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have shifted his face toward her, because her impetuous kiss landed not on soft bristles, but on the warm, ridged flesh of his lips.
    She inhaled sharply, opening her eyes—and found herself staring into the deep pools of his. She had connected with the edge of his mouth, not the center, where the sharply drawn bow formed. But still…she felt the warmth of the stiff rim around the velvet flesh. She felt the minty heat of his surprised breath.
    For a minute, she couldn’t pull away.
    He didn’t, either. For a second, a few seconds—it was hard to tell, because time seemed as sticky and easily stretched as the caramel on her sundae—they stood there, joined by shocked eyes and warm, half-open mouths.
    He made a low sound, a primitive sound that could be identified in any country, on any planet, as pleasure. But he didn’t dive in, snatching the opportunity lewdly, as some men might have done. Instead, he slowly, almost imperceptibly, tilted his head to the right…then delicately drew it back again to the left.
    The subtle movement caused his lips to brush hers with an excruciating tingle. All through her body, nerve endings reacted, as if he’d put a match to her mouth. Her cheeks flamed. Her chest radiated heat like a sunburst. Her heart couldn’t remember exactly what to do, and thumped around in her chest, confused.
    Surely the whole thing didn’t last more than two or three seconds. Danny hadn’t even finished churning ice cream into the floats. Two or three seconds, and then—it might have been prearranged—they both pulled back at the same moment. She had to work hard to steady her breathing, as if she’d been jogging, and she felt the strangest urge to adjust her untouched clothes and smooth her unruffled hair.
    In contrast, he looked surprised but utterly calm. His caramel eyes were smiling. The outside corners tilted up, managing to look quizzical and delighted at the same time.
    “I’m not sure what I did to deserve that,” he said in low, pleasant tones. “But I hope you’ll tell me…so that I can do it again.”
    “It isn’t what you did,” she said awkwardly, backing up a step. “It’s what you didn’t do.”
    “What I didn’t do?”
    She tried to laugh, tried to match his composure, though she suddenly felt utterly ridiculous. He’d never understand. He probably had no idea what some fathers were capable of doing to a daughter who got mouthy and rude.
    She let her gaze drift to the hallway where his daughter had disappeared only two or three minutes before. “I guess I wanted to thank you, on behalf of all the clumsy, fussy little girls out there, for not losing your temper.”
    For a minute he looked truly confused. His brows drew together a fraction of an inch, and he tilted his head one degree. “Over ice cream?”
    “Partly ice cream.” She raised her eyebrows. “But mostly…attitude.”
    “Ah. The attitude.” He sobered slightly. “Well, we’ve got kind of a special case, because—”
    “Dad, let’s go. ”
    The little girl had emerged, still scowling, clearly not happy to see her father talking to Penny. At the same moment Danny came around the counter, big silver containers in both hands, whipped cream oozing in snowy rivers down the sides.
    “Here you go!” He beamed. “Extra whipped cream, extra cherries, I even threw in some jimmies.”
    He tilted one of the floats, eager to show off the happy face he’d made with cherries and sprinkles—and he almost lost his grip on the slippery vessel. For a few laughing, chaotic seconds, both father and daughter were absorbed in trying to make the transfer without upsetting another drink.
    Penny took advantage of that moment to slip out, her legal pad tucked safely under her arm.
    Yes, she was running away. But it didn’t feel like the same kind of cowardice she’d hated in herself earlier. It was more…preservation of something inexplicably special.
    She simply couldn’t bear to let the girl start quizzing her again