“Promise?”
His eyes spark with interest.
“Dinner,” he suddenly says, as if reminding himself. He releases me but takes my hand in his. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to do.”
“What would that be exactly?” I ask while he holds out one of his high back, wooden dining room chairs for me.
“Trying to distract me from the purpose of tonight’s date. Dinner followed by holiday decorating. You’re trying to make meforget about the decorating part. Did Old Man Clemmons put you up to it?”
My lips twitch. “Why exactly would he put me up to anything?” I ask of one of our neighbors.
“’Cause he’s a sore loser, that’s why! He’s come in second to me every year of this Christmas competition and he’s bitter about it. But no chance in the state of Texas he’s gonna best me this year.”
I can’t help but to cover my mouth with my hand and laugh at his foolishness. The seriousness in his tone is what does it for me.
“This looks amazing,” I say sometime later at the dinner table.
Joel’s made spiced lamb with shaved carrots and red onions.
“Looks aren’t what matter when it comes to food,” he counters, and then watches me with eagerness in his sparkling hazel eyes.
I taste a forkful of the meal he’s prepared.
I hum a beat of surprise before covering my mouth with my napkin. The sweetness from the chopped dates in the dish along with spices makes a cornucopia of flavor burst in my mouth.
“Now try it with some of the pita.” He nods his head at the plate of pita bread he’s placed at the center of the table.
I do as told, and no surprise, it’s even better with the bread.
Joel gives me a satisfied expression before he takes his first bite of his dinner.
“Where’d you learn to cook so well?” I ask as we eat. “Did you always enjoy cooking?”
He snorts at the preposterousness of the question, apparently.
“Before I got married my best cooking was boiling a couple of hot dogs without leaving them so long that I burned them.”
“No way.”
“That did happen once,” he admits.
My shoulders shake from the laughter I do my best to suppress.
“Don’t hold this against me. I loved my wife, but …” He shakes my head. “Gina couldn’t cook worth a damn.”
My eyebrows almost touch my hairline.
“It’s true. She was a great mother and caretaker, and Lord knows she tried. But … well, let’s just say much was left to be desired. She actually hated it.
“And since I didn’t want all of us to starve, I took it upon myself to learn. Took a few classes in town when Micah was around one. Then I bought a couple of recipe books and took over the task from there.”
I shouldn’t find it as sweet as I do. Joel was just being a partner and good father. Yet, I know many men in my own family who would’ve never taken on such an endeavor.
They were old school and believed a woman and only a woman belonged in the kitchen.
“From the looks of it, you did more than take up the task.”
Yes, tonight’s meal was rather simple by, say, five-star restaurant standards. But this meal took time to prepare and cook. Not to mention it’s delicious and tastes like he poured his heart into preparing it.
