by Janet Dailey
With the car returned, her parents decided to restock their grocery supplies that afternoon. They invited Eve to come with them, but since they planned to visit some of their friends while they were out, she declined.
On rainy days she usually enjoyed curling up with a book, but on this occasion she was too restless to read. Since she had the entire afternoon on her hands, she decided to do some baking and went into the kitchen to stir up a batch of chocolate chip cookies, her father’s favorite.
Soon the delicious smell of cookies baking in the oven filled the small cottage and chased away the gloom of the gray rainy day. Cookies from two sheet trays were cooling on the kitchen counter, atop an opened newspaper. Eve glanced through the glass door of the oven at the third sheet. Its cookies were just beginning to brown, a mere minute away from being done.
The thud of footsteps on the wooden porch floor reached her hearing, straightening Eve from the oven. An instant after they stopped, there was a knock on the door. She cast a glance at the oven, then went to answer the door. A splash of flour had left a white streak on the burgundy velour of her top. She brushed at it but only succeeded in spreading the white patch across her stomach. Eve was still brushing at it when she opened the door.
The slick material of a dark blue Windbreaker glistened with rain across a set of wide shoulders that turned at the sound of the opening door. Her hand stopped its motion when Eve looked into a pair of arresting blue eyes.
A tiny electric shock quivered through her nerve ends at the sight of Luck McClure on the other side of the wire mesh screen. Dampness gave a black sheen to his dark brown hair. Toby was beside him, his face almost lost under the hooded sweat shirt pulled over his head and tied under his chin. Beyond the shelter of the porch roof, rain fell in an obscuring gray curtain.
“Hello, Mr. McClure,” Eve recovered her voice to greet him calmly.
An easy casual smile touched his mouth, so absently charming. “I stopped to — ”
His explanation was interrupted by the oven timer dinging its bell a signal Eve the cookies should be done. “Excuse me. I have something in the oven.” Manners dictated that she couldn’t leave them standing on the porch, so she quickly unhooked the screen door. “Come in,” she invited hurriedly, and retraced her path to the kitchen to remove the cookies before they burned.
Behind her she heard the screen door open and the shuffle of incoming footsteps. “Don’t forget to wipe your feet, dad,” Toby murmured the conscientious reminder.
Opening the oven door, Eve took a pot holder and used it to absorb the heat of the metal cookie sheet while she lifted it out of the oven. Another tray of individually spooned cookie dough was sitting on the counter, ready to be put in to bake. She slipped it on the rack with her free hand and closed the oven door.
“My parents are gone this afternoon.” She said, carrying the sheet of baked cookies to the counter where the others were cooling, conscious that Luck McClure and his son had followed her to the kitchen. “Was there something I could help you with?” she offered, and began removing the cookies from the sheet with a metal spatula.
“I told your father he could use my car if he had any errands to run while his was in the shop,” he explained. “I stopped to see if he needed it.”
“The garage delivered our car this morning.” Eve half turned to answer him and felt the slow inspection of his look.
Her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the oven. The sweep of his glance left behind an odd licking sensation that heightened her already high color. It was a look he would give to any semiattractive woman — a man’s assessment of her looks — but that didn’t alter its effect on her.
Toby appeared at her elbow, offering her a distraction. He peered over the top of the counter to see what she was doing. Untying his hood, he pushed it off his head, tousling his brown hair in the process.
“What are you making?” he said curiously.
“Chocolate-chip cookies.” She smiled briefly at him and continued to slide the cookies off the flat spatula onto the newspaper with the rest.
He breathed in deeply, his blue eyes rounded as if drinking in the sight. “They smell good.”
“Would you like one?” Eve offered. As an afterthought, she glanced at Luck, who had moved into her side vision. “Is it all right if he has a cookie?”
“Sure.” Permission was granted with a faint nod of his head.
Toby reached for one that she had just set on the paper. “Careful,” she warned, but it came too late. Toby was already jerking his hand away, nursing burned fingers.
