Page 49 of The Hero Within
And... there it was.
Eden scowled. "Don't think I didn't see your expression this morning when you were eating breakfast."
A faint smile danced over his lips. "You're officially banned from desecrating my fry pan ever again."
Of all the nerve. She sucked in a breath... and deflated. "Okay, fine. I just wanted to help. I know I'm terrible in the kitchen. Adam used to do most of the cooking when we lived together. My talents run in other directions."
Adam had mostly taken over when it became clear Eden had other things on her mind.
"You can help by not helping. How can you be so bad at it?"
"I was training to be a healer when I was a teen," she admitted. "And I get distracted. Cooking always seemed to be something necessary to sustain life, but not... not intellectually stimulating like my textbooks were. I mean, I like the finished product but I never have the time to go through the process."
"Sustain life? Yeah, that pretty much covers it."
She watched him stirring the mix in the pan. "You like cooking."
Odd to think of Colton in any way as domesticated.
He shrugged. "In my family, home revolved around food. My mother was always in the kitchen. It helped calm her and she'd had a rough childhood. I think she wanted to make our house as homely as she could."
"What happened to her?"
Dark eyes flashed to hers, then looked away. "Why do you think something happened to her?"
"Because you speak in past tense when you mention her, and your voice gets a little soft."
"Eden—"
"It was Cane, wasn't it?"
The muscles in his cheeks tensed as he poked the items in the pan with an intense focus. "Yes."
"You don't like to talk about him."
"Would you?" Moving stiffly, he reached for the flask in his pack. "Why so damned curious?"
"Because I think I was wrong about you, and now I want to know the truth."
Colton tipped the flask to his lips, then winced and held it out, shaking it up and down. A drop of liquid hit the ground but nothing else, and Eden squirmed away, remembering when she'd thrown it on the fire. "Bloody. Fucking. Hell. I'm out."
And clearly trying to change the subject. "Language."
He flashed her an intense look. "This situation—"
"Doesn't require it."
"You're probably right, because I've got no intentions of discussing Cane or my mother. Now... I'm pretty sure I saw a flask in your bag when you were bandaging me up."
"You would be correct."
He stared at her.
She smiled sweetly. "What makes you think I'd give it to you? That flask is for medicinal purposes only."
"I think my claw marks are playing up."
"Nobody likes the Boy Who Cried Wolf."
