Before she could grab the tamales, Ethan stepped into her path, tipping her chin up so he could look into her eyes. “I don’t mind, Legs. My interest in you isn’t a secret.”
And he’d apparently impressed the hell out of her mother with his easy manners. “I know. I just…this doesn’t fall under the heading of what we agreed to. Meeting the family is decidedly not part of the Fun and Simple Plan, and I don’t want you to be overwhelmed.” She also really, really hoped that her mother’s interference didn’t blow the other plans she and Ethan had for tonight.
Those gunmetal gray eyes warmed. “I’m a big boy.” He brushed a quick kiss over her lips and got out of her way. “Anyway, I may have a small family, but because I grew up on a ranch, I had a whole big honorary family who felt it was their duty to look out for me. I don’t overwhelm easy.”
“Did they try to intimidate the women you brought home?”
“Girls. I was under eighteen for most of it. And no. It was more them looking out to make sure I was nothing more than the perfect gentleman. Which I was, because I knew the second I wasn’t, it’d get back to my mama, and I’d live to regret it. The only one they tried to intimidate was my wife. Which, looking back, I probably should’ve seen as a sign.”
Miranda’s curiosity sharpened. She’d known he was divorced, but this was the first time he’d mentioned her. “They didn’t like her?”
“It wasn’t personal exactly. They thought Becca was a perfectly nice woman. Just not right for me.”
“Why?”
“She was a city girl, for one. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. There was some question of common ground to start. Plus, I already had my eye on the Marshal Service by the time we got engaged. Mom wasn’t sure she’d be able to hack being married to someone in law enforcement. And, as it turned out, Mom was right.”
Miranda glanced at him as she loaded tamales and spicy Mexican rice onto plates. “What happened?”
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “She worried, of course. Didn’t really understand why I loved the job, and she sure as hell hated that the job so often had to come before her. But the final straw was when I got shot. She had me served with divorce papers while I was still in the hospital.”
“That bitch!” The words spilled out before Miranda could stop them. “Oh God, I’m sorry. That was inappropriate.”
Ethan chuckled. “Oh, my mama would like you. That’s a sentiment she shares, along with Paul, Clay, Julie, and everybody else who mattered in my life at the time.” He carried the plates to the table. “I won’t lie. It sucked. But at that point it was really just our marriage coming to an obvious conclusion. We weren’t well-matched. She kept hoping I’d go back to Clay, back to the music. That I’d finally agree to Nashville. She’d have been a lot more okay with that kind of lifestyle. But that’s not me, and I guess it just took us both too long to see that.”
Miranda choked back the irrational jealousy that he’d probably played and sung to his wife as he had to her the other night. “That’s all well and good, but she could have at least had the decency to wait until you were out of the hospital.”
“The papers had already been drawn up weeks before. She’d just been working up the nerve to give them to me. I guess my nearly dying lit a fire under her to get it over with as quickly as possible.”
She shook her head. “How do you get over something like that?”
“Is that your way of asking if I am over it?”
“You ought to recognize by now that if that’s what I wanted to know, I’d come straight out and ask.”
“I do appreciate the fact that you’re a straight shooter. And for the record, I am. I mean, I’ve got a few scars from it. But I don’t figure anybody makes it to thirty-six without a few.”
“True enough.”
“What about you? You ever get close to walking down the aisle?”
She thought of Stephen. “Not really. There was one guy I considered going there with during my residency.”
“Another doctor?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
He’d shared his story. It was only fair if she reciprocated. “In the beginning it was great. Dating somebody in the same profession, you get each other on a level that someone who isn’t an insider just can’t. You’re both on the same page with the demands of the job, the stressors and the pressures. He knew exactly what I was facing because he faced the same thing every day. He was a couple years further along in the residency than I was.”
“Another trauma surgeon?”
“Yeah. Brilliant. We were good together. Until we weren’t. We handled the stress very differently. We had a revolving door of all kinds of trauma from violence coming through our hospital. Stephen followed our mentor’s example of erecting that wall between himself and his patients. I didn’t.”
“That was a problem?”
“Yeah. He grew to resent the extra time I spent with patients, trying to help them with linkage to better care, going above and beyond repairing the immediate damage to their bodies to try to save them from whatever shitty situation brought them to me in the first place. He couldn’t understand why I’d do that. Why I’d go that extra mile for junkies or gang members or prostitutes, who were just going to go back out there and engage in the same behaviors that got them hurt in the first place. He said I was stupid for putting so much into people who weren’t going to change.” The memory of that conversation, of the sneer on that aristocratic mouth, had her clenching her hand around the fork.
She dared a glance at Ethan. “I guess you probably wonder the same thing.”
He shook his head. “No. I know why you did it. He didn’t see them as human, as people. And you couldn’t see them as anything else. I may understand where he was coming from, recognizing that most of those people weren’t going to change. Doesn’t mean I agree with his approach. Your idealism doesn’t make you stupid or foolish, Miranda. It makes you a goddamned amazing doctor. And I don’t know how all of it works, but I’m willing to bet your patients probably had better outcomes because you gave a damn.”
Her throat went thick, her chest tight. This amazing, intuitive man absolutely got it. Got her. At that knowledge, she felt the edges of that long open wound start to close up. Unable to speak, she stood and circled around to his chair, slipping into his lap. Taking his face between her palms, she pressed her mouth softly to his. His arms came around her, an easy, comfortable hold, as his mouth opened under hers. There was heat simmering, as always, but this was about something else.
On a sigh, she rested her brow against his.
“Not that I’m complaining, but what was that for?”
“For understanding me.”
Ethan skimmed his fingers over her cheek, into her hair. “I’ve made something of a study of you the last few weeks.”
“You’re a very good student.”
“I’m looking forward to the practical, hands-on exam.”
Heat flared low in her belly, and she straightened to look into his eyes. “Are you now?”