“They’re hot,” he stated.
“Naturally. They just came out of the oven. Try one of those at the back.” She pointed with the spatula. “They’ve had a chance to cool.”
He took one of the cookies she’d indicated and bit into it. As he chewed it, he studied the cookie. “These are really good,” he declared.
“You’ll have to help your mother make some for you.” Eve flashed him a smile at the compliment.
“I don’t have a mother anymore,” Toby replied absently, and took another bite of the cookie.
His statement gent invisible shock waves through her. She darted a troubled glance at Luck. Had his problems at home ended in divorce? Except for a certain blandness in his gaze, he didn’t appear bothered by the topic his son had introduced.
“My wife died when Toby was small,” he explained, and glanced at his son. The corners of his mouth were pulled upward in a smile. “Toby and I have been baching it for several years now, but I’m afraid our domestic talents don’t stretch to baking cookies.”
“I see,” she murmured because she didn’t know what else to say.
The knowledge that he was married, and therefore out of circulation, had made her feel safe from his obvious male attraction. The discovery that he was a widower caught her off guard, leaving her shaken.
“May I have another cookie?” Toby asked after he’d licked the melted chocolate of a chip from his finger.
“Of course.” She’d made a large batch, so there was plenty to spare. Homemade cookies were obviously a special treat for the boy.
As he took another one, Toby glanced at his father. “Why don’t you try one, dad? You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Go ahead.” Eve added her permission and moved aside as she laid the last cookie down.
While Luck took her up on the offer and helped himself to a cookie, Eve carried the empty sheet to the adjoining counter and began spooning cookie dough onto it from the mixing bowl. The ever curious Toby followed her.
“What’s that?”
“This is the cookie batter. When you bake it in the oven, it turns into a cookie.” It was becoming obvious to her that this was all new to him. If he’d seen it before, it had been too long ago for him to remember clearly.
“How do you make it?” He looked up at her with a thoughtful frown.
“There’s a recipe on the back of the chocolatechip package.” The teaching habit was too firmly ingrained for Eve to overlook the chance to impart knowledge when interest was aroused. She paused in her task to pick up the empty chip package and show it to him. “It’s right there. It tells you all the ingredients and how to do it.”
With the cookie in one hand and the package with its recipe in the other, Toby wandered to the opposite side of the kitchen and studied the printing with frowning concentration. The kitchen was a small alcove off the front room. When Luck moved to lean a hip against the counter near Eve, she began to realize how limited the walk space was.
“There is something very comfortable about a kitchen filled with the smell of fresh baking on a rainy day. It really feels like a home then,” Luck remarked.
“Yes, it does,” Eve agreed, and knew it was that casual intimacy that was disturbing her.
“Have you eaten one of your cookies? They are good,” Luck said, confirming his son’s opinion.
“Not yet,” she admitted, and turned to tell him there wa
s coffee in the electric pot if he wanted a cup. But when she opened her mouth to speak, he slipped the rounded edge of a warm cookie inside.
“A cook should sample her wares,” he insisted with lazy inoffensive mockery.
There was an instant of surprised delay as her eyes met the glinting humor of his. Then her teeth instinctively sank into the sweet morsel to take a bite. Luck held onto the cookie until she did, then surrendered it to the hand that reached for it.
With food in her mouth, good manners dictated that she not speak until it was chewed and swallowed. It wasn’t easy under his lazily watchful eyes, especially when he took due note of the tongue that darted out to lick the melted chocolate from her lips. Her heart began thumping against her ribs like a locomotive climbing a steep incline.
“I’ll finish it later with some coffee.” Eve set the half-eaten cookie on the counter, unwilling to go through the unnerving experience of Luck watching her eat again. She picked up the spoon and worked at concentrating on filling the cookie sheet with drops of dough.
“And I thought all along that Eve tempted Adam with an apple,” Luck drawled softly. “When did you discover a cookie worked better?”
