LITMIR.BIZ

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to shut down Chloe talking about her mom, he didn’t want their evening out to turn maudlin either.

      “I joined the Y the month I moved here,” Kate said. “I like it there.”

      “I took swimming lessons at the Y,” Chloe said. “One of the girls in my class had her birthday party there. Everyone got to swim and then they had cake and ice cream.”

      Kate took a sip of tea, missing the feel of Chloe’s head against her arm and conscious of the warmth in Joel’s eyes that seemed directed straight at her. “Was it fun?”

      Two bright spots of pink dotted Chloe’s cheeks. “I wasn’t invited.”

      Open mouth. Insert foot.

      “Well, if they were trying to keep the party small—” Kate scrambled for a logical answer “—she probably couldn’t invite everyone.”

      “She had pretty invitations that looked like a flower,” Chloe advised in a matter-of-fact tone, but Kate saw the hurt in her eyes. “She put them in everyone’s cubby at school. All the girls got one except me.”

      Anger rose inside Kate. What kind of teacher would allow something like that to go on in her classroom?

      “How could your teach—” she sputtered, then stopped when Joel shook his head ever so slightly.

      “I’m sorry that happened to you.” Kate took a deep, steadying breath. “Something similar happened to me when I was your age. It hurts.”

      Chloe’s eyes widened with surprise. “You? They didn’t like you?”

      “Really?” The skepticism in Joel’s voice came through loud and clear.

      “I was shy,” Kate admitted. “We moved when I was eight. My sister, Andrea, had a whole group of new friends the first day. I—I didn’t have any. Not for a long time.”

      Chloe sat quietly for a second, a strange look on her face.

      “I have to go to the bathroom.” She pinned Kate with her gaze. “You have to move.”

      “Chloe.” A warning sounded in Joel’s voice. “Ask, not tell. And say please.”

      “Please, Dr. Kate.” A pleading note sounded in Chloe’s voice. “Can you move? I have to go real bad.”

      “I’m moving.” Kate slid out of the wooden bench. “I need to be leaving anyway. My pizza should be almost done.”

      “Don’t go. You talk to Daddy.” Chloe grabbed her hand. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”

      Kate glanced at Joel.

      “If you have time …” His eyes seemed to glitter, suddenly looking more green than brown.

      “I’ll stay,” Kate promised the little girl. “And, really, there’s no need for you to rush.”

      “Yes, there is.” Chloe hurried off, her legs pressed tightly together.

      Only when the child was out of sight did Kate chuckle. “I guess when you gotta go, you gotta go.”

      “Thanks for agreeing to stay.” Unmistakable gratitude flickered in his eyes. “Chloe really likes you.”

      “I like her, too.”

      His mouth relaxed in a slight smile. “But please, don’t feel you have to make up stories to make her feel better.”

      “Unfortunately they’re true.” Kate sighed. “For me, growing up was a painful process. I was gawky, all arms and legs. And very shy.”

      “Well, you certainly turned out nice.” Joel’s admiring gaze settled on her. Suddenly her stomach and her heart were involved in a competition for the most flip-flops per minute.

      She laughed, a short, nervous burst of air.

      “Don’t feel like you have to make up compliments so I’ll feel better,” Kate said teasingly, throwing his earlier words back at him. “I’m well aware of how I look in this outfit.”

      “You look beautiful.” He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. The gleam in his eyes sent blood flowing through her veins like warm honey. “Casual. Relaxed. Approachable.”

      Kate didn’t know whether to be insulted or amused. “Are you saying I usually look uptight and unapproachable?”

      “Not all the time,” he said, with a lopsided smile.

      Kate firmly ignored the unsettling flutter in her mid-section.

      “Your daughter seems like a remarkably well-adjusted little girl,” she said, with a studied nonchalance.

      Joel didn’t smile as she expected.

      “Her mother’s death hit her hard. And the move here, well, I’m not sure it was the best thing for Chloe.” His expression grew somber. “She had a lot of good friends back home. Kids she’d known since kindergarten.”

      “But surely Chloe has made some new friends by now?”

      Joel shook his head. “If she has, I’ve never seen them. I’ve noticed girls her age here seem to be much more into adult kinds of stuff than the ones in Montana. Perhaps that’s part of the problem.”

      “You think so?” Kate thought of her patients. Coming from Los Angeles, the children here seemed like such innocents.

      “I’ll give you an example. A couple of days ago, Chloe asked me for money to buy makeup.” The look of bewilderment on Joel’s face would have been funny at any other time. “She’s nine years old. Who wears makeup at that age?”

      “That is really young,” Kate agreed. “How did she take it when you said no?”

      “She just looked at me. There was this expression on her face that I can’t even describe.”

      “Anger? Resentment?”

      “Neither. Crushed would be more accurate. It would have been easier if she’d been angry.”

      “Did you ask her why she thought she needed makeup?”

      It suddenly hit Kate that they were talking about Chloe the way parents would discuss their child. It seemed so right and, at the same time, so very wrong.

      “I didn’t think to ask,” Joel admitted. “I see now where that would have been a good thing to do.”

      He looked at her and she felt the impact of his regard all the way down to her feet.

      Time to change the subject. “By the way, did Chloe ever get a chance to talk to her friend Savannah?”

      “Why don’t you ask her?”

      “Ask me what?” Chloe asked, sliding into the booth when Kate rose to let her in.

      “Did you speak with your friend in Montana yet?” Kate asked.

      Chloe smiled broadly, showing her prominent canine teeth. “She was so excited to hear my voice she almost peed her pants.”

      “Chloe,” Joel chided.

      “That’s what she told me, Daddy.”

      A half smile tugged at his lips.

      Kate leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. “What else did she have to say?”

      Chloe had just finished going through the entire conversation sentence by sentence when a red-haired girl with a Perfect Pizza T-shirt and an anxious expression stopped at the table.

      “Did you order a large ham and pineapple with cream cheese?” the restaurant employee asked.

      Kate smiled at the girl. “I did.”

      “There was a problem.” The teen’s cheeks turned as red as her hair. “But the new pizza

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