As they approached the meat section she said, “What about dinners? Do they have decent fish here?”
“Beats me.”
“What do you eat?” she began, then held up a hand. “Wait. Let me guess hot dogs and steak.”
He grinned. “What else?”
“You’re going to die before you’re forty.”
“As long as I don’t do it while we’re sharing the apartment, it shouldn’t bother you.”
“Couldn’t we make a deal for the next few weeks? I’ll do the cooking and you’ll try whatever I prepare.”
He glanced down at the groceries they’d already collected. “Okay,” he said finally. “But none of those funny looking green things.”
Gabrielle’s mind went blank. “Funny looking green things?”
“You know, they look sort of like a cactus.”
“Artichokes?”
“Yeah. That’s it.”
She bit back a laugh. “Okay. No artichokes. Anything else?”
“No fish eggs.”
“I wouldn’t dream of wasting caviar on you.”
“And we go out for pizza one night a week, so I won’t starve to death.”
Laughing, she held out her hand. “It’s a deal.”
After an instant’s hesitation, he took her hand. “Deal,” he said softly, his gaze locked with hers. It was not a look meant to be shared over raw hamburger. It spoke of candlelight and white damask napkins. Or maybe satin sheets.
She knew without any explanation that the truce had to do with far more than artichokes and caviar. Paul, a man whose life had probably been quite simple only a few days ago, was struggling to find the right balance for their complex and confusing relationship. That handshake was his renewed commitment to try.
* * *
But despite the pact in the grocery store, the day continued to have moments of high tension, moments when a glance threatened to turn into far more, moments when a casual remark took on added meaning. Paul’s edginess communicated itself to her until they were practically tiptoeing around the apartment to avoid offending each other.
Finally Gabrielle retreated to her room and sat down with the classified ads. Moments later she heard Paul leave the apartment. Her heart sank to the pit of her stomach, but she forced herself to concentrate on the ads. She already had two interviews lined up for the following morning. Both were for jobs she’d heard about by word of mouth. Still she looked, circling one or two that she’d at least call about.
“And what if these don’t pan out?” she said aloud. “How long are you going to wait before taking Paul’s advice and looking for something different?”
One more day, she promised herself finally. If Monday’s meetings and calls failed to result in at least a strong possibility of a job offer, she would turn elsewhere. To remind herself of the commitment, she folded the classified section and placed it prominently where she couldn’t miss it, propped against the mayonnaise jar of flowers that had barely survived the morning’s calamities with petals intact.
She decided it was time to replace them. A visit to the garden might also soothe her frazzled nerves and keep her out of Paul’s way. If he was going to growl around like an angry bear, it was definitely wise to stay out of his path.
Unfortunately he found her.
“We need to talk,” he began at once, sitting down in the chair opposite her. He picked up one of the flowers she’d cut and began stripping it of its petals.
“Okay,” she agreed cautiously, moving the remaining flowers out of reach. “What about?”
“Our…” He hesitated, refusing to meet her eyes. “Our arrangement.”
“Does that include an explanation about why you’ve been in such a foul humor ever since this morning?”
“You noticed?” he said with a touch of wry humor.
“That doesn’t necessarily qualify me for a Ph.D. in psychology. So, what’s the story?”
“We have a problem.”
“Already? I’ve only been here two days.”
“That’s long enough.”
Gabrielle drew in a sharp breath. The response was hardly unexpected, but disappointment began somewhere deep inside and settled around her heart. “Are you suggesting that I leave?”
He hesitated far too long before answering. “No,” he said finally. “I asked you to move in. I certainly don’t want to turn right around and throw you out.” He sounded very stoic. She wanted to throttle him. In fact she might have, if he hadn’t looked quite so miserable and confused. “It’s just that we have to reach some sort of understanding.”
“About what?”
“This relationship.”
“That’s easy. We don’t have one.” The remark was glib, but there was considerably less conviction in her voice than she would have liked.
“Exactly.”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand the all-too-adamant response. “I think I see what you’re getting at. Every now and then our bodies take over and pretend they haven’t gotten the message that we’re off-limits to each other, that we’re coming from different places, heading in different directions. Is that it?”
“Yes. I mean you’re an attractive woman. A man would have to be dead not to respond to you, even though he knows it’s an impossible situation.”
“And you are far from dead,” she concluded.
“Exactly.”
“Would it help if I wore baggy clothes?”
He grinned at that. “I don’t think so. I have a feeling you could wear a gunny sack and I’d see right through it. So to speak,” he amended.
“Any other suggestions?”
He stared at her helplessly, then shook his head.
She considered their situation analytically. Normally it was something she was very good at. “Maybe we’re going about this all wrong. Maybe we should just get this right out in the open. You’re attracted to me. I’m attracted to you. We both know we shouldn’t do anything about it, so that makes it forbidden and, therefore, all the more interesting.”
He held up a hand to interrupt her. “There’s only one problem with that particular logic. Taken to its natural conclusion, we should just go right ahead and explore the possibilities and see where these feelings take us.”
Gabrielle swallowed hard. The idea had far more merit than she cared to admit. Every time she glanced at Paul’s strong hands, she recalled the magic in his
