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“They all are.”
Surprise flickered in her gaze. “You really like babies, don’t you?”
The question seemed a no-brainer to him, but he understood what she meant. A big macho Texan like him choosing to take care of babies. Could a man choose a more emasculating profession? Not according to his father. In Harold Donaldson’s eyes a man might as well chop off his big boys as to “play with babies all day.”
Ty didn’t quite see things the way his dad did and hadn’t from the point he’d realized he wanted to be a doctor. During his early academic career he’d discovered he specifically wanted to be a neonatologist. Despite his father’s hee-hawing and ho-humming about the “shame of having a son who played with babies,” not once had Ty felt less of a man because of his profession.
He liked what he did at Angel’s, liked making a difference in his tiny patients’ lives and their families’ lives. He’d been blessed with a God-given talent and he was where he was supposed to be in life.
Only he had no choice but to go home for the rodeo. His mother had threatened to have the entire crew converge on him in New York if he didn’t. Of course, seeing his father in downtown Manhattan might be worth it.
Then again, those skyscrapers might bow in the presence of his giant of a father.
“Ty?”
He blinked, realizing he’d totally blanked out on Eleanor. “Sorry. I got lost in my thoughts.”
“I noticed.” She smiled tentatively and the gesture tugged at something in his chest.
She was pretty. Why had it taken him seeing her all decked out for him to notice those eyes, that generous mouth, that porcelain skin? That phenomenal body?
“Would it help to talk about it?” she gently offered.
“Hell, no.” His mother had talked about the problems between him and his father till Ty was blue in the face. Nothing was going to make his family understand his need to be a doctor.
He sure didn’t want to talk about his reaction to her since the ribbon-cutting. How could he explain to her what he didn’t understand himself?
“I didn’t mean to pry.” Obviously embarrassed, Eleanor’s eyes dropped. Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath.
Ty knew his gaze shouldn’t drop to watch the shifting of the material across her body, but it did. A crying shame when a grown man was jealous of a cotton scrub top, but he was.
Guilt hit him on sever
al counts.
“Offering to listen isn’t prying,” he countered, smiling at her and hoping she took his peace offering. “Besides, if you’re the little darlin’ doing the listening, I’d be happy to give talking a whirl.”
Her gaze lifted and she stared at him in confusion. A slow smile curved her lips. “You would?”
“Oh, yeah.” Which surprised him, but for some reason he enjoyed talking to Eleanor, enjoyed seeing the uninhibited emotions play across her lovely face. “Go to dinner with me tonight?”
Hands digging deeper into her pockets, she eyed him suspiciously. “Is my father paying you to be nice to me? To take me out?”
Ty laughed, put his hand on her lower back and led her away from Rochelle’s incubator. “Is that how your sister has a new beau every week?”
Eleanor’s face lost some of its sparkle. “If you have to ask that, you obviously left my father’s place without having met my sister.”
Brooke hadn’t made an appearance during the few minutes Ty had remained after Eleanor had disappeared.
“If she’s anything like you, she’s a knockout.”
Eleanor’s eyes rolled behind her thick-framed glasses. “Right.”
“Definitely.”
When had they fallen into step together? Where were they even headed? To the new wing, he realized. More and more of the neonatal unit was being transferred to the area.
“Seriously, if it means going to dinner with you, I’d spill my guts on all the reasons why I want you to come to Texas with me.”
