understand. It was almost as though someone or something outside herself was forcing her to see Finn in a different light…
Finn’s eyes narrowed assessingly as he saw Maggie’s pupils dilate. She had started to breathe more quickly, her lips parting, her breasts rising and falling in a way that made it impossible for him not to be aware of her femininity. He had the most extraordinarily intense desire to close the fridge door and to take her in his arms and…
Grimly he turned away from her.
‘I intended to cook a chilli for my own supper; there’ll be more than enough for two.’
He sounded curtly dismissive, as though he was secretly hoping she would refuse. Well, tough—why should she? She wasn’t going to go to bed supperless just to please some arrogant, impossible man. No way.
‘I take it you won’t be cooking dinner wearing that?’ she said tartly, determined to wrest control of the situation into her own domain as she flicked a deliberately disparaging glance at his ancient coat.
The look Finn gave her sent a prickle of alluring excitement that was totally alien to her racing down her spine.
‘No, I won’t be,’ he agreed, his voice mock affable as he added carelessly, ‘In fact you could get the chilli started whilst I go up and have a shower. Here’s the mince,’ he informed her as he removed a covered container from the bottom of the fridge. ‘I shan’t be long.’
Helplessly Maggie stared at the container he had given her before going over to the worktop and reluctantly opening it. What she should have done was tell him in no uncertain terms before he had left the kitchen that there was no way she was going to be turned into some kind of unpaid domestic help and that he could make his own supper. But, having missed that opportunity to put him in his place and save her own face, she had no option other than to try to cook the wretched stuff. There was no way, not ever in a hundred years, a thousand years, that she was going to admit to him that she had no idea how to cook it.
Anyway, it couldn’t be that difficult, could it? She had seen her grandmother cooking whilst she worked on her homework at the kitchen table. It was surely just a matter of putting it in a pan and…Her forehead furrowed into a frown of concentration as she tried to remember just what her grandmother had done, mentally picturing her in the comfortable kitchen of the home that she had made Maggie’s. She could visualise her grandmother plainly enough, smiling, bustling between the cooker and the sink whilst delicious mouthwatering smells filled the room. But as to what she had actually been doing…
Maggie mentally squared her shoulders. She could do it. She had to do it. There was no way she would ever concede victory to that…that farmer.
She needed a pan first, and the logical place for that had to be in a cupboard close to the Aga. Pleased with her own intelligence, she went towards it.
Five minutes later, when she had checked every cupboard in the kitchen, red-faced and fuming, she finally found what she was looking for on the opposite side of the room. And men had the audacity to claim that women were illogical. Ha!
Decanting the contents of the container into the pan, she grimaced in distaste. It looked unappealingly raw. She carried the pan over to the Aga and stood nonplussed in front of it before tentatively lifting one of the covers. The heat coming off the hotplate made her wince before hastily putting the pan down on it and stepping back. Now all she had to do was to wait for the stuff to cook. Good.
Upstairs in his bedroom, Finn rubbed his damp hair dry and then dropped the towel to reach for a clean shirt to pull over his naked torso. He didn’t want to analyse why he had found it necessary not just to shower but to shave as well, and he wasn’t going to.
A pungent smell was beginning to fill the air. He sniffed it warily and then frowned. Something was burning. Without bothering to put on his shirt, he made for the door.
In the kitchen, Maggie couldn’t understand what was happening. A horrid pall of smoke was filling the room—and as for the smell! The mince couldn’t be cooked yet, surely? She had a memory, admittedly vague, of her grandmother spending far longer than a mere few minutes cooking hers!
Cautiously she approached the Aga, and was just about to lift the lid off the pan when Finn came bursting into the kitchen.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he was demanding as he strode past her and grabbed the pan off the stove, carrying it over to the sink, where he dumped it unceremoniously then removed its lid to peer in disgust at its smoking contents before turning on the tap.
‘It’s not my fault if your cooker isn’t reliable,’ Maggie informed him with a bravado she was far from feeling.
‘My cooker!’ Finn exclaimed through gritted teeth. ‘It isn’t the cooker that’s unreliable, it’s the cook. Why on earth didn’t you add some more water to it?’
Some more water. Maggie gulped and looked away, feigning disdain, but obviously her acting wasn’t good enough, because to her chagrin she heard Finn saying in an oh, so dangerously soft voice, ‘You did add water, didn’t you?’
Maggie swallowed. Her grandmother had had very strong views about lying, but surely on this occasion…
‘You didn’t, did you?’ Finn breathed in disbelief.
Maggie affected a nonchalant shrug. ‘So we favour different schools of cooking…’
‘Different schools?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘You haven’t a clue, have you?’ He scoffed sardonically. ‘Thank you, fate. Not only have I got to house her; I’ve got to feed her as well. Tell me,’ he invited unkindly, ‘just how many other non-skills do you possess that are likely to bring havoc to my life? You can’t read a map, you can’t cook, you—’
‘Stop it.’
Maggie wasn’t sure which of them was the more shocked by the sound of her tear-filled voice.
The silence it caused seemed to stretch for ever, hostility giving way to shock, shock to a soft little prickle of sensual tension which in turn led…
‘I’m sorry.’ It was the gruff note of real apology in Finn’s voice that did it, Maggie assured herself later. That and the fact that she had really been intending to walk past him and out of the room—would have walked past him if her eyes hadn’t been blurred by tears of shame and anger causing her instead to walk into him, into him and into…into his arms.
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