“Fine. Apparently, you had a lapse in SEAL skills, bro. In a rare moment of clumsiness, you bumped into a woman in the hallway.”
Vince wanted to groan, but slapped his forehead instead.
“Someone saw me do that?”
“Uh, duh. The woman you almost flattened.”
“Wha…?”
Vincent’s shoulders snapped back as he tried not to stumble over his next question.
“Lace?” he asked, hoping Buck didn’t hear the crack in his voice. “Bobbie is friends with Lace?”
Buck laughed long and loud, clearly enjoying the hell out of himself.
“Yup. They’ve known each other for a bunch of years, and Lace is a really nice woman. Pretty, too,” Buck added, as if Vincent had needed the reminder.
Hooyah! Things were definitely looking up.
“That’s awesome Buck. Will Bobbie give me her number? Or…wait. That sounds a little stalkerish. Will Bobbie give Lace mine?” Vincent’s mouth came unglued and he began to overshare. “I think we had a…moment, there. At leastIdid,” Vince admitted. “I was kind of thinking she might have felt something, too.”
Buck cleared his throat, still amused, the asshole. “Well, she may have mentioned to Bobbie and me that despite the make-up, she thought you might be cute.”
Vincent sucked in an excited breath, but before he could say anything else, Buck was talking again.
“Andshe wondered if clowns have bones,” he chortled, “so I’m thinking you managed to keep your interest in her PG, at least for that moment.”
“Dick,” Vincent grumbled, but there was no strength behind the insult. He was just too damned overjoyed that Lace had thought of him at all.
“Uh, huh. That’s what I’m saying,” Buck snickered. “Yourdickbehaved, so points to you, dude.”
Vince groaned. “Okay. Fine. Cut the shit and get serious for a minute. Do you think I have a chance with her? Do you think she’ll go out with me if I ask?”
There was an odd hesitation over the line as Vincent held his breath, waiting for his brother’s reply.
“I, uh…”
“What?” Vincent demanded. Didn’t Buck think he was good enough for his wife’s friend?
That had to be it, and immediately Vincent’s mood altered.
Shit.Maybe Buck was right. If Lacewasa full-blown doctor, she might be intellectually out of Vincent’s reach.
“Help me out here, Buck. What aren’t you saying.”
“Did she, uh, tell you why she was at the hospital?” Buck asked, displaying none of the bluster he’d previously been deploying.
Vince sighed. Here it was in a nutshell.
“No. But the scrubs kind of gave it away. She’s either a doctor, a nurse, or…dammit. She’s a surgeon, isn’t she? That’s it. And you think she’s way out of my league.”
“No, dude,” Buck returned cautiously. “She’s not a surgeon.”
“What then?” Vincent demanded. “Is she some kind of nurse or specialist? She was in scrubs, after all.”
“Vince,” Buck told him steadily. “I’m not sure why she had scrubs on today, but Lace doesn’t work at the hospital. She actually works for NOAA. She’s a marine biologist and an observer on some of the commercial fleet that docks around here.”
Vincent grinned. That accounted for the calluses on her hands. He’dknownshe was one hard-working cookie.