Again her gaze raced to him, surprised that he remembered her name and stunned by the implication of his words. No matter how she tried, Eve couldn’t react casually to this sexual bantering of words the way he did. He was much more adept at the game than she was.
“What does ‘tempted’ mean?” Toby eyed his father curiously.
Luck turned to look at his son, not upset by the question nor the fact that
Toby had been listening. “It’s like putting a worm on a hook. The fish can’t resist taking a nibble.”
“Oh.” With his curiosity satisfied, Toby’s attention moved on to other things. He set the empty chocolate-chip package on the counter where Eve had left it before. “This doesn’t look hard to do, dad. Do you think we could make some cookies sometime?”
“On the next rainy day we’ll give it a try,” he promised, and sent a twinkling look at Eve. “If we have trouble, we can give Eve a call.”
“Yeah,” Toby agreed with a wide grin.
Unexpectedly, just when Eve had decided Luck was going to become a fixture in the kitchen for what was left of the afternoon, he straightened from the counter. “Toby and I have taken advantage of your hospitality long enough. We’d better be leaving.”
The timer went off to signal the other sheet of cookies was ready to come out of the oven. Its intrusive sound allowed her to turn away and hide the sudden rush of keen disappointment that he was leaving. It also permitted her to remember the reason for his visit.
“It was thoughtful of you to stop,” Eve replied, taking the cookie sheet from the oven.
“It was the least I could do,” Luck insisted, and paused in her path to the counter. She was compelled to look into the deep indigo color of his eyes. A half smile slanted his mouth, “I hope you have forgiven me for what happened the other time we met.”
She went white with shock. “Then you do remember.”
Although the smile remained, an attractive frown was added to his expression, “I was talking about the broken windshield. Was there something else I was supposed to remember?”
She felt the curious intensity of his gaze probe for an answer, one that she had very nearly given away. “No. of course not.” She rushed a nervous smile onto her face and stepped around him to the counter, her pulse racing a thousand miles an hour.
For an uneasy moment, Eve thought he was going to question her answer, then she heard him take a step toward the front room and the door. “Tell your parents I said hello.”
“I will,” she promised, and turned when the pair were nearly to the door.
“Goodbye, Eve.” Toby waved.
“Goodbye,” she echoed his farewell.
The cottage seemed terribly quiet and empty after they’d gone. The gray rain outside the windows seemed to close in, its loneliness seeping in through the walls. Eve poured a cup of coffee and sat at the table to finish the cookie Luck had given her. It had lost some of its flavor.
THE FOLLOWING WEEK Eve volunteered to make the short trip to the store to buy bread, milk and the other essential items that always needed replenishing, so her parents could go boating with friends that had stopped by. When she arrived at the store, she was quick to notice the sleek Jaguar sedan parked in front of it. She wasn’t aware of the glow of anticipation that came to her eyes.
Luck and Toby were on their way out of the store with an armful of groceries when she walked in. “Hello.” Her bright greeting was a shade breathless.
The wide lazy smile that Luck gave her quickened her pulse. “You are safe today. Toby left his baseball and glove at the house,” he said.
“Good. I was wondering whether I should stop here or not.” Eve laughed as she lied, because she hadn’t given the broken windshield incident another thought.
“Look what we bought.” Toby reached into the smaller sack he carried and pulled out a package of chocolate chips. “We’re going to make some the next time it rains.”
“I hope they turn out,” she smiled.
“So do I,” Luck murmured dryly, and touched the boy’s shoulder. “Let’s go, Toby. We’ll see you, Eve,” he nodded, using that in definite phrase that committed nothing.
“Bye, Eve.”
The smile faded from her expression as she watched them go. Turning away from the door, she went to do her shopping,
“WHEN DO YOU SUPPOSE it’s going to rain again?” Toby searched the blue sky for a glimpse of dark clouds, but there wasn’t a sign of even a puffy white one. He sank to his knees on the beach towel that Luck was stretched out on. Grains of sand clung to his bare feet, wet like the rest of him from swimming in the lake. “It’s been almost a week.”
