“What do you want to drink?”
Natalia smiled as she washed the potatoes. “What are the choices?”
“I have beer, wine, water, bourbon and whiskey.”
Throwing back her head, she laughed. “I’ll take wine.”
“Red or white?”
“If we’re having steak, then I’ll have red.”
Slipping off the stool, Seth walked to a door in the streamlined kitchen and opened it. “Pinot noir or merlot?”
* * *
Natalia washed and then dried her hands on a towel as she stared numbly at the pullout shelves in the neatly stocked pantry. There were compartments for cans, packaged food, bottled water, juice and another one for paper goods.
“How genius,” she said breathlessly. “Did your father install these, too?”
Seth flashed a sheepish grin. “No. I did last year.” He opened the door under the cabinets to reveal pullout shelves with pots, bowls and small kitchen appliances. “I got tired of opening a cabinet and having to search for pots and lids.”
“It’s amazing that you have everything within reach.”
“For me it’s a time-saver.”
Natalia thought installing the custom pullout shelves in the existing cabinets was ingenious. It had allowed Seth more access to what he needed within minutes. “You’ve must really enjoy cooking here.”
“I do on my days off in the winter.”
“I felt the same way when I was on staff at the hospital. Whenever I had a couple of days off I’d spend the time preparing all of my favorite dishes and then pack them away in storage containers to heat up whenever I came home after working double shifts.”
Seth opened a drawer for a corkscrew and deftly removed the cork from the wine bottle. He poured a small amount into a wineglass and handed it to her. “Let me know if you like it.”
She took a sip. “It’s perfect.”
He poured more wine into her glass and then filled his. “Here’s to an enjoyable evening that I hope is the beginning of many more to come.”
Natalia touched her glass to his. “Hear! Hear!”
Seth walked over to the opposite end of the kitchen and opened the door to an overhead cabinet and switched on the audio component. Music flowed throughout the space from wireless speakers concealed throughout the first story.
He returned to the cooking island, bent slightly from the waist and extended his hand. “Will you do me the honor of dancing with me?”
She took a sip of wine as if to fortify herself to resist what she’d refused to acknowledge from the first time she stared into the smiling eyes of her neighbor. Natalia found everything about him appealing and that posed a problem for her. She’d just gotten out of a relationship that left her wary of the opposite sex only to move less than a hundred feet from a man whose very presence reminded her that she was a woman with normal physical needs.
Natalia moved into his embrace and rested her head on his shoulder. She closed her eyes and silently surrendered to the man who could take her breath away with a mere smile, and whose virility had lingered with her even when they were apart.
“I like this song,” she said softly. It was “The Dance,” featuring BeBe Winans from the Dave Koz album of the same name.
Seth buried his face in her short hair. “Me, too. It’s a favorite of mine.”
They danced together barely moving their feet and Natalia felt the tiny shivers of gooseflesh rising on her arms under the sweatshirt. The song ended and she eased back to look up at him staring down at her.
Seth lowered his head as if in slow-motion and brushed his mouth over hers. What had begun as a mere touching of lips changed when he deepened the kiss, and if he hadn’t been holding her, Natalia doubted whether her knees would’ve supported her body. Going on tiptoe, she pressed her breasts to his chest and returned the kiss with all of the passion she had been holding in check even months before her breakup.
Hot, angry tears pricked the backs of her eyelids as she struggled not to cry for remaining in a relationship that had long passed its expiration date. It had taken her a while to realize Daryl was responsible for what had become a toxic liaison. When she’d been introduced to the brilliant up-and-coming attorney who had grown up in a depressed area of North Philly, Natalia believed she’d met her soul mate, a man who was just as ambitious as she was. She had become one of the youngest ER supervising physicians at one of Philadelphia’s busiest city hospitals while Daryl worked tirelessly to become partner. She’d tried to console him and caution him to be patient but patience wasn’t one of his positive personality traits.
“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to kiss you,” Seth whispered against her parted lips.
His query shattered her tortured musings, and Natalia blinked back unshed tears. “And you don’t know how long I’ve needed someone to kiss me.”
Seth’s hands moved up and cradled her face. “Why did you leave Philadelphia?”
“That’s a long story,” she said, repeating what she’d told Mya Wainwright.
He kissed her again, this time over each eyelid. “I’m not going anywhere and neither are you, so I’m all ears if you need to talk.”
Natalia exhaled an inaudible breath. Not only did she need to talk, but to someone she hoped wouldn’t judge her. “I needed a new beginning. I was facing impending burnout at the hospital working double and triple shifts, while my personal life was in the toilet but I refused to acknowledge it until it was too late.”
Bending slightly, Seth picked Natalia up in his arms and carried her over to the sofa and settled her on the cushion. He returned to the kitchen for the wineglasses and set them on the glass-topped coffee table. Dropping an arm over her shoulders, he pulled Natalia close to his side.
“Talk to me, babe.”
