“You get on out in my truck. You’re gonna need stitches.”

“I said get off my job. You’re fired.” The rapid beat of his own heart pumped blood through his fingers. “Pack up your tools and get out.”

Shame warred with fury as Bob slammed his wrenches into his kit. “We got nothing to say to each other, from here on.” He hauled up his tools and stalked out.

“We never did,” Brody murmured.

Brody O’Connell was going to get an earful. If he ever showed up. He was going to learn, very shortly, that seven o’clock meant seven o’clock. Not seven-thirty.

She was sorry she’d convinced her parents to have an evening out. Now she had no one to complain to. She prowled the living room, glared at the phone.

No, she would not call him again. She’d called at seven-twenty and had gotten nothing but the annoyance of his answering machine.

She had a message for him, all right. But she was going to deliver it in person.

And when she thought of the trouble she’d gone to for tonight. Selecting just the right restaurant, the perfect dress. Now they’d be lucky to keep their reservation. No, she was canceling the reservation, and right this minute. If he thought she’d waltz out to dinner with a man who didn’t have the common courtesy to be on time, he was very much mistaken.

She reached for the phone just as the doorbell rang. Kate squared her shoulders, lifted her chin to its haughtiest angle and took her sweet time going to the door.

“I’m late. I’m sorry. I got hung up, and should have called.”

The icy words she’d planned went right out of her head. Not discourtesy, she realized after one look at his face. Upheaval. “Is something wrong with Jack?”

“No, no, he’s fine. I just checked. I’m sorry, Kate.” He lifted a hand in flustered apology. “Maybe we can do this another time.”

“What did you do to your hand?” She grabbed it by the wrist. She could see the white gauze and bandage and the faint stain of antiseptic at the edges.

“Just stupidity. It’s nothing really. A couple stitches. The ER was slow, and I got hung up.”

“Are you in pain?”

“No, it’s nothing,” he insisted. “Nothing.”

Oh, yes, she decided. It was something—and more than a physical injury. “Go home,” she told him. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“What?”

“With dinner. We’ll do the restaurant part some other time.”

“Kate, you don’t have to do this.”

“Brody.” She cupped his face in her hands. Oh, you poor thing, she thought. “Go home, and I’ll be right along. Scram,” she ordered when he still didn’t move. And shut the door in his face.

She was, as always, precisely on time. When he opened the door, she breezed by him, hauling a huge hamper. “You’re going to have a steak,” she announced. “Lucky for you my parents had one thawing out in the fridge before I convinced them to go out for a romantic dinner.”