Waiting On You (Blue Heron #3)(93)

Who said cooking was hard?

* * *

AN HOUR LATER, right on time, a knock came at the door.

Shit. “Don’t come in!” she yelled. “Not yet, don’t come in! And don’t look through the window, either! I will gouge your eyes out if you do. Sorry! That sounded mean. I didn’t intend it that way.”

“Is there a nice way to say ‘gouge your eyes out’?” Lucas asked, his voice full of laughter.

That voice was foreplay incarnate. She damn well better have the same effect on him, or life was just not fair.

But first, she had to feed the man. She wasn’t ready to fall into bed (give her an hour). And before they could eat, she had to get rid of the, er, evidence. She resumed flapping the dish towel at the window, trying to dispel the thin veil of smoke layering the kitchen. Who knew roasting beets was so hard? How dare they be hard? It wasn’t like they were the world’s most popular vegetable.

Rufus wandered into the kitchen, started to snuff at the scallops, then hung his head and slunk away. Perhaps not a good sign.

It didn’t smell so good in there. She dashed around, grabbing scented candles from various and sundry surfaces throughout the apartment.

Lucas knocked again. “Colleen? Everything all right?”

“Stop bugging me! I know you’re here! Just...give me a sec.”

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Yes! Why would you even ask that? It’s fine. Just...I’m changing, that’s all.” And yes, she had to change because at the moment, she was wearing a now-filthy, beet-stained, scallop-stained, everything-stained O’Rourke’s T-shirt with the sweatpants she’d stolen from Connor last month and hemmed by hacking off four inches at the bottom, and it wasn’t as sexy as it sounded.

The smoke could dissipate on its own. She had to beautify. She yanked off her shirt, tripping over Rufus. “Sorry, baby.”

“Did you say something?” Lucas asked. He may have been laughing.

“Shut up! Just wait for me!” The shirt caught on her hair clip, tugging painfully, and she whacked her knee on the door frame, then staggered into the door so that it slammed into the wall.

“Colleen?”

“I’m coming! Just keep your pants on.”

Seven minutes later, she was slightly sweaty but totally gorgeous, please God. Tight black dress, hair down (if perhaps smelling of charred mollusks), some lip gloss, long silver earrings, barefoot because she’d spilled some boiling water on her foot and her slutty shoes were a bit painful to begin with.

Oh, crikey. She needed a nap. And possibly the fire department.

But no, no, Lucas was here. Her one and only love, etc., etc., and yes, she was excited about that. It would’ve been nice if she had time for a shower, but hey. What was a girl to do? She opened the door.

“Hi,” she said, trying for dew-kissed and sultry, and her voice did sound huskier, thanks to the smoke inhalation from earlier. “Come on in.” Rufus began his Serenade of the Visitor. Ah rah! Ah rah! Ah rooroo rah!

“It smells so good in here,” Lucas said. “Were you burning feathers?”

“Hush, boy. It’ll be delicious. I had a slight fire. It was nothing. Wine?”

“Sounds like I’ll need some.” He held out a bouquet of yellow roses.

“Thanks,” she said.

They were her favorite. He remembered.

Le sigh.

Lucas surveyed the kitchen. “Wow. Look at all this. Did you just make dinner for China?”

“You want to eat tonight or not?” she asked. But yeah, okay, she was seeing the kitchen through his eyes. Plates, pots, bowls, spatulas, three frying pans, a Dutch oven, several whisks and three cookie sheets. Oh, and the baseball bat she used because she couldn’t find a rolling pin.

“How many people are coming tonight?” he asked.

“You’re it.” She poured some wine and downed it, then refilled her glass and got him one. “So. What’s new? Oh, shit, I forgot about those conceited beets! Go in the living room and stay out of my way. Sorry! I meant that in a nice way. Get. Go. Come on, I’m losing the war here.”

“Do you want help, Colleen?”

“No! Just get out. Scratch my dog’s stomach.”

He left, Rufus following, and Colleen yanked on an oven mitt, grabbed the beets out of the oven (they looked like charcoal briquettes, for the love of God, maybe jacking the heat to five hundred hadn’t been wise). The Pyrex dish slipped from her hands and clattered against the oven door, spilling half the ashen vegetable.

“I’m fine!” she called. “Do not come in here.”

Forty-five minutes later, feeling as if she’d just fought off an army of rabid mountain gorillas, she sat down at the table. “Beet salad with goat cheese and roasted almonds over a bed of arugula,” she said.

Not that she was hungry, not after seeing all this food for the past eternity. But hey. Maybe she’d feel better after she started eating.

She tried to cut a beet. It was harder than perhaps it should’ve been. She had sawed off the burnt parts, and they were the requisite color of blood, but they weren’t exactly tender. She kept trying. Nope, nothing. More pressure, perhaps? The knife snapped, her hand thunking down on the table, clattering the dishes.

Lucas raised an eyebrow—Prince of Darkness, Sardonic Edition—but said nothing.