скачать книгу бесплатно
She blew out a breath, gathering the sheet up double and yanking the curtain aside. There he was, standing below her window like a beach-boy Romeo with his sexy eyes and ruffled hair. However, he wasn’t offering her a serenade or poetry. Her eyes drifted down to the foil-covered dish in his hands.
“What’s that?”
So she was curious. It didn’t mean anything.
“It’s manicotti. Homemade.”
“Really? By whom?”
“By me. My mother taught me, and she’s been known to acknowledge, though not in public, that it might even be slightly tastier than her own.”
She remained silent, not knowing how to respond.
“I made it for you, Joy. I know it’s not enough to make up for what happened today, but I hope it’s a start. Let me come in? I’ll drop it off for you, apologize and leave. Okay?”
The seductive aroma of the pasta was her undoing—her stomach was listening to Rafe even if she didn’t want to.
“Okay. I’ll meet you on the porch.”
No way was she letting him step inside.
She yanked on a pair of jeans she had thrown over a chair and grabbed a tank top, then headed for the door. She could still smell the manicotti. If she were a stronger woman, a less hungry woman, maybe she could have resisted, but she hadn’t had homemade manicotti in, well … ever. Her father hadn’t had much time to cook, and she followed in his footsteps in that way, too. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door.
She wasn’t sure what made her knees weaker—the smell of the food or the image of Rafe standing there in jeans, a white T-shirt that said Little Italy in faded letters and oven mitts up to his elbows as he held out the hot pan. He slanted a charming smile that she found far too sexy, though his eyes communicated nothing but sincerity.
“It’s hot. You got somewhere I can put this down?”
So much for not letting him inside.
“Uh, yeah. Here, follow me to the kitchen.”
As she walked, she realized she hadn’t thrown on a bra in her haste and she covered her chest with her arms, nodding to the butcher block near the stove. She had little counter space and made up for it with added pieces, the butcher block, the small table in the center with two chairs, though she rarely used both.
“You can set it there. It will be okay on the wood.”
He did and stripped off the oven mitts as he did so, revealing strong, tanned forearms. All of her hunger signals were getting mixed up—did she want manicotti or the guy who’d made it?
Stop, she ordered herself, shifting from foot to foot as they stared at each other quietly. She knew she was supposed to say something, but she didn’t.
“Okay, well, listen. I hope you enjoy it—it freezes well, so when it cools down, you can cut it up into portions and have dinner for a month. I just wanted to say I’m sorry—about the tape, and the hose, uh, mistake. I didn’t mean any harm, and you know, I’ll leave you alone now,” he said with an air of finality and turned toward the doorway, grabbing his mitts as he went.
She stepped forward, unsure why, but words were coming out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Um, this is an awful lot of food—have you had dinner?”
He turned, his smile brighter, his eyes more hopeful. Dammit. He had gorgeous eyes, a velvet-brown that drew her in, fringed with the long, thick lashes men were so often unfairly graced with.
“Thanks—I am starving, but I wanted this to be a gift. You sure you want to share?”
He was offering her an out. But he had made her a nice dinner, and she’d invited him. So they’d share some food, make nice conversation, and her day would end on a better note than it had started.
“Yes, please, let me get the plates, and you can serve. I don’t have any fancy kitchenware, but what I’ve got is in the drawer there,” she babbled, pointing and then turning away in order to compose herself while she got some plates. She rarely had guests for dinner, meeting people out in restaurants instead.
“As long as we can lift out a few pieces, I think that’s the basic requirement. My mom says the TV cooking shows have been great for gadget sales, but they make people think that working in a kitchen is more complicated than it needs to be.”
She smiled, her spirit lightening as she reached into the cupboard.
“I know,” she added, taking out two plates. “Same with the organizational experts—you know, the people who go on the morning shows and clean up someone’s messy office by stacking all kinds of new bins and baskets and labeling everything? Like that does any good,” she said as she turned back to where he carefully lifted the manicotti from the pan.
Her mouth literally watered while she watched the cheese stretch as he put a large helping on a plate.
“Exactly,” he agreed.
The heady aroma nearly brought her to her knees, and she blanked her mind when she started to calculate calories. Fat content be damned.
“If people aren’t organized in the first place, adding more buckets and shelves for them to put stuff in will only make the initial problems worse in the long run,” he continued.
