Page 8 of Her Senator's Second Chance

Chapter 3

Adam sighed. Natasha had a point. He hadn’t wanted to talk about his relationship with Darla for two reasons. First, it was weird to talk about with Natasha because of their history. Second, he didn’t want to admit to Natasha how badly things were going. He could hardly admit it to himself. Jenny didn’t miss a thing. Fred had pushed him into this relationship, and as much as he tried, he struggled to find a deep connection with Darla. The longer he spent time with her, the more he realized just how bad their relationship was for him. He hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself for a long time, but being around Natasha was bringing back the very memories he’d fought so hard to keep buried for the past ten years.

And being locked in the pantry with her wasn’t helping matters. He glanced over at where she sat perched on the counter that ran the length of the pantry. She still wore the white shirt tucked into the pencil skirt. He hoped for her sake that Jenny wouldn’t keep them in there for very long. Her clothing didn’t look very comfortable.

He dusted off two cookies and a handful of nuts, but he got sick of them pretty quickly. The saltiness of the nuts made him thirsty. He looked around for something to quench his thirst. He spotted a can of peaches with one of those metal lids he could open by pulling a tab.

“Care if I eat these peaches?” he asked. He figured she wouldn’t care, but it was always a good idea to be polite and ask first.

“Go for it.”

He pulled the tab on the top of the can and it popped off faster than he’d expected, cutting his finger. “Ouch.” Great. He’d sliced himself pretty deeply. Blood began to ooze from the wound. “Um, Natasha?”

“You okay?”

“Do you have a first aid kit in here somewhere?” He searched the shelves, but all he saw was neat rows of canned goods and wedding snacks.

“I should. In the meantime, we can get a paper towel around it to stop the bleeding. I always keep my spare paper towels in here.” She went to the back corner of the pantry and ripped open a fresh roll of paper towels. She tore off a sheet and walked closer to him. “Let me see your finger.”

Adam allowed her to take his hand in hers. Her hands were warm and soft. He sucked in a breath. He hadn’t expected her touch to have this effect on him again after all those years. But it was like no time had passed at all.

She folded a paper towel into a long strip and then wound it around his finger, keeping pressure on the cut. He felt her gaze on his face before he saw it. He looked up into her eyes, and warmth flowed through him. She bit her lip, and his eyes lingered on her mouth, the action catching his attention. He remembered her lips like it was yesterday. Kissing Darla had never been like that for him. He’d never felt a connection with a woman like he had with Natasha. He’d tried to convince himself that he'd just been caught up in teenage hormones. That grown adults had serious relationships. But now that he was with Natasha again, he was wondering if he’d gotten it wrong. Maybe it hadn’t been the fact that they were teens dealing with an overload of hormones, but that he had an undeniably powerful connection with this woman. A connection he hadn’t felt with another woman since. Nothing had come remotely close.

Natasha pulled her hands away, and he felt a void where her touch had been.

“That paper towel will not last for very long. Let me see if I can find that first aid kit.” She went to the sturdy wooden ladder that reached to the upper shelves of the massive pantry. Whoever had built this home had spared no expense, and the pantry was no exception. He’d never seen such an impressive pantry. With a setup like this, he could see why Natasha catered the weddings herself.

Natasha slipped off her heels and climbed the ladder. Adam had to look away to keep from seeing up her skirt as she navigated the upper levels of the shelves. “Found it,” Natasha announced. “Here. Come, take it from me so I can climb down in this ridiculous skirt. I wasn’t expecting to deal with this ladder when I picked it out for the day.”

Keeping his eyes focused on Natasha’s face, Adam walked over to where she was perched on the ladder and took the white box with the red cross from her grasp.

“Thanks.” Natasha began climbing back down, and Adam set the first aid kit on the granite countertop, something that must have been a more recent update to the home. It was too trendy looking to be original.

He fumbled with the latches on the box, but the bulk of the paper towel around his hand made it cumbersome to release them.

“Here,” Natasha said, coming up next to him, having made it successfully down the ladder. “Let me.” She took the box from him, brushing her hands against his as she lifted it from his grasp. She easily released the latches and opened the box. She rummaged through the gauze and bandages, pulling items from the box and setting them onto the granite surface below.

“Give me your hand,” she instructed.

He obeyed, putting his hand into hers. She ripped open an alcohol swab package and pulled out the small white square. She uncoiled the paper towel from his finger and inspected his wound. “It looks like the bleeding has slowed down a bit.”

She swiped the alcohol over his cut, and he winced. “Ow.”

“Ow?” she scoffed. “You always were such a big baby when it came to getting hurt. Remember the time you got in a bike wreck, and I had to bandage you up? You’d only scraped your knee, but I would have thought you’d broken your femur from the way you were acting.”

“That’s not true! Plus, that really hurt. Haven’t you ever scraped your knee? And you poured peroxide over my road rash. It was killer.”

Natasha rolled her eyes. “See what I mean? You can speak to an enormous crowd and not bat an eye, but you freak out at the tiniest cut.”

“I hardly freaked out. I think I said ouch or something.”

“Do you know how often I cut myself working in this kitchen? Glass breaks, knives slip. There’s no time to freak out. You just have to keep going when two hundred people are relying on you to feed them or a bride wants her day to be perfect.” Natasha squirted antibiotic cream onto a bandage and wrapped it around his wounded finger.

“You make it seem like I have no struggle at all with public speaking,” Adam whispered.

“Because that’s the way it looks. Are you saying you struggle getting up in front of people?”

“Yes. That’s what I’m saying. I’ve always been terrified of speaking in front of large crowds. You would think it gets easier with time. It doesn’t. But I do it anyway. Because that’s what the job requires.” He spotted a giant box of plastic silverware on a shelf near the back of the pantry and opened it to find a fork for his peaches. He fished one out and closed the box before returning to the can of peaches he’d left on the countertop when he’d gotten injured. He stuck the fork into the can and speared a peach, taking a bite of the sweet, juicy fruit.

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