“He’s a freak,” his mother’s boyfriend had complained, pulling back his arm to hit Simon again. “Make him stop looking at me.”
Instead of defending him, his mother had yelled for him to leave the room. As Simon had run away to his bedroom, he’d heard the man say he was a creepy kid. That there was something not right about him.
That wasn’t the first time Simon had heard the words. He didn’t know how to fit in. He was smarter than all the other kids—already skipping two grades. School came easily to him. He remembered wondering what it would be like to be just like everyone else.
Something he would never know, he thought, returning to the present.
“You golf?” Josh asked.
“You don’t have to ask,” Ethan said. “They have to learn it in medical school.”
Simon chuckled. “I missed that class, but I do play occasionally.”
“We heard you have the afternoon off. Pia has a houseful of women and is throwing Raoul out for the afternoon. Come with us. It’ll be fun.”
Although Simon didn’t know either of the men, he wanted to go with them. An afternoon away from the hospital would help clear his head.
“Let me tell them I’m leaving,” he said, picking up the phone. He paused and looked at them. “We play for money, right?”
Both men laughed.
“You’re going to fit right in,” Josh told him.
CHAPTER TEN
STEVE WAS AN ATTRACTIVE MAN. Tanned, fit, reasonably intelligent. He had blue eyes, which Denise liked. So far they’d talked about his job as a district manager for a computer parts distributor, the upcoming art festival in town and the weather.
She glanced surreptitiously at her watch and hoped the man sitting across from her didn’t notice. She held in a groan. Had it really just been twenty minutes? Thank God they were only having drinks.
“Do you come here often?” Steve asked.
“To the winery? No, I don’t get here much.” She looked around at the patio. Tables and chairs had been set out. The summer evening was warm, but a light breeze kept the temperature bearable. The mountains were to the east, the vineyard to the west. It was a perfect romantic setting. So why did she feel like banging her head against the table?
“I was reading in the paper that they’re having a good summer for grapes,” she said. “If the favorable weather continues, this is going to be one of those excellent years for California wines.”
She held in her second groan in the past three minutes. Talk about inane conversation.
Maybe it was the setting. Too forced. The truth was, she didn’t have that many places she could go on a first date. Living in Fool’s Gold meant she knew everyone and everyone knew her. Talk about a dating challenge, especially at her age.
“Do you get to Fool’s Gold often?” she asked.
He smiled. “No, but I could change that.”
Oops. She hadn’t seen that coming.
“So business is good?”
He leaned toward her. “Good and getting better. Technology is always changing and people want to keep up. In a lot of industries you have to wait until the equipment breaks. Think about it. Would you replace your washing machine just because there was a new, fancy model?”
“Of course not.”
“Right. No one would. But people think nothing of getting a new phone, just because it’s new. It’s a kind of built-in obsolescence.”
“You sound like you really enjoy your work.”
“I do. I like sales a lot and I really like having access to the newest toys.”
He pulled a slim phone out of his pocket, tapped on the dark surface and showed her the screen. It was a maze of little boxes. Apps—was that the word?
“I’m so the wrong person to try to impress,” she admitted. “I’ve had the same phone for two years. I’m terrified it’s going to stop working and I’ll have to figure out how to use a new one.”
“I could help you,” he said, meeting her gaze.
He was obviously interested, she thought with a sigh. She supposed she should be flattered and she was, a little. But while he was nice to look at and seemed charming enough, there was no…spark.
He was smiling. Denise frowned as she realized there weren’t a lot of wrinkles around his eyes or gray in his dark blond hair.
They’d met last month, when Steve had been in town for some kind of conference. She’d bumped into him at Starbucks. Despite the spilled coffee, he’d been funny and friendly and when he’d asked for her number she’d impulsively given it to him, assuming he was close to her age.
“How old are you?” she asked.
“Forty-two.”
Had she been drinking her glass of Merlot, she would have choked.
“I’m more than ten years older than you.” She braced herself for the skid marks he would make as he raced away.
Steve shrugged. “Age is just a number.”
“That’s not what my mirror tells me every morning.”