Read Online The Doctor's Damsel (Men of the Capital Book 3) by Cara Nelson - Free Book Online Page B

sweet and sunny and reminded her of the flowers he’d brought her. No one had ever given her flowers on a date. She’d gotten a few roses from the audience that time she was in “Our Town,” but that didn’t count. That was business. This was most assuredly personal.
    Barefoot, she hurried back to him, her hair a riot of untamed waves streaming behind her as she dashed toward the stove to turn off the burner. The cabbage was beginning to burn.
    “Cabbage is mostly water. How could it run out of water and burn?” she puzzled, dumping the smoking, stinking pan into the sink. 
    Abe was rather unsuccessfully trying to clean the glutinous mess off the front of Hannah’s oven. Becca grabbed his arm and dragged him to a standing position.
    “Thank you for the flowers. They’re beautiful. Now let’s have a glass of wine and decide what to order for dinner.”
    Abe’s arm snaked around her hips and he dragged her up against him. Her head tipped back and their lips met. All of her sappy impulses burned away as the fire of his kiss suffused her limbs with desire. Becca no longer wanted to make him noodles—she wanted to make him moan instead.
    “I was trying to make you cabbage soup and spaetzle in honor of your German ancestry,” she explained breathlessly.
    “How about I order pizza in honor of your Italian ancestry?”
    “I don’t eat carbs or dairy,” she reminded him sternly.
    “Okay then, what should we order?”
    “Thai spring rolls with ginger sauce,” she responded immediately. He laughed. “Here, I have them on speed dial.”
     
    The order handled, Becca trimmed the sunflower stems and arranged them in a vase she found on top of the refrigerator. They were bright and gorgeous and she loved them. She fussed over them, arranging them this way and that until Abe dragged her away, insisting he was bored.
    “I’m here now. Entertain me,” he demanded.
    To his surprise, she bounded toward the coat closet, dragged some stuff out, and disappeared into the bathroom. When she emerged in super short cutoff jeans, a white undershirt, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat, he gaped. She was like a walking Daisy Duke fantasy in that get-up, but he had no idea what she was up to. It crossed his mind that a striptease might be in his future.
    She played with her phone for a second, set it on a speaker dock, and cranked up the volume on an instrumental country track. Keeping time by slapping her hand on her hip like an invisible tambourine, she broke into song, crooning an old Patsy Cline number.
    “I go out walkin’/after midnight/out in the starlight/just like we used to do.” He fished in his pocket for his phone, lit up the display and held it up like a lighter as if he were at a concert, grinning in disbelief as she wound up the song, her wistful voice vibrant with sadness and strength. Abe applauded and she bowed with flourish, tipping her cowboy hat to him.
    “Never, ever ask an actress to entertain you if you don’t expect a show.” She grinned mischievously. “I may not be Hannah Largent, but I had voice lessons, too,” she said modestly. “I was in the chorus of Evita once. Not like the real Broadway Evita . Evita in Jersey, but still...I rocked it.”
    A knock at the door heralded the arrival of their Thai food and she went to answer the door. Abe grabbed her arm and shook his head.
    “You’ll give some poor Thai youth a stroke if you answer the door looking like that. Let me get it,” he teased.
     
    Becca stepped aside, secretly thrilled that he thought her to be dangerously sexy dressed as a cowgirl singer. She got out paper plates and poured the wine into glasses for a carpet picnic. She sat down on the floor by the coffee table and started opening food containers. She slurped a spicy Thai noodle into her mouth illicitly and smiled when he caught her.
    “Tell me you didn’t perform that number in a school talent show,” he scolded. “I won second place in my sorority’s Talent Night during