One More Taste (One and Only Texas #2)(14)
“I don’t eat breakfast.”
She didn’t seem to hear him. “I’m going to need keys to your home and 24-hour access.”
Right. She was going to be in his home, every night. Another part of the challenge he hadn’t thought through. The realization had his control tilting off balance again. He dashed off his address on the back of a business card, then extricated the house key from his personal key ring. “Of course. As I said, I don’t eat breakfast and I take most of my meals here, so the keys to my house will rarely be necessary.”
She curled her fingers around the key, clearly taking his words as a further challenge. “And yet, that’s where I’m going to feed you tonight. At your house. I’ll see you at seven.”
“Make it eight. And plan on dining with me. What good is a fine meal when eaten alone?”
He wasn’t sure what made him tack on that last requirement of the challenge, but his blood heated at the thought. What better incentive for pulling himself away from the office earlier than sharing nightly meals with the beguiling Emily Ford?
The pink returned to her cheeks. “That’s not necessary.”
“Oh, I think it’s very necessary. Consider it an extended interview.”
“Fine. Then I’ll see you tonight at eight.”
Anticipation coursed through him with intoxicating purpose as he watched her stride from the room. No matter how this little experiment turned out, the daily battle of wills with Emily Ford was bound to keep him on his toes. He couldn’t wait.
Chapter Three
Emily stood on the wooden dock attached to Knox’s boathouse and watched the final rays of sun dance on ripples in the lake. Her mind drifted over the menu she’d built for her and Knox’s first dinner together.
Damn it. She sucked a breath in through her teeth, royally peeved at herself. She had to stop doing that, turning even the most benign thoughts into something pseudo-sexual—especially when it came to the man who held her future in his hands—no matter how achingly handsome he happened to be. She’d long considered herself immune to desire, ever since her epiphany after a bad date two years earlier when she’d realized how much more satisfying food was than sex or men or any sort of lust-fueled bullshit. Like a nun, she had a higher calling than succumbing to a mere mortal’s baser needs.
She forced her attention back to the lake, where tendrils of fog were settling in for the night. More than any other season, she loved the way autumn felt. The chill in the air and the low, early retiring sun made people hungry for the types of foods she most loved to cook: hearty, soul-nourishing foods that connected people to the earth and the soil. The kind of food Knox Briscoe should be eating, if only he would abandon his ridiculous ‘food as fuel’ naivety.
Nearby, a fish jumped from the water with a tremendous splash that sent droplets raining down on the wood and her feet. She wasn’t the greatest when it came to identifying species of fish unless they were on ice at her favorite fishmonger’s storefront, but she was pretty sure it was a carp. Or maybe a bass. Either way, it looked like a protein she’d love to design a meal around, if only she knew how to fish.
It was a tough sell to tear herself away from the peace of the water, but she wanted to make one more pass through Knox’s house and search for future menu inspiration before he arrived to dine on a meal that included seared foie gras with vadouvan-spiced bread and huckleberry compote. It was a great menu with a flavor profile sure to wow anyone, but she was still having trouble figuring out exactly what made Knox tick, and therefore, the ideal emotions to elicit in him with her food.
She walked up the well-worn dirt path from the lake to the stairs that led onto the deck, then let herself in through the kitchen door. Her produce was drying on a towel near the sink and the huckleberries cooled in a pan on the stove, but she barely gave the room a look before pushing through the swinging door to the house’s great room.
What Emily considered her greatest skill and the secret to her culinary success was that she was part fortune teller. She read people, their past and their future and their emotional temperature. She could spend a little time with a couple and understand what was missing in their lives, what they needed, what food could provide for them beyond their own limited understanding of taste and nourishment. She’d been perfecting the art for years, but as she’d told Knox that morning in his office, she couldn’t get a clear read on him, try as she might.
She’d spent the afternoon trying to read him through his home and the land he’d chosen, but something was missing from her analysis. She had no inspiration at all. Clearly, he craved beauty and solitude, as evidenced by the view. The house itself was modern and cavernous. Though she suspected it had come fully furnished, she bet the cold, minimalist aesthetic appealed to Knox’s need for control. Beauty, solitude, and control did not a satisfying meal make, especially for Knox, especially after stepping into the warm, inviting aura of his study.
In the study, on a table against the wall, she’d found a record player attached to a high-end sound system. Next to it, a collection of classic rock. Near to that were photographs of Knox’s family sitting on the lowered tailgate of a truck, his parents crouched behind the three kids. Knox sat in the middle, looking to be seven or eight years old, and had his arms around his brother’s and sister’s shoulders. Emily had never seen a photograph of Knox’s father, Clint, before. The family resemblance to Knox and Ty and Tyson Briscoe was strong. The same nose, the same angular jaw and high cheekbones, the same looks of intensity in their dark eyes. Clint, on the other hand, drew his looks from Granny June’s side of the family, as Carina did. Emily recognized Carina’s smile on Clint, as well as the shape of her head and the shading around her eyes.