I mean. If you’re free,” she hastily added, “and I’ll cook dinner for you.”
“Oh, I’m definitely free for you,” he said. “And I’ll for sure come over tonight. But I’ll be the one who cooks dinner for you.”
She smiled. “How about if we cook together?”
He smiled back. “Cooking together is good.”
Funny, but she got the feeling he was talking about something other than dinner when he said that the way he did. And she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that. Good thing they’d be seeing each other again, so she could decide.
“I’ll do the shopping and get everything we need,” she offered.
He lifted a shoulder and let it drop. With a cryptic smile, he told her, “I might pick up a couple of things myself.”
“What, you don’t trust me?”
“You shouldn’t have to do all the work, that’s all.”
She honestly didn’t know what to say in response to that. So she only asked, “How will you get home? Taxis aren’t exactly plentiful this time of night.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “I’m a very lucky guy.”
Before she could say a word in response to that, a bright yellow taxi rounded the corner opposite the one from which the other had disappeared, and it headed right in their direction. Still smiling at Julia, Daniel raised a hand to hail it, and it rolled to a stop at the curb.
“Like I said,” he told her, “I always get lucky.”
And before she could say a word in response to that, he kissed her again, briefly, almost chastely this time, and strode to the waiting car. “I’ll see you tonight,” he said as he opened the door. “Six o’clock okay?”
Dumbly, she nodded.
“I’ll wait till you’re inside,” he added, jutting his chin up toward her front door. “Then I’ll go.”
Still not trusting herself to say anything that didn’t make her sound like an idiot, Julia fumbled for her keys and made her way up the steps to unlock the front door. When she turned to wave goodbye a final time, managing a soft “Good night,” Daniel lifted his fingers to his lips and let them drop again, the masculine version of blowing a kiss. Then he climbed into the cab and closed the door, and the taxi pulled away from the curb. But his face was framed in the back window as the car drove away, watching her.
Leaving Julia to wonder when she would wake up. Because there was no way a man like Daniel Taggart could exist anywhere outside of her dreams.
CHAPTER FOUR
IN SPITE OF JULIA’S HAVING assured Daniel she would shop for everything they’d need to cook dinner, he showed up at her front door with two brown grocery sacks brimming with the makings of a meal that promised to be infinitely more elaborate than the meat loaf and tossed salad she had planned herself.
And he looked even yummier than the food, wearing a pair of snug, lightly faded blue jeans and a lightweight, equally faded forest-green polo that gave the green in his eyes a bit more dominance over the blue. She was glad she’d dressed casually, too, likewise in faded blue jeans, though hers were topped by a colorful, long-sleeved T-shirt decorated with a beaded, spangled art deco French postcard. So accustomed to being in her stocking feet at home was she that she had neglected to put on shoes, which she only now realized as she looked at the heavy hiking boots on Daniel’s feet. However, she didn’t feel any big urge to go put some on. Already she felt that comfortable with him.
She directed him to her kitchen—which wasn’t hard to find since her apartment was roughly the size of an electron—where he deposited the bags on what little counter space was there and began to unpack them. And unpack them. And unpack them. And unpack them.
Whoa. He’d brought more stuff than she would have thought a man could even find in a market, let alone know what to do with. A loaf of French bread, a leafy head of romaine, a bottle of olive oil, free range chiken, she saw with some surprise when she inspected the label—tomatoes, parsley and…a wheel of Brie?
Where were the meat and potatoes? she wondered. Most guys she knew would have brought a half dozen cans of Dinty Moore beef stew and called it dinner.
“And for dessert,” Daniel said, reaching deep into the first sack—Good God, what was in the second? she wondered— “Godiva white chocolate torte ice cream. A pint for each of us.”
All right. That did it. Julia was ready to propose.
“Wow,” she said. “I hope you know what to do with all that. I’m still working on getting the hamburger I’d planned to mix with onion soup mix out of the plastic wrapper. Do you know how that works?”
He grinned smugly. “Not only can I get this chicken out of the plastic,” he said, pointing at the product in question, “but I can infuse it with fresh rosemary, poach it in a dry, kicky chardonnay and garnish it with a radish rose.”
“My God,” Julia whispered reverently. She poked him lightly in the ribs. “Are you sure you’re for real?”
He laughed as he turned his attentions to the second bag. “My parents own a restaurant in Indianapolis,” he said as he withdrew fresh herbs, red, yellow and green peppers, garlic, onions, mushrooms and two bottles of white wine—presumably a dry, kicky chardonnay. “My dad’s the chef, my mom’s the manager. When I was growing up, while my friends’ dads were out in the backyard pitching baseballs to them, my father had me in the kitchen showing me how to broil lamb chops and put the finishing touches on a chocolate soufflé. It goes without saying that I got my ass kicked at school on a regular basis.”
Julia smiled. “Yeah, but I bet the girls were crazy about you.”
He wiggled his eyebrows playfully. “Good point. And using the blow torch on the crème brûlée was always fun.”
“So what can I do to help?” she asked.
“Well, I won’t make you take the plastic off the chicken,” he told her. “So why don’t you open the wine?”
She nodded. “No problem. I’m much better wielding a corkscrew than I am a garlic press. I’m also seriously qualified to choose excellent dinner music.”
“That’s good to know.”
For the hour that followed, and accompanied by the dry, kicky tunes of Michael Bublé, Julia and Daniel worked side by side and shoulder to shoulder—and often hip to hip, so tiny was the kitchen—putting together a meal that was more elaborate, and doubtless more delicious, than anything she’d had since leaving home.
Never before had she realized how intimate—and sensual—creating a meal could be. Along with the sound of jazzy music, the aromas and textures and tastes of the food—to which they frequently helped themselves and then fed to each other—there was the jolt of electricity and the thrill of anticipation that shot through her every time their bodies touched. By the time they sat down to eat, they’d already finished one bottle of wine and opened the second, and they’d sampled enough of the meal to
