“It’ll be in the grant proposal,” she said. “Do you really want to hear me go on and on about it now?”
“I could listen to you go on and on about most anything,” he said honestly, no less surprised than she was by that. “You’re so passionate about what you do.”
“And you’re not?”
“You said it yourself,” he reminded her. “Football is just a game.”
She winced. “That was a really lousy thing for me to say. The important thing for anyone is to do work that they love. You’re doing that. Who knows, maybe one of these days I’ll even let you take me to a game and try to explain why all those huge, hulking men are running up and down the field.”
Mack stared at her, certain he couldn’t be understanding her correctly. “You’ve never been to a football game?”
“Never.”
“Watched one on TV?”
“Not if I could help it.”
“So all that dismissive talk was based on absolutely no firsthand experience whatsoever?” he asked incredulously.
“Afraid so.”
He shook his head. “If there’s a football-for-complete-novices book, I’m buying it and giving it to you. Once you’ve learned a few things and been to a few games, we’ll discuss this gap in your education again.”
Beth chuckled. “Will there be a test? I’m very good at tests.”
He heard the low, taunting note in her voice and his body immediately responded to the unspoken challenge. He reached for her.
“How about this test?” he murmured. “Are you ready for this?”
“Oh, yes,” she said fervently,
And for the rest of the night, football, his meddling aunt and the future were the very last things on Mack’s mind.
Chapter Eleven
When Beth walked into the hospital cafeteria at lunchtime the next day, she was greeted by an unexpected sea of guilty expressions. Jason immediately tried his best to slide a newspaper out of sight under the table. Three people rose, nodded a greeting and suddenly took off, leaving her with Jason and Peyton.
Since their odd reactions seemed to have something to do with that newspaper, Beth walked right up to Jason and plucked it out of his hand before he could safely stash it somewhere. “Something interesting in here?” she asked, holding it aloft and attempting to skim the headlines, a task made more difficult by Jason’s urgent attempts to snatch it back. She gave him a withering look that finally caused him to retreat, albeit with obvious reluctance.
“It’s no big deal,” he muttered defensively. “It’s just some silly item. Nothing important.”
Unfortunately, he had the kind of open face that told Beth he was lying.
“Then why don’t you want me to see it?” she asked reasonably. “Or is it some girlie club ad or an ad to end sexual dysfunction that you think will embarrass me?”
“Come on, Beth,” Jason protested, his cheeks now flaming. “You know we wouldn’t be looking at anything like that.”
“What then?”
When he tried once again to make a grab for the newspaper, she held it out of his reach and glanced more thoroughly at the page that her colleagues had been so absorbed in reading. All she spotted was the daily gossip column by that sleazy tabloid-style reporter Pete Forsythe.
“You guys were reading the local gossip?” she asked incredulously. “I thought you were above such things. Don’t you have all sorts of lofty medical journals you could be reading instead?”
“But this is lots more interesting and hits closer to home,” Peyton said, a definite twinkle in his eyes.
It was so rare to see the serious-minded hematologist with a smile tugging at his lips, that Beth almost didn’t care what was in the paper as long as it was responsible for that smile. Unfortunately, she had a hunch she couldn’t dismiss it so lightly. She took a second look at the headline: Man-About-Town Missing In Action. She still didn’t get the fascination. She gave the men a curious look. “So?”
“Did you read the first paragraph?” Jason finally asked, his expression resigned.
Beth scanned the beginning of the article, her jaw dropping as she read on.
Playboy jock Mack Carlton, who can normally be spotted in every hot spot in town, always with a glamorous beauty by his side, has vanished from view lately. The lonely women are starting to ask questions. Has some secret gal-pal snagged his attention and taken him out of the social whirl?
Well, we can answer that. Mighty Mack has been spending a lot of time at a local hospital lately, and the word is that he’s not there for medical tests. A brilliant doc has caught his eye, and he’s been wooing her far from the prying eyes of the local media.