The staff exchanged glances before they quietly retreated. Anita set a basket of mushrooms and a bowl of green beans in front of Grandma and left the kitchen as well.
I turned back to the counter and picked up where Anita left off, working through the vegetables with more focus than they strictly required. This was already a mistake. I could have found Cole and walked him down to the beach, or spent the evening on the hammock pretending I wasn’t thinking about Dmitri. Both were excellent options that I had voluntarily surrendered and came here only to fall into her trap.
Grandma leaned forward and inspected my pile. “You are too serious,” she said.
“I’m chopping vegetables.”
“You look like you are interrogating them,” she teased.
I glanced down at my posture. My stiff shoulders and a grip on the knife suggested a personal grievance. “I didn’t realize they were suspects.”
She laughed, and it reached her eyes. “Relax. They are only vegetables. They will not testify against you.”
I smiled because, despite everything, she was easy to be around.
She picked up a mushroom and brushed a speck of dirt off it. “When Dmitri was a teenager, he refused to let anyone in the kitchen while he cooked. He would lock the door.”
“He cooks?”
She nodded. “Very well.”
I snorted before I could stop myself. “Coffee doesn’t count. And I’m fairly certain warming water disqualifies a person, too.”
Her laughter came easily. “You think that is all he can do?”
“I’m certain of it.” I stacked the chopped vegetables into the bowl and reached for the next one. “Men like him are built for boardrooms and intimidating people in hallways. Not kitchens.” And other things, I did not add, thinking of the closet and the specific grip of his hand in my hair.
“Get to his good side, and he will surprise you.”
I raised a brow. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Believe what, exactly?” The voice came from the doorway, and the air in the room shifted before I even turned around.
Dmitri stood there, his shirt open as usual, looking directly at me with that faint curve at the corner of his mouth. My eyes dropped to where the shirt fell open, and the edge of the tattoo showed on his chest. Heat moved through my stomach.
I looked back up. It meant nothing. The relief spreading quietly through my chest meant nothing either.
Grandma didn’t miss a beat. “Your wife thinks you are only capable of boiling water.”
“Is that so?” He stepped inside and began unbuttoning hiscuffs, folding his sleeves back as if he were ready to prove something. I needed to say something before Grandma started reading the room and finding things that were hidden.
“You disappear for two days and expect me to believe you know how to cook?” I said.
He stopped by the sink and washed his hands without looking at me. “I left for work, not for a cooking class. Some things a man simply carries with him.” He reached past me for my knife. “Watch and learn, wife.”
Grandma laughed while I was trying to hold myself together. Dmitri stood close enough that his cologne reached me. I needed to locate my self-control before whatever was happening in my chest made a decision.
“She doubts your abilities.” Grandma sounded delighted.
I cleared my throat. “I don’t doubt, but I assess.”
His eyes cut to mine. “And your assessment?”
“Unqualified.”
Grandma burst out laughing again. Dmitri scoffed with dignity, as if he had been insulted by better people and survived. He pulled a mixing bowl from the cabinet, cracked an egg one-handed against the rim, and reached for the flour. He measured nothing but combined everything with the confidence of someone who knew what they were doing.
“Good old days,” Grandma said, straightening in her chair. “I missed this.”
