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“I don’t know how else to say it, Mal,” he said, “but you’ll be safe with me. I said it before, and I don’t know why, but I want to say it again. All I want to do is keep you safe. You won’t need your walls with me, I promise. We can dismantle them together, brick by brick—”
She cut him off with a finger to his lips, clearly tired of his endless ramble of a proposal. Tears sparkled in her incredible eyes.
“But will you?” He pulled away.
“I...I will.” This time he did throw back his head and crow with joy.
It had been nearly three weeks, plus a lifetime, since their last kiss, and he tried and failed to hold back. Malina’s mouth was heady, and Grant drank her like the sweet and spicy wine she’d prepared. He savored the softness of her lips, the smell of her skin, the sublime sensation of her body against his. One hand supported her back as she sat on his knees, and the other buried itself in the recesses of her hair, reveling in the silky strands.
“Malina,” he breathed against her mouth.
“Yes,” she whispered back. “Yes, I’ve missed you...”
How had things come to this? How had he gotten so lucky? Grant had awoken that morning humming with the faint hope that Melisa would pay a short visit and tell him the woman of his dreams might not hate him. Now he sat on her kitchen floor, of all places, near exploding with bliss.
Had he really proposed? Had she really said yes? Was she really kissing him with, of all things, love? Grant shook himself mentally. What time was it? He broke the kiss to gild her face with the backs of his fingers.
“Is it time to move already?” she asked, eyes closed, and he laughed. What was it about her reticence that he loved so much? She’s a sexy curmudgeon with a heart of gold, that’s what. He kissed her cheek.
“You want to feed some people with me?” he asked.
That got her attention. Malina’s head jerked upright. Her fingers slid down his biceps and gripped him with what was sadly not sexual fervor. Wouldn’t be a great moment for her parents to walk in.
Melinda leapt to her feet, twisted her hair into a low bun, skewered it with a chopstick—where had that come from?—and marched to the stove. Grant stood slowly, useless until she directed him.
“Can you get those pots steaming?” She gestured at the two pots and their contents. “And can you get me the broth from the fridge? It’s in the large mason jar on the top shelf.”
She added the broth he handed her to a shallow sauté pan, then jumped sideways to shift wine from inside the fridge to the counter, and wine from the counter to the fridge. What had she called the process of splitting and saving wood? A do-si-do. She danced her own version here.
“We might not have enough time to put everything in serving dishes,” she said as she salted the broth and trained loose strands of hair behind her ears. “It’s okay, I’ve had a buffet Christmas before. It’ll be fine. Mom won’t care.”
She nodded toward some cucumbers. “Can you get to work on the salad? Slice those and mince the parsley. We’ll skip pressing them.” Pressing what? “I’d rather use the time to marinate them.”
Grant started on his tasks with the certainty that his work wasn’t going to meet any expectations anytime soon.
“So...is this your mom’s favorite recipe?” He sliced the first cucumber at a snail’s pace.
Melinda laughed. “Don’t stress. It’s a Swedish dish passed down from ages ago that reminds her of her grandma. It’s tasty but not complicated. And Mom’s very forgiving.” Malina lifted the banana leaf packets into the steamers and covered them with their stainless steel lids.
“Does Max cook too?” Grant hoped his fear of contributing a lackluster dish wasn’t audible.
“Max?” She pulled light blue plates from a cabinet. “Oh yeah, he loves to cook. He makes a mean Jaynagarer Moa. Speaking of which, we don’t have enough dessert.”
“They have to be on their way back from Paul’s about now,” Grant said, “Want me to text and ask them to get something?” He stopped slicing for a moment. “Are Paul and Melisa staying for dinner?”
“Yes, she and I have become friends.” She slipped the fish into the broth. “We’re a motley crew, but why not? It’s Christmas. And yeah, that would be great,” she added. “Maybe from that Indian place on Kipling?”
Grant traded his paring knife for his phone and tapped a text to his father. “You’ve got pies in the freezer? Plural? Why am I telling them to stop for more?”
“Keep chopping, Mountain Man.” She darted to the freezer to remove three pie-shaped parcels from its depths. “Of course I have pies. I make a pie a week and I can’t eat them all, now, can I? We love dessert in our family. I could take down a whole pie by myself. In fact, that sounds great.” She withdrew a fourth pie from the freezer.
Grant’s guffaw was embarrassing, but she had surprised him. Where does she put it? He returned to his task. Malina shuffled items on the stovetop to allow the frozen pies a burner each, so they could thaw with the help of the oven below.
Slice. Where would they live?
Slice. How often would they see her parents?
Slice. Did she want children? Grant stilled the knife.
