they weren’t fighting or lusting, but a place where they could coexist.
“What did you do today?”
“Today I created a lasagna that should have made customers die from pleasure.”
She laughed. “Exaggerate much?”
He pointed a finger at her. “It’s not an exaggeration. It’s confidence.”
“Ah.”
“You don’t like confidence?”
She studied his face. “Maybe it’s more that I don’t trust it.”
“What’s to trust? I love to cook, to make people happy, to surprise them with something wonderful. But I didn’t just open a door to my kitchen and say, come eat this. I went to school. I did apprenticeships. My confidence is in my teachers’ ability to take me to the next level as much as it is in my ability to learn, and then do.”
Her head tilted. “So it’s not all about you.”
He laughed, shook his head. “Where do you get these ideas?”
“You’re kind of arrogant.”
He batted his hand. “Arrogant? Confident? Who cares as long as the end result is good?”
“I guess...”
“I know.” He took another sip of beer, watching as she slid her first drink—which he assumed was warm—aside and reached for the second glass he’d bought for her. “Not much of a drinker?”
“No.”
“So what are you?”
She laughed. “Is this how you become friends with someone?”
“Conversation is how everyone becomes friends.”
“I thought it was shared experience.”
“We don’t have time for shared experience. If we want to become friends by Wednesday we need to take shortcuts.”
She inclined her head as if agreeing.
He waited. When she said nothing, he reframed his question. “So you are happy teaching?”
“I’m a good teacher.”
“But you are not happy?”
“I’m just not sure people are supposed to be happy.”
He blinked. That was the very last thing he’d expected to hear from his bubbly hostess. “Seriously?”
She met his gaze. “Yeah. I think we’re meant to be content. I think we’re meant to find a spot and fill it. But happy? That’s reserved for big events or holidays.”
For thirty seconds, he wished she were staying in Italy. He wished he had time enough to show her the sights, teach her the basics of cooking, make her laugh, show her what happiness was. But that wasn’t the mission. The mission was to get to know her just enough that they would stop arguing.
“This from my happy, upbeat hostess?”
She met his gaze again. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about work.”
“We’re talking about you, not work.”
She picked up her beer glass. “Maybe this isn’t the best time to talk about me.”
Which only filled him with a thousand questions. When she was at Mancini’s she was usually joyful. After a day off, she was as sad as the day he’d hurt her feelings? It made no sense...unless he believed that she loved working in his restaurant enough that it filled her with joy.
That made his pulse jump, made his mind race with thoughts he wasn’t supposed to have. So he rose.
“Okay. Talking is done. We’ll try shared experience.” He pointed behind her. “We’ll play darts.”
Clearly glad they’d no longer be talking, she laughed. “Good.”
“So you play darts at home in New York?”
She rose and followed him to the board hung on a back wall. They passed the quiet pool table, and he pulled some darts from the corkboard beside the dartboard.
“No, I don’t play darts.”
“Great. So we play for money?”
She laughed again. “No! We’ll play for fun.”
He sighed as if put out. “Too bad.”
But as they played, she began to talk about her search for her foster mother’s family. Her voice relaxed. Her smile returned. And Rafe was suddenly glad he’d found her. Not for his mission to make her his friend. But because she was alone. And in spite of her contention that people weren’t supposed to be happy, her normal state was happy. He’d seen that every day at the restaurant. But something had made her sad tonight.
Reminded of the way he had made her sad by saying she wasn’t needed, he redoubled his efforts to make her smile.
* * *
It was easy for Dani to dismiss the significance of Rafe finding her in the bar. They lived in a small town. He didn’t have a whole hell of a lot of choices for places to stop after work. So she wouldn’t let her crazy brain tell her it was sweet that he’d found her. She’d call it what it was. Lack of options.
Playing darts with her, Rafe was kind and polite, but not sexy. At least not deliberately sexy. There were some things a really handsome man couldn’t control. So she didn’t think he was coming on to her when he swaggered over to pull the darts from the board after he threw them. She didn’t think he was trying to entice her when he laughed at her poor attempts at hitting the board. And she absolutely made nothing of it when he stood behind her, took her arm and showed her the motion she needed to make to get the dart going in the right direction.
Even though she could smell him, feel the heat of his body as he brushed up against her back, and feel the vibrations of his warm whisper as he pulled her arm back and demonstrated how to aim, she knew he meant nothing by any of it. He just wanted to be friends.
When their third beer was gone and the hour had gotten late, she smiled at him. “Thank you. That was fun.”
His silver eyes became serious. “You were happy?”
She shook her head at his dog-with-a-bone attitude. “Sort of. Yes. It was a happy experience.”
He sniffed and walked back to their table to retrieve his coat. “Everyone is made to be happy.”
She didn’t believe that. Though she liked her life and genuinely liked people, she didn’t believe her days were supposed to be one long party. But she knew it was best not to argue. She joined him at their table and slipped into her coat.
“I’ll walk you to your car.”
She
