She stared at him, frowning slightly. “Thanks,” she said after a pause.
“You’re welcome.”
“So, Dr. Cerrasin,” she said after another long silence, “do you make a habit of luring colleagues down to the cafeteria for early morning pie?”
He smiled. “Well, if by colleagues you mean doctors, there aren’t exactly a lot of us. To be honest, I haven’t taken old Doc Fischer out for pie in ages.”
“How about the nurses?”
He heard a tone in her voice and looked up. She was eyeing him over the beige porcelain of her cup. Assessing him. “It sounds to me like you’re asking about my love life.” He smiled. “Is that it, Julia?”
“Love life?” She put a slight emphasis on love. “Do you have one of those? I would be surprised.”
He frowned. “You sure think you know me.”
She took a bite of pie. “Let’s just say I know your kind.”
“No. Let’s not say that. Whoever you’re confusing me with is not sitting at this table. You just met me, Julia.”
“Fair enough. Why don’t you tell me about yourself, then? Are you married?”
“An interesting first question. No. Are you?”
“No.”
“Ever been married?”
“No.”
“Ever get close?”
She glanced down for a second. It was all he needed to know. Someone had broken her heart. He’d bet that it was fairly recent. “Yes.”
“How about you? Have you ever been married?”
“Once. A long time ago.”
That seemed to surprise her. “Kids?”
“No.”
She looked at him sharply, as if she’d heard something in his voice. Their gazes held. Finally, she smiled. “So I guess you can have pie with anyone you’d like.”
“I can.”
“You’ve probably had pie with every woman in town.”
“You give me too much credit. Married women make their own pie.”
“And how about my sister?”
His smile faded. Suddenly the flirting didn’t seem so harmless. “What about her?”
“Have you . . . had pie with her?”
“A gentleman wouldn’t really answer that, now would he?”
“So you’re a gentleman.”