“I met Daryl Owens for the first time at a hospital fundraising event.” Natalia felt a return of inner strength when she told Seth everything about her relationship with Daryl. They’d dated for two years before he talked about getting married. A cold shiver eddied over her body when she told Seth that Daryl had suggested if he sold his condo and moved in with her, he would have the funds he needed to make partner.
Easing back, Seth stared down at her. “Are you saying he used you?”
She nodded. “Big-time. But I’d believed myself so in love with him that I would’ve agreed to anything. The following year we officially announced our engagement and he bought me a four-carat marquise diamond ring that overpowered my hand. I couldn’t wear it when working at the hospital, so it became a showpiece for whenever we attended social events together. Daryl’s mantra was the bigger the better.”
Seth shook his head. “Talk about overcompensating.”
“Tell me about it,” she agreed. Natalia continued, telling him about the city cutting the budgets of some of the municipal hospitals, which left them short-staffed. “There was talk of closing some of the facilities and ours was one on the list. Doctors and nurses were leaving in droves and that left us with a dearth of personnel to treat an underserved population that used the ER as their clinic. I became head supervisor by default and there were weeks when I spent more days sleeping in the doctor’s lounge than I did in my own bed.
“Even though we were living together Daryl and I were like two strangers. He complained constantly not because I was working too much, but because I couldn’t accompany him to a number of social events. One argument followed with another until it was a tsunami where we couldn’t agree on anything. It ended when I came home after working eighteen straight hours to discover he’d moved out, taking the ring and the dog he’d given me for my birthday. I didn’t give two hoots about the ring but his taking Oreo left me depressed for weeks. I left him a number of text messages asking that he bring him back, but he didn’t reply.”
“What a piece of crap,” Seth spat out.
“Doesn’t your father have a practice in Philadelphia?”
“No. Daddy set up his practice in Paoli.”
“Why in Paoli?”
“That’s where I grew up.”
“I was under the impression that you were a big-city girl,” Seth said.
“Not quite. Paoli is about twenty-five miles from Philly and has a population of about fifty-five hundred people. So, that makes me a small-town girl.”
Seth ruffled her short hair. “Does this mean you’re seriously thinking about putting down roots here?”
“Only time will tell,” Natalia said cryptically. “I enjoy working with Dr. Franklin and I’ve made a new friend with Mya Wainwright. She invited me to join her and her husband at their table for the Memorial Day picnic.”
“I guess we’ll be seated together because Giles and I’ve agreed to share the same table.”
She tilted her chin to look up at him. “Do you plan to march in the parade?”
“Yes. Only because the parade begins at eleven and everyone starts gathering on the church lawn at noon for the picnic. Remember, my shift begins at two.” Seth dropped his arm and leaned over to pick up Natalia’s glass, and then his. “Let’s toast to a new beginning.”
She touched her glass to his. Talking to Seth about her past relationship had irrevocably changed her; her past was now truly the past. “Here’s to new beginnings.”
Attractive lines fanned out around Seth’s eyes when he stared at her over the rim of his glass. “The worst is behind you, Natalia.”
“I know that now.” She took a deep swallow of wine as she settled against Seth’s chest.
* * *
Seth rested his chin on the top of Natalia’s head. She had endured a tumultuous relationship with her ex and fortunately had gotten out before she married him. However, he hadn’t been as fortunate.
“You were lucky you didn’t marry the clown or he could’ve made your life a living hell if or when you decided to divorce him.”
Natalia stirred slightly. “Is that what happened to you?”
“No. When my wife told me she wanted a divorce because she was carrying another man’s child and that he wanted to marry her before the baby was born, we flew to the Dominican Republic for a quickie divorce.” Seth felt Natalia stiffen.
“Were you certain it wasn’t your child she was carrying?”
“I was very certain. I was stationed overseas for six months and when I returned she was three months pregnant. I accepted some of the blame because I was away for extended periods of time, but I also blame her for never telling me she had a fear of being alone.”
“You didn’t know this before you married her?”
“No. When I met her she was living with her sister’s family. I knew her father had abandoned his family when she and her sister were very young, and that her mother had to move in with their grandmother to make ends meet. Melissa was still in high school when her mother was murdered during an attempted carjacking. Her sister, who was three years older, married her boyfriend and Melissa moved in with them.”
“Oh, how sad, Seth.”
He nodded. “She’d lost her father, mother and grandmother before her twenty-first birthday. I knew this when I married her, and it had to be some perverted sense of machismo that made me want to take care of her. She’d been through enough and that’s why I agreed to the quickie divorce because things could’ve gotten messy because she was having an affair with one of my superior officers.”
A soft gasp escaped Natalia. “What a lowlife. Couldn’t you have reported him?”
“Yes, but it probably would’ve ruined his career. There are legal issues surrounding fraternization in the military. After the divorce, I put in a request for another overseas post. There was talk about shipping me back to Afghanistan to help train the local police, but I was finally assigned to a base in Okinawa, Japan.”
“Lucky you. Did you get to see a lot of the world while you were in the military?”
