He was a workaholic who couldn’t see what was right in front of him.
Mathew took a swig of his drink and turned his attention to where Rose was standing with some of her sisters. They were all having a good time.
His sweep of the room indicated that most everyone who was in attendance belonged here. Whether it was their shared upbringing in this town or something else, he couldn’t tell. And maybe it didn’t matter much. It wasn’t like Mathew went out of his way to socialize. His father wouldn’t approve of such frivolity. Fred Klein had been a workhorse—still was. Thoughhe’d moved to the city for the girl he loved. Didn’t stop him from working himself ragged, though.
His father had been born and raised in a small town much like Copper Creek. He loved the outdoors and the life it offered. But his mother couldn’t leave her life in the city. It wasn’t a surprise when they both retired that they moved closer to family. Only, it had been too late.
The plan had been to move to Copper Creek to help out his aunt and uncle. Kate and Fred had been inseparable as children. But now his aunt was gone.
Mathew’s theory was that his parents moved here to feel closer to Kate. And the fact that George needed help on the farm was the cherry on top. Hard work was the only personality trait that Mathew’s father could respect.
But it couldn’t be just any hard work.
One had to work hard labor with their hands.
Imagine his irritation when not one but all three of his children went into fields that didn’t require heavy labor.
Mathew sighed again and glanced toward the door. Maybe he could slip out right now and his cousin wouldn’t notice. She’d practically begged for him to come until he couldn’t take it any longer. Not even Jason or Penny was annoying enough to drag him out of his quiet apartment to come out to… this.
Just seeing the crowd of people in their early twenties was enough to give him a headache. He wasn’t young anymore. He’d just turned thirty, and normally that’d mean he’d already have a family to go home to.
If he’d stayed with Victoria, there was no telling how many kids he could have had.
His stomach soured.
He wouldn’t be a good father. His workaholic ways would see to that. If he couldn’t even make the girl he married stick around and love him, how could he expect his children to? Yet anotherreason why he and his siblings had moved away from home. To put some much-needed distance between them and their father.
But now his mother needed them. She was forgetting more and more about their lives. That fact was breaking him little by little with each passing day. He prayed for her every day and tried to visit when he could.
The fact that Rose had planned to ambush him with a blind date ate at him more than he cared to admit. She had no right to meddle in his life. He was fine. Happy. Just because he was alone didn’t mean his life wasn’t fulfilling.
With one final look in Rose’s direction, Mathew tossed back the rest of his diet cola. He gave the server a twenty and handed him the empty bottle before taking off.
“You ever meetanyone with a darker blonde hair and green eyes?” Mathew asked as nonchalantly as he could.
Aiden was the wrong person to ask. He froze, his fingers on the keyboard. Then he swiveled his chair around and lifted his brows. “Are you asking about the female variety?”
Mathew’s flat glare had Aiden chuckling.
“Okay, so that’s a yes.” He tapped his chin. “Hmm. Blonde hair. Green eyes. Like what kind of green eyes? Do they sparkle with humor when you tell a joke? Or do they get darker?”
“Aiden,” Mathew warned.
“Wait, I think I know who you’re talking about,” Aiden mused with a straight face.
“You do?”
Then his friend’s face broke into a wide smile and he laughed out loud. “No, Matt. I don’t. You gave me nothing to go off of. Short hair? Long? Wavy? Curly? And green eyes? I mean, they’renot that common, but that’s seriously nothing. You’d have better luck trying to describe her to an artist at the sheriff’s office.”
“You think that would work?” Mathew regretted the question the second it slipped past his lips.
Aiden gaped at him before laughing again. “Where did you meet this chick? I mean, you did meet her, right? You didn’t just see her through her front window while you stared at her from beneath a streetlamp like some stalker…”
“Okay, enough,” Mathew said. “Don’t you have rounds to make?”
Aiden made a sweeping gesture with his hand toward the computer. “I’m working on discharge instructions.”
“Well, hurry up and go make your rounds.” Mathew stalked off to see his next patient.
