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“Oh, she’s not dead; she’s just not around anymore.”
I frowned as I stared at Roxy for a moment. She’s not dead, but she’s not around anymore. What the hell did that mean?
Chapter Seven
Roxanne
He stared at me with a confused expression on his face, and I realized that I needed to at least tell him something. “Let’s just say that she got a better offer in life and decided to take it.”
“How does a mother get a better offer and leave her family?” he asked as he held a box of pasta in his hand, preparing to pour it into the pot on the stove.
I tried to make light of the situation. “Oh, please. You don’t want to hear the drama of my family. She accepted a job that took her far away. That’s all.”
He frowned as he turned his attention back to the pot and poured the pasta into it.
“You know, when you were saying you had homemade sauce, I wondered if you were going to have homemade pasta, too.”
He laughed, his frown instantly gone, and I took a moment to enjoy the smile on his face. He was a handsome man, and watching him in my kitchen was making my heart fill with a joy I’d rarely felt before.
“No, I tried to make it once, but it didn’t turn out very well. It’s one thing to make a huge batch of sauce for the firehouse, quite another to make enough pasta to feed all those hungry bastards.”
“Ah, true.”
He glanced at me. “You’re not disappointed that it’s from a box, are you?”
I play-pouted as I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m absolutely disappointed. I mean, here I thought you were this incredibly sexy man who was cooking me a meal from scratch. Yet, you ruin the fantasy by tearing open a box of ordinary pasta.”
He started to crack up as he grabbed a head of lettuce and whacked it on the counter. “I’m so sorry to ruin the fantasy. Maybe I can help you with a different one.”
Oh,man! All at once, a half dozen fantasies came to mind, but none of them involved cooking. Although most of them did revolve around my blood boiling like the water on the stove.
He peered at me. “Knives?”
I cleared my throat, bringing my wits back to myself. “Drawer behind you, and the cutting board is in the tall cabinet under the island.”
He went about finding what he needed and then began to prepare the veggies for the salad. “I’m just going to cut all of this up, and I’ll leave the leftovers for you for easy meals. That way, you won’t have to worry about cooking for a few days.”
My jaw dropped, and when I didn’t reply, he glanced my way.
“Is there a problem with that?”
“Where did you come from?” I blurted. “I mean, I don’t know anyone who would come over and cook for someone that they don’t know and make extra so there were leftovers for them to eat.”
He snickered a bit. “My parents taught me to be a nice person.” He glanced at me. “Actually, it was my sister’s idea.”
“Your sister?”
“Yeah, after we decided on Italian, I called her asking her for some help on what to make.”
“Your sister knows you are cooking for me?”
“Yep, she does.”
I shook my head as I looked around. “Yeah, I didn’t tell my brother. He’d just get on my case.”
“Why would he get on your case about someone making dinner for you?” he paused, “or is it because it’smethat’s cooking your dinner? I get the feeling that your brother is not a fan of mine.”
“Don’t worry about my brother. He’s a jerk most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, I love him, and I’d do anything for him, but he’s overprotective of me. Always has been.”
