“Me?”
Gold shone in the warm brown of his eyes. “Stories, dancing, music—they nourish. They make us think and feel. They distract us from the hardness of life. That’s a gift from God.”
Lucie stroked the ribs under a leaf, the structure that held it together. “And math and science and business—they make things run. They’re necessary. Weighty. Gifts from God.”
Why had she never realized before?
The branch sprang out of Josie’s hand, high into the air.
Lucie laughed and raised her hand to that branch, to the truth.
“Hold that.” Paul brought his hand under her wrist, his gaze intense. “That line.”
“Line?” She could barely speak. His touch—so warm.
“The line of your arm.” With one finger, he brushed under her bare arm from wrist to elbow.
Shivering, awakening delight.
“That line.” He wasn’t looking at her, only her arm, not flirting, oblivious to the reaction he’d stirred.
Lucie fought for control of her breath, her senses, even as one strong finger traced back to her wrist and came to a rest under the heel of her hand.
“It’s ballet, isn’t it? Does it have a name?”
“A ... name?” At that moment she didn’t even know her own.
“Your arm. What you’re doing with it.” His gaze slid along her arm as his finger had.
“It’s a wing, Daddy.”
Josie—sitting on Paul’s shoulders. Flapping her arms.
Paul locked his hand onto Josie’s leg and his gaze on Lucie. He blinked a few times as if he too needed to come to his senses.
Her lips were parted, soft, ready, and she closed them and let her arm drift down.
With a sheepish smile, he headed back down the walk. “I’m sorry. That was strange. I—well, your arm looked like the perfect hood of a car.”
“A car?” The tension of attraction broke into bubbles of laughter.
“Yes. That curve. Aerodynamic, sleek, and graceful. Does it have a name?”
Lucie let her right arm float up, but her left arm held Bibles and fedora. “If I used both arms, it’d be an arabesque.”
“Arabesque.” His face took on that intent look again. “Spelled A-R-A, right?”
“Right.” She sent him a quizzical look, but it bounced off that intensity, focused in the distance.
“Arabesque,” he said. “AH-rabesque.”
“Paul?”
He looked at her, laughed, and tilted back his head. “What do you know, Josie? It’s been under my nose all this time.”
Josie folded her arms on top of his head. “What’s under your nose, Daddy?”
“I’ve done it all my life, and I never realized it. Function and design go together. They always have. The other side of green.”
