The Penalty Box (Vancouver Wolves Hockey #3)(39)

Her tone teased. “Really? That sounds kind of fancy.”

“I like to cook.”

We worked in silence for a bit longer, then she asked, “So, where did you learn to cook?”

I debated how much I wanted to share with her. “My nanny loved to cook. She would often kick out the cooks, bring me into the kitchen and we’d cook together.”

Charlie stopped chopping to glance up at me. “You had a nanny growing up?”

Damn. I hadn’t wanted to tell her that much. “I had a nanny.”

To my relief, she didn’t press that issue. “So what kinds of stuff did you cook with her?”

“Borscht. Solyanka, which is a thick meat soup, but my favorite was pirozhki, which are these little pastries stuffed with potatoes, meat, cabbage or cheese.”

I fell silent as memories washed over me. Memories I had spent a lifetime trying to forget.

Charlie slowly chopped. “My mom taught me how to cook. We lived in this shitty little trailer with a stove that only had one working burner, but she told me I needed to know the basics. She worked all the time and she must have been exhausted, but those cooking lessons were some of our best times together.”

Our eyes met.

I wanted to know more. “Tell me about your family.”

Her shoulders went up and then down. “Dad was a deadbeat. Left before I was born. My older brother was angry at the world. He didn’t listen to my mom, and he was always getting into trouble. He got caught shoplifting when he was five. My mom said that was the day she knew he would have a tough life. No matter what my mom did, it seemed like he didn’t care what anyone thought or felt.”

So, every guy in her life had let her down. “What about your mom?”

She pressed her lips together. “One night after work, she was walking home from the bus stop in the dark and someone hit her. They didn’t even stop.”

I stopped what I was doing, so I could give her my complete attention.

Her voice faltered. “I called the police when she didn’t come home, but when they found out she was from the trailer park, they told me she was probably out drinking. My mom didn’t drink. So I walked the length of her route with a flashlight.” She swallowed hard. “I was the one who found her.”

I imagined Charlie, walking the length of some deserted road with a flashlight and coming across her mom’s broken body. It was a heartbreaking vision. “I’m so sorry. Did they ever find who hit her?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

I was shit at dealing with this stuff, but that didn’t mean I didn’t care. “How old were you?”

“I was eighteen. I had just started grade twelve.”

I couldn’t imagine what that had been like for her. “That must have been hard.” My words sounded lame considering what she was telling me.

She nodded. “She was my world, my anchor. I didn’t know how to function without her. I had a lot of growing up to do when she left.”

“What about your brother?”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s reckless. Was always getting into trouble. He thought he could never get caught, but he always did. He didn’t care if he hurt other people. He did what he wanted.”

I put down my knife and studied her. “How did you survive?”

“I had a teacher who believed in me. I wanted to fall apart, but she wouldn’t let me. She made me apply for dozens of scholarships. I ended up getting a full scholarship to attend college for marketing.”

Pride swelled in my chest. “You’re a lot tougher than you look.”

She looked up at me. “Do you still talk to your nanny?”

I felt myself shut down. “She died.”

I wanted to tell her about Nadia, but I couldn’t even bring myself to speak her name. I turned my back to Charlie, feeling like a dick after she had just opened herself up to me. As much as I wanted to tell her, it was impossible to speak about that part of my life.

“It’s okay.” Her voice was soft. “If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.”

I cleared my throat, but no words came out. That part of my past was encased in ice in my chest, like some sort of wound my body had never coped with. It made other parts of me cold, like my heart.

She came around the island with the cutting board of chopped onions. “So, are you going to show me how to make real beef Stroganoff?”

I worked to rein in everything I didn’t want her to see about me. “The two most important parts about making Stroganoff are the beef broth and the cut of meat.”

To my relief, she stepped closer. “Show me.”





*



During dinner, we kept the conversation light. Together we cleaned up, and I decided things were going about as well as they could go. I needed to broach a sensitive topic.

I wiped my hands on the dishtowel. “Could we talk?”

She froze, her eyes wide, before she nodded. She climbed on one of the barstools and the look on her face told me she was dreading whatever I had to say.

I opened a drawer and placed an envelope on the island in front of her. “I opened a bank account for you. Money for you to use for anything you need. Clothes, groceries, going out. I’ve also added you as a user on one of my credit cards. The cards are in there.”