Page 19 of Suddenly Single
“Hear me out. It’s me and this lettuce, and you’ve surely figured out by now that I like my three squares.I’m not likely to take no for an answer.”
“You brought two bags of food from East Beach only a few hours ago,” he reminded her.
“Well, yeah, but notdinner,” she said, as if between the two of them, he was the one who was absurd.
He pondered her.A private dinner with a guest was not a good idea, exactly, but really where was the harm? He wouldn’t mind the company.Or at least hehopedhe wouldn’t mind the company after it was all said and done.“How are you at washing up?” he asked.
“Hmm.” She titled her head to one side.“Do you want the politically correct answer, or the truth?”
Edan couldn’t suppress a small smile.“The truth.”
“So-so,” she admitted.“But I give it 110 percent.Does that count?”
“No’ really,” he said.“But I suppose it will have to do if I want your lettuce, aye?”
She gasped with delight.“Thank youso much,” she said, clasping her cucumber to her breast.“You won’t believe this, but I’m—”
“Starving,” he finished for her with another wee smile, and gestured toward the kitchen.
She followed him inside, stopped in the middle of the room and looked around her.“Wow,” she said.“Justwow.Sothisis what a mansion’s kitchen looks like.”
“It’s what my kitchen looks like.This is the private residence.”
“I thought it would be more primitive.You know, very Victorian with a lot of giant cast-iron kettles hanging everywhere.” She looked at him sidelong.“And when I say primitive, of course by that I mean charming.”
“Of course,” he said dubiously.
“This is gorgeous!” she said again, turning a slow circle as she looked around.“I like a family style kitchen.”
He’d had little to do with the styling of it. Audra had put a farm table in the middle of the room with six chairs around it.There was a nice sized fireplace at one end that was original to the house. And there was a very large pantry, which had once contained all the dishes for a very large household.It seemed strange to Edan now, given that he really had no need for a kitchen this size, and if he did, then there was a perfectly serviceable one in the main part of the inn.
“If I had a kitchen like this, I’d be a better cook,” Jenny declared. “I love the sink.”
He glanced at the farm sink. “I put that in.The plumbing, too.And the stove,” he added idly.He’d done more work than he gave himself credit for. He dipped down to one of the lower cabinets and retrieved a bowl, then set it next to a cutting board.
“So you’re a handymananda fisherman,” Jenny said cheerfully.She joined him at the kitchen island and set her produce on the cutting board.Edan reached around her to fetch a knife from the butcher’s block.His arm brushed against the silky sleeve of her sweater.She was so close that he caught the sweet scent of her hair, too, and it reminded him of flowers in a spring garden.Frankly, it reminded him of females in general, with soft skin and slender limbs, and…
What in bloody hell am I thinking?
A ripple of consternation slipped through him. He was going home to try and make it work with Audra at the end of the month.He put the knife on the cutting board.“Here you are, then.I’ll have a look at the trout.”
Outside, Edan finished off the whisky he’d been drinking when she showed up.The warmth of the liquor settled him—he quit thinking about fragrant hair and shapely legs, and brought the fish inside on a plank.
Jenny had found the aprons hanging on a hook and had donned one, and was busily chopping up her cucumber at the kitchen island.But the sight of her was slightly jarring—he was not accustomed to seeing anyone else in his kitchen besides Audra—and for a moment, it was almost like seeing her ghost.That was precisely where Audra would stand to prepare food, her blonde hair falling over her brow.Humming.Audra was always humming.
He remembered that now with a twinge of sorrow. Something had been lost between them, a very long time ago.
Jenny leaned over the kitchen island to get a look at the trout.“Well now, that looks delicious.I don’t suppose you have any wine to go with it?”
“All civilized men have wine to go with fish. What sort of wine would you like, lass?”
She stopped chopping and gave him a pointed look.“Jenny,” she said, and smiled sweetly.“My name is Jenny.I know you know that, but I am reminding you in case it slipped your mind now that we’re hanging out.”
“Now that we’re…? We’re no’ hanging out,” Edan said instantly, quite sure he’d never uttered those words in his life, and quite sure this was notthat.
“Yes we are,” she said with great assurance. “A man doesn’t offer to take a woman to town and then invite her in for dinner if they aren’t hanging out.”
He gaped at her.“How have you managed to finagle your way into a ride and invite yourself in for dinner and somehow convince yourself it was the other way around?”
