Another two hours, and the van was unloaded, the cleanup done, and she was home. Six o’clock. She took another shower and did her best to let it perk her up, the way it had done at two this morning with Brett, but all it did was make her want to lie down.
She should have gone directly from Nourish to the organic market, and then on to his place. It was always a mistake to give yourself a chance to stop, and she’d been trained in restaurant kitchens and was used to working long hours in heat, noise, and endless rush. A chef had stamina, or she didn’t get to be a chef.
She was blotting her hair dry, and Azra had come to the door and was hovering there, opening her mouth to ask something Willow probably didn’t want to answer, when her phone rang.
Please, not bad news, she thought, and picked it up.
Brett.
“Hi,” she said, putting some cheerfulness into her tone. “I’m just on my way to the shops. Be with you in an hour. You’re going to get that burger tonight. I could do it on the barbecue, and add some sweet potato wedges and a green salad. How does that sound?”
“Like too much work,” he said. “That’s why I’m calling. I’ve got a refrigerator full of leftovers, and my only problem is going to be what to eat first. You could at least have taken half the cake with you.”
“Nah.” She kept it breezy, because giving into weakness was much too dangerous. “Not our agreement. Besides, there’s your breakfast and lunch for tomorrow. I need to be at work too early to come by and start them in the morning.”
“Again,” he said. “Leftovers, and I’m perfectly capable of making eggs for breakfast. I’m not exactly keeping up my gym routine right now, and I don’t need to eat French toast every day.”
Oh. She’d been cooking him meals too high in calories, and he hadn’t corrected her. She should have asked.
She hesitated too long, because he sighed and said, “Willow. I didn’t want to say it, but I have a lot of work to catch up on. It’ll be better to have the evening.”
Ouch. “All right, then,” she said, and turned away from the sting. “See you tomorrow evening.”
She rang off, and Azra asked, “Is everything OK? You don’t look well. Was that Brett? It didn’t go well after all last night, then? I thought, when you didn’t come home . . .”
“No,” Willow said. “It was good. I’m tired, though, and he’s working tonight and doesn’t want dinner or company, so I’m just going to go to bed.” She managed to be brisk. It wasn’t easy.
Azra hesitated. “Cup of tea? Bowl of soup? Of course, you made the soup, so . . . I could do a boiled egg for you, though.” About the limit of Azra’s cooking ability.
“No, thanks,” Willow said again. “I’ll just go to bed.”
Brett didn’t hear from Willow again that night, which he told himself was good. He hoped she’d gone to bed early. She’d looked paper-thin in the morning, like you could see straight through her, and she’d sounded worse on the phone. Strained tight, as if she were holding herself together, but it was taking everything she had to do it. He knew the feeling, although he’d had more practice concealing it. He couldn’t stand to be one more thing she had to take care of before she could rest.
He ate leftover stew for dinner, which was even more flavorful than the night before—damn, she was good—cooked scrambled eggs and vegetables for breakfast, doing a pretty fine job on one leg, if he did say so himself, though Willow’s version would have been better in some mysterious way, missed her presence as if the sun hadn’t come out, and refocused. More than once. When he still hadn’t heard from her by five o’clock in the afternoon, though, he started wondering, and when six rolled around, he started worrying.
He’d texted her once in the morning. Any more news? And again in the afternoon. That hamburger sounds good tonight. And . . . nothing.
She could have pushed too hard and gotten sick again. Sounded entirely plausible. Had the woman ever had a fallback position in her life? He was thinking “no.” She had a roommate, but he suspected Azra had her own world and her own friends. She might not even be home.
And then there was that other thing. The thing he hadn’t realized until noon, when Graham McDougall had responded to a request for a meeting at ten the next morning with, I’d prefer to shift it to 9 AM your time, if possible. I’m taking my girlfriend out to dinner, and I’ve had to make a reservation in order to ensure a table. I’d reschedule, but it’s Valentine’s Day, and she says that’s not an option.
