by Mindy Klasky
She shook her head. “You don’t have to do that.”
Only when he exhaled did she realize he’d been holding his breath. His lips on hers were different than she’d felt before—sweeter, softer. He pulled away reluctantly, using dispassionate fingers to pull the blanket back up to her chin. “Thank you,” he said, the words barely a rough whisper.
He stood beside the bed and cleared his throat before he went on. “But the fact remains that I have to get over to my grandmother’s house.”
She sighed and started to climb out of bed.
He shook his head. “No need for you to rush out of here. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. I mean, if you want to stick around.”
The invitation soothed something inside her that she hadn’t even realized was raw. “Thanks,” she said. “I’d like that.”
She took another sip of coffee, and the jangle of caffeine was nothing next to the schoolgirl glee that ricocheted inside her head. He likes me! He really likes me! He invited me to stay!
He sent that voice ratcheting into the stratosphere with the wicked grin he shot at her, just before he dropped his towel. He had to know the effect his naked body would have on her. He had to know she was feasting on him as he crossed to his closet, as he reached for a pair of jeans off a high shelf. The muscles in his back… His tight ass as he leaned forward to grab a collared shirt off a hanger… The lines of his thighs as he turned to face her, as he crossed past the bed to the dresser, where he tugged open a drawer and pulled out a clean pair of shorts.
Yeah, he knew exactly what he was doing to her. And she could only take a little pleasure in seeing the very real effect her gaze was having on him. He fought with the waistband on his boxers.
“Come here,” she offered. “I can help.”
His grin turned into an outright laugh as he adjusted himself. “Any more help from you, and I might as well tell Angel she’s eating on her own.” He had a much easier time pulling on his shirt.
“Angel?”
“She became a grandmother the day after her thirty-eighth birthday. She always said any other name made her feel like she belonged in a nursing home.” He tugged on his jeans and shoved the tails of his shirt into place. It looked like he was still treating himself a little gingerly—a suspicion he confirmed by sucking on his teeth when he slid his zipper into place.
“She sounds like a character,” Ashley said, her voice a study in perfect innocence.
“Something like that,” he said, picking up his phone from the tangled sheets and slipping it into his front pocket. She tried not to think about the electronic images pressed against his thigh, but she was pretty sure the heat of her cheeks gave her away. In any case, Josh didn’t offer another kiss before he pulled on socks, before he kicked his way into some beat-up athletic shoes from the bottom of his closet.
He did, however, look back at her from the bedroom doorway. “Make yourself at home,” he said. “There are extra towels in the bathroom. And plenty of fresh fruit in the kitchen.”
“Fruit,” she said, deliberately licking her lips with as seductive a leer as she could manage. For a second, her heart stopped as he lunged toward her, but he stopped himself with a rueful laugh.
“No,” he said. “You are not going to make me late to see Angel.”
“I’ll make it worth your while…” She sat up on her knees.
She watched his fingers fold into fists by his sides. The cool air tightened her bare nipples. His scorching eyes flared.
He took a single shuddering breath and then a giant step backwards. “No,” he said, but his voice broke across the word. “I’m leaving. But don’t you dare leave this house before I get back.”
She couldn’t imagine going anywhere as she listened to the front door snick closed.
~~~
Angel sucked down the last of her Bloody Mary and pushed her footed glass across the table toward him. “Another one. And no need to bother with the celery stick this time.”
Obligingly, Josh picked up the glass and crossed to the cocktail table. After nearly three decades of brunch with his grandmother, he knew what she was really saying. She wanted her drink with double the vodka, and four times the Tabasco. Her failing memory hadn’t removed her love of a strong drink. And who was he to deny her the pleasure?
By the time he returned to the table, Angel was tearing into her food. Janice must have helped her cook; the home health aide was a saint.
Angel’s idea of brunch would make a grown lumberjack weep. In deference to the fact that only two people were sitting at the table, she’d cut back on what she’d prepared, but her plate still groaned beneath a thick slice of Smithfield ham, two massive patties of hand-made sausage, a raft of bacon, and three sunny-side-up eggs, their whites just barely set. A pair of buttered biscuits offered some ballast.
Jesus, if he ate like this every day, he’d never be able to report to spring training. But he’d long since learned it was easier to man up and eat Angel’s breakfasts than try to explain modern notions of cholesterol, saturated fat, and caloric consumption. Especially now that her grasp on details was fading.
In any case, the food was damn good—even with Angel raising a suggestive eyebrow. “Well? Go ahead, boy. Tell me all about her.”
“Her?” he asked, around a mouthful of salty country ham.
“You walked in here like a man in charge of the world. I’m no idiot—things must be going well with your new girlfriend. Now show me another picture.” She got a sly look on her face as she sawed into her sausage. “That is, if you intend to raid my recipes for the next round of your competition.”
He stabbed at one of his eggs and watched the yolk bleed across his plate. His phone burned through the pocket in his jeans. It felt wrong to be sharing photos of Ashley—even the safe ones, the fake-relationship ones he’d engineered before that wild night in bed. He felt dirty for trading her to Angel, especially after hearing about what had happened to Ashley back in cooking school.
