Page 12 of Fierce-Dane

She laughed a little. “I think it’s sweet that this came from your kids.”

“My daughter was here a while ago with my mother and sister. They got their toenails painted.”

“Pedicures?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Sorry. I just know she came home with blue nails and kept talking about how she couldn’t decide on the shade.”

“I bet you let her keep talking about it too because it made her happy,” she said.

“I did until her brother told her his ears were bleeding. The two of them are...entertaining.”

“They sound it,” she said. “So, what do you do if you don’t mind me asking?”

“I’m a pediatrician.”

“Then you like kids,” she said. “At least I hope you do.”

He heard the humor in her voice through the sensory overload going on in his body. She’d moved from his shoulders to his right arm. His bicep, forearm and even his fingers were being touched.

Where had this been his whole life?

Now he knew why Chloe swore by it.

“I do,” he said. “I always have.”

“No kids for me,” she said. “Someday. It’s hard owning this business and having a personal life let alone a family life.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. “I work a lot and it’s not easy to balance it all.”

Which was how he ended up single, but he wouldn’t say that.

It was not something he brought up, but she might be able to put this together since he hadn’t mentioned having a wife once, just his mother, sister and kids.

“No,” she said. “But people do what works for them. We all have our reasons for it in life too.”

“You’re right,” he said. “That’s a profound statement from someone so young. But since you own this business I guess you’re not that young.”

“I don’t know that I’m much younger than you unless you’ve got really good genes.”

More humor in her voice.

“I’m thirty-five,” he said. “Just turned it. I’d guess you’re not even thirty.”

“Well, they do say doctors are smart. I’m twenty-eight.”

“See,” he said. “Younger than me.”

“You’re good at math too.”

He laughed. He liked that she was distracting him with the conversation so he wasn’t focusing on her touch so much.

A woman’s touch he hadn’t felt in longer than he cared to think of.

He hoped she didn’t know that. Or think it. Or even realize it.

“It wasn’t my favorite subject in school,” he said.

She’d moved to his left arm.