She squatted down and touched his frightened face. "It's okay, little man. We just want to have some fun. Show us what you got."

Emma rose and hit PLAY, and the room throbbed with what she'd always considered the soundtrack to her childhood-the high-pitched wail of the Brothers Gibb.

"'Oh, you can tell by the way I use my walk…'"

"Oh, my God!" Leelee squeaked.

"Give the man some room," Beckett said, pushing everyone back like a police officer at an accident scene.

Thomas gravitated toward Emma and took her hand in his-warm and big and just right. He was shaking with laughter. "Okay. I've officially seen everything now," he said into her ear.

Several things impressed Emma. First, Hairy was perhaps the most agile little canine she'd ever seen. He'd just executed a flip with a full twist. He could spin on his hind legs. He flawlessly kept the beat as he pranced and swiveled and made sharp cuts on the rug.

The second thing that impressed Emma was that she swore, despite everything she knew to the contrary, that the damn dog was smiling.

His sharp yips and howls brought her out of her trance.

"What does he want? What?" Leelee jumped around worriedly, looking to Emma for help. "Why is he barking at me?"

"I think he wants you to dance with him," Thomas yelled over the disco throb.

"Yeah? Oh, how totally cool!"

Thomas's hand tightened around Emma's, then he brought his arm around her shoulder and held her-really they held each other-because they were laughing so hard they could barely stand.

Whatever Leelee did, Hairy mimicked her. If she turned a sharp left, so did he. If she did a little cha-cha-cha, he did, too. If she leaped, he leaped.

"I'm going to pee my pants," Emma laughed.

"You know, I've heard tying a maxi pad inside a sweat sock works wonders for that," Thomas said in her ear.

"I've gotta get the video camera!" Beckett raced from the room. "They ain't gonna believe this down at the Moose!"

Thomas was pretty sure he'd just gotten his ass kicked by a twelve-year-old.

"Leelee, I'm not sure vair is an actual word." Beckett reached for the dictionary that lay on the floor at his feet.

The girl rested her chin in her hands and looked up at Thomas, her eyes crinkling as she grinned at him.

"Whadya say? You gonna challenge me, Mr. Tobin?" He sighed, leaned back into the chair, and looped his fingers together on his lap. The two of them had gone head-to-head for an hour now, and all he had left were the letters X and Q and there was nowhere on the Scrabble board to put them. "No. My brain hurts, Lee. You win."

"Well, I'm going to look it up anyway, because she can be sly sometimes… "

"Beck!" Leelee looked offended.

"Oh, hell's bells, here it is-'the skin of a kind of squirrel with a gray back and white belly.' Now how in God's name did you know that, Lee?"

She shrugged. "I read a lot, I guess."

"Good game, junior." Thomas reached across the letter-dense board to shake her hand. It felt tiny and soft in his palm. "So what kind of things do you like to read?"

"I don't know-biographies. History. Adventure. Science fiction. Romances that Emma approves in advance." Leelee shot Emma a quick glance. "Just about anything, really."

"Do you have any favorite authors?"

"Sure-J.R.R. Tolkien, Barbara Kingsolver, Judy Blume. Emma took away all my Tom Robbins novels when I moved here from L.A., though."

He couldn't help but smile. Who let their twelve-year-old daughter read Tom Robbins? It was probably a good thing Emma arrived on the scene when she did.

"How about music? What kind of music do you like?"

Leelee snuggled back into the couch and Hairy returned to her lap. She stroked his ears. "Have you ever heard of the Backstreet Boys?"

He supposed it was good that Leelee was normal in some way. "Sure have," he said, trying to sound enthusiastic.

"Well, I'm in love with every single one of them, even the married ones." She sighed. "But Mom used to listen to lots of different stuff at home that I like, too-reggae and ska. Alternative. Texas blues. Jazz. You know she and Emma were in a band together when they were teenagers, right?"

Thomas watched a flush spread across Emma's cheeks as she sprang up to clear the drinking glasses.

"I'll get that, honey." Beckett took the glasses from her and suddenly Emma stood in front of Thomas with nothing to do but look embarrassed.

"Really?" he asked.

"Yeah," Leelee said. "They sucked."

Emma shrugged, thick hair shifting over her shoulder. "I'm afraid it's true."

"We've got a few videotapes of their shows if you want to see-"

"Time for bed, Lee!" Emma slid Hairy out from Leelee's arms and hauled her off the couch.

"But I don't have school tomorrow!" Leelee wailed. Emma pushed her toward the stairs.

"Good night, sweetie." Emma kissed her cheek.

"Wait!" Leelee spun around and ran back toward Thomas, looking up into his face with expectation. "I'll make a deal with you-you let me keep Hairy for the weekend and I'll go to bed now." A mischievous smile spread across Leelee's face, and in that instant she reminded him of Pam-except for the color of her eyes, she could be Pam's kid. Or his.

"If it's okay with Emma." His glance landed on Hairy and the strangest pang of jealousy hit him-he was going to miss the little pecker. "But you've got to let him out pretty often or you'll have a big mess to clean up. And he'll want to sleep in bed with you. He gets kind of cold and lonely otherwise."

"Oh, sure! Cool!" Leelee scooped Hairy from Emma's arms and ran out the front door with him. Emma turned to face Thomas with a crooked grin.

"It is okay with you, isn't it?"

"Why not?" Emma spread her arms wide in surrender.

"Here." Thomas dug into the front pocket of his slacks. "In case you need to bring him back and I'm gone, here's a key to my place. Just drop him in his crate."

Emma accepted the key just as Beckett came out of the kitchen and excused himself for the night, giving Thomas a friendly slap on the shoulder, and Leelee burst in the front door and started up the stairs. She stopped halfway and leaned over the polished oak banister.

"Thanks, Thomas." Her butterscotch-brown eyes danced in the foyer light. "I was afraid you'd be a complete and total loser, but you're pretty cool. Do you think you could teach me how to drive your car sometime?"

Thomas wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. "You want to drive my car? You're twelve."

"Just on the driveway. It's the hottest car I've seen since I moved to Maryland."

He felt the corner of his mouth hitch up. "Maybe someday."

She smiled at him and was gone.

Thomas stood in the hallway with Emma, his hands shoved in his pockets, a strange sense of pleasure spreading through him. Emma was looking up at his face, shaking her head.

"What?"

"Amazing."

"What is?"

She blinked, then laughed. "God, Thomas. Everything-everything's amazing."

"Sit with me a minute?" He reached for her hand and walked with her to the couch, where he pulled her down next to him. He let his arm drape across her shoulders, and sighed.

"I did pretty good tonight, didn't I?"

Emma snorted and shook her head. "You want to hear her nickname for you?"

He crooked his neck to look down at her. "I'm not sure… "

"Thomas the Tongue."

"Ouch."

"I told her it was disrespectful."

"Thanks for defending my virtue."

They sat in the quiet for a few moments, Thomas feeling more comfortable and relaxed than he could ever remember. Being with Emma seemed to do that for him. She snuggled closer.

"I passed the test, didn't I?"