He nodded.
She cradled Abner against her, and the cat settled. “He likes me best.”
“So do I.”
She fisted a hand into the front of Sam’s down vest and pulled him to her for a kiss, the kitten between them.
They played with Abner at length.
No one mentioned groceries.
Tonight’s the night,” Sam said to her the following evening. “I’m here to talk to you about your groceries.”
“Seriously?” she asked with a note of incredulity.
He entered her cottage and set down two new bags of groceries. “Yes.”
“I ate most of the old groceries.”
“Which is why I brought new groceries. I’ll make you dinner, if you’re hungry.”
“I am.”
Gently, he wound a strand of her hair around his finger, then let it glide between his thumb and forefinger. She saw heat in the green depths of his irises before he cupped the back of her neck and tipped his forehead against hers. “Have you had a good day?”
Her throat went dry. She loved the proportions of his body, its sturdiness and vitality. “Yep.”
Together, they unpacked the sacks. He cooked and, as he did, explained what he was doing. She wrote each step of the recipe down in a notebook. Admired his skills. Passed him utensils and pans and ingredients.
When he came to the end of the process, he handed her a bowl filled with a deconstructed enchilada. It had no tortillas in it. Just poblano pepper and butternut squash, beef, and avocado sauce.
Since she didn’t have a true table in the cottage, they sat on the rug facing the fire, their backs against the love seat.
As usual when she ate Sam’s food, it caused something tightly wound within her to loosen. It was the best kind of medicine, his food. “This is awesome.”
He finished chewing and swallowed. “Thank you.”
“However, there’s no way that I can recreate this. I’m incredibly flattered that you think I can, but I’m afraid that your lesson may have been wasted on me the way a—a trigonometry lesson would be wasted on a five-year-old.”
“I dictated the recipe to you. You wrote everything down.”
“Yes, and yet I’m going to need to start off at a much easier level.”
“Define easy.”
“Three-ingredient easy.”
After they completed dinner cleanup, Sam showed her what to do with each and every one of her new grocery store staples. She ended up with three simple breakfast ideas, three simple lunch ideas, three simple dinner ideas.
“What do you reckon?” he asked in conclusion. “Still like teaching trigonometry to a five-year-old?”
“No. I now believe I’ll be able to pull off two of these nine dishes.”
He grinned wolfishly. “You can pull off all nine of the dishes,” he said with so much unshakable confidence that she didn’t dare protest.
“That’s what I said.”
Genevieve had always liked field trips.
