“I’m fine. You can go—”
“I’m helping you. Whatever you need.”
Her gaze jumps to the clock, then to the pile of half-prepped ingredients. The tension in her shoulders doubles. “Okay,” she breathes and points at an onion. “Start chopping.”
“On it.” I grab the knife, all too aware of how little time I’ve spent in a kitchen. But how hard can it be to chop an onion?
“Whoa!” Savannah grabs my wrist, a nervous laugh eases out of her. “Not like that, Crocodile Dundee. You don’t want to take your thumb off.”
Her arm presses against me, her skin warm and smooth, and her hair smells like vanilla. I hum, not sure what we were talking about.
“Like this,” she says, and adjusts my fingers so none of them are in danger of being sliced.
Right. “Didn’t realize your job was so dangerous,” I grunt, gritting my teeth before I start getting ideas. She’s so close. Close enough that if I leaned down and turned her head toward me…
She bumps her hip into mine, and though she doesn’t use much force, I feel like I’ve been knocked to the ground. “Don’t be such a baby.”
“All part of my charm, love.”
“Ah yes, the infamous Logan Callahan charm.” With a quick grin, she returns to her end of the counter.
She’d better stay there. My self-control is ready to snap.
We fall into an easy rhythm. Savannah gives me a task, I muck it up, and she gently corrects me with the patience of a saint. It’s sweet and blissful torture. Every time her fingers brush mine as she takes something from me, heat skates up my arm. When she skirts around me to grab something and her hand runs along my lower back, I forget how to breathe. At one point, she leans across me to pick up a spatula, and suddenly I can’t remember what a spatula is even for.
The last week and a half has been rough, but this is so much worse.
“What are those?” She groans, staring at the disaster I’ve made of a few potatoes. “Why are they so small?”
I look down at the misshapen tubers and shrug. “I think they’re cute.”
“You’recute. Those are pathetic.”
Heat blazes through me as our eyes meet. “I only care about that first part.”
Her gaze slips down to my mouth, and I’m completely cooked. I can’t resist her anymore. As all logical thought flies out the window, I lean closer, relishing the way she doesn’t move at all.
A timer goes off on her phone, and Savannah sighs and scoops up the potatoes. “We’ll make it work.”
I really hope we do.
With every brush of hands, every bump of shoulders, every time her tongue flicks across her lips as she concentrates, I’m electrified. My body lights up with each tiny point of contact,and I lose more cognitive function until the only thing I can do is follow orders.
I thought I enjoyed watching Savannah work. But standing beside her and joining in on the tasks? It’s so much better. Our rough edges fit together more smoothly when we’re side by side. Like this is where I’m supposed to be, helping her change lives through her food.
This is home.
Halfway through whisking a bowl of eggs, I freeze as that thought settles in my chest.I’m meant to be here. Those words should terrify me because they run too close to commitment. To choosing something I have no business wanting when it means giving up everything I’ve built my life on. I’m supposed to be training hard so I can jump straight back into Wallaby training at the end of the season, not standing in a kitchen losing myself to a woman who deserves more than a man with one foot out the door.
But nothing about my time in the States has been logical. Not a moment of it.
And I’ve certainly never been logical when it comes to Savannah.
I look at her and can’t help the smile that stretches across my face. This is where I want to be, and no matter how convinced I was about the future I wanted, it can’t compare to this. Here, with her, nothing else matters.
“Taste this,” she says and lifts a spoon to my mouth without looking at me.
I grab her wrist to steady her hand, and her eyes jump to mine, vividly green and so full of trust that my heart lurches in my chest and my smile freezes as I fully internalize my thoughts.