She stood holding both plates of manicotti, staring at him as if she was seeing him for the first time. Not as the guy who was bugging her about sleep-talking, not as the erotic lover of her dreams, and not as the idiot who’d almost gotten her in deep trouble at work.
She saw a nice, handsome guy with whom she was actually comfortable for more than five minutes at a time. Someone who didn’t act as if she had to prove her worth or meet some invisible expectation. Someone who’d brought her dinner. Who had made her dinner.
“Are you okay?” he asked, breaking her out of her fugue. “Let me take those, they have to be getting heavy—you want to sit down in the other room or here?”
She blinked as he took the plates. “Here at the table is good. That smells so good I could cry,” she said sincerely and then caught his eye as he put the plates down. His face had become far more serious suddenly, and the atmosphere shifted between them.
“I don’t want to make you cry again, that’s for sure, Joy. I couldn’t be sorrier about the first time.”
He sat, indicating that he wanted her to start first, his hands at his sides as she took a bite and closed her eyes in bliss.
“Let’s not talk about that. This is so good I can’t even begin to tell you.”
He grinned. “Thanks. Mom would be pleased. Well, maybe not that I helped screw up your day, but that her cooking lessons worked.”
“She must be a fabulous cook.”
“Straight from heaven,” he agreed, digging in to his own dinner.
“Are you an only child?”
“Nope, three sisters, and Mom insisted we all learn to cook, and Dad insisted we all know our way around a toolbox and a car engine.”
“Sounds like a great family.”
“I love them, but I’m biased,” he said, grinning.
She set her fork down, taking a breather and reaching for her glass of water, frowning as she looked at it. “You know, I think I have some wine in the other room—I’ll get it. It was a gift, and I haven’t had a chance to open it. Food this delicious deserves more than water to accompany it.”
“Sounds good,” he added, smiling as she stood to leave the room.
She walked away, weirdly light in her step—after such a terrible, horrible day, she was almost … happy. Reaching to retrieve the wine from the top of the cabinet where she’d set it six months before—she didn’t often drink by herself—she didn’t question why she was so happy, and returned to the kitchen, stopping short of the table.
“Oh … damn.”
“What?”
“I don’t have a corkscrew.”
“No problem—do you have a toolbox?”
She eyed him warily. “Uh, sure. My dad gave me one when I bought the house.”
“Nice thinking. Grab it and we’ll have this open in a jiff.”
She did and came back to watch him poise a pointy-looking tool over the cork, aiming with the hammer over the wooden handle. He smiled at her, full of mischief, and her heart somersaulted, just a little.
“Move back—in case I miss.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t—”
Before she could object, he’d brought the hammer down in three expert taps, never missing a beat, and she watched as he pushed the cork down into the wine, drew back and gently levered the sharp point of the tool from the floating cork. Then they were back at the table, finishing their meal and drinking a spicy pinot noir that had only a few bits of cork floating in the bottle.
“Rafe,” she started, sitting back in her chair, stuffed and not sure how to broach the conversation. He looked at her curiously, but didn’t speak, taking a sip from his glass. The memory of what his mouth felt like—in her dreams, anyway—made her lose her breath for a moment. What was going on?
She never reacted this way to men, even to men she liked. Joy never got the jitters, the quivers and goose bumps other women talked about—in fact, she didn’t experience many of the things with men that other women talked about. It was her nature, and she’d come to accept it, but Rafe was throwing her off.
“I really appreciate this—the food and the company, and the apology, though you know, I’ve been superstressed at work lately. It wasn’t your fault, not really—I don’t know what possessed me to listen to that disk in the middle of the main office. I guess I didn’t think, and that’s my fault, not yours.”
His eyes darkened. “I’m sorry for my part in it anyway. Are you in serious trouble?”
She shrugged. “I managed to save it at the last minute. I came up with an explanation that was more or less true, sorta.” She smiled a little, and he smiled back. “I’m up for a promotion, and I don’t know if it’s going to happen. I deserve it, I’ve worked hard for it, but I’ve been so tired lately, and it’s been hard keeping up with everything that’s landing on my desk.”
“What do you do?”
“Public relations for Carr Toys.”
“Cool! You work for a toy company?”
