“What?”
“Guess I lost it somewhere.” In that kitchen with Hugh, striving for something she’d never really wanted.
“I eat to survive,” he said matter-of-factly.
Something inside her clenched, hard. “Oh.”
“Why do you look like that?”
“It’s…sad.”
“Is it?” He truly seemed to be asking.
She opened her mouth, then shut it. Was it sad to eat for survival? That was exactly what they were doing right here and the pleasure of it was almost blinding. In a way, it fed directly into what she’d been saying—that the best parts of food and cooking were the basics—need, ingredients, a little chemistry. “Guess not.”
It put a sad spin on her previous life and an even sadder one on Hugh’s, with its layers of wants and needs, disappointments and other complications.
She must have sat there for a while, because when Ford finally spoke, she had to shake herself free from the sticky web of memories and regrets.
“You like making people happy.”
Her eyes flew to him. “Huh?”
“There’s the actual cooking, but there’s also the people part. That’s why you do it.”
Why would he say that?
Her first instinct was to deny it, because wanting to please people wasn’t all that flattering a reason to do anything. It made her feel stripped. Naked.
Another moment came back to her. “I grew up in rural Pennsylvania. Green, sweet, innocent.”
He nodded at her to go on.
“I remember being nine or ten. Second day of school, there was this new kid. He was different. Harder than most of us. Scruffy and lean. His clothes were worn, like mine, but not as nice. Mama wouldn’t let me out of the house with a hole or a ripped seam. He was one of the free lunch kids.” She shrugged. “Me too, technically, except Mama would never let me eat that stuff. I had my lunch box every day. Anyway, Travis—that was his name—sat at my table one day with a processed sloppy joe on his plate. I’ll never forget the way he stared. At a peach.” Just the word felt like biting into one—the hardpof teeth through skin, the tart, fresh, sweet blast to the tongue, and there at the end, a soft sink into flesh.
“You’re right,” she said, weirdly shell-shocked, like Ford had split her open and seen her own soft insides. “It’snotabout the food. I mean, it is, but it’s about people. I used to have this fantasy, like, giving someone their first…I don’t know, perfectly cooked green bean with butter. You know?”
“Stop it,” he groaned. “My mouth’s like a fountain.”
“Thought you didn’t care about food, Ford Cooper.”
“Maybe I do now.”
She let those words sink in and then hardened her voice with a sly little smile. “Avocados with salt.”
“Don’t.”
“Mango.” She gave him an innocent look. “Fresh off the tree, so ripe you bite right in, juice dripping down your—”
“You’re evil.”
“No. No, you are.”
“How so?” he said, looking mock-offended.
“Come on. Last night. All that talk of warm nights and fishing with your brother under the stars when we’re in this constant daylight.”
“Wanna see stars? Stay here for the winter. Nothing but stars. The aurora australis, man, it’s…”