To be honest, Brett’s first thought was, Graham McDougall, head of the ancient clan of financially astute vampire lords, has a girlfriend? That he’s taking out for Valentine’s Day? What’s he getting her, a fine bouquet of white carnations? A single red rose with accompanying fern from 7-11? Probably the kind of thing people would say about him. What they did say about him.
Oh. Wait. Valentine’s Day was tomorrow? His brain did the conversion. Not too hard. That meant it was today here.
That meant it was now.
He was definitely gunning for induction into the Financially Astute Vampire Lord clan. You didn’t expect a woman to come over to your house and cook you the best meals you’d ever eaten, wash and fold your laundry, clean your kitchen like an obsessive, then take off her clothes, push you down onto your back, and make you glad you were a man, and totally ignore her on Valentine’s Day. Especially not a woman who’d just been told by somebody else that she wasn’t feminine or desirable enough to be worth making an effort for. He didn’t care how much she focused on unicorns and rainbows, she wasn’t going to miss that. Also, he was an idiot.
He’d done something about it, though. He’d done what he could, anyway. He was all set to be a better . . . whatever it was they were doing here, but she hadn’t shown up for him to do it.
Six o’clock. He thought about texting and called her instead. No answer, but a text a minute later. Just got home. I’ll be there at seven to make you a hamburger.
He thought of something he should have realized hours before, and typed a phrase into his search engine.
After that, he texted Dave.
Azra was still talking. “I have a month, anyway. Time enough for you to find someplace new, or a new flatmate,” and Willow was trying not to put her hands in her hair.
Not this, too. She bounced. It was her thing. The ball had to have time to hit the wall first, though. You couldn’t keep smacking it in a different direction in midair and expect it to bounce indefinitely.
Except when you didn’t have a choice. And poor Azra. This was just wrong.
And then the doorbell rang. Azra’s hands were in her hair, the tears staining her cheeks, her eyes puffy, and her dressing gown askew around her. Willow said, “We’ll ignore the door, love. And don’t worry about me. I’ll find a way, and surely you will, too.” At least, she started to say that, but it rang again. And again. Like somebody was leaning on it.
Azra moaned, banged her head against the kitchen wall, and said, “No. No. No.” Which was a “no,” as far as doorbell-answering went. Willow headed to answer it, prepared to give whoever was out there—unless it was a kid doing a fundraising appeal, possibly, because how did you yell at a kid—a piece of her mind. Couldn’t two desperate women be allowed to have a breakdown in peace?
She saw the car out the window first. No. She couldn’t. Absolutely not. The doorbell was still ringing, though, and Azra was saying, from the kitchen doorway, “It needed only this.” Willow opened the door.
Brett. And the Batmobile in the drive, with his sidekick at the wheel.
For once, Brett wasn’t looking unflappable, and he wasn’t smiling, either. He was scowling, balanced on his crutches and wearing a gray T-shirt, and his hair was rumpled like he was preparing to join the hair-pulling party. He asked, “What’s going on?”
She shook her head. Normally, you dove under the wave, or you threw yourself over it. Once in a while, though, you missed, and the wave smacked you hard. In another ten seconds, she was going to
get smacked. She could feel it happening. “I just . . .” she said. “It’s a . . . bad day. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll come up and make your dinner.”
“I don’t care about dinner. For fuc— for Pete’s sake, Willow.” Now his hand was in his hair. “Sorry. I actually said that. I apologize. You make me nuts. Why didn’t you tell me what was going on? Why wouldn’t you ask for my help? This is what I do, and you know it, because I told you.”
There was a sort of squeaking noise from behind her, and then the slam of a door. Azra, fleeing into her bedroom. An attractive prospect, at the moment.
“Why wouldn’t I tell you what?” She wished, now, that she’d put on one of her dresses, but she hadn’t had the heart. As a result, she was wearing shorts and a gauzy white top. She’d forgotten to do Azra’s stupid half-tuck thing on the shirt, and Azra had been too upset to remind her, with the result that she was looking about as shapely as a string bean wearing a tent of cling film.
