Page 88 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

I laughed.

He picked up a bowl of cucumbers and a knife and slid them across the island to me without asking. He started plating the fish. I sliced cucumbers. He was a foot from me. I was discovering, in real time, that a foot was an extremely small distance.

The slices were getting thicker. I made myself slow down. I've threaded catheters through beating hearts with these hands. Tonight they can't handle a cucumber.

"This is alarmingly nice," I said when he slid the plate in front of me at the kitchen table by the window.

"I told you not to drive," he said with a smile, lighting the candles on the table.

Oh my God, is Derek Harrington being charming?

There was wine. He poured for me before sitting across from me.

"I appreciate you having me here," I said.

"I should have done it years ago, Bonds. You were good to her." A pause. "Also, you have to pitch the hospital ask."

"There it is."

"I am the chair of a hospital board. I have priorities. They involve feeding people at the same time I extract presentations from them."

I bit into the fish. It was delicious.

He picked up his fork. I hadn't looked at a man's hands like this in a long time. I redirected my attention to the meal.

"Tell me about the MRI," he said.

I told him about the 3T machine, the construction footprint, and the build-out timeline if we started in spring. He listened to me completely and asked me questions. He paused before the fourth.

"Send me the proposal tomorrow. I'll seriously consider it."

"That's a lower bar than I came in here for."

"I'm a cautious man with capital. I will seriously consider it. Send it. I'll read it before I see you next."

Another man came in, got a drink from the fridge, and nodded on his way out, never saying a word.

"You have very interesting staff,” I said, because I needed a safer topic.

"They aren't really staff, not the way you're thinking. It's sort of half family, half business. Most work the ranch. Marissa runs the house. The gardeners are the only staff. Aaron, Karl, Terry, they do whatever needs doing. Josie's the horsewoman. Most have their own houses on the property."

"No nannies or maids or that kind of thing?"

"Jessica. I don't want her growing up thinking the world is a place where other people make her food and lay out her clothes and read to her at night. Pamela and I had a deal we'd do that part ourselves. I've kept the deal."

"That is more thoughtful than I expected."

"Than you expected from me specifically."

"Yes."

He laughed. "I was raised by a woman who took two buses to work because we couldn't afford a second car," he said. "I'm not in a rush to forget that."

"Where was that?"

"West Texas. Small town. My dad was Army. Came home from his second tour with a back injury and never really worked after that. My mother held everything together. We weren't hungry. We just had no margin." He paused. "She passed in 2018. I bought her the house she always wanted in Galveston about a year before she died. She got the whole year in it. It was the best thing I have ever spent money on."

"You went into the Army yourself."