Abby Gaines - The Engagement Project / Her Surprise Hero - The Engagement Project / Her Surprise Hero

But if memories of their kiss had tormented him throughout the rest of the weekend, Megan gave no indication that it had even happened. As always, she was the consummate professional at work. She performed the tasks that were assigned to her, answered questions when they were asked and generally continued with her duties as usual. She never sought him out, never initiated conversation, and not once did he catch her looking in his direction—as he found himself looking in hers, a lot.

He let her continue to ignore him—as it was obvious to him that’s what she was doing—for three whole weeks. On Friday at the end of the third week, as they were clearing up in preparation of leaving for the weekend, he finally approached her.

Megan looked up from the stack of files she was sorting. “I can finish up here if you have to go.”

“Go where?”

She shrugged. “It’s a Friday night. I thought you might have plans.”

He shook his head. “The only women I’ve seen since we’ve started prepping for this trial are the clinical subjects. And you.”

“Did you lose your little black book?” she teased.

A few weeks earlier, he couldn’t have imagined that she would have teased him about anything, and he wouldn’t have guessed that she had a sense of humor. But he knew her better now—and still not nearly as well as he wanted to know her.

“It’s a BlackBerry,” he teased back, and earned one of those rare, shy smiles. “But the only reason I’m anxious to get out of here tonight is that I’m hungry.”

“Me, too,” she admitted.

“Got any plans for dinner?” he asked, deliberately casual.

“Oh, um, no,” she said. “Nothing specific. But I wasn’t fishing for an invitation or anything like that.”

“I know,” he said. “But I’m in the mood for a burger and I have a rain check to cash in.”

Megan finished unbuttoning her lab coat, hung it on the hook by the door. “Actually, I’m—”

“You’re not going to renege on your promise, are you?”

“I don’t recall making a promise.”

“Then it’s a good thing I do.”

And that’s how they ended up at The Ranch with plates overloaded with quarter-pound burgers and spicy spiral fries. They didn’t talk much while they ate, or not about anything of significance, and when Gage finally pushed his empty plate aside, he noticed that Megan had nearly cleaned hers, too.

“You have an impressive appetite for a skinny little thing,” he noted.

“I like food,” she admitted. “It just never seems to stick.”

“What else do you like?”

She nibbled on a fry. “What do you mean—like books, music, movies?”

“Sure, we can start there.”

She sipped at her cola—the regular kind, not diet. “I’ll read almost anything, though I lean toward nonfiction.”

“Music?” he prompted.

“Blues-rock.”

“Movies?”

“Anything that I don’t have to think too much about. If I’m going to spend twenty bucks, which is what it costs by the time you add a bag of popcorn and a soda to the price of the ticket, I want to enjoy it. No dark war settings or depressing social issues or complicated psychological thrillers.”

“If it was my twenty bucks, could I pick the show?”

She frowned over his question as she sipped her cola again. “Are you inviting me to a movie?”

“Well, you did spring for dinner,” he said. “And there’s a new Vin Diesel movie playing. You know the kind, with lots of car chases and big explosions and very little plot.”

“Sounds like my kind of entertainment,” she said.

“Then it’s a date.”

She was okay until he called it a date.

Grabbing a bite to eat with a coworker—even if that coworker was Gage Richmond—wasn’t a big deal. Deciding to catch a movie together because they both had nothing else to do shouldn’t have been, either. But as soon as Gage put that label on it, all of her perceptions changed, and the easy camaraderie they’d been sharing suddenly wasn’t so easy anymore.

Unfortunately, she’d already agreed, and as the movie theater was within the same shopping complex as the restaurant, she had neither the time nor the opportunity to come up with a reason to bow out. He took her hand as they walked across the parking lot and Megan tried to be as nonchalant as he was about it, as if she held hands with guys all the time, as if the casual contact didn’t make her pulse race.

Gage was standing in line at one of the automated kiosks to buy their tickets when Megan felt vibrations in her chest. At first she thought it was her heart knocking erratically against her ribs, then she remembered that her cell phone was tucked in the inside pocket of her jacket and set to vibrate.

“Excuse me,” she said to Gage, and stepped away to answer the call.

“I know you had to work late tonight,” Ashley said without preamble. “I just wondered if you could pick up some Motrin on your way home.”

“What’s wrong?” Megan asked, alerted not just by the request for the medication but the obvious strain in her sister’s voice.

“The usual,” Ashley said, then sucked in a breath, and blew it out again. “Okay, it’s hit a little bit harder than usual.”

She moved back to Gage, who had just started scrolling through the movie options on the screen. “I’ll be home in fifteen minutes,” she promised.

Gage looked up and, without any question, stepped away from the machine so the next person in line could proceed.

“Problem?” he asked.

“My sister’s not feeling well.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

She shook her head. “Thanks, but no. You can stay and watch car chases, but I have to get home.”

“Rain check?”

“That’s really not—”

He touched his finger to her lips, halting her protest.

“Rain check,” he said again, and it wasn’t a question this time.

“Okay.”

He insisted on walking her to her car, told her to take care of her sister and watched her pull out of the parking lot.

And though she was anxious to get home to Ashley, she didn’t quite manage to banish all thoughts of Gage from her mind as she drove away. And she couldn’t completely extinguish the little flicker of hope that the interest she’d seen in his eyes could be real.

At home, Megan found her sister on the sofa in the living room, curled up under a blanket and obviously in pain.

When Ashley had first been diagnosed with endometriosis, she’d been willing to try anything that might relieve the pain. It turned out that her symptoms could be treated quite successfully through the use of oral contraceptives. The problem with that, of course, was that she wouldn’t get pregnant so long as she was taking them.

Megan suspected that was why Ashley was suffering now, that she’d stopped taking her pills. It was no secret that her sister wanted a baby and while pregnancy happened easily for many women, it wouldn’t be easy for Ashley. In fact, her doctors had warned that it might not happen for her at all, but she refused to give up on the dream of someday holding a child of her own in her arms.

“Hey,” Megan said, coming into the room.

Ashley managed a weak smile as she accepted the medication and the glass of water her sister held out to her. “Thanks.”

Megan lowered herself onto the coffee table. “What’s going on, Ash? You haven’t had pain like this in years.”

Her sister dropped her gaze. “I stopped taking the Pill.”

Though it was just what she’d expected, Megan couldn’t hold back her sigh. “When? Why?”

“Just a few weeks ago. Because Trevor and I are getting married in the fall anyway and because I really want a baby.” Tears spilled onto her cheeks and she swiped at them impatiently. “And maybe because I feel him slipping away and I don’t know why, but I know if I get pregnant it will make things better.”