But she didn’t get to the car. She walked up to him and put her hands on his waist. Shyly. How does a girl shyly do something as bold as that? But she radiated shyness even as her hands rested on his waist just above his jeans, so that her hands were right on the stems of his hips. Her touch was just exactly perfect. And she looked up into his eyes and said, “Danny North, I don’t know how you did it, and I haven’t dared say this to Daddy, he’s just calling it a miracle, but I know you healed me. I don’t know how or why, but I felt it that day you visited. I felt it wash over me, and I felt stronger. Every hour, every day since then, stronger. I know you did it. I made Daddy take me to the doctor right away and he said it was all gone. The cancer. I was clean of it. He’d never seen anything like it. He actually asked me if I’d been to a faith healer.”

“Had you?” asked Danny.

“No. My healer came to me,” she said. “I don’t expect any explanations. I don’t want to know how you did it. I just know it was you, and thank you.” Then she tiptoed to kiss him on the mouth. Full on the mouth. It hadn’t even been twelve hours since he kissed Pat, and here he was getting kissed again. Only this girl didn’t even know he was a mage. Though she did know, somehow, that he had power, so it amounted to the same thing. Apparently you show a girl you can do real magic, and she’s got her mouth on yours as soon as possible.

Are you complaining, you idiot? Is this bad? Do you hate it?

Not really, he had to admit to himself.

And she was still kissing him. And now her arms were around his waist instead of on it, and she was pressed against him, and—

The car horn tooted outside. A house this small and so close to the street, it sounded like the car was right in the living room.

“Thank you,” she said again. Whether for the kiss or the healing Danny wasn’t sure. For the kiss, he wanted to answer like a store clerk: “Thank you.”

Instead he just followed her out to the car.

Shy? She showed not a speck of embarrassment when she got out of the front seat and climbed into the back beside him. “It’s not right to make him sit alone in the back,” she explained to her father.

“But it’s fine to leave me alone in the front?” he asked, but he was joking.