made a batch of my special Christmas spice cookies. I was going to freeze them for you, but as you’re here you might as well eat one now.”
He stared down at the plate. The cookies were shaped like Christmas trees and specs of sugar dusted the golden brown surface.
“Aren’t cookies usually round?”
“They can be any shape you choose.”
“And you chose Christmas trees?”
“It’s a cookie, Mr. Blade. Eat it or don’t.”
He eyed the tray in her hands. Next to the plate of cookies was a mug full of—
“What the hell is that?” A slice of lemon floated on the top of straw-colored liquid.
“It’s herbal tea.”
“Herbal—?” He shook his head. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t find that in my cupboards.”
“I didn’t find anything much in your cupboards.”
“I drink coffee. Strong. Black.”
“You can’t drink strong black coffee in the afternoon. It will stop you sleeping. Herbal tea is refreshing and calming.”
He rarely slept, but he didn’t tell her that. He’d seen enough of his life plastered across the press over the past decade to make him miserly with the personal details he shared.
Herbal tea. As if that was going to solve his problems.
“Take it away.” If it had been neat whiskey he would have downed it in one, but he wasn’t swallowing herbal tea for anyone. “Do I look like a guy who drinks herbal tea and eats cookies shaped like Christmas trees?” His tone was infused with a harshness a thousand times more unpalatable than the brew in the cup in front of him and she studied him for a long moment.
“No, but you can’t tell much about a person by looking at them, can you? You were the one who taught me that. Has it occurred to you that maybe I’m not trying to sweeten you up, Mr. Blade. Maybe I’m trying to poison you.” She pushed the tray into his hands and walked away, dismissing him with a swish of her golden hair.
He stared after her, reeling from the contrast between her sweet face and the sharp rebuke.
Poison him?
That was it.
Finally he was ready to type something, and he had his hands full.
He took the tray into his study and set it down on his desk.
It was already dark and the only light in the room came from the glow of his laptop and the strange, luminescent light reflecting off the snow beyond the windows.
He returned to the screen. So far there were only two words on the page.
Chapter One.
He sat down and started to write.
You are what you eat, so keep it sweet.
—Eva
Of all the rude, moody, irritable—
Eva stomped around the kitchen, hurt and upset. She’d been raised to consider what might lie beneath the surface of a person’s behavior. You didn’t have to be a psychologist to understand what was going on with Lucas, but still his words had stung.
She told herself that he was grieving. He was in pain. He was—
Cold. Distant. Intimidating. Formidable.
And obviously not a lover of herbal tea.
Her brief glimpse inside his study had shown her that the room was nothing like the rest of the apartment. It smelled of wood smoke and leather, and had both personality and warmth. A warmth that came from more than the flickering fire. Unlike the rest of his apartment, his office space had been furnished with loving care and attention. Two worn, deep leather sofas faced each other across a low table piled high with books. Not coffee-table books chosen as a design accent, but real books, thumbed at the corners and stacked haphazardly as if they’d only recently been read.
There had been a desk, she remembered, dominated by what appeared to be a very expensive computer, and there was also a laptop. The room was graced with the same soaring glass windows that enveloped the rest of the apartment, but the image that remained with her was of the bookshelves. They’d stretched from floor to ceiling and were packed with more books than she’d ever seen in her life outside a library. The covers didn’t match and leather-bound volumes were interspersed with the less durable paperbacks, the lines on their spines suggesting that they were well-read and well loved.
She was curious to know what Lucas Blade read when he wanted to escape from his own work and his own world. Did he read crime fiction or something different?
She’d had no opportunity to take a closer look. With a single glance and a few carefully chosen words, he’d made it clear that she was intruding on his space.
He didn’t want her here. She wasn’t welcome.
But before she’d turned away, she’d learned one other thing. Perhaps the most important thing of all. Whatever Lucas was doing in his office, it wasn’t writing.
The computer screen had been blank. Had it been smaller, she might not have noticed but as it was she’d managed to read two words—Chapter One.
There had been nothing else.
What had he been doing up there in the weeks he’d supposedly been hiding away and writing? What had he been doing while she’d been familiarizing herself with his kitchen?
Not working, that she was sure about.
In the few awkward moments before she’d plucked up the courage to knock on his door, she’d heard silence. There had been no sound. Nothing. No rhythmic rattle of fingers on a keyboard. No tap of the space bar. No soft whirr of a printer.
If she hadn’t seen him disappear inside, she would have assumed the room was empty.
She felt a pang of empathy.
After her grandmother had died she’d struggled to drag herself out of bed. If it hadn’t been for her friends, she probably wouldn’t have bothered.
Where were Lucas’s friends?
Why weren’t they banging on his door and bringing him hot meals? Why weren’t they insisting he left the apartment?
Because they thought he was in Vermont. Everyone thought he was in Vermont.
Only she knew differently.
She glanced up the elegant curve of the stairs to the closed door, wondering how to handle the situation. She wasn’t exactly in a position to criticize him for his lack of social life. She couldn’t
