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In a matter of minutes she was gone, insisting Kate stay behind and wait for the pizza. Since they’d driven separately, it worked. Kate filled her glass with iced tea, tucked the order number under her arm and ambled into the dining room hoping to find a place to sit.
She heard her name and Kate’s heart performed a series of flutters at the sound of the familiar baritone. A sense of déjà vu washed over her when Joel motioned her over, his lips lifted in an easy smile. He must have said something to his daughter because Chloe turned and waved, leaving Kate no choice but to head that way.
By the time she reached the booth, Joel was standing, his steady gaze shooting tingles down her spine. He surveyed her from the top of her disheveled ponytail to the tips of her dusty cross-trainers. “You look lovely.”
Kate gazed into his eyes, noticing for the first time the green in the hazel depths. Discounting the fact that he was Chloe’s adoptive father, there was something about this rugged contractor that appealed to her.
“Where’s your friend?” Chloe pushed herself up in her seat and looked around.
“Mitzi is on her way to my house,” Kate said. “Her niece was in a car accident this afternoon and she had some calls to make. Once the pizza is ready, I’m headed home, too.”
Kate felt it important to make it clear she wasn’t eating here. Despite her conversation with Mitzi, Kate still wasn’t convinced she should be more involved in Chloe—and consequently, Joel’s—life.
“You’re welcome to join us while you wait,” Joel offered. “We’ve got plenty of hamburger pizza.”
“With extra cheese,” Chloe said, sweetening the pot.
There was a beat of silence as Kate hesitated. She felt Joel’s gaze on her mouth. Her lips began to tingle.
“Daddy and I were talking about my appointment with the dentist,” Chloe said. “He never had braces. Did you have braces, Dr. Kate?”
“I did.” Kate moistened her suddenly dry lips with the tip of her tongue and concentrated on the facts. Fact one, she had to wait for the pizza. Fact two, with the dining area so small, it would look like an obvious slight if she sat anywhere else. Fact three, she wanted to sit with them.
“I can move over.” Chloe scooted across the bench seat, making room.
Kate turned back to Joel, noticing the five o’clock stubble on his cheeks. A man’s man. “If you’re sure I’m not interrupting …”
“Sit down, Doctor.” Joel’s smile took any sting from the order.
He stepped back at the same moment she moved forward and her arm brushed against his. His body tensed at the brief contact, but Kate pretended she hadn’t felt it. Or caught a whiff of his spicy cologne.
She placed the stand with the number card on the edge of the table so it was clearly visible, then slid into the booth next to Chloe. When she turned to drop her hobo bag on the seat, this time it was the little girl who stared.
“You have a ponytail,” Chloe said loudly. “Just like mine.”
A self-conscious-sounding laugh escaped Kate’s mouth. She was about to apologize for her appearance when she saw the pleased look in Chloe’s eyes.
“I like my ponytail.” Or she had, when it had been all neatly pulled back. Not so much now, with half the strands out of the tail. “Do you like yours?”
“I do.” Chloe sounded surprisingly serious. “It keeps my hair off my face. And my neck stays cooler in the summer.”
Kate made the mistake of looking at Joel. When his lips twitched, she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. “So true.”
Chloe’s gaze narrowed. “You don’t look like a doctor in those clothes.”
Intrigued, Kate angled her head. “Okay, I’ll bite. What do I look like?”
Across from her, Joel took a sip of soda. Puzzlement, along with an unmistakable flash of amusement, glittered in his eyes. Apparently he wasn’t sure what was going to come out of his daughter’s mouth. Well, that made two of them.
Chloe shrugged and took a gulp of milk, suddenly tight-lipped.
Something in Kate told her to let it drop. But curiosity propelled her to offer an encouraging smile. “C’mon, Chloe,” Kate urged, “tell me.”
“You look—” the little girl took a deep breath then began, again, her hazel eyes staring straight at Kate “—like my mom.”
Chapter Five
Kate inhaled sharply.
Joel’s pizza slice dropped to his plate.
“Mommy used to wear those black shorts when she went to the gym. Before she got sick.” Chloe’s voice broke. “Then she died.”
Kate swallowed a nervous gasp. For a second, she’d thought that like Mitzi, Chloe had looked at her and seen …
But she hadn’t and Kate was relieved. Still, her heart twisted at the pain in Chloe’s voice. While some might say it’d been two years and it was time for the child to move on, Kate knew better. Time did make such a significant loss easier to bear, but even after ten years Kate still missed her grandmother. She squeezed Chloe’s shoulder. “I can tell you loved your mother very much.”
“I did.” Tears shimmered in Chloe’s eyes. “I miss her so much.”
Across the booth, Kate saw Joel stiffen and for a second she thought he might put an end to a conversation. Instead he reached across the table and patted his daughter’s hand. The look he shot Kate was filled with unmistakable gratitude. Her breath caught, then began again.
“I bet she loved you just as much,” Kate said softly. “I—I know I would if you were my little girl.”
Kate clamped her lips shut. Where had that come from?
“She told me that she thanked God every day for me.” Chloe’s voice grew thick. “Didn’t she say that, Daddy?”
“You were her world, princess.” Joel cleared his throat. “I’ll never forget the look on your mommy’s face when the nurse put you in her arms. You were only three days old.”
Chloe leaned her head against Kate’s shoulder and Kate stayed very still, afraid to move and ruin the moment.
Finally Chloe straightened and reached for another piece of pizza, moisture clinging like little crystals to her lashes.
“Do you belong to a gym?”
Joel’s question seemed to come out of left field. Not until Kate met his gaze did she understand that while he didn’t want 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.
