“Yes. Do you do a lot of cooking?” he asked Cherie.
“I’m cooking more now than I did in the past. Come sit down, and I’ll tell you why I’ve decided to spend a lot of my free time cooking.”
“What else do you do besides cooking?”
“Read.”
Reese’s eyebrows lifted. “You read that much?”
“Yes. I have boxes of books in one of the upstairs bedrooms that I plan to turn into a home office and library. I still haven’t decided how I want to decorate it.”
“Maybe I can help you out with that. I have some books on different styles. You’re more than welcome to come to my place to look at them.”
Cherie nodded. “I’ll think about it.”
Reese wondered if he was moving too quickly by inviting her to his home. It was one thing to interact with Cherie because it concerned police business, but if he were truly honest with himself, he liked her in the way a man likes a woman.
Other than her natural beauty, he wasn’t certain what drew her to him, and that was something he intended to find out. He’d dated women since his divorce—some he’d really liked and a few to fill up the empty hours when he was between deployments.
However, there was something different about Cherie Thompson. Although she’d exhibited a modicum of feistiness, he had also detected a vulnerability lurking beneath her bravado. She was an enigma and a challenge, and he’d never been able to resist a challenge. It was why he’d joined the ROTC and spent the next twenty years of his life as an Army Ranger.
“Are you going to have some soup with me?”
Cherie flashed a cheeky grin. “Of course.”
Chapter 12
Cherie swallowed a mouthful of baked-potato soup and silently congratulated herself that it’d come out better than she’d expected. The creamy soup—with coarsely chopped potatoes and topped with shredded sharp cheddar cheese, chopped fresh chives, sour cream, and crumbled fried bacon—tantalized her palate with a release of flavor from onions, garlic, and pepper.
“Did you really make this?” Reese asked.
Her spoon was suspended in midair when she met his eyes. “Yes. Why?”
“This is the best baked-potato soup I’ve ever tasted. And I’ve ordered enough to say that. Who taught you to cook?”
Cherie set down her spoon and picked up a napkin to touch the corners of her mouth. Sitting across the oaken table in the kitchen’s alcove with Reese, there was an atmosphere of intimacy that wouldn’t have been possible if she’d had her dining-area table.
“I can’t take credit for the recipe,” she truthfully. “I found it online.”
He angled his head. “Are you saying you don’t know how to cook?”
“Oh, I know how to cook, but not like Kayana and her brother.”
“Not many folks on the island can compete with the Johnsons. They’ve had years of experience and use recipes that go back several generations.”
“Now that I don’t have what I consider a nine-to-five, I’ve been experimenting with different dishes. Whenever someone hosts a book club meeting, not only do we discuss books, but we always have food and cocktails.”
Reese took another spoonful of soup. “How often do you meet?”
“The first summer, it was every Sunday afternoon. Our first meeting was at the café, and Kayana surprised me and Leah when she prepared incredibly delicious hors d’oeuvres and sour-apple martinis. To say we were lit up was an understatement.”
“What book did you discuss?”
Cherie swallowed another mouthful of soup. “We didn’t discuss books during our first meeting. It was more like a get-together where we familiarized ourselves with one another. However, we did decide what titles we wanted to read for the next few meetings.”
“Which ones did you decide to read and discuss?”
“Kindredby Octavia Butler,Pride and Prejudiceby Jane Austen, andEthan Fromeby Edith Wharton.”
