Sergeant Darling. Bonnie Gardner

beating like a tom tom, and she was certain that Sergeant Darling would be able to feel her pulse racing when they shook hands. Or maybe he wouldn’t. His grip was so tight that Patsy was sure she wouldn’t be able to move her fingers for at least an hour once he let it go.

      Patsy jerked her hand away and shook it to get the circulation going again. “At work they call me Pat.”

      “Sorry,” Ray said. “It’s easy to forget one’s own strength.”

      “I may not be able to move my hand for days,” Patsy said, flexing her fingers.

      “Silly,” Aunt Myrtle said. “No harm done. Your fingers are working just fine.” She turned to Ray and patted the empty chair between Patsy and herself. “Please, sit down. We’ve been waiting to order.”

      Ray sat, then picked up his menu and perused it. “What’s good here?” he asked, looking over the top of the menu. Just seeing his raised eyebrows set Patsy’s heart fluttering.

      “Anything and everything,” Patsy answered, still slightly breathless. The reason she knew about the menu was that Aunt Myrt often brought her here.

      “Then I think I’ll try the amberjack,” Ray said, closing the menu.

      Like the grande dame of the manor, Myrtle signaled for the waiter who scurried right over and took their orders. Then they settled back to wait.

      “Why don’t the two of you get acquainted while I go powder my nose?” Aunt Myrtle suggested.

      That was the last thing she needed, Patsy thought. To be left alone with superhero-in-disguise Sergeant Darling. Even in the middle of this crowded restaurant.

      “Sure. But, your lovely niece and I are already old friends,” Ray said.

      “Oh?” Myrtle, a frown of consternation on her face, stood poised halfway in and out of her chair.

      “Yes. I have had occasion to partake of her professional services at the clinic from time to time,” Radar said.

      At least, he hadn’t mentioned the most recent event, Patsy was relieved to hear. How she had hated jabbing that needle into that firm, perfect butt, though looking at it hadn’t been a chore at all. She felt her face grow warm. “Yes,” she said, nodding vigorously, hoping that the motion would erase the flush. It didn’t. “I’ve seen him in the clinic.” Boy, had she seen him!

      “Well, that’s even better than I’d hoped. You’re already friends,” Myrtle said, more to herself than them, as she hurried away. She paused to speak to the waiter, then hurried out of the main dining room.

      Friends? Patsy thought. I hardly think so. Enemies. Not hardly. Boyfriend/girlfriend? No, she shouldn’t be thinking about that. After all, she had a firm policy about dating men she saw at the clinic. Any men, really, but maybe her aunt was right. Maybe it was time for that to change.

      “So, your aunt calls you Patsy,” Ray said, placing his napkin in his lap and leaving his hands braced against his muscled thighs.

      “Yes,” she said primly, happy to have been afforded the change in her direction of thinking. She put her hands in her lap as well. “She’s the only one I let get away with it.”

      “Why is that? I like it. It suits you,” Ray said.

      She’d liked it, too, when her parents had called her that, or her late husband. But it seemed as though everyone who’d ever cared about her had died and left her alone, so she didn’t encourage that particular intimacy anymore. It evoked too many memories. “I don’t!” she lied, her voice sharp.

      “What do you want me to call you, then?”

      Patsy knew well what the men in the clinic called her behind her back, so she had to give Ray an alternative. “Pat will be fine.”

      “All right, Pat,” Ray said. “Pleased to meet you.” He paused. “Do you come here often?”

      Patsy had to smile. It almost sounded like a pickup line. “Yes, it’s one of Aunt Myrtle’s favorite restaurants. Our family had a summer home on this stretch of beach years ago. I’m afraid Hurricane Opal took care of it, and Aunt Myrtle didn’t bother to rebuild.” She glanced around the familiar restaurant. “The hurricane took the Blue Heron out, too, but they rose from the rubble.” She smiled. “I must admit, I liked the old version better.”

      Ray glanced around the room, decorated in the traditional trappings of Gulf Coast seafood establishments: old fishing nets, shells, starfish, stuffed fish, or maybe they were fakes, he didn’t know. It looked like any or all of at least a hundred other restaurants on the Gulf of Mexico. “Has it changed much?”

      Patsy shrugged.

      As Ray inspected the room, he paused and glanced out the window that overlooked the parking lot. A moving car caught his eye. “Look, it’s a vintage Cadillac, complete with fins. You don’t see many of those around anymore.”

      Patsy jerked her head around so fast to look that she almost dislocated her neck. “Oh, no! That’s Aunt Myrtle’s car!”

      “She must be moving it to a better parking spot.”

      “I wish,” Patsy muttered. No such luck, she thought as the waiter arrived with only two salads.

      Ray looked up. “You forgot one.”

      “One what, sir?”

      “One of the salads. There are three of us.”

      “Oh, no, sir. The lady cancelled her order. Said she had a headache. But she told me to tell you to please stay,” the waiter assured them. “Miss Carter said there was no reason to ruin your evening.”

      None, indeed, Patsy thought. “She probably planned this,” Patsy muttered, placing her napkin on her plate and pushing herself up. “I should have known.” She blew out a frustrated puff of breath as she hurried to the window, her eyes flashing with anger.

      Then Ray realized what Miss Carter was up to. She had left him alone—if you could call being left in a crowded restaurant on a Saturday night being alone—with Prickly Pritchard, the ice princess. And he wasn’t sure he minded one bit. If Nurse Pat Pritchard was something to see in her starched white uniform at the clinic, she looked even better dressed in casual clothes. The blue eyes that had always appeared so icy and cold seemed warmer now, brighter, almost turquoise. Who would have thought that Prickly Pritchard could ever look that soft and inviting? Even in khakis and a sweater. Ray felt his trousers grow tight, and wishing circumstances were different, he willed himself to behave.

      If she looked this good in casual clothes, dressed up, she’d be magnificent.

      Patsy scanned the room, looking for someone, anyone, she could ask to take her home.

      Ray joined her at the window, and Patsy felt even more trapped than she had before. But pleasantly so, she realized.

      “You might as well calm down,” he said. “You’ll just end up with indigestion.”

      “That’ll be my problem, then, won’t it?” Patsy snapped as she peered out the window. She all but pressed her face against the glass, hoping against hope that Aunt Myrt really had just moved the car. No such luck. As if she hadn’t known already. The only kind of luck she seemed to have was bad.

      Patsy drew in a deep breath and turned, pasting on an artificial smile. No sense in letting gorgeous Ray Darling see her lose her cool. That was certainly not the image she had worked so hard to project at the clinic. “She’s gone,” Patsy said with forced calm as she hurried back to her seat and primly placed her napkin on her lap.

      “I do have my own transportation,” Ray said as he seated himself again. “I didn’t hitchhike to get here. I know that we special ops guys are known to be rough and tough, but we do draw the line.”

      “What?” Prickly Patsy shook her head. “What does that have to do with me being stranded here, miles from home?”