Which was the least of her worries.
Brett shook his head. “Come on. Let’s go. We’ll talk about it at my place. I’ll bet you didn’t eat lunch, and I know you barely ate breakfast.”
“Can’t,” she said. “I need to go by the grocery first.”
“I’ve got it,” he said. Not smoothly, either. Bloody impatiently.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I used to think that I wanted to see the real you. Just changed my mind. Go back to being perfect.”
He exhaled. “I am about two seconds from throwing you over my shoulder and carrying you out of here. Fair warning.”
She crossed her arms. “Except you can’t, because, I will point out, you have a broken leg.” Why was she feeling so much better? And like she wanted to laugh? Nothing was better, and yet it was.
Wait. Something was happening around his mouth. He started to smile, and then he started to grin, and so did she. She wouldn’t have said she could ever laugh again, but she did. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s told you. One sec. I’ll grab a few things, say goodbye to Azra, and let myself be chauffeured to the grocery. That’ll be novel.”
“You don’t need to grab anything,” he said. “Except your purse, or whatever. I’ve got this.”
“Dinner. Breakfast. My van, for that matter, so I can get home again.”
“Nope. I’ve got this.”
He didn’t talk to her in the car. Or, rather, he did, but all he said was, “We’ll go into it at the house. I have an agenda.” Which made her narrow her eyes at him again, and made him smile.
It was hard, even with the train wreck her life had become, to feel horrible when she’d climbed out of his car and headed up the stairs to one of the world’s good spots. The horses were grazing by the pond again, and the birds were quiet, no doubt doing some last-minute eating before their sunset roosting bonanza began. A reminder that, no matter what happened in her world, some things stayed the same.
She waited for Brett to catch up with his crutches, then headed into the house. And stopped just inside the doorway.
“Somebody sent you flowers,” she said.
“No,” he said. “Somebody sent them to you. Or, rather, I cut them for you. I looked in town, but the offerings were pretty sad by the time I realized it was Valentine’s Day, so I took a chance on the garden.”
She was already bending over the table, where a vase all but exploded with fragrance. It was amazing. And, yes, it could be she was prejudiced, but who wouldn’t be? The creamy-white, waxy blossoms of gardenias nestled into their perfectly polished deep-green leaves sent out their heady scent, while roses in the palest blush spread their ruffled petals like they’d do anything for Mr. Brett Hunter.
It was feminine. It was extravagant. It was gorgeous. It was for her.
She hadn’t expected anything. If she were ruthlessly honest with herself, she’d admit that she’d spent the day, in addition to everything else, specifically not expecting anything, and stuffing down the sneaky, stupid disappointment. But he’d remembered. He’d thought of her, and he’d tried twice to get something good enough.
Her heart was having such a rough time here.
She knew the bouquet was for her, because there was a white envelope propped in front with “Willow” written on it in a slanting, masculine hand, as if Brett did everything firmly. Everything but cut flowers, because that had taken care. She reached for him, mindful of the crutches, wrapped her arms around his neck, kissed his mouth, and said, “Thank you. This is the best thing that’s happened to me all day. I can’t believe you thought of it.” There may have been some tears behind her eyes, too.
“Lucky I was staying someplace with a flower garden,” he said, sounding, somehow, as off-balance as she felt. Because he’d thought he wouldn’t be able to do it right, and he did everything right? Or because this was, somehow, putting himself out there as much as it felt like to her?
“How did you do it?” she asked.
“Hung a bag around my neck,” he said sheepishly, and she laughed. “It took two trips. Hey. You try cutting flowers on crutches. It’s a challenge. I had to look at all kinds of pictures online to make them look right in the vase, too. I’m not a natural. Open your card.”
She did. It was a photo of a rainbow arching across the Byron coastline, and she had a hand on her chest. She opened it, her heart skipping a beat or two, and read,
Rainbows and unicorns for my pretty girl. Gardenias mean “You are lovely.” Pale-pink roses mean admiration and gentleness. Could be I need to show you more of both. Brett.
