Page 24 of Red Hot Roaster

But, fuck, I’d need to rein it in. I could tell she was still tired from her injuries, even though the cuts—hell, gashes—on her hands and knees were healing. And the dark circles under her eyes were fading.

With all she had going on, Rose was asking me to supper. Sunday supper. A first for me.

Sure, I’d eaten with my foster families, prepared meals with Pete, gone out to bars with army buddies, taken girls on cheap dates. But this was the first time I’d been invited by a woman for dinner at her home.

And not just any woman. Rose, a woman who was claiming more and more of my waking thoughts.

Yeah, I shook my head over her stubbornness, but it was her giving nature that drew me in. That and the physical impact of the sweet slant of her cheeks under those green eyes, the lushness of her lips, the soft fullness of her body.

No doubt I was imagining more than was good for me, or her, given that I’d be moving on in a couple of months.

Still, I needed to do this invitation up right—I wasn’t some raw recruit. Buy some flowers for her. Go by Jean-Luc’s and get him to choose a bottle of wine. Call her to see if it was okay to bring Princess, although I suspected I already knew the answer to that one.

Yeah, today was a first. My gut was aching as I laid there, twisting the top sheet in my hands. It was only supper—right?

It was the first time I’d seen Rose flustered. I was standing at her front door Sunday afternoon, a big-ass bundle of flowers in my left hand and a bottle of red in my right. Princess was sitting at my feet, no leash and on her best behavior, looking past Rose at her buddy Pirate.

We were right on time, if not a minute or two early. I knew Rose was still expecting us since I’d talked to her earlier in the day. She was even wearing a Chocolate Lab apron with a kitchen towel slung over her shoulder.

Yet she was flustered to the point of blushing, fluttering her hands, stuttering her welcome…and blocking the doorway. I pushed forward gently so she had to back up. Then Princess and I walked through, and Rose closed the door behind us.

I turned to her and pushed the flowers into her arms.

“Rose, these are for you.”Smooth, Rafe, who else?“I brought you some wine too.”Obvious, Rafe, what else?“Is everything okay?”Are you okay?

She dipped her nose into the flowers, took a deep breath and then raised her face with a breathtaking smile. “Rafe. This is the first time a guy has brought me flowers. They’re beautiful. Thank you!”

What about past boyfriends?What about recent dates?What about Finn’s father before he’d…what? Died, disappeared, flaked off?

Yeah, I had so many questions, but—thank fuck—I didn’t spew them all out on the spot.

Instead, I zipped it and followed Rose as she swayed her way through the dining room in her tight jeans, throwing comments over her shoulder all the while.

“I’m going to find one of Mom’s pretty vases for your flowers. Oh, you brought wine too? That’s too much! There’s a corkscrew in the drawer there—can you open it? I put some beer in the fridge to chill for you. I got a ton of choices. See if there’re any you like.”

While I opened the wine and chose a brown porter, she put the flowers in a big glass vase and the vase on the dining table. A long, dark wood table with curvy legs, surrounded by fancy matching chairs, already set for supper—yeah, we were eating at the dining, not the kitchen, table.

She then made her last comment, or I guessed, question, “May I borrow your muscles for a while?”

I had all sorts of answers to that, but being a smart guy, I kept my mouth shut and cocked one eyebrow. Rose laughed a little self-consciously and, damn, blushed again. Rose held up her still-bandaged hands on either side of her face, like she was surrendering, and then tilted her head toward a row of peeled, boiled, semi-crumbling potatoes on the kitchen island.

“Normally, I’d mash these bad boys myself, but my palms are still too sore to grip the masher hard enough. And to apply pressure.”

Again, I shut it and gave her a chin lift instead. She stepped over to the stove where the meatballs and cream sauce simmered in a big skillet, richness wafting into the air. Some sort of vegetable was cooking in a pot, and a small saucepan was steaming what turned out to be milk, butter and garlic.

“If you can move the potatoes back to their big stockpot over there on the counter, I can pour in the milk mixture while you mash.”

So that’s how I ended up with Rose tucked close to my side, holding my left shoulder to steady herself while she slowly streamed the milk-butter-garlic into the pot and I plunged the masher down again and again.

We both were a little heated when it was all over.

We stepped away from each other. Rose pulled up her apron to blot her neck and fan her face while I ran my forearm across my forehead. I hated to admit it, but she was the first to recover.

She grabbed serving dishes from her cupboards and issued orders disguised as requests. “Rafe, would you mind dishing up the mashies in this bowl while I get the broccoli ready? Rafe, would you mind ladling the meatballs and sauce onto this platter? Rafe, would you mind putting out this lingonberry sauce while I spread the pickled cucumbers on a little plate?”

I didn’t mind at all.

After the dogs were fed and directed to sit—and not beg—in the kitchen doorway, after our drinks—even my porter—were poured into nice glasses, and after Rose turned on some music—no Elvis, thank God—we sat down to supper.

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