this experience, in her mind, also had a name. Ambrosia. Surely, this was the kind of experience the gods fed on? Not food but the quality of air, and the static from the storm, and the hint of danger between her and him right now.
They ate ice cream until they could not eat another bite. They put the lids on the now melted containers and put them aside. While they had been eating the ice cream, darkness had been sliding over the lake. They sat there, side by side, rocking gently on the waters of the cove, while just beyond them the lake rolled, white tipped and violent.
The waves appeared as big and violent as they had during the storm. The wind outside the cove howled a warning.
She shivered, whether from cold or from eating too much ice cream or from awareness she was not sure. Jefferson went below and came back with a blanket.
Again, he had just one. He tossed it over both their shoulders and pulled it tight around them. The warmth from him and from the blanket crept into her. They were sailors, marooned, and she loved it. Night fell and the stars winked on, one by one, studding the pure inky blackness of the sky.
It was crazy, and beautiful.
Going for groceries by boat was definitely the most romantic thing that Angie had ever done.
She was so amazingly aware of everything: the wind, and his warmth and solidness of his shoulder underneath the blanket and the flavor of ice cream in her mouth. She was so aware of how he was not watching the restless waters of the lake, but her.
“What?” she whispered.
“I’m just trying to figure you out.”
“Really?”
“Because it is apparent to me that there’s nothing about you that is a shrinking violet. It is apparent to me you are very courageous. So, I want to know what has you so frightened.”
“This morning you weren’t interested,” she reminded him.
“I was interested,” he admitted. “I just didn’t want you to know I was interested.”
“And what has changed?” Besides everything, she thought to herself.
“This morning we hadn’t eaten ice cream off the same spoon.”
She sighed deeply. And surrendered.
JEFFERSON WAS AWARE of the surrender, not just in her but in himself. Had he actually been flirting with his housekeeper?
No, he told himself sternly, he had not. Being with her had coaxed his more playful side to the surface. Okay, he was more than surprised that he had a playful side, but he blamed the storm for cutting down his defenses, placing them in this predicament where they had to share a spoon.
And sharing that spoon had led to this. The complete collapse of defenses. They were going to share even deeper confidences.
“I’m not a housekeeper,” Angie confessed solemnly.
“Yeah, I kind of figured that part out.”
“I’m close, though, and qualified. I’m a high school home economics teacher in Calgary.”
Jefferson contemplated that. He could feel the truth of it—he thought of her making her lists and organizing his kitchen. He thought of her home breaking up, and her longing. He was not surprised that she had chosen a career where she would teach people how to make a home. And superimposed over this knowledge of her, he thought of the taste of ice cream, mingled with her taste, still sweet in his mouth.
“Or I was a teacher,” she said pensively. “I don’t know when I can go back there.” She shuddered.
Jefferson pulled the shared blanket more tightly over their shoulders, pulling her more tightly into him. “What happened?”
“First, I need you to understand why it happened.”
“Okay.”
“I met my fiancé in university.”
“Your fiancé?” Jefferson felt the shock of it. And the relief. All the electricity between them didn’t matter. She was taken! But his relief was short-lived.
“Not anymore,” she said sadly. “We broke off. That’s what made me so vulnerable when...well, I’ll get to that. Harry and I had been engaged since the second year of our studies. We graduated at the same time, and both got wonderful jobs. I secured my dream job teaching home economics in high school, he got on with one of the banks. I assumed it was time to take the next step, but every time I tried to set a date for the wedding, Harry would become evasive.”
He heard inside himself oh-oh but did not say it out loud.
“In fact,” she said, her lips pursed with remembered annoyance, “had I been paying more attention, I would have seen the whites of his eyes rolling in pure terror at the mere mention of spending a lifetime with me.”
“A lifetime with you doesn’t seem as if it should make eyes roll in terror.”
Her mouth popped open in surprise. She studied his face, as if she was looking for the lie. She smiled. He realized he was treading very dangerous ground, indeed.
“Finally, he worked up his nerve to tell me the truth. He had discovered his career in finance was a terrible mistake. He was bored.”
“God forbid we should ever be bored,” Jefferson said. He tried to keep his tone dry, but in fact, he felt angry.
“And unfulfilled. He had just discovered he didn’t want what other people wanted. He did not want a boring life in the suburbs with two-point-five children and a bus trip into work every day. And guess what? He’d already found someone who didn’t want the very same things he didn’t want and it wasn’t me.”
“Aw, Angie.”
She held up her palm. “Please don’t feel sorry for me. I should have picked up on the signs long before I did. And, besides, this is just the story before the story.”
“Go on.”
“So, in the space of a week, he quit his job and asked me for his ring back.”
“He asked for the ring back? That’s scummy.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Thank you. I thought so, too, especially after he told me he intended to sell it to finance his tickets. Make that two tickets.”
Jefferson was forming a very low opinion of a man who would not only ask for the ring back, but tell his ex-betrothed the reason he had to have it. “Loser,” he muttered.
“Thank you,” she said, as if she had desperately needed someone else to see it. Angie looked adorable all wrapped in the blanket, her hair curling wildly as it started to dry. But when she wrinkled her nose like that? How could anyone have ever pried themselves away from her?
