Staring at my phone, I comb my brain for a response that won’t send her running for the hills. Because if I were honest, I’d tell her, Well, now that you say it, Bea, the fact is you were the best kiss of my life. Kissing you, I wanted to do things I’ve never allowed myself to even consider. I was thirty seconds away from dragging you into some germ-infested corner of that dusty old bowling alley, hiking up your dress, and—

My phone buzzes again.

BEA: Okay, I freaked you out, didn’t I? Jamie, I’m just kissing.

BEA: KIDDING. Dammit.

JAMIE: Beatrice, I’m sorry. This is entirely my issue.

BEA: What do you mean? What issue?

I owe her more than that vague, incomplete explanation. I owe her more than an apology. But this isn’t a strength of mine, knowing what to say and how to say it.

I suck in a breath and clutch my phone, begging my brain to unjam everything tangled inside it. My heart rate accelerates. I break out in a sweat. Every second that ticks by does more damage, but I can’t—

“Dr. West,” Gayle calls.

I startle and my elbow bumps the computer where I’ve been taking patient notes, coloring the screen with a stream of random letters. I select them, delete, then save the file.

A quick stroll brings me to my side of the front desk’s opening. “What can I do for you, Gayle?”

Our head administrator glances my way with a wide smile and warm brown eyes. “You can explain this lovely young lady here.”

After following the direction of Gayle’s nod, I freeze. “Bea?”

There she stands, knocking the toes of her boots together. The boots that she wore to the Alley, which I laced up as her foot rested on my thigh, legs wide open before me—

Bad train of thought.

I clear my throat, then hit the hand sanitizer pump three times and rub it in. Tugging open the door from the waiting room to my side of the practice, I gesture her my way. “Come here, Bea.”

She marches forward, flashing one of those dangerous smiles at Gayle. “Nice to meet you,” she says.

“You, too, honey!” Gayle wiggles her eyebrows at me once Bea’s facing my way.

When Bea stops just inside the door, I stare down at her. In her hands are—

“You brought me tea?”

She lifts a small bag. “Gunpowder green, or whatever you got at Boulangerie. And that floor-cleaner scone you liked.”

“Why?”

Bea glances toward the front desk. All three admins whip their heads back to their computers.

“We should talk somewhere private,” I tell her. Setting a hand low on her back, I guide her in front of me. “Straight down that hall, then the first door on your left.”