He chuckled. “Noted—and I’ll make the wait worth your while.”
Natalie had always heard the expression that doing something one had once been proficient at was like riding a bike. Once you knew how, you could just jump right back on.
She’d jumped right back on, but would be lying if she claimed proficiency. She had ridden a bicycle as a child, again when in undergrad and traveling to and from her apartment to campus. That had been several years ago, and her confidence that her bicycle wasn’t going to topple over was now lacking.
Or maybe it was that she got the impression Matthew was holding back to stay close to her, that he was trying to keep up a conversation between them, and she needed to focus on what she was doing so her bicycle didn’t go careening into his.
Plus, her bottom hurt on the narrow seat.
“Smile, Natalie.”
As she parked her bicycle and secured a cord around the frame and locked it in place, she gritted her teeth in a semblance of a smile.
Matthew laughed. “You can do better than that.”
“Ask me again when my belly is full.”
“Deal.” Having secured his own bicycle, he took her hand and they made their way up the wooden deck leading into the restaurant. Although it was busy, the hostess guided them to a table on one of the patios that overlooked the beach.
“Sitting outdoors okay?”
“This is fabulous.” She loved the ocean, loved the feel of the breeze on her face, and the patio was covered, had an overhead fan going and offered just the right amount of shade from the hot sun. “Perfect,” she added as she sat in a chair and grabbed a menu.
A waitress came by, took their drink order, and Matthew ordered an appetizer to share.
“I could have been allergic to shrimp, you know,” she teased when the waitress had left.
“Are you? I can catch her and change the order.”
She tried, but couldn’t keep a straight face. “No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
Curious, she asked, “Why not?”
He shrugged. “I get the impression you’re a woman who has no trouble letting a man know what she wants, doesn’t want,” his eyes bored into hers, “or what she’s allergic to.”
She supposed she had given him that impression. With him, telling him, showing him what she wanted had been easy. Maybe because she knew their time was limited and there was a freedom in the knowledge that she’d never see him again afterwards.
Only, his mother was practically her neighbor, so it was possible. Why did that make her heart race?
“Right now,” she began, “this woman is going to wash her hands and check to see if I sweated my mascara down my cheeks during that bicycle ride.”
“No worries. You are beautiful.”
He made her feel beautiful, and not just because he’d told her several times that day. Smiling, she winked at him. “If you get lonely before I get back, you can always sneak into the ladies’ room and we could...”
He threw his head back and laughed. “You have a one-track mind.”
She did. Pediatric cardiology.
Although for the past twenty-four hours she’d only thought of Matthew.
Probably because he was a renowned heart
surgeon.
Or because he was gorgeously fascinating.