one morning. After that, no matter how they’d ignored one another, there had always been a consciousness between them, an awareness of the other.
They’d kept their distance. Scowled. Sniped. Mocked. Circled each other until one day they’d come face to face, alone in a corridor. And, with no one else there to see, he’d smiled at her.
‘Sean?’ she whispered desperately. ‘Where are you?’
CHAPTER SEVEN
BEN, despite every intention of staying well away from the kitchen, couldn’t settle. He’d finished cutting the grass, put away the mower. Taken a shower. And then, somehow, he found himself standing in the kitchen doorway, watching Ellie as she chopped onions. She said nothing, did nothing to suggest she knew he was there.
She didn’t have to.
There was an awareness between them, something palpable in the air when she was home, that seemed to fill the house. An echoing hollowness about it when she wasn’t there, like a room without a carpet.
His first reaction to that had been a how-dare-she? anger. It wasn’t her place. She didn’t fit. Wasn’t right. Natasha had been an expert in the minimalist Japanese style of flower arranging. Ellie favoured the infant school nature table style of floral art. She just stuffed anything she fancied in a jug. Leaves, daisies, even dandelions for heaven’s sake.
The way she draped stuff about the place, disguising the wear, softening the edges.
He’d held his tongue, well aware that the more time he spent with her, the harder she became to ignore. Witness the arrival of Roger and Nigel. She just drew him in, involved him, made him laugh…
‘Can I do anything to help?’ he asked.
‘Just taste the finished dish,’ Ellie said, not looking at him, but instead concentrating on chopping the onions to add to an already promising array of ingredients.
‘So what are you cooking?’ he asked, ignoring her discouraging tone, helping himself to a beer from the fridge and, with the door still open, turning to her. ‘Can I get you something?’
‘No, thank you.’
He shrugged, let it go, leaned his hip against the table as he snapped the top, took a drink, helped himself to a couple of shelled pistachio nuts from a dish. ‘It looks interesting,’ he said, refusing to be dismissed. It was, after all, his kitchen.
She flickered a glance in his direction. ‘Could you please go away? This is going to be difficult enough without an audience.’ Then, ‘Stop that,’ she said, slapping his hand with the back of her broad-bladed knife as he took another dip in the nuts. ‘Everything has been weighed.’
‘Chicken, nuts, spices, baby onions.’He picked up a small dish with a few threads of something red in it. ‘Is this saffron?’
‘Yes.’ She sighed, stopped chopping and, clearly hoping that if she satisfied his curiosity he’d leave her in peace, said, ‘It’s a Moroccan dish. That lot over there-’ she pointed with the knife ‘-is going to be couscous with herbs and nuts and pomegranate.’ She glowered at him as he took another nut. ‘Assuming there are any nuts left.’
‘I won’t eat them all,’ he assured her.
She shook her head. ‘Oh, go on. You might as well enjoy them. I’ll probably ruin the whole thing anyway.’
‘Nonsense. What are you going to do with the chicken?’
‘The plan is to make a tajine of chicken, caramelised onion and pear.’
He scarcely hesitated before he said, ‘That sounds interesting.’
‘“Interesting”. Good word.’ She still didn’t look at him, just lifted one shoulder in an awkward little shrug. ‘One of the women I clean for suggested it. She even loaned me her recipe book. She said the important thing was to keep it simple…’
‘This is her idea of simple?’
‘She said that even a fool could make it. I didn’t like to tell her that my sole experience of planning a meal consisted of choosing a topping for my pizza.’
‘Well, that’s an art,’ he said, wondering what it was about cooking that she found so stressful. ‘There’s the vexed question of anchovies for a start.’
‘Oh, please!’ she said, seizing on this distraction. ‘You have to have anchovies.’
‘Of course you do.’
Now, he thought. Now smile.
‘And for pudding?’ he pressed, when she didn’t.
‘Oh, no problem. Lemon tart, creme brulee, a chocolate roulade.’
‘Three?’
‘I wanted to see which went best.’
‘Right,’he said. Then, ‘And we’re going to eat tonight?’
‘Relax. They’re in the fridge.’
‘They are?’He hadn’t noticed the scent of baking, the inevitable mess that quantity of cooking would entail. He turned and opened the fridge door again. True enough, three perfectly prepared puddings were sitting out of harm’s way on the top shelf. ‘They look good.’
‘Baking is serious cookery,’ she said. Then she sniffed, and he realised that the reason she wasn’t looking at him was because she’d been crying. ‘Actually, I bought them.’
Well, yes. Obviously.
‘Hey, all the best hostesses buy their puddings.’
‘They do?’ She sniffed again, and he didn’t think it was because she couldn’t handle a sponge cake.
‘Are you okay, Ellie?’
‘Fine,’ she said. She coaxed the smile into life, looked at him. ‘Just a touch of hay fever.’
‘Right,’ he said, unconvinced. ‘Is that recent?’
‘Sorry?’
‘The hay fever. You didn’t seem to have a problem when you were cutting the grass.’
‘Oh, no. It must be the onions, then.’
The onions might have set her off again, but, unless she was seriously allergic to them, the puffiness of her eyes, the redness of her nose, suggested that the tears had been flowing for some time. Maybe asking her to go to Emma’s wedding with him hadn’t been such a great idea-which was a shame because, against all the odds, he was now rather looking forward to it.
‘So,’ he said, with a gesture at the table, ‘what’s all this in aid of?’ She looked at him fast enough then, those big brown eyes startled wide. Her cheeks almost as pink as her nose. ‘You said you’re trying this out. I assumed there must be some big occasion coming up.’
‘Oh…’
She continued chopping the onion, and he winced as the blade narrowly missed her finger.
‘Here. Let me.’
He took it from her and finished the job.
‘So?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Big occasion. It’s, um, my sister’s birthday in a couple of weeks. I thought I’d cook a meal for her and her friends.’
‘And this is the dress rehearsal?’
‘Right,’ she said, and this time the smile was more of relief rather than any pleasurable anticipation of a family party.
Relief that he’d bought the excuse?
Could straightforward, look-you-in-the-eye-and-give-it-to-you-straight Ellie March be telling him a big fat fib? A blush that competed with her nose suggested that she was, but why? What was the big deal about cooking some special meal? What was she trying to hide?
