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He grinned. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been getting into labels. There are lots of interesting techniques out there that bear quantitative investigation. When I was in the States, I met a guy who uses it to very good effect, in tandem with drug regimes.’
‘So you were working as a doctor in America?’
‘Just taking an interest.’ He steered deftly around the question. ‘Here, give me your arm.’
‘What, so you can experiment on me? In a café at motorway services?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t do it on a patient.’ She felt his fingers on her wrist, the thumb pressing firmly between the two bands of muscle that ran down the inside of her arm. ‘What do you think?’
‘Too many variables. I don’t know whether we can come to a definite conclusion.’ She was on steadier ground now. Jess ventured a smile.
He chuckled quietly. ‘Do you think it matters which arm you do it on?’ He’d clearly decided she felt better and had switched to ruminating on variations to his technique.
‘I wouldn’t know. Here, you want to have a go?’ She held out her other arm.
‘Hmm. Probably a bit late now.’ He grasped her arm anyway and tried again. ‘How’s that?’
‘Feels… okay.’ Much, much better than okay. She was starting to tingle all over. Either he’d hit on a discovery that had eluded other medical practitioners for centuries or her body had decided that responding to his touch was a good idea. Great. A little warning might have been in order.
‘Jess, we’ve known each other for long enough… ’
‘Worked together.’ She corrected him quickly. Working together was one kind of knowing. This was another.
‘I’m not your boss any more.’ Something dark, like liquid promise, glowed in his eyes.
‘I suppose that makes things less complicated.’
He grinned. ‘Yep. But I won’t pretend that I haven’t worked alongside you for more hours at a stretch than either of our contracts allows for. I’ve seen you exhausted, cranky, messy… ’
‘Thanks a lot!’
‘Fabulous, formidable… ’
‘Better.’ They both smiled at the same moment.
‘We’ve got past the point where we need to apologise for all our little foibles.’
‘You mean you have foibles?’ He did have a way of lifting her worries off her shoulders. Always had.
He shrugged. ‘Well, when I said our foibles I was just trying to make you feel better about yours.’
‘Oh, so you think you don’t have foibles?’ Jess wrinkled her nose at him. ‘What about that famous charm of yours?’
‘Doesn’t seem to work on you.’
‘Works on everyone else.’
‘Can I help that?’
‘Oh, yeah, you can help it. And the love ’em and leave ’em… ’
‘It keeps things simple. Anyway, I’ve changed. The last person I loved and left was… ’ He frowned, as if consulting his memory and not quite believing the answer he got back.
‘Who?’
‘You, actually.’
‘Me! We didn’t… ?.’
