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“Charles! What are you doing here?”
“No one answered the front door,” he remarked dryly.
“Oh. Sorry.” She walked to the counter to turn off her CD player. “Come in.” The silence was nearly deafening.
“I thought you said your father was home from the hospital?” As though self-conscious about holding a flowerpot, he handed it to Steffie.
“He is,” she said, setting the plant aside. “How thoughtful. I’m sure Dad will love this.”
“It isn’t for David.”
“It isn’t?”
“No, I was…we just got a full-page ad from How Green Is My Thumb Nursery and I felt it might be a gesture of good faith to buy something. I thought you’d appreciate an azalea more than your father would.”
Steffie wasn’t quite sure what to say other than a soft “Thank you.”
He shrugged, apparently eager to leave. He stepped toward the door and she desperately tried to think of something to keep him there, with her.
“Have you eaten?” she asked quickly, even though the sauce was only just starting to simmer and wouldn’t be properly ready until the following day.
“What makes you ask?”
“I was just putting together a pot of spaghetti sauce for tomorrow. Dad asked me to cook him an Italian meal and…well, if you wouldn’t mind waiting a bit, I’ll be happy to fix you a plate. It really needs to simmer longer, but I know from experience that it’s perfectly edible after an hour.” She sounded breathless by the time she’d finished.
“I’ve already had dinner, but thanks, anyway,” Charles told her. “I could do with a cup of coffee, though.” He nodded toward the half-full pot sitting beside the stove.
“Sure…great. Me, too. I’d get Dad but he’s sleeping,” she explained as she poured him a cup, then one for herself.
“Through that?” Charles motioned toward the CD player.
“Sure. He loves listening to the same music I do. Besides, he’s way over on the other side of the house. I doubt he could even hear it.” She didn’t mention that a tragic love story might suit Valerie’s mood, however. And since her sister’s bedroom was directly above the kitchen she was the one most likely to have been serenaded.
Charles held the mug in both hands and walked over to examine her efforts. “So you learned to cook while you were away?”
“A little,” she admitted.
“I wouldn’t have guessed you were the domestic type.” He stirred the sauce with a wooden spoon, lifted it out of the pot and tasted it, using one finger. His brows rose. “This is good.”
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“There must’ve been some Italian man you were hoping to impress.”
The only man she’d ever wanted to impress was the one standing in the kitchen at that very moment.
“I was too busy with my studies to date much,” she said, dumping the empty tomato-paste cans in the recycling bin.
“That isn’t the impression you gave me the other day.”
She hesitated, her back to him. “I know. I certainly seem to make a habit of playing the fool when I’m with you.”
Charles’s voice was rueful. “I’ve occasionally suffered from the same problem.”
The unexpectedness of his admission caught her off balance, and she twisted around to face him. For a long, unguarded moment she soaked in the sight of him.
“There wasn’t anyone I dated very often,” she told him in a raw whisper.
“Surely there was someone?”
