Page 28 of Clara Knows Best

“You’ll have to ask Claudia. Why, are you interested?” Dr. Wilder asked, smiling.

Oh, yes, the plan was coming together now.

She was not precisely waiting for him to get home from the hospital that evening, but she happened to see his headlights from her room and arrived downstairs as he was coming in the door.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask how his motorcycle patient was doing, but she observed him for a minute first.

He took off his shoes without bending down—heel to toe, one and then the other, and nudged them against the wall to be out of the way. Then he took off his coat and hung it on a hook, and then he just stood and stared at it for several seconds.

Clara moved forward, and he turned to look at her.

“Did you eat?” she asked.

“Guess I missed dinner, huh?” he answered.

“Do you want some Vietnamese chicken? It’s homemade.”

“Then how could it be Vietnamese?” he said.

First a non-answer and then a feeble attempt at humor. “Okay, shut up,” she suggested kindly, “and come sit at the bar. You can eat while I run something by you.”

He didn’t answer and she didn’t wait to see if he would follow her, but by the time she had put some chicken and rice into a bowl for him, he was sitting on a barstool.

She put the food in front of him and handed him a fork.

“Thanks. Painted your nails.”

“Uh, huh.” They were fuchsia now, with tiny pink hearts painted on them.

“Nice.”

The sincerity in the word surprised her. “Do you like it, really?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty.”

“It’s for Valentine’s.”

“Uh, huh.”

Again, she watched him for a long minute. He was doing a lot of reorganizing of his food, but not so much eating. In fact, no eating at all. She had never seen someone who needed a hug so badly, but she knew he wouldn’t accept one.

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

He looked up. His brown eyes were intense and unhappy and his gaze seemed to hold her captive. “Ask away, your highness.”

The childhood nickname did not bother her at all—never had, even when people used it sarcastically. The fact that Jesse remembered it from the old days didn’t bother her, either. “When’s the last time you exfoliated your face?”

“That’s easy. Never.”

She shook her head sorrowfully at the response.

“Wrong answer?”

“Yes, wrong answer. Come with me.”

“Clara—” He broke off as she took his hand, and he let her pull him to his feet. “What are you going to do to my face?”

“Nothing you shouldn’t be doing already,” she answered, steering him towards the staircase.

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