“Yeah, I thought it would be cool, too. It’s not. Carr is just another big business trying to make its bottom line. There are some really interesting departments, like the toy design or marketing, but my work involves a lot of pressure, arguing and such.”
“How so?”
“I handle toy recalls and company-image issues. You know, like now, with the Toddler Tank, the truck?”
“I saw that story in the paper—that’s you?”
“Well, yeah, I’m the lead on customer relations and media communications. It’s been a disaster, the wheels falling off of the truck that every little boy wants for Christmas, wheels that present a potential choking hazard. Parents hate Carr toys, and I have to somehow make them happy—the parents and the company.”
“That doesn’t sound fun,” he admitted with a frown. “I never really thought about what happened on the company end of one of those recalls.”
“You mentioned you’re an EMT, like for the fire department?” she asked, taking the focus away from herself. The wine was making her warm. She studied the slight sheen of perspiration on Rafe’s brow, finding it sexy, and licked her lips unconsciously, the taste of wine and sauce still lingering there. She wondered if he tasted as he did in her dreams….
“Yeah, in New York City, for a hospital, not the NYFD. Best city in the world, no offense.” He grinned again. “But the insomnia has been dogging me for months—I finally had to take a leave of absence when I almost crashed my ambulance. So, here I am, trying to get over it. Thought a vacation somewhere new, away from the job, might help.”
She groaned. “Only to find a loud woman next door keeping you up all night … I’m so sorry. I wish there was something I could do about it. I keep having these dreams,” she said emphatically and then remembered whom she was talking to—and exactly whom she was dreaming about—and stopped short.
“When did they start?” he prompted softly, but the mood changed between them, crackling with sexual tension. She swallowed hard.
“I was having them for a while, but they were just fuzzy, indistinct, frustrating…. Then when you moved in, I saw you…. Suddenly they were about you. I don’t know why.”
He nodded, and her face turned even hotter, though it wasn’t the wine anymore. She was incredibly embarrassed at what she was revealing—the wine was loosening her tongue a little too much, and she pushed the glass away.
“Hey, don’t be embarrassed. I’m flattered, personally speaking, but on the other hand, somniloquy is a real sleep disorder.”
“Som—what?”
“Somniloquy—talking in your sleep. I know what hell a sleepless night can be. Are you having any other problems, lost sleep, etcetera?”
She wanted to kiss him for understanding—or maybe she just wanted to kiss him, period—and nodded emphatically. “Yes, I’m exhausted. I sleep all night, or seem to, but I am dead tired in the morning.”
“Your body is sleeping but your mind isn’t—you’re probably waking up more frequently than you realize, and lack of sleep will catch up with you.”
“You know a lot about sleep.”
“That’s what happens when you don’t get much of it—I’ve been through the grinder trying to solve my own disorder.”
He was being so kind, and that he understood and was so sympathetic made everything far too intimate between them for some reason. She stood and took their plates to the sink, needing to get up and put some distance between them, but it didn’t work. He stood and followed her with the remainder of the table’s contents.
“Have you tried a sleep clinic, or taking pills?”
She grimaced, leaning against the sink. “I don’t think pills will help me stop dreaming about you.” She clapped a hand over her mouth too late, sputtering, “I mean, uh …”
He chuckled, reaching past her to turn on the faucet, filling the sink with soapy water. He was way too close, she observed, inhaling his masculine scent, but she didn’t move away.
“I know what you mean,” he said, leaning against the sink, facing her. “I guess the question is what can you—or we—do about it?”
RAFE WATCHED THE ROSES bloom in her cheeks again. He was fascinated with every little thing about this woman and far too turned on. He shifted slightly, crossing his legs casually and hoping he could mask the hard evidence of his interest as they stood contemplating each other by the sink.
“Joy?” he prompted as she managed to look everywhere around the kitchen but at him.
She stepped away from the counter briskly, wiping her hands on a towel even though they hadn’t actually done any of the dishes. Her expression and her smile were overly bright.
“Hey, thanks for the manicotti. Maybe you should take some home? It’s a lot of food for one person.”
Suddenly he wasn’t aroused, but plenty confused.
“Am I being dismissed then?”
He knew he sounded ticked off and regretted it as he saw the flare of panic in her gaze. She set her hands on her hips, facing him.
“Listen, I don’t want you getting the wrong idea—and I think you were.”
