“Aw, Mom, it’s fine! I don’t need a doctor.”

“Yes, you do. We want to make sure it’s healing properly so you don’t have trouble with it later.”

“Your mom is right,” Grayson said. “You don’t want an elbow that doesn’t work the way it should.”

Simone scowled, but she didn’t argue the point.

Thank you, Emma mouthed silently.

He winked at her and went with Simone to get the bags off the belt. Within minutes, they were in the backseat of a cab on the way to Emma’s apartment on the Lower East Side. Simone sat between them and pointed out landmarks to Grayson, who didn’t tell her he’d been to New York many times. This time, he wanted to see the city through her eyes.

When the cab pulled up to Emma’s building, Grayson ran his card through the credit card machine before Emma could do it.

“You don’t have to pay for us,” she said when the cab had departed.

“It’s no biggie.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Let’s have that argument later.”

“Fine, but we will have it.”

“I look forward to that,” he said, patting her on the ass as he sent her up the stairs ahead of him.

She tossed him a saucy look over her shoulder that set his blood to boiling. How many hours until bedtime, he wondered. They lived on the second floor of a walk-up. Emma disengaged three locks to get them inside an apartment that was small but cozy. Right away, Grayson noticed that the place was all about the child who lived here. Her framed artwork adorned the walls, her dollhouse took up an entire corner of the living room, and her umbrella hung from a hook on the coat tree right inside the door.

“Make yourself at home,” Emma said with a shy smile that made him want to kiss her so badly, he burned from the need.

“Grayson, come see my room!” Simone said as she took off down a short hallway.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, hanging his coat on the tree and following her into a bedroom with pink walls, a princess comforter, dolls, stuffed animals and other toys. “Wow, that’s a whole lot of pink.”

“I know! It’s my favorite color.”

“I can see that. Who are these ladies?” he asked, sitting on the bed next to several lifelike dolls.

“Those are the American Girls that Auntie Lu got me last Christmas. She says they’re more expensive than college, but I think she’s exaggerating.”

“Possibly, but those are some rather amazing dolls.”

“I know! See this one? She looks like me, doesn’t she?”

“She certainly does. What’s her name?”

“Valerie. She even has green eyes like mine.”

“I see that. Will the clothes you bought at the store earlier fit her?”