Gwen needed to slow down, but she gulped the remainder of her wine, anyway. She could feel Tully watching her from across the small round table with a polite look of concern while he fumbled with his spaghetti and meatballs.

He had chosen a lovely Italian restaurant with crisp white tablecloths, candles in every window and an array of wait staff that treated them with a kind and friendly manner, then screamed at each other in Italian as soon as they got behind the swinging kitchen door.

She had barely touched her fettuccine Alfredo with fresh cream sauce and portobello mushrooms. It smelled wonderful; however, right now the wine and its anesthetizing effect was all she wanted. She needed something to wipe away the feel of that pencil stabbing into her throat and the desire to kick herself for being so stupid. She was beginning to understand why Maggie resorted to Scotch so often. Maggie had a much longer and more grisly list of images to wipe out of her memory bank.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said. “You probably should have left me in my hotel room. I’m afraid I’m not very good company tonight.”

“Actually, I’m used to women not talking to me at the dinner table.”

It wasn’t at all what she expected him to say, and she found herself laughing. He smiled, and it only then occurred to her how awful this afternoon must have been for him, too.

“Thanks,” she said. “I really needed to laugh.”

“Glad I could help.”

“I certainly messed up this trip. We didn’t get anything.”

“I wouldn’t say that. Pratt thought that Father Joseph sent you. He said it. That’s more than we knew before, and it may be all we need to connect him and the others to Reverend Joseph Everett. It will be a wasted trip, though, if you don’t eat something.”

He smiled at her again, and she wondered if he wanted to forget about this afternoon as much as she did. He was still looking at her as if expecting an answer.

“If you’d like, we could go somewhere else, if this isn’t quite what you had in mind,” he offered.

“Oh, no, this is fine. It smells wonderful. I’m just waiting for my appetite.”

She hadn’t told him she helped herself to a glass of champagne while she changed for dinner. The hotel had mistakenly sent up a newlywed basket to her room. When she called down to the front desk, the clerk was so embarrassed, he insisted she keep and enjoy it, that they would send another to the intended couple. Well, she wouldn’t be able to enjoy all of it. The basket included massage oils and an assortment of condoms. She’d have to settle for the champagne and chocolates.

She watched Tully wrestle with his spaghetti, mutilating it into small pieces instead of wrapping it around his fork. It was painful to watch.

“Mind if I show you how to do that?” she asked.

He looked up, saw what she meant and immediately turned red. Before he could answer, she slid her chair over, so that she was sitting next to his right arm. Without making a big deal or fuss, she gently put her hand over his, barely getting her fingers around his large hand in order to show him how to hold his fork.

“The secret,” she said, while reaching across his lap and taking his other hand, “is in the spoon.” She nodded for him to pick up his spoon in his left hand. “You pull just a little spaghetti with your fork to release it from the pile, and then you wrap it, slowly in a smooth gentle motion, against the bowl of the spoon.”

She could feel his breath in her hair and could smell the subtle scent of his aftershave. His hands complied with her every command, and it surprised her how good they felt against her own palms. When the task was complete, she let go, sat back into her chair and scooted to her side of the table, all the while avoiding his eyes.

“Mission accomplished.” She pointed to the perfectly wound spaghetti still on his fork. “You’re a quick learner.”

He hesitated, then brought it to his mouth. He tried the process again while he chewed, lifting his fork to show her when he managed it on his own. This time their eyes met and neither of them looked away until one of the wait staff interrupted, offering to refill their wineglasses, which Gwen accepted. She was sure it was probably a good idea to also anesthetize the unfamiliar arousal she was suddenly feeling.

With this glass of wine, she did manage to eat some of her fettuccine and even clean up her half of a cannoli dessert. Through coffee and during a long cab ride back to the hotel, she found herself telling Tully about her practice and the old brownstone she was restoring, while he told her about Emma and the trials and tribulations of raising a fifteen-year-old girl. She hadn’t realized he had custody of his daughter. Somehow his being a devoted single father only completed the annoying image she already had of him as the perfect Boy Scout.

At her hotel door, she invited him in for a glass of her complimentary champagne, sure the Boy Scout wouldn’t accept and that she was safe. The Boy Scout accepted. Before she poured the champagne, she turned to him, needing to say what she had avoided saying all evening.

“I need to thank you,” she said, meeting his eyes and holding him there, so he couldn’t joke his way out of this. “You saved my life today, Tully.”

“I couldn’t have done it without your help. You have really good instincts, Doc.” He smiled at her, obviously still uncomfortable with taking any of the credit. Okay, so he was going to make this difficult.

“Could you just let me thank you?”

“Okay.”

She came to him, stood on tiptoe and still had to tug on his tie to bring him down to her height so she could kiss his cheek. As she did this, she noticed that his eyes were now serious. Before she pulled back, his mouth caught hers in a gentle but passionate kiss that was no longer about gratitude.

She rocked back on her feet, feeling a bit out of breath and staring up at him.

“That was unexpected,” she said, surprised that she was feeling light-headed. It had to be all the wine.

“I’m sorry,” he said, restoring her image of the Boy Scout. “I shouldn’t have—”

“No, you don’t need to apologize. Actually, it was…it was quite nice.”

“Nice?” He looked wounded, and she smiled though his eyes were still serious. “I think I can do better than nice.”

In two steps he was kissing her again, only this time it wasn’t long before his mouth refused to be confined to her lips. Gwen leaned against the back of the sofa and her fingers slid across its texture, looking for something to grab hold of while Tully continued to convince her that he could, indeed, do better than nice.