Write It Up!: Rapid Transit / The Ex Factor / Brewing Up Trouble. Elizabeth Bevarly

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      CHAPTER FOUR

      IN SPITE OF JULIA’S HAVING assured Daniel she would shop for everything they’d need to cook dinner, he showed up at her front door with two brown grocery sacks brimming with the makings of a meal that promised to be infinitely more elaborate than the meat loaf and tossed salad she had planned herself.

      And he looked even yummier than the food, wearing a pair of snug, lightly faded blue jeans and a lightweight, equally faded forest-green polo that gave the green in his eyes a bit more dominance over the blue. She was glad she’d dressed casually, too, likewise in faded blue jeans, though hers were topped by a colorful, long-sleeved T-shirt decorated with a beaded, spangled art deco French postcard. So accustomed to being in her stocking feet at home was she that she had neglected to put on shoes, which she only now realized as she looked at the heavy hiking boots on Daniel’s feet. However, she didn’t feel any big urge to go put some on. Already she felt that comfortable with him.

      She directed him to her kitchen—which wasn’t hard to find since her apartment was roughly the size of an electron—where he deposited the bags on what little counter space was there and began to unpack them. And unpack them. And unpack them. And unpack them.

      Whoa. He’d brought more stuff than she would have thought a man could even find in a market, let alone know what to do with. A loaf of French bread, a leafy head of romaine, a bottle of olive oil, free range chiken, she saw with some surprise when she inspected the label—tomatoes, parsley and…a wheel of Brie?

      Where were the meat and potatoes? she wondered. Most guys she knew would have brought a half dozen cans of Dinty Moore beef stew and called it dinner.

      “And for dessert,” Daniel said, reaching deep into the first sack—Good God, what was in the second? she wondered— “Godiva white chocolate torte ice cream. A pint for each of us.”

      All right. That did it. Julia was ready to propose.

      “Wow,” she said. “I hope you know what to do with all that. I’m still working on getting the hamburger I’d planned to mix with onion soup mix out of the plastic wrapper. Do you know how that works?”

      He grinned smugly. “Not only can I get this chicken out of the plastic,” he said, pointing at the product in question, “but I can infuse it with fresh rosemary, poach it in a dry, kicky chardonnay and garnish it with a radish rose.”

      “My God,” Julia whispered reverently. She poked him lightly in the ribs. “Are you sure you’re for real?”

      He laughed as he turned his attentions to the second bag. “My parents own a restaurant in Indianapolis,” he said as he withdrew fresh herbs, red, yellow and green peppers, garlic, onions, mushrooms and two bottles of white wine—presumably a dry, kicky chardonnay. “My dad’s the chef, my mom’s the manager. When I was growing up, while my friends’ dads were out in the backyard pitching baseballs to them, my father had me in the kitchen showing me how to broil lamb chops and put the finishing touches on a chocolate soufflé. It goes without saying that I got my ass kicked at school on a regular basis.”

      Julia smiled. “Yeah, but I bet the girls were crazy about you.”

      He wiggled his eyebrows playfully. “Good point. And using the blow torch on the crème brûlée was always fun.”

      “So what can I do to help?” she asked.

      “Well, I won’t make you take the plastic off the chicken,” he told her. “So why don’t you open the wine?”

      She nodded. “No problem. I’m much better wielding a corkscrew than I am a garlic press. I’m also seriously qualified to choose excellent dinner music.”

      “That’s good to know.”

      For the hour that followed, and accompanied by the dry, kicky tunes of Michael Bublé, Julia and Daniel worked side by side and shoulder to shoulder—and often hip to hip, so tiny was the kitchen—putting together a meal that was more elaborate, and doubtless more delicious, than anything she’d had since leaving home.

      Never before had she realized how intimate—and sensual—creating a meal could be. Along with the sound of jazzy music, the aromas and textures and tastes of the food—to which they frequently helped themselves and then fed to each other—there was the jolt of electricity and the thrill of anticipation that shot through her every time their bodies touched. By the time they sat down to eat, they’d already finished one bottle of wine and opened the second, and they’d sampled enough of the meal to make them leave fully half of their dinners on their plates.

      They did, after all, have to save room for ice cream.

      But first, Julia wanted to simply bask in the happiness that was dinner with Daniel. He was amazing. Incredible. Too good to be true. Gorgeous, funny, smart, decent. He smelled great—and not just from the garlic, either—was easy to talk to and made her feel as though nothing in the world would ever go wrong again. And he could cook.

      There had to be something wrong here, she told herself. No guy could be this perfect and still be available. And she wasn’t the sort of woman who experienced this kind of good luck.

      So maybe, she thought, finally, her turn had come. Maybe it was possible to meet Mr. Right through a venue like speed-dating. Maybe, just maybe, her prince had finally come.

      “THAT WAS WONDERFUL,” Daniel said at the end of dinner as he twirled his wine idly by the base of the glass.

      He hoped Julia would realize he was talking about a lot more than the meal. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed himself this much on a date. Probably, he thought, because he’d never enjoyed himself this much on a date.

      He still wasn’t sure what had come over him СКАЧАТЬ