Inconsolable (Love Triumphs 2)

“I don’t. I shouldn’t.” She did the mental equivalent of stamping her foot in exasperation. “I can’t tell if you’re being funny or mocking me. I will never work you out.”

He smiled. It was getting easier to do.

“You brought this food because you thought I’d come tonight.”

He nodded, because if he spoke she’d hear all the hope and confusion in his heart. He’d never wanted two diametrically opposed things so badly. He wanted her to stay away and he wanted her to be with him. It made about as much sense as needing to live in a cave, but tonight he wasn’t questioning it.

He got busy with the salad, dishing it up onto plastic plates.

“You really want me to eat with you?”

“Yes, I want you to eat so it’ll slow down the rate at which you fling questions at me.”

She walked across to the couch and sat, crossed her leg and swung it. “Don’t bet on it.” And goddamn, she made him smile again.

He served her chicken salad and poured her mineral water, then he sat beside her, but at the distant end of the couch where there was no chance of an accidental touch because while watching her, smiling at her, making her laugh was acceptable, touching her was too intense, too wrong.

She forked a piece of chicken into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. “Hmm. Good. All right so, question, where did you go?”

“You can ask them. I didn’t say I’d answer them.”

She stopped, fork halfway to her mouth. “That’s not much fun.”

“You’re not coming here for fun. I’m your job. I’m your bad boss on your back.”

She tilted her head and closed one eye. “When did I tell you I had a bad boss?”

“The first day.”

“I have no discretion.” She took a mouthful of salad and didn’t seem bothered by her lack of diplomacy.

“You told me what your mother thinks too. Twice.”

She put her fork back on the plate. “Do you have a special memory super power or something?”

“Yes.”

“What?” She pointed the fork at him. “You’re making fun of me. For that I get a question answered.”

He looked at his plate. “You can try.”

“Hmm.” She took another mouthful. “Then I need to make it count. I know you really moved out because I checked.”

She checked. She’d come here again. “Alone?”

“No, with my private army and a marching band. Yes, alone. What do you care, you weren’t here? I just wanted to see what you’d say when I asked and hey, that’s not my question. Don’t answer that. Yum, this is good.”

“Fat Barney’s. Dessert comes from Tony’s Fruitopia.”

She speared a piece of chicken. “You’re volunteering information. Are you drunk? Don’t answer that either, because I don’t think you drink and I’m not wasting a question.”

“I don’t drink. I don’t take drugs. I’m in a rare mood to volunteer.” And apparently to smile, joke and retain a reasonable amount of eye contact. He had to be high on varnish fumes, or just so damn happy to be home. He couldn’t afford to think it was any other reason.

“Must be the full moon.”

He started on his food. “It’s a three-quarter, but I take your point.” Now he was the one gesticulating with a fork.

She looked at the rock ceiling of the cave, her plate on her lap. “You won’t tell me where you went because it’s important to you that it’s private. And though you said it’s safe, you prefer to be here.”