Page 5 of Suddenly Single
But she couldn’t work it out on her own with her stomach growling like it was.
Six minutes to sandwich. An image of Outlander in his kilt making a sandwich flit through her mind’s eye.
Yeah, okay, six minutes was close enough. Jenny pushed herself off the bed and picked up her bag and rummaged around inside until she found some palazzo pants and a clean T-shirt, and took those into a bathroom so small she could lift her arms and touch both walls with her elbows.
But there was enough room to freshen up.
She took a look at herself in the mirror.She looked fine.She didn’t look lost or desperate or confused. See? This wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Three
Jenny made her way down the hall, through the small reception area with the Oriental rug and the rack of brochures, and on through the doors Outlander had indicated earlier. That led to a large dining room.At the other end of the room, light spilled out of an open doorway, and she could hear the sound of a knife against a cutting board.
She moved across the room and peeked inside.It was a kitchen, and there was Outlander, still dressed in a kilt. He’d ditched the vest and had rolled up the sleeves of his dress shirt.He’d donned an apron that saidGood Eats Served Hereand was busily slicing tomatoes on the kitchen island, where a variety of pots and pans hung over his head.
Jenny grabbed onto the doorframe and sort of swung into the room. “Hey,” she said, trying to sound breezy.
Outlander glanced up, his green-eyed gaze flicking over her.He pointed to a stool at the kitchen island.
She was going to take a wild guess that she was supposed to sit. She walked across the kitchen and slid on to her assigned stool and glanced around her—the kitchen was gleaming white, with black and white tile on the floor that matched the backsplash between the cabinets and kitchen counters.There was an industrial stove with more burners than Jenny could ever imagine uses for, and an enormous refrigerator with glass doors.“Nice kitchen,” she said.
He sliced into a block of cheese.
“You must like to cook.”
He looked at her strangely.“No’ really.”
But he was wearing an apron.People who possessed aprons generally liked to cook.She watched him get a loaf of bread from a bread drawer and lay it on a cutting board.The silence between them seemed to grow thicker.
“I really have to thank you again,” Jenny said, and absently twirled a thick strand of hair around her finger.“I know it’s a huge imposition, but you wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had.”
Outlander didn’t take the bait. He made a sound like a grunt and sawed into the bread.
“My name is Jenny, by the way,” she said.
“Aye, I checked you in.”
“Right,” she said, and giggled, not because it was funny, but because this couldn’t be more awkward.She did not do well with awkward.She had a tendency to take awkward situations and put them on blast with her words. “What’s your name? I mean, besides Mr. Mackenzie.”
He hesitated, as if debating whether he should tell her. “Edan,” he said quietly.
“That sounds totally Scottish.What do people call you? Ed?”
He paused, as if thinking about it. “I suppose most call me Mr. Mackenzie.” He resumed slicing the bread.
“They call me Mr. Tibbs,” Jenny responded in her best Sidney Portier voice.
Edan stopped sawing to look at her.
“It’s from a movie. An old movie.Too old, I guess.”
He glanced down.
Jenny flushed.So stuffy! “People call me Jenny.Except my friends. Guess what they call me?”
Edan Mackenzie did not stop slicing bread.
“They call me Turner Tots, or the Jennerator. They used to call me The Jenlanthropist, because I went through this period where I was giving away my worldly goods, which, I will confess, did not last long.” It had been one of those times she’d gotten a little frantic she was going to turn out to be a hoarder like her dad and started giving away everything in her cluttered apartment.Brooke had stopped her from giving away her laptop.
