Page 34 of Coach
I’d scrubbed pretty damn hard, knowing how sweaty I’d been outside working.
“I like your normal scent better,” she told me. She leaned in to give me a sniff. “Yeah, no. The nag champa smell suits you much better.”
I shouldn’t have been as pleased as I was to know she’d taken note of what I normally smelled like.
“I like the rose on you.”
“On me, yeah,” she agreed, making her way past me. “Okay. As I mentioned before, I have no table yet. So, I got crafty and set up a piece of wood on some sawhorses.”
I followed her out into the living room to find her makeshift table. She’d draped it with a pastel-colored quilt and put a trio of candles in the center.
“Looks great to me. Now, what can I help with?”
“Nothing.”
“Nah, come on. Let me do something.”
“No, I want to do the serving. Besides, you’ve been working all day. Oh, you can grab drinks. But that’s it. There are some options in the fridge.”
She actually had a selection of decent beer, but when she opted for a hard cider, I did the same.
“Don’t put her out for my sake,” I said when she coaxed the dog down the hallway with what looked like a piece of steak.
“This is for both our sanity. She’s such a great dog. Except she is a horrible beggar. It doesn’t matter if I’m just having brancereal; she will whimper and paw at me until I give in and let her have the milk when I’m done.” She tossed the steak into a room past the bathroom I’d cleaned up in, then quickly closed the door. “There. Now we will have some peace.”
With that, she went back to the kitchen and returned with two plates. Mine seemed to be piled with enough food to satisfy a whole crew of linemen.
“I’ll be honest,” she said when she caught me staring at the pile. “I haven’t cooked for a man since my grandfather. And he wasn’t a big eater. So don’t feel obligated to eat all of it if it’s too much.”
She’d gone all out with crispy smashed potatoes, roasted Brussels sprouts with lightly charred cheese clinging to each sprout, an herb and vegetable couscous, and a massive pile of steak cooked just right.
“I hope the steak is alright. I had to broil it. I would have preferred to grill it, but I haven’t gotten around to looking for a grill yet.”
“Looks perfect,” I told her, my stomach grumbling now that I had it in front of me.
“Oh!” she said, jumping up so fast that she knocked the table and nearly set everything flying. “I forgot the bread.”
“You made bread?” I asked when she came back cradling a pan with mismatched potholders.
“It’s a quick focaccia recipe. I doubt it will be as good as the real kind. But that needs to proof for up to a whole day in the fridge. And we didn’t have that kind of time. It smells good, though.”
“You bake bread.”
She shot me a smile at the wonder in my voice. “Another thing I learned growing up. My grandfather was old school. He didn’t want to buy anything that could be made at home. He always made a couple loaves of sandwich bread a week for eachof our lunches. Once I was old enough, he let me take that over. And from there, I fiddled with new recipes.”
“The women in my family make some mean tortillas but loaves of bread weren’t common in my house.”
“That’s one thing I haven’t made,” she admitted, cutting a giant slice of bread for me, making the air burst with the scent of rosemary.
I didn’t care if I had to waddle home after, my waistband full to bursting; I was going to eat every last damn bite of food she’d made for me.
Then I had something very specific and very sweet in mind for dessert.
CHAPTER NINE
Este
The conversation went off without a hitch as Saul plowed through his pile of food.
