Anything but Vanilla(54)
‘It is, but here’s the deal. I’ll tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours.’ She didn’t wait for his answer but headed around the side of the house. ‘Brace yourself.’ As she opened the side gate, a dog hurled itself at them. Sorrel sidestepped. He caught the full force.
‘Down, Midge! Geli, will you control this animal?’
‘He’s fine,’ he said, folding himself up to make friends with a cross-breed whose appearance suggested a passionate encounter between a Border Collie and a poodle. The result was a shaggy coat that looked as if someone had tried—unsuccessfully—to give it a perm.
He ran his hand over the creature’s head, then stood up. ‘Come on, girl.’
Behind him, Sorrel muttered, ‘Unbelievable,’ as Midge trotted obediently at his side. By the time they reached the back door he had three dogs at his heels.
‘Uh-oh...’
‘Is there a problem?’
‘If the sun’s shining and the door is shut it means there’s no one home,’ she said, producing a key. Inside, the only sign of life was a cat curled up in an armchair in the corner of the kind of kitchen that had gone out of fashion half a century or more ago. The kind of kitchen that a family could live in although, in a house this size, it would once have been the domain of the domestic staff.
Sorrel peeled a note off the fridge door.
‘“Gran too tired to cook so we’ve gone to the pub,”’ she read, opening the fridge and handing him a beer. ‘I should have thought.’
‘You’ve had a lot on your mind,’ he said, replacing the beer and taking a bottle of water. ‘I’m driving.’
‘You could always walk back along the towpath,’ she suggested. ‘It can’t be more than three miles to Ria’s. No distance at all for you.’
‘Less, but I only flopped there last night because it was too late to do anything else. I have an apartment in the gothic pile,’ he said, tipping up the bottle and draining half of it in one swallow. ‘So, here’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.’ Midge leaned against his leg, whining in ecstasy as he scratched her ear. ‘Can you cook?’
‘Cook?’ she repeated, clearly anticipating that they would follow her family’s example but, having snatched her from under the nose of a man who didn’t have the courtesy to listen to her, he wasn’t eager to share Sorrel with a pub full of people. He wanted her all to himself.
‘I was promised home cooking,’ he reminded her.
‘Promises and piecrusts...’ She looked up at him, half serious, half teasing, and he wanted to kiss her so badly that it hurt.
Beware...
Too late.
It had been too late when he’d walked into Jefferson’s and bought himself a pair of shorts and a polo shirt. When he’d agreed to sub-let Ria’s ice cream parlour to her for a month. When he’d kissed her.
It had been too late from the moment she’d turned around and looked at him.
‘Promises and piecrusts?’
‘Made to be broken and in this instance it’s for your own good,’ she said, laughing now. ‘Honestly.’
One of the other dogs sidled up and put his front paws on his foot, laid his head on his knee, nudging Midge out of the way, claiming his hand.
‘You can’t cook?’
‘I can use a can opener and I have been known to burn the occasional slice of toast.’ She shrugged. ‘Sorry, but building a business has taken all my time.’
She was leaning back against a kitchen table big enough for a dozen people to sit around, cucumber fresh in the pale green dress that fitted closely to her figure then billowed out around her legs, masking the chilli that he knew lurked beneath that cool exterior. All he had to do was reach out, pull the pins holding up her hair and let it tumble about her shoulders...
‘How about you? How do you survive in the jungle?’ she asked.
Did that mean that she didn’t want to take the easy option, either, but, like him, wanted to stay here? Just the two of them. Eat, talk, let this go wherever it would.
He took another long drink, felt the iced water slide down inside him. It didn’t help.
‘I don’t starve,’ he admitted. ‘What have I got to work with?’
‘Let’s see.’
She stepped over a terrier, too old and arthritic to reach his hand. He leaned forward and stroked his head.