The Best of Us (Sullivan's Crossing #4)(21)

“She seems like such a sweet lady,” Rob said.

“She is many things but sweet old lady isn’t one of them. Aunt Helen is a badass.”

The chef, Peter, approached their table and put their plates down with a flourish. “And here we have your hors d’oeuvres—clams in garlic with a saffron wafer. It is incredible and, before you ask, you may not make a meal of this. There is so much to come. This wine you have is all right for now, but when we get to the entrée you must let me choose the perfect wine.”

“This is beautiful,” Leigh said. “Do you usually make it a point to serve your guests yourself?”

“Of course not, but when Rob brings a woman to dine I know it’s a special occasion and, I admit, I’m showing off a little bit. I like to impress Mr. Shandon.”

He bowed away from the table.

Leigh smiled at Rob. “He invested so much in our dinner and we’re talking about our traumatic pasts.”

“Apparently that’s one of the things we have to take care of,” Rob said. “I want you to know I’m not a grieving widower anymore. I think about Julienne often. The boys ask about her sometimes. Sean has her smile. Julienne’s parents stay in touch, of course—they love their grandsons. They visit and the boys visit them—they’ve retired to Florida. But I’m not stuck in the past...”

“Do you date much?” she asked.

“Not really,” he said. “A colleague in the restaurant industry has been an occasional date. She’s divorced with grown daughters. I haven’t seen her in a few months. You?”

She gave a huff of laughter. “No lasting relationships, much to Aunt Helen’s disappointment.”

“And you’re over him? The shithead who bailed on you?”

She smiled. “He’s been married twice already. Yes, I’m over him. And how.”

“Haven’t you been lonely?” he asked.

She shook her head; she tasted the clams. It was heaven; they were so good. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, he was looking at her. “Wait till you try this,” she said.

“Not even a little bit lonely?” he asked.

“First, taste the clams,” she said.

He did and had a similar response. “God, he’s good,” he said. “So?” he pressed.

“I haven’t been out with anyone in the past year, but I’ve been busy. And I’m still feeling out the town. The firemen are mad about me,” she added with a grin.

“I bet they are.”

“Are you lonely?”

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head and stabbing another clam. “But there are times...” He let the sentence dangle.

“Times...?” she pushed.

He finished his clams, praising the dish with a moan of satisfaction. “Sometimes the feeling will come over me that I’m just sick of my all-male household, times I’d like to talk to a woman before I’m completely out of practice.”

“Ah,” she replied. Eloquent, she thought.

“Times I just want to smell something other than garlic, onions and mushrooms, want to smell a woman, want to feel something soft, want to see underwear that’s not a nut cup... Um, sorry. You probably prefer the term jock strap or athletic supporter. I do the laundry, of course. Everyone at my house shaves now. Their feet smell like the dump. They can destroy a bathroom. They’re learning, though. I raised them without a mother and they’re learning to clean like they had one.”

She leaned her chin on her hand, fascinated. “And who taught you?”

“I work in the food business,” he said. “There are regulations. There are standards for a reason—decay, disease, germs, et cetera. All that aside, there are times I just want to be near the opposite sex. An appealing member of the opposite sex, know what I mean? God knows I have plenty of females around me. My sister, waitresses, cooks, a couple of assistant managers, you name it.”

Leigh’s mouth stood open just slightly. She thought she might need a few hours to ponder this man because he was completely out of her experience. She hadn’t had many relationships with men and none that lasted any significant length of time. But the men were almost always connected to the medical field just because that’s where she spent most of her time. Doctors were difficult—they liked to rule. This was more obvious among the male doctors but there were plenty of women in medicine who could behave that way. There had been a few single fathers among them—not widowers, but divorced—and they weren’t teaching their sons to clean like a mother had trained them, but rather were looking for a woman to mother their children during their custody periods. Her first dates with most of them were usually more like an interview than a date.

There was something quite different about Rob. From the first, she’d noted he was painfully honest. And he let himself be vulnerable. He wanted to smell a woman. He might be referring to girlie scents but the notion did bring erotic thoughts to mind. And he didn’t seem to be trying to impress her. And he was definitely not interviewing her to see if she’d make a good stepmother.

She was trying to find something wrong with him. “How old are you?”

“Forty,” he said. “How old are you?”

“Thirty-four,” she said.