She sure as heck wasn’t going to complain. “Can I help?”
He grinned. “I have this. I wouldn’t mind you talking to me as I work, though. Or you can check out the place if you want.”
Lacey would rather have helped, but as fast as he was moving around the kitchen, she didn’t want to get in the way. He might run her over. Besides, she’d never had a guy cook for her before. Watching would be fun.
As he worked, he filled her in on what he was making—veal cutlets with a mushroom, white wine, and broth reduction over angel hair pasta, salad with homemade Italian dressing, and lightly seasoned garlic bread. The description alone was enough to impress her, not to mention make her mouth water. As she watched him sauté the mushrooms, she had to admit the whole thing was damn sexy. His big hands moved so surely and fast that she couldn’t stop herself from imagining what they would feel like running all over her body.
Lacey bit her lip. If she didn’t focus on something else, she was going to start drooling—and it wouldn’t be over the veal cutlets.
She slid off the stool and wandered into the living room, admiring the big screen TV mounted on the wall. “Considering you’ve never heard of the Ninja Turtles or Doctor Who, I’m guessing you don’t watch a lot of TV?”
Alex didn’t look up from what he was doing. “Not really. When I do, I usually watch sports or movies. I mostly read.”
Huh. Lacey didn’t run into a lot of guys who liked to read. Another point in Alex’s favor.
Interested to see what kind of books he liked, she found his home office down the hall, figuring that’s where he’d probably keep them. She was right. There was a built-in bookcase along one wall. He had a lot of law enforcement books, which wasn’t surprising considering his profession, but there were just as many law books and medical texts. Not just basic first-aid manuals, either. He had some serious human anatomy books on the shelves too.
His taste in fiction seemed to lean toward spy novels and action thrillers, but she also saw a few titles that looked suspiciously like they were firmly in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. She hadn’t pegged Alex for a paranormal type of guy.
Back in the hallway, she couldn’t resist a quick peek into his bedroom. It was decidedly masculine, right down to the king-sized bed. Of course he’d have a king bed—he was huge. Still, that really was a lot of bed for one person.
Sighing, she walked into the living room and checked out the various framed photos on the wall. There were some of him with his fellow marines back when he was in the military. If the arid, desolate background in the pictures was any indication, they looked like they’d been taken during deployments.
All the more recent photos were of him with his SWAT teammates, either dressed in tactical gear, formal dress uniform as part of a ceremony of some kind, or hanging around the barbecue grills at the compound. He really looked happy with the guys, which only reinforced what he’d said about them being like his family.
She frowned as she realized something. She walked back into the office to check, then did the same in his bedroom. There wasn’t a single picture that wasn’t related to his time in the Marines or SWAT.
That was when she spotted an eight-by-ten frame on the table beside the couch. In the photo, a shy-looking girl of about eighteen smiled at the camera. At her feet sat a big, bushy golden retriever. But while the girl was smiling, it wasn’t a happy smile. It was the kind of smile you put on because someone pointed a camera at you.
Lacey picked up the frame. Yeah, she knew all about that kind of smile. Anyone looking at a picture of her in her teenage years would have seen one very similar.
“Is this your sister?” she asked.
Alex looked up from the stove at the picture she was holding. Maybe she was just seeing things, but it seemed like, for a moment, his eyes filled with pain. But then he smiled.
“No,” he said. “That’s Jessica. She’s a friend from back in Rochester. I like to think of her as the sister I never had, if that counts.”
Something told her there was a story there, but Alex didn’t seem inclined to talk about it, and Lacey didn’t want to push. She carefully placed the picture frame back on the end table and rejoined him in the kitchen. Since it seemed like the dinner was almost ready, she offered to set the table.
“Okay, so no sisters other than Jessica. What about brothers?” She glanced at him over her shoulder as she carried the dishes and flatware over to the kitchen table. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
He bent down to take the croutons out of the oven before answering. Lacey’s eyes widened. Wow, they looked better than anything she’d ever seen in a restaurant. She was no slouch in the kitchen, but she got the feeling that Alex was better.
“No, I don’t mind. Since I’d like to think that we’re going to keep seeing each other, I might as well tell you about my family, however dysfunctional they may be.” He jerked his head at the stove. “Let me get everything out of the oven, then I’ll give you the lowdown on the Trevinos.”
Lacey finished setting the table, then brought the salad and dressing over before going back to drain the pasta while Alex took the veal scallopini out of the oven where it’d been warming. Everything looked and smelled amazing, and she suddenly decided that maybe Wendy was onto something. A guy as great as Alex who was not only gorgeous, built like Adonis, loved dogs, and was easy to talk to, but could cook too? That just might be a man too good to pass up.
She served the salad and put the pasta on the plates while Alex took care of the scallopini and added freshly grated Romano cheese. Then he poured each of them white wine.
Lacey tried really hard not to moan after the first bite, but she was pretty sure she failed. It was absolutely delicious, not to mention so tender she didn’t even have to use a knife. Oh yeah, Alex was definitely a keeper. The only thing that concerned her now was why a guy like this hadn’t been snatched up already. He seemed as close to perfect as a man could get.
“So to answer your question, I don’t have any brothers,” Alex said as he twirled pasta around his fork. “I’m the only child to a mother and father who had a kid because that’s what all their friends in Rochester were doing at the time. It’s also likely that I was conceived as a way to save a marriage that was about to fall apart.”
Lacey took a bite of her garlic bread. She had a good idea where this was going. She supposed she and Kelsey weren’t the only ones who’d had a crappy home life.
“I guess it worked to some degree, since my parents kept it together until I was about five years old, but in the end, they got divorced anyway.”
She didn’t like the picture she had in her head of a five-year-old Alex being told by his parents that they were separating. That was one thing she and Kelsey had never had to go through at least. “Who got custody?”