“Not as much as I should have. Whenever I had leave I’d come home and help my father on whatever job he was working on. Dad was a hard taskmaster and anyone that worked for him knew he was no-nonsense. Once he decided to finish the basement, it took him less than a day to frame the entire space.”
“How long did it take him to renovate this house?”
“Almost a year, but that’s only because he did it by himself. However, he did wait for me to come home on leave to help him install the granite countertops. The slabs are too heavy for one person to lift.”
“Hard taskmaster or not, the man was definitely a perfectionist.”
Seth dropped a kiss on her hair. “Dad would’ve loved hearing you say that.”
Natalia untangled her arms. “I hate to be a party pooper, but I need to get up and boil the potatoes.”
She pushed off the sofa and Seth felt her loss immediately. Although he’d planned to take Natalia to an upscale restaurant, the weather had forced them to stay inside to share a domesticity he hadn’t experienced in years. As newlyweds he and Melissa had moved into a one-bedroom apartment near the base in San Diego, and he’d always looked forward to coming home to his wife who wanted to surprise him with a new dish. Although her cooking skills needed much improvement, Seth always complimented her attempts.
Talking to Natalia about his former wife had conjured up happy times and the shock to discover she had been sleeping with another man. His emotions had run the gamut from rage to anguish that he had failed his wife, that he ignored the signs each time he’d returned that she was different. He’d told Natalia the worst was behind her, and so it was with him.
Seth removed the platter with the steaks and lobster tails from the refrigerator to bring them to room temperature, and then joined Natalia at the cooking island. “I need to see how you’re going to make these royal potatoes.”
She’d dried and chopped four medium potatoes and placed them in a large pot of boiling water. “After they’re tender, I’ll drain and mash them and add three egg yolks, a couple tablespoons of cream and grated cheese. After mixing everything thoroughly, I’ll pipe the mixture into swirls onto a greased baking sheet. After baking for twenty minutes in a four hundred and twenty-five degree oven until they’re golden-brown, I’ll sprinkle them with paprika and voilà! You’ll have duchess potatoes.”
Seth rested his elbows on the countertop. “It sounds easy enough except for the piping.”
“When I get to that stage I’ll show you how it’s done. I should get at least a dozen potatoes from this recipe and I’ve made extra slaw for you to have leftovers.”
He lifted his eyebrows questioningly. “You don’t want to take some home?”
“No. I cook every night and I always make enough for several meals, and that includes lunch.”
“Have you eaten lunch at Ruthie’s?”
Natalia shook her head. “Not yet. It’s going to take a while before I realize I can leave the office for an hour and not come back to a crisis. Working in the ER was akin to running on a treadmill where there’s no cutoff switch.” She paused. “How long did it take you to transition from military police to a civilian deputy sheriff?”
“Now that I look back, it probably took a year,” Seth admitted. “Folks were calling me ‘the badass,’ which definitely wasn’t complimentary. That’s when I had to soften my stance and view the people I’d grown up with as neighbors and not potential lawbreakers.”
“What was your rank in the Corps?”
“Master sergeant.”
Natalia bit back a smile. “Folks were right. You were a badass.”
“Why would you say th
at?” he asked.
“Because all sergeants are badasses. I saw a documentary about marine recruits at Parris Island and the drill sergeant was one scary dude.”
“That scary dude is responsible for turning boys and girls into men and women. And once they graduate basic training they know without a doubt they are the military’s elite.”
Natalia tested the tenderness of the potatoes with a fork. “Life to me is a series of adaptations. We adapt to adulthood and all of the responsibilities that go with it. And we’re forced to accept and adjust to the unforeseen events that change who we are and how we view the world around us.”
“I’ve had two years to adjust to life as a civilian, while it shouldn’t take you that long to get used to living in a small town again.”
“Hopefully it won’t take a year because I have to look for a permanent residence before Chandler Evans returns to the States.”
Seth sobered. “I’m going to miss having you as a neighbor because not only are you prettier, but you’re also a lot friendlier than Chandler.”
“Are you saying he’s antisocial?”
“No. It’s just that he keeps to himself, and that’s not easy to do around here because there are very few secrets in The Falls.”
A mysterious smile tilted the corners of Natalia’s mouth. “Like us going in and out of each other’s homes?”
Seth leaned closer. “That, too.”
“What do you mean by ‘that, too’?”
“Remember folks saw us together at the Wolf Den.”
Natalia’s jaw dropped. “You mean to say my eating in public with you was cause for gossip?”
“Yep. Number one, I’ve never taken a woman to the Den as deputy sheriff, and number two, you’re the first woman since my mother moved to Georgia that I’ve invited over. And once we’re seated together at the picnic it will be all she wrote for wagging tongues.” Seth ran a finger down the length of her nose. “Do you think you’re going to be able to deal with the gossip about the deputy sheriff and his lady doctor?”
Natalia rolled her eyes upward. “Please, Seth. Let folks talk. I’m a big girl and I’ve never been bothered by gossip.”
The Sheriff of Wickham Falls Page 10