He balanced his fork and knife on the edge of his plate. “There aren’t going to be any more photos, Angel.”
“You idiot,” his grandmother said, but her tone was so calm that he wondered if she’d slipped again, if she hadn’t really understood his words. No. She wasn’t that bad off, because she immediately followed up with, “So you kicked her out of bed already?”
“It’s not like that,” Josh said, crumpling his napkin in his lap.
“I thought my rules were perfectly clear, boy. You court the same woman and prove it with pictures, if you want to get a hold of my recipes.”
Josh glared across the table. It was one thing to be protective of Angel because she was sick. It was another to give in to a crazy woman. “Your rules were clear. But I’m tired of playing the game.”
His grandmother sat back like someone had let the air out of her chair. “You can’t let Harper be the end of the line, Josh. It’s time to move on.”
“I’m not letting Harper be anything, Angel.”
Christ. He hadn’t even thought about Harper the day before. Not when he’d taken Ashley’s envelope, down at the TV station. Not when he’d ignored her phone calls, all afternoon. And certainly not when he’d opened his front door and seen her standing there like a birthday present, all ready for him to unwrap. He could honestly say that his crazy ex-wife had not entered his mind from the first second he’d slipped a coin of cucumber onto Ashley’s tongue until he’d used every fiber of his self-restraint to get his ass out the door an hour ago.
It was Angel who was living in the past. With her memory slipping in and out, it was a miracle she could remember Harper’s name, much less how screwed up Josh had been during the divorce. But the doctors said that was pretty common. It was the little things, the day-to-day details that would go first. Big things in the past—like broken hearts and broken promises—those stuck around a lot longer.
He drew a deep breath and tried again. “Angel, you’re right about Harper. She messed wit
h my mind. But part of my moving on is being man enough to say I’m not going to play your game any more. It’s not fair to Ashley. And it’s not fair to me.”
He braced himself for anger. Angel’s temper had risen in the past several months; her frustration with her memory loss often boiled over into rage. But she had other tools in her arsenal. She had tears. She wasn’t faking sobs when she said, “I’ll move into that nursing home today.”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Angel.”
“I know I’m a bother to you.”
“You’re not a bother. No one ever said that.”
“But you’d rather give up my recipes than share one more picture.”
Jesus. He should just take out his phone. Show her the two clean pictures, and snatch back the cell before Angel swiped the screen and got an eyeful.
But Ashley wasn’t some cheap thrill to share with his grandmother—even with the recipes hanging int he balance. It had been wrong to use Ashley before, but it was a thousand times worse now.
“Layer on the guilt, Angel. But I’m not showing you any more pictures.”
“Is it because you’re competing on that television show? You don’t want the station to find out?”
Sure. Why not? If that was what she could remember. If that would make her understand. “Yeah, Angel. It’s because of the show.”
Pouting, Angel smeared marmalade over half of a biscuit. She chewed slowly, properly, and she washed down the bread with the last of her Bloody Mary. When she finished, she set her glass squarely on the table. “All right, boy. You make your own decisions, and you live with the consequences. No pictures from you, that’s your choice. But no recipes from me. Not until you’re back on track to giving me a grandchild.”
“Great-grandchild,” Josh corrected automatically.
“Now, Ron, don’t try to distract me!”
All the doctors said the same thing. He was supposed to correct her when she slipped up. He was supposed to remind her of the truth, of reality. But that would mean delving back into the argument again, and his heart wasn’t in it.
Instead, he pushed his chair back from the table. “Thanks for breakfast,” he said tightly, bunching his napkin and dropping it beside his plate.
“Where are you going?”
“Home,” he said. I have to figure out my main dish for the cooking competition, now that I don’t have your recipes to rely on. But that would just sound petty. He sighed and leaned over to kiss Angel’s forehead. “I’ve got some work to do. And I bet you could use a nice nap, after you worked so hard to make all this food.”
Her papery hand was soft on his cheek. “You have a good day, Ron.” She looked around the table distractedly. “Now, where are my eyeglasses? Weren’t you going to bring me something? A book, wasn’t it? Something for me to read this afternoon?”
Maybe it was the second Bloody Mary. Maybe it was the stress of being told he wouldn’t play her game with the photos. Maybe it was just the inevitable decline of her disease. But Angel was worse today—a lot worse.
So he promised to visit again next Saturday, and then he headed into the kitchen to find Janice. He didn’t think anything could be done to help Angel, but he figured the home health aide would make sure she was comfortable and safe.
His phone felt like an anvil in his pocket, but he didn’t take it out. He couldn’t get past the feeling that he’d made things worse, giving in to his grandmother’s demands before. Maybe everything would be better if he’d never shared a single photo of Ashley. Well, it was too late to change the past. It was the future he had to worry about now.
~~~
Ashley stood at the kitchen sink, using a soapy sponge to clean a giant mixing bowl. She could get spoiled, having a window like this to look out while she did dishes.
