Free The Ideal Man by Julie Garwood

with a jovial face called to Ellie from across the room. After threading his way around the tables to get to them, the man threw his massive arms around Ellie and kissed her on both cheeks.
    The owner of the Trellis, Tommy Greco, was a former boxer whose nose had been broken more than once. Word had it that he was ruthless in the ring, but outside he was a gentle man, kind and soft-spoken. Nothing much ever riled him, except maybe putting too much garlic in his famous chicken spiedini.
    He released Ellie from his grip and said, “Your boyfriend has a gun.”
    “It goes with the badge,” she replied.
    She stepped back and quickly introduced the two men.
    “I heard about that shooting,” he said to Max. Turning to Ellie, he added, “And I heard you operated on the agent who took the bullet.”
    “Tommy, how did you know I did the surgery?” she asked. She knew the shooting had been on the news, of course, and in the papers, but the surgeon’s name wasn’t mentioned.
    “Come on, kid, you know I hear everything that happens in this town.”
    He led them to a table secluded from the others in a quiet niche. “You two get the executive table tonight,” he said. Wiggling his eyebrows, he added, “Lots of privacy.”
    He unfolded her napkin and dropped it into her lap. “It was nice meeting you, Agent Daniels. You take good care of my girl, you hear me. Has she told you how we met?”
    “No,” Max answered.
    “Make her tell you about the golfer who came in with his friends a while back. It happened just after I opened the restaurant.” Tommy suddenly spotted someone else he knew across the room and was off with his arms spread wide to greet them.
    Alone again, Ellie was intent on asking Max why he had asked her out, but a waiter appeared to take their drink order. When he walked away, she turned back to Max.
    Before she could get her question out, he said, “Butte.”
    “Pardon me?”
    “Butte, Montana. That’s where I was born and where I grew up.”
    She slapped the tabletop. “Ah, of course. Now you make sense.”
    “Now you don’t make any sense,” he countered.
    How could she explain it so that he understood? Not possible, she decided. He did make sense to her now, though. There was an unbridled energy about him, and to her he seemed a maverick and a little on the wild side. Yes, that was it. As wild and untamed as the Montana landscape.
    Max was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind, and Ellie realized she needed to curb her imagination. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t ask me out so that I’d show you a nice restaurant. What did you want to talk to me about?”
    “Let’s have dinner first. What sounds good to you?”
    “Uh-oh. You’re avoiding the subject, which means it’s bad.”
    He was as good at switching topics as she was. “How come Tommy calls you ‘kid’?”
    “He introduced me to some of his father’s friends who all happened to be in their eighties, and to them I was a kid, I guess. He called me the kid doctor, which, by the way, I didn’t like. I told him so, and he stopped. So don’t you try it.”
    He laughed. “I won’t. And for the record, I don’t think of you as a kid. I barely glanced at you when we first met. All I saw were shorts and a ponytail.” And legs, he admitted to himself, long, perfect legs. “When I look at you now,” he said, his eyes looking deeply into hers, “the last thing I see is a kid.”
    Ellie could feel the blood rushing to her head and her heart pounding again. She quickly picked up a menu and pretended to study it. When she glimpsed at him a few seconds later, he was still staring at her, but this time there was a concerned look on his face.
    “It’s time you told me why we’re here,” she said, laying the menu on the table.
    “You’re right,” he admitted. He leaned forward. “This isn’t something I would normally do . . .”
    Seeing his hesitation, Ellie became anxious. “Just tell me,” she insisted.
    “This stays