One Good Turn by Judith Arnold

spread like a cape over her shoulders, emphasizing their narrowness. Her blouse was a gauzy white linen, the neckline and short sleeves trimmed with crocheted lace, and her skirt was the same white fabric with lace along the mid-calf hem. She looked like an angel, a nymph, a bride.
    “You’re beautiful,” he murmured.
    She had just closed her lips around her spoon, and a small drip of ice-cream got trapped in the corner of her mouth. Staring at him, she slowly removed the spoon and ran her tongue over her lips to capture the drip. After an unnervingly long moment she lowered her eyes. “Maybe we ought to talk about this,” she said.
    “Talk about what?” All he’d done was to compliment her on her appearance. He hadn’t mentioned the effect her beauty had on him—or the more disturbing effect of glimpsing the tantalizing pink tip of her tongue as it darted across her lips. Thanks to the strategically positioned table between them, the most blatant evidence of her effect on him was well hidden, and he saw no need to mention it.
    “I know we’ve seen each other a few times. You’ve taken me out and spent money on me...”
    Taken her out? For what, sandwiches? Pizza? A picnic and a free concert and a pass-the-hat experimental theater performance? Astronaut ice-cream?
    Before he could argue she continued. “And Sybil—who’s much more worldly than me, or at least she says she is—anyway, she keeps telling me that sooner or later you’re bound to demand something in return.”
    “Wait a minute,” he broke in. “If we’re discussing what I think we’re discussing, let me assure you I never
demand
anything. If it happens, fine. But if it doesn’t, I’m not an animal. I don’t make demands like that. And I don’t know why we’re even discussing this particular subject, Jenny. All I said was that you’re beautiful—”
    “We’re discussing it because it’s there,” she persisted, once more lifting her eyes to him. She reached across the table and cupped her hand over his. “I like you, Luke.”
    His heart began to pound and his brain instantly reverted to his earliest erotic daydreams of her—daydreams of her lips on his and her small body beneath him, above him, surrounding him. Again he thanked God for the barricade of the table between them.
    “I’m just...kind of slow about these things,” she said.
    “No problem.” His voice sounded oddly raspy to him.
    “I mean, I have to love a person first. Can you understand that?”
    She had to love a person first. His pulse began to slow, his abdominal muscles to relax, his respiration to become regular. He wasn’t going to sleep with her tonight, that much was certain. He might never sleep with her. She had to love him first.
    While he wouldn’t call that threshold insurmountable, there were no guarantees that their friendship would ever deepen enough to qualify as love. Love took time; love was capricious and unpredictable. They would be together in Washington only six weeks longer. Whatever happened happened.
    He should have been immune to her blunt honesty by now, but he wasn’t used to a woman being so direct, so utterly devoid of pretense. He appreciated her candor, and he was determined to match it. “I don’t want to play games with you, Jenny,” he said. “I’m attracted to you. But I’m not going to pressure you. I’m not going to give lip service to love just so I can get you into the sack. If you’re slow about these things, you’re slow about them. I can live with that.”
    Her hand tightened on his for a second, and when she relaxed her grip he rotated his wrist and wove his fingers through hers. They finished eating their ice-cream that way, Luke wielding his spoon clumsily with his left hand, happy to sacrifice dexterity for the pleasure of holding her hand. He wouldn’t let go of her, not to scrape the syrup from the bottom of his dish, not to wipe his face, not to pull his wallet from his hip pocket.
    Even if what they