Mack chuckled at the display of independence. “If you say so,” he said, moving to sit on the edge of Tony’s bed. He glanced at the boy, who was grinning broadly.
“Women,” Mack said with a hint of exasperation. “You can’t tell them anything. That’s a lesson you need to learn at an early age, Tony.”
Beth did look up then, and the hand-held computer beeped and whistled as she went down in an apparent burst of video flames. She glared at it, then scowled at Mack.
“Tony, do not listen to a thing this man tells you about women,” she lectured primly.
“How come?” Tony asked. “Have you seen the babes he dates?”
At Beth’s sour expression, Mack bit back the chuckle that crept up his throat. He sensed that now was not a good time to reinforce Tony’s enthusiasm for Mack’s well-publicized social life. Nor was a denial that he had a stable of “babes” likely to be believed by either of them.
“I think what the doctor is trying to say is that I might not be the best example for you to follow when it comes to matters of the heart,” Mack said.
Tony stared at him. “Huh?”
Mack tried to control a grin and failed. “Yeah, I don’t get it either, but women are funny about things like this. We’ll have a man-to-man talk on the subject another time.”
“Not on my watch,” Beth said grimly. “Tony, you need to get some rest.”
“But I’m not tired,” Tony protested.
“I think she wants to get me alone,” Mack explained to him. “She probably wants to chew me out for being a bad influence.”
“Oh, give it a rest,” Beth muttered. “This isn’t about you. It’s about Tony not getting overly tired.”
“Hey, Doc, you were the one in here playing video games. I just got here,” Mack reminded her.
Frowning at him, Beth marched to the door and held it open, giving Mack a pointed look until he finally shrugged. He bent down to ruffle Tony’s hair, promised he’d be back tomorrow, then followed her from the room.
“Mind telling me what that was all about?” he inquired, regarding her with amusement. “Are you just a sore loser?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Jealous?” he suggested, surprisingly intrigued by that particular scenario.
She gave him a look that could have melted steel. “I don’t think so.”
“There must be some reason you don’t want me talking to Tony about women.”
“How about the fact that it’s inappropriate? It’s not your place. Besides that, he’s twelve, for goodness’ sakes. He doesn’t need to start thinking about girls in that way for a while.”
“I had a girlfriend when I was twelve,” Mack said, recalling the blue-eyed imp with curly hair rather fondly.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Beth responded irritably.
Mack smothered a laugh. “Something tells me you were not dating at twelve.”
“I wasn’t dating at twenty,” she snapped. “That’s hardly the point.”
“Then what is the point?” He studied her closely. “And why did you wait so long to date? You’re not bad-looking.” He deliberately chose the massive understatement just to see the flags of color brighten her pale-as-cream cheeks.
She opened her mouth to respond, then snapped it shut again.
“Not sure?” he taunted.
The fire in her eyes died slowly. She regarded him with a vaguely chagrined expression. “Not entirely, no.”