“Maybe we’re in for a drought,” Luck suggested with dry humor at his son’s impatience.
“Very funny.” Toby made a face at him and turned to squint into the sunlight reflected off the lake’s surface. “The water is pretty warm. Are you going to come in for a swim now?”
“In a little bit.” The heat of the sun burning into his exposed flesh made him lazy.
A red beach ball bounced on the sand near him and rolled onto his towel. Luck started to sit up and made it halfway before the ball’s owner arrived.
“Sorry,” a breathless female voice apologized.
Turning, he leaned on an elbow as a shapely blonde in a very brief bikini knelt on the sand beside him and reached for the ball. Her smile was wide and totally beguiling.
“No harm done,” he assured her, and noticed the amount of cleavage that was revealed when she bent to pick up the ball.
His gaze lifted to her face and observed the knowing sparkle in her eyes. Wisely he guessed that it had all been a ploy to attract his attention. It was an old game. Despite the beautiful packaging, he discovered he wasn’t interested in playing.
The blonde waited for several seconds, but he didn’t make the expected gambit. Disappointment flickered in her expression, then was quickly veiled by a coy smile. Rising in a graceful turning motion, she ran back to her friends.
“That blonde was really a knockout, huh, dad?”
Amused, Luck cast a glance over his shoulder at his son, who was still staring after the shapely girl. “Yes, I guess she was,” he agreed blandly, and looked back to the trio playing keep-away. Then he pushed himself into a full sitting position, his attention leaving the scantily clad blonde.
“She thought you were pretty neat, too,” Toby observed, a hint of devilry in his smile. “I saw the sexy look she gave you.”
“You see too much.” Luck gave him a playful push backward, plopping him down on the sand.
Toby just laughed. “Why don’t you marry someone like her?”
Luck sighed. He’d thought that subject had been forgotten. He shook his head in a mild form of exasperation. “Looks aren’t everything, son.” Rolling to his
feet, he reached down to pull Toby up. “Let’s go for that swim of yours.”
“Race ya!” Toby challenged, and took off at a dead run.
He loped after him, his long strides keeping the distance between them short. Wading into the lake until he was up to his knees, he then dived in. Powerful reaching strokes soon carried Luck into deeper water, where he waited for Toby to catch up with him.
“What do you think, pretty lady?” Luck murmured in a voice that was audible only to himself. “Have you ruined me for anyone else?”
The image of his wife swirled through the mists of his mind, her face laughing up at him as she pulled him to their bed. Her features were soft, like a fading edge of a dream, her likeness no longer bringing him the sharp stabbing pain. Time had reduced it to a beautiful memory that came back to haunt him at odd times.
Although he still possessed a man’s sexual appetite, emotional desire seemed to have left him. Except for Toby, it seemed that all the good things in life were behind him. Tomorrow seemed empty, without promise.
A squeal of female laughter from the lakeshore pulled his gaze to the beach and the cavorting blonde. Her bold bid for his attention had left him cold, even though he had liked what he had seen. He found the subtle approach much sexier — like the time Eve had licked the chocolate from her lips. Strange that he had thought of her instead of the way his wife, Lisa, used to run her finger around the rim of a glass.
A hand sprayed water on his face. Luck blinked and wiped the droplets from his eyes as Toby laughed and struck out, swimming away from him. The moment of curious reflection was gone as he took up the challenge of his son.
THUNDER CRASHED AND ROLLED across the sky, unleashing a torrent of rain to hammer on the roof of the cottage. A rain-cool breeze rushed in through a window above the kitchen sink, stirring the brown silk of Eve’s hair as she washed the luncheon dishes,
Lightning cracked outside the window. “My, that looked close,” her mother murmured, always a little nervous about violent storms.