Kiss Me in the Summer - Barbara Dunlop Page 0,37
looked down. “Is it worse than it looks?”
“No,” I managed, although it came out as a bit of a wail.
“Then what?” he asked again. His gaze penetrating and observant, filled with that sincerity I’d come to admire.
I wanted to open up to him. But I didn’t want him to know my flaws. I struggled to come up with a good story. “I . . .”
“Why not try the truth?” he asked, as if he could read my mind.
I scrambled to think. What could I say? What would make sense?
“Laila?”
“It’s dogs,” I blurted out. Then a wave of regret hit me. Why hadn’t I just kept my mouth shut?
“Dogs?” He looked puzzled for a second.
“I’m not a monster,” I said. “I mean . . . I don’t . . . not like them or anything. I just . . . I just . . .”
He smiled gently. He looked amused. He was laughing at me?
I was instantly angry and mortified.
“Well, it looks like I was dead wrong,” he said.
My anger turned to confusion.
“I thought you were a hopeless klutz.” He shook his head. “My fault for jumping to conclusions.”
“I’m not, not klutzy,” I said in a small voice.
His expression shifted back to sympathetic, his gaze went soft. “You’re afraid. Don’t worry, Laila. It’s not that uncommon, and I can help you.”
I didn’t think I liked the sound of that. My voice wavered ever so slightly with my trepidation. “Help me to what?”
“Get over your fear. Let’s start with you telling me what happened. Were you bitten?”
*
It didn’t take me long to give Josh the details of my childhood Maltese incident. The event itself wasn’t complicated.
“Did anything happen to the dog?” Josh asked.
We were still in the exam room, and his chair was canted at an angle to mine. My cut hand was starting to hurt, and I cradled it in the other. Odd that I hadn’t noticed it until now.
“It wasn’t the dog’s fault.” I knew intellectually that Ollie had assumed I was an intruder.
“That dog needed some good training. It could have been dangerous to other people.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
“You were a child.”
I hadn’t ever thought of that. “He was friendly to the other kids,” I said.
“You have to be able to trust a pet at all times.”
“Yeah . . . well . . .”
“I’m not blaming you,” Josh said.
“It was a stupid idea.”
“It sounds pretty enterprising to me. What little girl wouldn’t want to bring a dog to pet day?”
I managed a smile at that. “I never did after that.”
“I’m sorry it happened.”
“It was a long time ago. I’m over—” I stopped myself. I clearly wasn’t completely over it. “I mean, the scar has healed.”
“Can I see it?” he asked.
“You want to see the scar? That seems a bit ghoulish.”
“I’m a medical professional.”
I frowned at him.
“I have a clinical interest in dog bites.”
“From the perspective of the dog.”
“I’m not taking sides here. It wasn’t your fault.” He paused. “It wasn’t really Ollie’s fault either. There are far more bad dog owners than bad dogs.”
“I shouldn’t have climbed the fence,” I said.
“Maybe not. But kids do things they shouldn’t do all the time. And that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point is how you feel today. Show me the scar. It’ll help me understand.”
I was tired of arguing. And the scar wasn’t in an intimate spot or anything, inside my left calf just below my knee. “Fine,” I said in a huff.
I reached for the cuff of my jeans and wriggled them up. Luckily, the fabric had some stretch to it. “There.” I pointed.
Josh cocked his head. Then he reached for my ankle and drew my leg up to rest it on his knees.
I might have protested if I hadn’t just lost the power of speech.
His hands were broad, strong, and callused. But his touch was gentle. I hadn’t thought the inside of my calf was an intimate spot. But when his fingertips traced around the scar, a delicious shiver made its way along my leg. “How did your mother not see this?”
I stared at his fingertips, marveling at the energy they were transmitting to my skin.
“Laila?”
“Huh?”
“I asked how your mother missed seeing this when it happened.”
“I told her I fell off the fence.” It hadn’t been entirely untrue. I’d fallen on my way back into my own small yard.
“And she didn’t ask questions?”
I tried not to take offense on my mother’s behalf. “She patched me up. It wasn’t like I’d never cut myself before.”
“No stitches?”
“It stopped bleeding