He followed her inside to the mini-kitchen. His tall, powerfulbody gave her the sensation that her cottage was shrinking. “I’m in the process of making tea and toast. Would you like either?”
“Tea.”
“Anything to eat?” She indicated the food selection on her shelves.
He chose one of the organic protein bars he’d given her a few days before and stuck it in his back pocket. “You shouldn’t have this many electrolyte waters left,” he told her. “You need to work harder at hydrating.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“Is that what you say when you’re not interested in taking advice?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She glanced over at him in time to see a sudden grin transform his face. Grooves fanned out from his eyes and down the sides of his cheeks to bracket his matched set of deep dimples. She’d bet those grooves had indented his face this exact same way when he was eight.
“What?” he asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because you ... smiled.”
“I smile.”
“Youdo?”
“Yes.”
“I’m astonished.”
Her toast popped up and a rumbling jet of steam shot from her kettle. She prepared two mugs of tea.
“I don’t suppose you have any Vegemite?” he asked.
“No, indeed.”
“It’s good on toast when you’re trying to recover from something. I can nip up to my house and get some for you if you’d like.”
“The only thing I know about Vegemite is that it’s brown. Oh, and isn’t there a song lyric about a Vegemite sandwich?”
“From the song ‘Down Under’ by Men at Work.”
“What’s in Vegemite?’
“Yeast.”
She managed not to wince at the prospect of brown yeast on toast. “Thanks for the offer, but I think I’ll stick with butter and jelly.”
He spread butter on her toast. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Ignorance is sometimes bliss.”
A week had passed since she’d begun detox. Instead of pajamas, she had on clothes for the first time. Yoga pants and her softest T-shirt. Still, it felt like a victory. Earlier, she’d even blown her hair dry and put on a small amount of makeup.
At long last, her stomach had calmed. Her body temperature had returned to its proper setting. Recovery was beginning. Very gradually. Yet itwasbeginning. A slight sense of normalcy had climbed out of its burrow like a rabbit today, looking around with wide eyes, skittish, poised to vanish at any moment.
What she’d been through had beensoawful that she mostly felt dazed and bruised and sad. Her link to God remained severed, and Genevieve wanted Oxy desperately, even now. Shereallyneeded another human being to talk to. “How about we sit outside?” she suggested. “The weather’s nice.”
“Sure.”
She only had one patio chair, so he carried the ottoman outdoors.
Genevieve followed with the tea. “I’ll sit on the ottoman.”
