Now he just wanted to feed her. To take care of her in whatever small ways she'd let him. To see that smile when she tasted something that made her happy.
By the time she came inside, he had onions and garlic going in a cast-iron pan that had probably never been used for anything more adventurous than scrambled eggs.
"Something smells amazing." She stood in the kitchen doorway, dirt smudged on her cheek and her hair escaping from its ponytail in ways that made her look softer, more approachable.
More beautiful than anyone had a right to be after an hour of manual labor.
"Just chili. Hope you don't mind me taking over your kitchen."
"It's your kitchen too now." She moved past him to wash her hands at the sink, and he caught a hint of something floral mixed with fresh earth and clean sweat. The combination should not have been as appealing as it was. "I can't remember the last time anyone cooked in here."
"You don't cook?"
"I heat things up. There's a difference." She dried her hands on a dish towel and leaned against the counter, watching him add ground beef to the pan. "Where did you learn to do that?"
"My grandmother. She said any man who couldn't feed himself and whoever he was trying to impress wasn't worth the space he took up." He stirred the meat, breaking it up with a wooden spoon. "Course, she also said any woman who couldn't change her own oil wasn't worth impressing, so she had opinions about a lot of things."
Vanessa laughed, and the sound went straight through him. Not like whiskey. Better than whiskey. Like something he could get drunk on without ever needing a hangover cure.
"She sounds like she didn't put up with much nonsense."
"None at all. Raised me after my parents split up, and she made sure I knew how to take care of myself." He added tomatoes and beans, then reached for the spice bottles. "What about you? Your family teach you anything useful?"
"How to balance a checkbook and always have a backup plan." Her voice carried an edge that suggested those lessons had come with a price. "My parents divorced when I was twelve. Messy divorce, lots of fighting about money. I learned early that financial independence was more important than romance."
No fairy tales in that sentence, but he heard it anyway. The ghost of dreams she'd given up because watching her parents fight had taught her that love wasn't enough when the bills came due.
That explained a few things about her need for control, her focus on stability over adventure. He'd grown up in a different kind of broken home, one where love hadn't been enough to keep the bills paid or the ranch in the family, where his father had worked himself to death trying to save something that was already lost.
"Smart lessons," he said, meaning it. "Even if they're hard ones."
She was watching him cook with an expression he recognized. Women trying to figure out whether he was genuinely domestic or just putting on a show. The truth was somewhere in between. He could cook, he could clean, he could take care of himself because ten years on the road had taught him that no one else was going to do it. But he'd also learned that most women liked men who could do more than order pizza and pick up their own socks.
With Vanessa, though, it felt different. He wasn't trying to impress her so much as he was trying to take care of her. Trying to give her something good in a week that had clearly been full of bad.
Trying to show her that maybe, just maybe, he was worth the risk.
"How long until it's ready?"
"About an hour. Why?"
"I should shower." She gestured to her dirt-stained clothes. "I got a little carried away out there."
A little carried away. He watched her walk down the hall toward her bedroom and spent the next ten minutes trying not to picture her stripping out of those jeans, stepping under hot water, using soap on all the places he'd been imagining touching since the day he'd met her.
Three days. He'd been living here for three days, and he was already so far gone it wasn't even funny.
When she emerged from her room twenty minutes later, she'd changed into yoga pants and a tank top that revealed smooth shoulders and arms that were stronger than her corporate wardrobe suggested. Her hair was still damp from the shower, curling slightly at the ends, and she smelled likesomething clean and expensive that made him want to bury his face in her neck and breathe her in.
"Better?" she asked, settling onto one of the stools at her breakfast bar.
Better was not the word he would have chosen. More distracting, maybe. More likely to make him forget that she was his landlady and he was a temporary tenant who'd be gone as soon as his ankle was sound enough to get back on the circuit.
Except the thought of leaving made him angry and restless for some reason.
"You look more comfortable." He stirred the chili and tried to focus on something other than the way the yoga pants hugged her hips. "Long day of interviews?"
"Two interviews, both disasters. One company wanted someone with e-commerce experience I don't have, and the other wanted to pay about half what I was making at Hartwell's." She propped her chin on her hand, and he noticed she'd painted her nails a soft pink. "I'm starting to think I should expand my search radius."