Hell, she could get spoiled working in a kitchen the size of the one at Mangia. And she could get spoiled raiding a pantry that was well-stocked with the basics—flour, white sugar, baking powder, baking soda—each in a neatly labeled canister. And she certainly wasn’t going to complain about raiding a stash of tropical fruit in the middle of winter. Guava, mango, papaya—they definitely weren’t in her budget this time of year.
She couldn’t let such perfect fruit go to waste. At least not what she could salvage, after her romp with Josh the night before. After fortifying herself with a breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast, she’d improvised a recipe for tropical fruit dessert bars, building on the far more familiar lemon bars that she could whip up in her sleep.
Glancing through the window in the oven door, she saw that her concoction was coming along well. She hoped she’d drained the fruit well enough. Too much juice, and the pastry would end up like soup.
She rinsed the bowl and set it in the drainer. As she soaped up the sponge, ready to tackle the spatula and measuring spoons, she looked out the window again.
A doe hovered on the edge of the woods, her front legs on the grass, her ridiculously long ears twitching from side to side. Ashley caught her breath, as if the wild animal could hear her breathing inside the house. The creature ventured forward a few steps, each dainty hoof testing the safety of the lawn before she dared to advance another inch. A pair of yearlings followed her onto the winter-sere grass.
“Do you think venison will go with whatever you’re baking?”
She recognized Josh’s voice even as she jumped. The deer must have caught the motion through the glass; all three whirled and dashed into the woods. She turned to confront him, spatula in hand. “You wouldn’t dare,” she said.
“Right about now, I feel like daring a hell of a lot,” he said. His eyes made a frank study of her. After raiding his closet and realizing she’d simply swim in a pair of stolen sweatpants, she’d settled for an old blue work shirt, worn soft by years of washing. She’d buttoned the front and rolled up the sleeves and nudged the thermostat up a couple of degrees to take into account her bare feet on the kitchen floor. She’d also raided his dresser drawer for a stray pair of boxers. She’d hoped the soft cotton would make her feel less exposed, but the underwear had only left her more aware of her deliciously sore body.
She cocked her hip and watched him measure the movement. “How was lunch with dear old Granny?” she asked, purposely keeping her voice light.
“Those would be fighting words, if she heard you call her that,” Josh said, shaking his head as he crossed the room. His fingers were firm as they settled on hers, as he dropped the dripping spatula into the sink.
“Fine,” she said, fighting off a giggle as his hands shifted to her hips. “Angel, then. How is Angel?”
“I don’t remember,” he said, bowing his head to the V at the top of her shirt. His lips began to do disturbing things to the tender flesh at the base of her throat. She tucked her fingers into the waist of his jeans and pulled him closer. He brought his mouth close to hers and whispered, “What are you baking?”
Now it was her turn not to remember. She didn’t give a damn about whatever was in the oven—she just wanted to force his attention back to her throat. She wanted his fingers to slip underneath the tails of her shirt; she wanted to feel his palms spread broad across her belly.
“Fruit bars,” she murmured. “Flour and, um, butter and, oh! Sugar…”
If he was going to do that with his hands, he couldn’t expect her to share a recipe, could he? His fingers pressed harder through the fly of the boxers she wore, finding their way between her damp folds without hesitation. She gasped as his thumb flicked against her clit and her knees threatened to buckle. His free hand spread across the small of her back, supporting her, giving her something to push against. She moaned as his thumb swirled in a wicked circle.
She was pulling his shirt free from his jeans when the timer rang. The jangle caught them both by surprise—she jumped and he started to swear like … like a man caught short with a hard-on that was visibly threatening the seams of his jeans.
She laughed at the outraged expression on his face,
but she eased away from the temptation of his fingers. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she picked up the potholders she’d already hunted up from the drawer beside the refrigerator. She opened the oven door, automatically shutting her eyes for a moment against the blast of dry heat. The kitchen immediately filled with the aroma of hot fruit, and the sweet juice made her mouth water.
He kept his distance as she extracted the glass pan from the oven and set it on a trivet. He let her close the oven door and strip off the insulated gloves. He even let her touch her index finger to the top of the bars, making sure that they were properly browned, that they’d baked up in her improvised recipe.
But as soon as she stepped away from the counter, his hands were back on her, grasping, even demanding. His mouth fell on hers with a pressure she hadn’t felt before, a desperation that seemed to come from nowhere. He was pulling an answer from her, insisting on a response that her own suddenly super-heated body was only too willing to give. They barely made it back to the bedroom before he ripped open the front of his own battered work shirt.
She laughed as his ravening mouth fell on her breast. “Keep this up, and neither of us is going to own a stitch of decent clothing.”
“And what the hell’s wrong with that?” he growled. That was the last coherent sentence she heard for hours. At least they had tropical fruit bars to sustain them when they finally came back to the surface.
CHAPTER 7
By Sunday morning, it was clear they were in dire straits. The fruit bars were long since gone. The refrigerator had been picked clean of anything resembling protein. A midnight supper of pasta dressed with nothing more than olive oil and fresh Parmesan cheese was long-forgotten.
“I should head home,” Ashley said as she leaned against the pillows in Josh’s king-size bed, admiring the view as he pulled on a pair of jeans.