“No.”
She waited, but he didn’t say anything else. There was no sign of the smile and she wondered if she’d annoyed him, or crossed some invisible line.
“Burns are my specialty,” he said.
“You must get lonely, always being in a different place. What about family?”
“I have my work. That’s enough.”
It couldn’t possibly be enough, she thought. He was a difficult man to understand. Obviously he was very gifted. His work was demanding and, from what she had seen, he was relentless when it came to taking care of his patients. But who took care of him?
No, no. Don’t go there, she told herself. No rescuing. Simon was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He’d been all over the world, doing amazing things. He didn’t need her and she didn’t need to make this assignment more than it was.
She’d had three serious boyfriends in her life. A guy back in high school, one in college and one shortly after. All three of them had ended things after making it clear she wasn’t good enough. She hadn’t been pretty enough or smart enough or ambitious enough. Was she really looking for an instant replay on emotional pain?
“Do you have a home base anywhere?” she asked.
“Los Angeles.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I lived there for a while.” With guy number three.
Simon glanced at her. “You don’t sound as if you liked it very much.”
“I didn’t. I couldn’t fit in—my boyfriend was a disaster.” She stopped in front of the Fox and Hound restaurant and faced Simon. “He was a doctor, too. Or he was going to be. He was still in medical school.”
“What happened?”
A reasonable question. She’d set it up herself, so she had no one to blame. Thinking before speaking was an excellent characteristic, she reminded herself. One she was going to have to take up.
“We didn’t want the same things.”
Which was sort of true. The more important issue, which she wouldn’t talk about, was that he’d destroyed what little self-confidence she’d had left. She believed no one could take that away without her permission, so she knew she was also at fault. “His loss.”
The words surprised her.
“Thank you.” She tilted her head. “You’re different from how you were before.”
“Less stick-up-the-ass?”
She winced. “I’m sorry I said that. It was mean. You weren’t out of line. Fluffy really could have done some damage.”
“But she didn’t. Sometimes I get a little intense.”
Montana bit the inside of her mouth to keep from smiling. “I hadn’t noticed. Thank you for understanding about Fluffy. It wasn’t her fault, it was mine. Max warned me. He said she wouldn’t make it as a therapy dog, but I was determined.”
“To fulfill her therapy-dog destiny?”
Humor sparkled in Simon’s eyes. She felt herself getting a little breathless. The man could be devastating when he tried.
“I can’t save the world, so my passion is a little smaller than yours.”
“Not smaller. Different.”
There was something about the way he stared at her. As if he was hungry. She shook her head. Talk about delusions of grandeur. Simon hungry for her? On what planet? He wasn’t looking at her mouth. She must have a smudge or something.
As casually as she could, she rubbed her chin.
“Max is kind of an intriguing guy,” she said. Because her boss seemed a safer topic. “A little mysterious. No one knows where he’s from. He obviously has money. You’ve seen the facility—that doesn’t come cheap. And it’s not like the therapy-dog business pays very much. And there’s a weird coincidence with my mother. She has a tattoo on her hip. Max. My sisters and I don’t think it’s the same Max, though. That would be too strange.”
She sighed. “Too much information, right?”
“Perhaps.”
She started walking. He fell into step beside her.
“It was the tattoo. I shouldn’t have mentioned my mother has a tattoo.” She wasn’t asking a question.
But instead of answering, Simon shifted to her other side. And then it clicked.
He always made sure he kept his good side to her. However they turned or moved, she was on his right.
Her throat got tight. She willed herself not to show any emotion at all. He wouldn’t want that. She would guess he didn’t even know he was doing it. That keeping his good side to people had started when he was much younger and was now unconscious.