“May I?” Lena reached out but didn’t touch.
Jess looked up, expecting a smirk or frown, but Lena smiled encouragingly. Jess wanted to hand the peeler over, but Lena pressed her hand around Jess’s and angled the tool into the right position. When their fingers touched, a light tingling ran up Jess’s arm again. Oh great, the sparks were back while they played with sharp instruments. She needed to be careful she wasn’t the one bleeding today.
Lena quickly let go. “Try it again.”
Her voice was hoarse and low, and it had the same effect as her touch. Jess had to take a calming breath before she trusted her hands to move without trembling. To her surprise, she managed to almost peel the complete apple before she lost the correct angle again.
“Good job. You’ll get the hang of it soon after a couple more apples.” Lena stepped back and opened a drawer to get another peeler.
“A couple or a dozen, but who’s counting?” Jess needed to lighten the mood. The repeated surges of tingling and heat confused her. Since when did women affect her like this, so uncontrollably? Usually she was the one who seduced and unnerved her partner, rarely the other way around. A change of topic was in order. “Did you do a lot of cooking with your grandma?”
Lena took her place on the other side of the pot. “I always helped—peeling, cutting, stirring. Grandpa often worked late shifts, and we spent most of our evenings in the kitchen, preparing meals for the next day or preserving food. Grandma grew up in a rural region without much money and believed in preparing for the worst, even though they both had stable enough incomes and a supermarket on the corner.”
“Are you using her recipes?” Jess threw her apple into the pot and picked another. She wasn’t as fast as Lena, but she was slowly getting the hang of it.
“Not really.” Lena laughed. “She believed in the magic of sugar and thought her preserves should last at least fifty years, just in case another war started or something. I cut a lot of sugar from the recipes and use more apples to thicken the preserves. They’re a natural source of pectin. But I learned the basics from her.”
Lena’s voice was soft and warm like a summer evening when she talked about her grandmother. Her love for her family was obvious. Yet she seldom mentioned her mother, and Jess was reluctant to ask. From the bits and pieces she had mentioned, Jess got the impression Lena hadn’t grown up with her. And now she was in prison, but Lena hadn’t said for how long. Jess curbed her curiosity, not wanting to dampen the mood. Lena would tell her when she was ready.
Working side by side, they’d soon worked through the pile of apples while Lena talked vividly about her grandma and their favorite meals. Jess could picture her as a kid sitting at the kitchen table, talking about her day.
Would Jess share that with Ella when she got older? Who would talk to Ella while she was in the hospital? Going back to twelve- to fourteen-hour days didn’t sound so appealing when she thought of that.
“Can you finish peeling the rest? I’ll cut them and start cooking the first batch.” Lena took out a cutting board and one of those chef’s knives Jess associated more with crime TV shows than real cooking.
She shuddered at the thought of the knife coming close to her hands. “Be careful. My sewing skills are rusty.”
“Don’t worry. It’s not my first time.” Lena expertly used the knife, turning the apples into chunks faster than Jess would have thought possible. “Could you wash the mint, please?”
“Mint? Didn’t you want to do blackberry jam?” Jess looked around for the herbs.
“I brought it from Maggie’s garden.” Lena pointed to the linen bag. “And I’m always adding something special. It’s what makes my preserves different from what you can get at the supermarket.”
“What are your most popular flavors?”
“Strawberry-jalapeño and apricot-vanilla-Earl Grey tea. But I have enough of those still in storage. And I vary my preserves with the season. In the fall and winter, I sell a lot of chutneys too. Today we start with blackberry-mint-apple, and later we’ll do some rosemary-pear-blackberry.”
Jess took the bundle of mint—complete with stalks and leaves—from the bag and washed it. “I only ever buy strawberry or blueberry jam. The most exotic one might have been a combination with vanilla. I guess I’m a bit boring.” She shook out the herbs and placed them next to Lena’s cutting board.
Without glancing at Jess, Lena took the mint, removed the stalks, and cut the leaves into fine strips. “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with those flavors, but not everyone is always into vanilla. Sometimes it’s fun to add something spicier.”
Heat shot through Jess and dried her mouth as if she had taken a bite of the jalapeño Lena had been talking about. Was Lena flirting with her or just casually throwing out statements Jess’s reawakening libido was latching onto?
“Want me to rinse the blackberries?” Maybe submerging her hands in cold water would douse the simmering in other parts of her body.
Lena couldn’t help watching Jess hasten away. Her expression when Lena had teased her was too funny. With difficulty, Lena averted her gaze and put one of the huge stainless steel pots on the stove.
She should stop doing that. Her excuse was she liked to rattle the composure of the too-stern, too-tense woman she’d met a few weeks ago to get back at her for her arrogant behavior and remove the mask for