She said, “I didn’t get you anything, though. I didn’t even think of it.”
She had one hand at the back of his neck again, somehow, and this time, he was the one doing the kissing. “Nope,” he said, sending his mouth over to her neck in the way that made her want to sigh, then lifting it to say, “Sometimes, you need to stand back and let a guy do some courting, even if he has to drag you out of your house to do it. I’ve got dinner for you, too. At least, it’s ready to make. And no comments about how you could do it better, please. Remember, it’s the thought that counts.”
He’d bought mince and burger buns, she discovered. “I didn’t know you cooked,” she said helplessly, when he was standing at the kitchen island shaping meat into patties, and she’d pulled out the plate of sliced veggies and cheese. He’d done that. For her. The avocado slices weren’t nearly thin enough. She loved it.
“I’m almost forty-three years old,” he said. “As I’ve mentioned, just to get out in front of your objections. It’s been cook or starve for a long time now. Also, it’s a hamburger, not a Moroccan stew. Let’s keep it in perspective.”
“Or,” she said, “let’s admit what it is. Brett Hunter being pretty bloody wonderful.” The tears were still too close, and at the same time, she was laughing. The thought of him with a bag around his neck, shoving roses into it for her, and researching flower arranging online? It was too sweet.
“I bought another bottle of that wine, too,” he said. “We made a pretty good dent in the one from last night, but we can do better. You could take them outside with a couple glasses. After that, we’re going to barbecue, we’re going to watch the sunset, we’re going to listen to opera, we’re going to get a little drunk, and I’m going to love you so you believe it. We’re going to have a Valentine’s Day.”
He’d cooked her dinner, such as it was, and now, they were eating it outside, in the basket chairs so he could prop up his leg. She’d insisted on bringing his flowers out with them, “because they’re so beautiful, they make me want to cry.” There’d been a little wobble in her musical voice when she’d said it, too. She’d also told him, “Nobody ever cooks for me,” and that time, he thought the emotion was wonder.
Job done.
He waited for her to talk about what had happened today, and when she didn’t, he said, “I saw the article in the local paper about the poisoning, and I did some searching online and saw what’s been going on with Nourish’s reviews. I have so
me thoughts about it.”
She shook her head, made a motion like she could brush it away, and said, “In a little while. There’s something with Azra, too. It’s a lot. Can we just . . . not talk about it now? I can deal with it. I just need more time.”
There it was again. There were needy women, and then there was this. It was so damn frustrating. Didn’t she see how much he wanted to help? What did he have to say to get that across? And then she said, “The same way you needed time last night.”
He set down his burger and looked at her. She picked up her wine, took a drink, and looked out at the twilit garden, but he could see the tension in her jaw.
The hell with this. He took her hand across the table. “Willow. Look at me.”
She did, but she sure didn’t want to. He made it as gentle as he could. “Hey. Do you really not know why I asked you not to come by last night?”
She really didn’t, clearly. And she wasn’t going to answer. He said, “I wasn’t busy, not any busier than usual, and I missed you like hell. I wanted to hear about what happened and what you found out, but more importantly, I wanted to see how you were doing, and I wanted you sleeping in my bed. But you sounded as exhausted as anybody I’ve ever heard, you so obviously needed to hang it up for the night, and I needed to help you do it. Clearly, I messed up on that, though.”
“I’m a chef,” she said. “Chefs don’t get tired. Chefs do the job.” Some more shakiness in her voice, and a little tremble in her hand.
One more try. “You’re a person, too. You’re a woman. I’m pretty damn crazy about you, in case you didn’t hear me say it before, and I’m not an asshole. I don’t care how many assholes you’ve known, I’m not one of them. The only way I could figure out to get you to lay all those obligations down and go to bed was to tell you to stay home, so I did. Is that clear enough for you?”
“Oh.” She picked up her burger, set it down, and, finally, picked up her wine instead. And, once again, she was starting to smile. “You could’ve told me that.”
Sexy as Sin (Sinful, Montana Book 3) Page 22