The smell hit her nostrils almost immediately, causing her mouth to water.
“I never would have pictured you to be helping your grandmother in the kitchen,”
she said, her feet tucked into the afghan, as she watched him work.
He moved gracefully around the stove, tasting the food, adding spices—he seemed totally relaxed in this environment. “Grandma lived with us,” he said, “until she passed when I was about twelve.” He threw more veggies into the pan and they hissed and popped. “The kitchen with her was a safe haven for me. If I wasn’t there, I would be out with my older siblings, and that was like a battlefield all day and night.”
“You were the youngest of six,” she said.
He glanced over at her. “You’ve done your research, obviously.”
She smiled self-consciously, but he didn’t seem annoyed.
“Was it hard being the youngest? I mean, I’m the youngest of three and it was kind of a battle for me,” she admitted.
He paused for a moment, and she thought maybe he wouldn’t answer, but then he did. “Of course it was hard. I had to scrap every day for what I wanted. But that helped when I got older and joined the football and wrestling teams. I was used to fighting, and then I got bigger than my brothers and sisters and just about everyone else. Then it got easy.” He laughed.
“I couldn’t join any teams,” Krista said. “I was home schooled.”
“Seriously?” Gunner dumped a can of tomato sauce into a big pot. “I can’t imagine being home schooled. I would’ve gone nuts.”
“I guess I did,” she laughed. “It wasn’t easy. I didn’t really get to socialize the way other kids did.”
“Was it a religious thing?”
“No. My mother and father just thought that they could give us a better education that way, and mom was at home, so that’s just what we did.”
“Wow, I can’t imagine that.” He shook his head. Soon he was dumping ground beef into the pan with the veggies. “Do you wish you’d gone to public school, looking back?”
She thought about it. “Yeah, I guess I do. I missed out on too much. I never went to prom, I didn’t have a boyfriend until I was eighteen.”
Gunner stopped cooking for a moment and looked at her. “And what are you now, twenty-two?”
“Good guess.”
“That’s a lot of lost time to make up for,” he said, smiling slowly.
Krista felt her face get red. “I didn’t really look at it that way.”
He turned back to the stove, and she admired his broad back and his shoulders.
She wondered what it would feel like to rake her fingers over his back when he was on top of her.
Sometime later, the meal was finished and the two of them sat across from one another at the table and ate.
It was some of the most delicious, fresh food she’d ever had. It turned out that Gunner, on top of everything else, was a pretty fantastic cook.
Their dinner conversation was natural. He seemed totally at ease with her now, making jokes and being playful. They stayed away from heavy topics, and Krista made sure not to push him on anything.
There was one moment when she’d asked about what his parents did for work, and Gunner got extremely quiet.
“Mom was a waitress and Dad delivered furniture,” he’d said.
“Are you still close to them?” she’d asked.
“No.”
His whole body had grown tense and still, and his expression turned very cold and guarded in a way that she hadn’t expected.
Krista had instantly changed topics, bringing up her own dad, and how she’d tormented him for years by constantly using his precious hairbrush and misplacing it afterwards. “He would walk around the house ranting and raving about it,” Krista had said, and Gunner had begun laughing.
That had been the only really tense moment of the day, and she’d been smart enough to change course before anything got out of control.
***
Gunner cleaned up after dinner, washed the dishes, put everything away.
Just as he was drying his hands, Krista’s phone went off. He glanced over at her, as she pulled her cell phone out of her purse and looked at it.
Drew Ellis was calling.
She debated whether to answer or not, but Gunner was within earshot, so instead she just put it through to voicemail.
“Don’t feel like talking?” Gunner asked, as he tossed the dishcloth onto the rack beside the sink.
“I’m getting tired,” she said, which was true. She’d used up her reservoir of adrenaline and was now crashing pretty hard.
“You don’t have a boyfriend or anything, do you?”
She looked at him, trying to gauge why he was asking. “No, I don’t.”
He nodded. “I just thought…I don’t know…if that was your boyfriend calling, you could answer. I don’t mind.”
“Well, it wasn’t my boyfriend because I don’t have one.” She smiled at him.
“What about you, Gunner?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend either.”
“Very funny.”
He walked slowly back to the couch and sat on the edge of it, looking down at her. “Why don’t you have one?” he said.
She sighed. She wanted to know why he was asking—was it because he was interested, or was he just digging for more information?
“I guess things just haven’t really lined up the right way,” Krista answered.
“That’s kind of vague.” His brown eyes studied her. “I’m betting that guys have pursued you.”
“Yeah, a few.” She looked at him. A thrill went through her body. She became suddenly aware of just how alone they were, how isolated. And how close he was to her.
She had the afghan wrapped around her legs and she was curled up on the couch as they talked.
“But you’re not interested in being in a relationship right now or what?” he pressed.
She thought about what the truthful answer was. She hated that everything seemed to revolve around lies. He thought that she was a student in grad school, but in reality her life seemed to revolve around this new job and trying to prove herself.
And basically she wasn’t dating anyone
