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“It’s all right,” she managed to get out. She knew she needed to eat, and she also knew she wasn’t up to having that payback discussion just now. “Let me grab my key.”

“Make sure you grab your jacket, too. It’s cold.”

She only nodded; she’d already noticed he had his on.

And so a few minutes later, after a walk in the brisk air across the parking lot, she found herself sitting across the table from him in a booth in the small but friendly-seeming diner. It was busy enough that they got the last available seating, and she wondered how many of the people present were here for the same reason she was: a loved one in the big hospital a short distance away.

“Meat loaf’s the best tonight,” the weary-looking waitress said when she came over, menus in hand. “But you’d better say so now, we’re getting low.”

“Always willing to give it a shot,” Ry said, then added with a smile, “You’d have to go some to beat my mom’s, though.”

Either his words or the way he said them perked the waitress up. Maybe she was a mom who appreciated another mom being appreciated. Kaitlyn knew that kind existed, totally unlike her own. Or maybe, being tired, the harried woman had just now noticed she was serving a guy who looked like he could have walked off a magazine cover as the flavor of this or any other year. “How about I bring you a little bite, so you can see for yourself?”

She did just that, a small bit of the meat concoction speared on a toothpick. Ry took it, and tasted it as thoroughly as if he were judging some contest at a county fair.

“Okay, that’s good. Really good. Still only a tie, mind you, but better than any other competition Mom’s had. What’s the secret?”

“Best Texas beef. And the chiles.”

“Duly noted,” he said.

When the woman took their orders and headed for the kitchen, she was smiling. Kaitlyn had gone along with the meat loaf as much out of curiosity as anything. Curiosity about what it tasted like, not, she told herself firmly, because she wanted to know what he liked.

“Do you always charm the wait staff at restaurants?”

He shrugged. “Just try to appreciate them. I did my share when I was in school, and I know how much fun it’s not.” He wiggled a brow at her. “You thought I was charming?”

“Please,” she said, raising a brow right back at him; she was feeling better now; the breadstick she’d grabbed when the basket appeared on the table had revived her a little. “You could charm the rattles off a snake.”

One corner of his mouth quirked upward in that way that made her pulse kick. “Pardon me if I don’t try that one.”

“Don’t like snakes?”

“Don’t mind them all that much, but they always make me think of what Chance said about my ex-fiancée, after I found out she’d been cheating on me for a while.”

She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it, especially when she found herself feeling pleased by the sour tone of his voice when he talked about the woman foolish enough to lose him. But at the same time, she was too curious not to ask. “Which was?”

“He just gave me that thousand-yard stare of his, utterly expressionless, and said ‘And here I thought when she was MIA she was just out shedding her skin.’”

She burst out laughing and was embarrassed when she realized she’d sent a couple of breadcrumbs flying. But he was smiling, so she couldn’t feel too humiliated. Besides, it was his fault. Well, his and Chance’s.

“I can picture that,” she managed to say after swallowing. “What did Keller say?” She was endlessly fascinated by the workings of this family.

“He just said welcome home, but the subtext was definitely ‘You never should have left.’”

“What about your mom?”

He smiled again. “She said she’d call her a bitch, but that would be an insult to Quinta.”

She laughed again, feeling more relaxed than she had since she’d gotten the news about Nick. No, to be honest, since she’d taken on this project.

“I’d have to agree on that. She’s such a sweet dog.”

He nodded. “Even Tri likes her.”

That got them off onto a discussion of Chance’sThey Also Serveproject, and how many dogs that were nearly written off he had saved. She told him about going to see the monument to MWDs, and asked if he really thought his brother would let her do some photos.

“As long as you keep him out of them,” he said.