An hour later she arrived back at Jamie’s apartment with everything she needed to make the best home-cooked meal ever.
She had a moment’s doubt, then. She suddenly felt foolish. Why would she think anything she could offer him could compete with the culinary delights that were just outside his door?
Well, unless she was planning on trying to put a prime rib roast down the in-sink garbage disposal, she was committed.
Jamie stepped off the elevator into his apartment and stopped short. Jessica was behind the island, tongue caught between her teeth, peeling potatoes. He was fairly certain a potato had never been peeled in this space before.
He sniffed the air. It smelled heavenly. Like roasting meat and pies. It smelled like coming home.
She glanced up at him and smiled tentatively. She had a bib apron that said Life is Short, Lick the Spoon on over that super sexy outfit she had worn today. How was it possible she looked even sexier?
“What are you doing?” he asked her, and heard the caution in his voice. “I thought you were going to the library.”
“I decided that could wait. I wanted to thank you for all you’ve done for me. I tried to figure out what to give the man who had everything, and a home-cooked meal topped the list.”
He contemplated that. She had given up one of the things she wanted to do most to give something to him.
He was unbelievably touched by that. Besides, what man wouldn’t want to come home to something like this?
“I actually got to use the double ovens,” she said, nodding at the pies cooling at her elbow. All of New York outside his door, and she was thrilled that she had used a double oven?
As Jamie looked at Jessica, he was aware of feeling a strange longing, a longing for the life he had not chosen. How easy it suddenly was to picture children tumbling across the room toward him, happy to see him, crying Daddy.
The vision was as shocking—and compelling—as imagining her in a field of lavender. What was it about this woman that so bewitched him? That made secrets he had kept, even from himself, thrust their way up to the surface?
Claim you have a meeting you forgot and get out of here, he ordered himself.
Instead, Jamie found himself drawn into the warmth she had created in his space. As he drew closer to her, he was acutely aware that the life he had chosen suddenly seemed empty—filled with things and lacking soul—and it made him feel alone in a way he had not felt before.
“What can I help with?” he asked gruffly, coming around to her side of the kitchen island, not wanting to reveal to her the full extent of the feelings clawing up through him.
“I’ve got an extra potato peeler.”
How could that invitation possibly sound sexy? And dangerous? When he took off his suit jacket and joined her at the sink, he knew why it was both sexy and dangerous.
“Here,” she said, “let’s get an apron on you. It will protect your clothes.”
“I don’t have an apron,” he protested, but she took a folded piece of cloth off the counter and shook it out.
“You do now.”
What was this let’s put the apron on? He had been dressing himself since he was two. Plus, she had obviously planned to get him involved, even knowing full well what had happened between them last night. But, no doubt on purpose, she had wisely chosen a very wholesome activity.
He should have backed away, but instead he ducked his head so that she could put the loop of the apron over it. She was so close. It reminded him of that kiss last night. It would be so easy to...
He steeled himself against unwholesome thoughts. They had no place in this most wholesome of activities.
He tilted his head down and read, upside down, the phrase on his apron. It said I’m cute AND I can cook.
“I think I got your apron,” Jamie said. “This is a lie.”
“Only half of it,” she told him with a sassy grin.
Was she flirting with him? He frowned at her. Hadn’t she got the memo? Flirting had no part in a wholesome activity!
Jessica went behind him and tied the apron securely. The apron snugging up against his waist and her hands at his back increased both the sense that there was potential here for unwholesomeness and the sense he had entered a scene of domestic bliss. She handed him a potato peeler.
“Your weapon,” she told him.
He looked at her lips, her weapon. He turned quickly away from her, grabbed a large potato and focused furiously on removing the skin from it.
They were shoulder to shoulder. Her scent was blending with the smell of a roast cooking and pies cooling. Her hair was shiny and begged his fingers to tangle in it like they had last night. Who could have imagined peeling potatoes could be so much fun and such an exercise in discipline?
An hour later, they sat down at his dining room table to eat. The roast was overcooked and the potatoes were lumpy because she had not considered the possibility he would neither have milk to mash them, nor an implement created specifically for that purpose. The gravy had not thickened properly and the apple pie was sour enough to make him pucker.
“Well, that was a disaster,” she said, sadly.
“Really?” he said. “I think it’s easily one of the most exquisite meals I’ve ever eaten. With the best company.”
“That’s a lie,” she said.
“Only half of it.”
And there was the laughter, again, springing up so easily between them.
“So, it’s your last night in New York. Is there anything I can do to make it special? To thank you for this?” He gestured at the table, littered with the remains of dinner.
Her eyes found his lips, and skittered
