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“Are you vegetarian?” Reece winced. “Sorry, I should have asked.”
“No, no. I just…” She scrambled. “You know. Being on the road. I’ve been eating a lot of junk food. Vegetables would be nice for a change.”
God, that didn’t come off too awkward, did it? Maybe it would have been easier to just say she was a vegetarian. But then she’d be locked into that and she did like meat. But rarely and usually only when it was boiled. She’d already cheated this week with the burger last night.
At least her neurotic thoughts weren’t playing across her face, or if they were, the guys were too oblivious to notice. Jeremiah handed her plate back and then Reece tossed an arm around her shoulders, pulling her away from Jeremiah. He flashed a friendly grin down at her, dimples on display. “You’re in for a treat. Nick cooked and the food’s always the best on his nights.”
“Because I grew up in the actual south and we do food the right way,” Nicholas said.
“Stop hogging the beautiful woman all to yourself,” Liam jumped up and pulled Reece’s arm off Isobel’s shoulders. He took Isobel’s hand and dropped a kiss to her fingertips. “Will you please do me the honor of sitting beside me?”
“Oh, um,” she looked around at all the guys. Then she shrugged. “Okay?”
“Excellent. Let me carry this for you.” Liam took her plate with one hand and hooked his arm in hers. He led her over to the table and then waved at Jeremiah. “Move your books out of the way, ya gobshite.” Liam shoved aside a couple of textbooks that were open beside Jeremiah’s plate.
“Oh, I can just sit over—” Isobel started to gesture at the empty chair at the end of the table but Liam and Jeremiah were both shaking their heads.
“It’s fine.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Jeremiah moved his plate along with his books and sat down. Isobel glanced at the books. One was Statistics and the other was Europe in the Twentieth Century.
“A little light reading?” Isobel lifted her eyebrows.
“My big brother’s a college man,” Reece said, taking a seat across the table from them, between Mack and Nicholas.
“Oh, is there a college around here?” Isobel asked, a little surprised. She hadn’t seen anything except scrub brush and endless rolling hills the last hour of her drive yesterday. “Or do you commute?”
“I’m taking online classes from the U of W,” Jeremiah said. Then he clarified. “The University of Wyoming.”
“Oh, cool. I’ve taken a couple online classes before.” She’d been so far into her advanced degree program at Cornell, she hadn’t been able to take many—most of the upper level courses involved labs of one kind or another, but she’d taken a couple online biology classes during undergrad.
She was about to sit but then hesitated, thinking about her afternoon spent sweating while she scrubbed the reception area at the clinic. “I should really go grab a quick shower. It’ll just take ten minutes and then—”
Everyone at the table laughed.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Liam put a hand on Isobel’s forearm to stop her. “If we all showered before dinner, we wouldn’t eat until ten o’clock.”
“Liam should be especially ripe since he was out raking the compost beds today.” Mack smirked and crossed his arms behind his head, tattooed biceps flexing.
“Here we go,” Jeremiah muttered under his breath, looking back down at his open Statistics textbook. He ran a finger down the page like he was looking for where he’d left off.
“And you’re so much better coming in from an afternoon mucking out stalls?” Liam asked. “Where do you think the compost comes from, boy-o?”
“Man, we’re trying to eat a meal here,” Nicholas objected.
“That we are, that we are,” Liam said. “Compliments to the chef, I meant no disrespect.” Liam doffed an invisible hat at Nicholas, then angled his body toward Isobel.
“So how was your first day working for our illustrious veterinarian? And how do you come out of it smelling lemon fresh? I thought being a vet meant spending all day armpit deep up a cow’s arse?”
Nicholas’ silverware banged on the table as he slammed them down but Isobel just shook her head with a wry smile on her face. No one could accuse this group of not having personality.
She held up her hands. “No up close and personal encounters with bovines today. But there’s always tomorrow to look forward to.”
She shared a little about what she’d been up to instead, helping with the vaccines and updating the clinic computer records. Everyone seemed interested in what she was saying and as long as she was talking, she didn’t have to worry about what was on her plate, so she told them a little about her road trip too when Reece asked about it. Honestly, she was surprised at how at ease she felt with all of them.
“Feck, you can’t take a night off studying even when you have this vision of female perfection before you?” Liam suddenly asked, reaching across Isobel’s plate to grab Jeremiah’s textbook.
