"You have a telephone call."
Feeling Clay vibrating with suppressed laughter beneath her. Spring planted her hands on his chest and pushed herself out of his lap. "All right, I'll take it. And then," she added to Clay, "I'm going to test your vision. Actually, I've been wanting to do so ever since I caught you playing slide trombone with the play program on our first date."
Clay frowned. "You're not really planning to put me in glasses, are you?"
"We'll see," she replied mysteriously, throwing him a laughing glance over her shoulder as she left the room. She decided to take the call in the business office that looked out on the empty reception area.
"Want me to go keep our patient happy while you take this call?" Kelsey asked hopefully when Spring reached for the phone on Kelsey's desk.
Spring held the receiver, her finger hovering over the hold button. Now she knew why she'd chosen to use this particular telephone. "Did you really give him your phone number?"
"You bet. Isn't he gorgeous?"
Spring leaned her hip on Kelsey's desk and gave her friend a hard stare. "I want your phone number changed. Immediately."
With a sputter of startled laughter Kelsey dropped her pencil and stared back at Spring. "Does this mean you're over that Clay guy in California?"
"This means he is that Clay guy. And he's not in California, he's in my examining room!"
Kelsey's mouth fell open comically. "That's him? No kidding?" At Spring's happy nod she sighed gustily. "Wouldn't you know it. I fall in love at first sight, and the guy's already taken. Besides that, I think I've just lost your grandmother's earrings!"
Her heart jumping. Spring took a deep breath and took her call, trying to sound professional when all she wanted to do was sing with joy.
Clay had come for her!
Chapter Ten
"Spring, are you quite sure I need glasses?"
"Clay, I've told "you that they're only for reading. You'll be much more comfortable with your school paperwork when your eyes are under less strain."
"What did you call what I have again?"
Spring smiled indulgently and unlocked the door to her apartment. "Hyperopia. You're slightly farsighted, Clay, and you have a touch of astigmatism. I explained all that in my office." She pushed open the door and stepped in, her stomach tightening nervously now that she and Clay were actually going to be alone for the first time in four months.
"Yes, I know, but...glasses! Just think how everyone will tease me."
He reminded her of Danny ready to beat up Bobby Clary for calling him "Four Eyes." She had to laugh. "They certainly would tease you if I'd let you choose those frames you tried on. Honestly, Clay, they made you look like...like Elton John, in one of his flashier concert outfits."
"Hey, you're the one who carries them in stock."
"Yes, but I never sell them to adults. Only to very strange teenagers."
"And I qualify on only one of those counts, right?" Clay walked around the living room into which she'd led him, trailing his fingers along a particularly nice Louis Philippe reproduction table. "You seem to be very good at your job. Very thorough."
"The exam doesn't normally take quite that long. But then, most of my patients don't pull me onto their laps or pinch me in various places when I look into their eyes."
He grinned. "I have to admit that I haven't enjoyed an examination so much in a long time." Without waiting for her response he looked once more around what he could see of her apartment. "This is nice. Very nice."
Pleased, she smiled at him. "Somehow I thought you'd like it."
"Odd, isn't it? This could almost be my place." He shot her a look that made her skin tingle, then glanced at the painting above her mantel. "I was with Summer when she bought this. She said you'd seen it and liked it."
"Yes." She didn't tell him why she hadn't bought it for herself. Nor did she tell him how many times in the past weeks she'd stared at it and cried. "I haven't thanked you yet for the bracelet."
"Yes, you did. You sent me a very proper little note thanking me and telling me that I shouldn't have sent it." A note he hadn't answered. Stopping beside her, he caught her hand in his and lifted it, admiring the bracelet on her wrist. "Thank you for not sending it back. I wanted you to have it."
"Why?" she asked, the word a mere whisper.