So did she have a date with him to something else too?
Mabel’s father came out of his preoccupation. “Hey, uh, Dallin? Weren’t you saying you needed some bait powder for fishing? I’ve had some success with these over here,” he said, pointing to the next aisle over, which was the canned goods/ baby supplies/fishing supplies aisle.
It sounded like they were super buddy-buddy. Like they’d had many conversations. While Bryce Butler barely remembered Zane’s name all these years.
Want to know what’s worse than seeing the girl you love but are trying not to love move on with another guy? It’s not that the other guy already has more kinship with her dad, even though you’ve known her dad since basically your birth. It’s the look of something like pity on the face of the woman you love as you say goodbye and walk away.
Chapter 6
Dallin Conforth, resident anesthesiologist and guest lecturer, stood in front of a whiteboard in a conference room at the technical college in Rexburg, Idaho.
“We need a concept for a theme, and that’s not my forte,” Doctor Conforth said. “I’d rather do a spinal block on a hippo than think of party colors and decorations.”
Mabel laughed, along with nine other poor souls who volunteered to help with the gala. A couple of the women offered some suggestions for a theme for the formal gala, but Mabel barely heard any of it. And it wasn’t because she’d been totally wrecked on account of seeing Zane at the grocery store an hour earlier.
Which, for the record, seeing himhadwrecked her. Besides the ER fiasco, it had been the first time she’d seen him since The Incident PartDeux. The pain of all that had happened seared through her rejection wounds all over again.
But that wasn’t why she couldn’t seem to engage in this meeting. The only reason she’d raised her hand to volunteer in the first place was that no one else in her cohort had. Mabel had zero ability to just sit there in awkward silence, and their instructor had looked half-panicked, half-angry at the lack of response. So Mabel had caved and raised her hand, and now she was at the planning meeting.
Thankfully, she knew Dallin—sort of. As a guest lecturer, he’d been engaging and so good at what he did that he made you feel like you were part of the conversation too. She’d asked him a couple of questions afterward, and he was generous with his time.
Being the most junior doctor in the anesthesiology department at the hospital, he’d been roped into heading the committee in charge of the food for the gala.
Normally, she would have liked an assignment like this, but not this time around. She was drowning in nursing school stuff, already studying for the NCLEX, and helping Mack with the water authority. The small stipend from the city wasn’t even worth it, but Mack was a good friend.
The thing with Silver Plummers was, when duty called, there was usually enough fierce loyalty in their blood that they rose up and did it. It was the principle of the thing. Silver Plum had been overlooked and forgotten about so much of the time over the years by state and county governments, and just people in general. That misfortune had the effect of bonding the city residents together even tighter and stronger than before.
“We’ve priced some options from a couple of grocery stores for the savory hors d’oeuvres, but someone needs to be able to meet with the cookie company for a tasting beforehand.” Dallin stopped his whiteboard marker in midair and glanced around.
Mabel’s gaze darted to the floor.
A chance to sample catered delights? Normally, it was a given that she’d want to participate. But she didn’t know if she could handle yet another thing to do.
She’d been frozen when she saw Zane at the store, at war with not wanting him to see her with Dallin for fear he’d think she was with him versus the small hum of satisfaction from knowing that she just might, with any luck, make him jealous.
See what you coulda had, Zane? This good-looking doctor is interested in me, and that could’ve been you if you hadn’t been acting weird and avoiding me for the last couple of months.
Dallin was good-looking. There was something sexy about a single, rich doctor with golden skin and thick blond hair. Plus, he paid more attention to her than the other women there.
And? He wasn’t Zane. That much was clear in Food ‘N’ Friends. It was like something sizzled between her and Zane, her heart ratcheted up, and she was a metallurgist to his ore. Drawn to him, wanting to extract every bit of meaning from every sigh, shift, or movement from him that she could.
But he didn’t want her. Ever since he’d rejected her after she kissed him in the library a lifetime ago, she’d known he didn’t want her. Bizarre behavior in Jamaica aside, he’d done nothing to make her think otherwise.
“The tasting is next Wednesday?” one of the nursing students asked, running a hand through her red pixie cut. “My kid has a soccer game that night.”
As the reasons people couldn’t go to the tasting poured in, Dallin turned to her. “Mabel? You up for a tasting in Idaho Falls? I could meet you there or even pick you up after your clinical. You’re still doing the ER one, right?”
Wednesdays were often her “hurry and attempt to catch up on all things water authority before something drastic happens and we go into a huge drought because of me” night, especially since the once-a-month town council meetings fell on a Wednesday too. Nofuss, no muss with trying to schedule her life. If she kept things on the same nights, the easier it was to remember everything.
Except that now everyone in the group was staring at her, waiting for a response. From the looks of it, most of them had half-smiles of anticipation, like they were reading between the lines of Dallin’s offer.
She half expected one of them to do a mocking cat call after how he asked her.
“I probably can. I’ll text you later to let you know for sure.”
That’s when she did an internal groan because that made it sound like she already had his number. Shedidhave his number, but only because they’d run into each other at the hospital and he’d asked for it to take care of committee stuff.
The rest of the meeting, Mabel ignored the knowing glances, smirks, and a few rolled eyes about the—whatever it was—goings on between her and Dallin. Could she imagine something sometime in the future with a guy like Dallin? Sure.
