"Uh, yes. Well, actually, I do lots of different sorts of things. French. Spanish. American." She cleared her throat and bent down to retrieve the press. "You know how it is."
He didn't, but he wasn't about to ask. Joe had bent down for the press, too. Now, he was staring at his new cook's feet. They were small feet. Delicate, probably ... despite the fact that they were shod in very sensible shoes.
Sensible. Not white, but sensible.
Joe stood up, so quickly that he almost bumped heads with his new cook, and shunted the insane thought out of his head.
"That garlic press seems determined to get away," he said with a strained smile. "I- I, ah, I take it those shopping bags are filled with other tools of your trade?"
"Tools of my... Oh. Yes. Yes, they are."
"And, ah, your luggage... ?"
"It's on the porch."
"Right. Well, then, why don't we stow these bags in the kitchen first, and I'll bring in the rest of your stuff."
"You don't have to do that, Mr. Romano. I can manage." She reached for the bag Joe was holding. He pulled it back. She tugged at it again and all but dragged it out of his hands.
"Really, Mr. Romano. I can manage. You just go ahead and put some clothes on..."
Her voice trailed away. Oh, God. Had she really said that?
She must have, based on the look on her new boss's face. But it was all his fault. So what if he liked men? He still made her feel uncomfortable, standing around half naked, putting his arm around her shoulders.
And then there was that nagging feeling she'd met him before.
"I-I didn't mean," she began, and Joe laughed.
"Yes, Miss Barry. You did mean. And I apologize. I'd forgotten that I was walking around in a towel"
"Yes, sir. But- Really. I'm sorry, sir. I only meant-"
"Look, Miss Barry. We're going to be living together for a while. Sharing the house, I mean. Why don't we try a little less formality, okay? My name is Joe. And yours is ... Lucy?"
"It's Lucinda."
It figured. Joe shifted the bag and stuck out his hand. She looked at it as if she'd never seen a man's hand before. Slowly, carefully, as If she were reaching for a hot iron instead of his fingers, she took it.
Bzzz. There it was again. That kick, as if he'd put his finger in a lamp socket. She snatched her hand back.
"One of us isn't grounded," Joe said with a little smile.
"I guess not," she said, and flicked her tongue across her bottom lip.
Another kick, this time just from watching that pink tongue. Joe smothered a groan along with the thought that maybe he really was losing his mind.
"Well," he said briskly, "I'll go get dressed. You take a look at the kitchen. And then we'll get your luggage and I'll show you to your rooms."
"Fine." She waited, smiled pleasantly, then cocked her head. "Where is it? The kitchen, I mean?"
"Ah." Joe nodded. "Just down the hall, to your right."
"Thank you, Mr. Romano."
"Joe," Joe said, and smiled.
"Joe. Well, then. I'll just put these things away.. "
She flashed him a polite smile. He smiled back. Her sensible heels whispered against the tile floor as she hurried down the hall.
Joe watched her go. The bags she held bulged in all directions. He could hear the faint clink of glass and metal with each step she took. She had to have enough gadgets and gizmos with her to open a small ...
His eyes narrowed.
She was wearing a skirt and blouse, and those sensible shoes. All in all, she looked about as stylish as his sixth-grade teacher. Still, there was something unusual about her.
Each time she put one foot ahead of the other, her hips swayed, ever so slightly, beneath that skirt.
He stared, transfixed. Left, right. Left, right. It was ladylike.
Ladylike in extremis, he thought with a little smile. But the view was pleasant. She had a nice walk. A nice pair of hips. Small, but nice. A nice bottom, too, and he had to admit, he was a man who admired bottoms. She had good legs, too. Long. At least, he figured them for long. It was hard to tell, because the skirt dipped below her knees.
Were her legs as long as Blondie's? Were they as silken and elegant? It was a stupid thought, but harmless, wasn't it? To wonder how his new lady chef would look dressed in Blondie's spangles and thong ...
Joe blinked.
What was the matter with him this morning? His new chef was a bow-wow from any angle but this one. She was also a woman who liked other women and, old-fashioned as it might be, If there was one thing he couldn't understand, it was that scene.
Left, right. Swing, sway .. Joe frowned.
Time for another shower, he thought, and headed back up the stairs at a trot.
CHAPTER FOUR
LUCINDA stood in the center of Joe Romano's kitchen, blew a strand of hair back from her forehead, and wondered how she could have gotten herself into such a mess.
She was in trouble.
Real trouble. Up-the-river-without-a-paddle trouble. Every cliché-she-could-think-of trouble, and there was no way out.
She didn't like Joseph Romano or his kitchen. And yet, dammmit, she was stuck with both of them.
Well, no. Carefully, Lucinda placed the shopping bags on top of a granite counter. She had nothing against the kitchen. Who would? The refrigerator was big enough to house a family of polar bears. The pot rack bristled with what looked like a fortune in copper and stainless steel. You could have roasted a moose in the double wall ovens, if moose was to your taste.
Who could dislike such largesse, especially if that person were a cook?
And that, Lucinda admitted with a sigh, that, was the problem. She wasn't a cook, despite the certificate that marked her as a graduate of the San Francisco School of Culinary Arts. She was an imposter, trained by a pompous little man who why not admit it?-owned a bogus school. She'd sensed it, almost from the beginning, but the price of the course had been more than a match for her level of desperation.
Half a dozen bentwood stools fronted a long length of granite counter. Lucinda pulled one out, eased up onto it, put her elbows on the counter and rubbed her hands over her face.
She was trapped. Trapped in an advertisement from Better Homes and Gardens, with a man she'd disliked on sight.
Joe Romano's grandmother had lovingly described him as her darling, but grandma's "darling" was an arrogant, self-centered, gorgeous hunk of masculinity. Well, maybe that was the wrong word to use, Lucinda thought uneasily, although he certainly struck her as masculine.
Whatever. That was his business. Her business involved cooking for him.
Lucinda groaned, folded her arms and laid her head down. Who was she kidding? She couldn't cook, not really, and Romano would figure that out for himself soon enough. How she'd thought she'd get away with this charade was beyond her.
No. No, it wasn't. She sat up straight and stroked back the strands of hair that had pulled loose from the knot at the nape of her neck.
She'd thought she could do it because cooking for a gay man would ease her into things. Gay guys were easygoing. They were non-threatening. They weren't demanding.
Joe Romano didn't fit the bill.
For all his smiles, she sensed he was about as easygoing, as non-threatening, as undemanding as a stick of dynamite.
What would it be like, to work for him if he were straight? "Are you crazy, Lucinda?" she said, and sat up.
Who cared? The man's sexual preferences were of no interest to her. Let him do what he wanted, with whom he wanted. What if he had been straight? Women made so much fuss about sex and, really, what was the point? The whole thing was overrated. She'd always known it, in her heart, even before her mother had dropped those not terribly discreet hints about What Men Wanted From Women.
Sex, was what they wanted. It was the nature of the beast.
Men needed sex, like the boor last night. He might even have seen himself as some sort of Don Juan.
Well, she'd shown him how she felt about that.
Her arm still ached from the blow, but it had been worth it to see the way the bastard's head snapped back, the way he'd looked at her, as if he couldn't imagine a woman rebuffing his advances.
Some probably wouldn't.
Her vision might have been blurry but all her other senses worked just fine. When he'd caught her in his arms, she'd felt the heat of his body. The power of all those very masculine muscles. The hardness of his mouth, and then the softening of it as he fitted his lips to hers. The feel of his hand, threading into her hair ...
Lucinda shot to her feet and began unloading kitchen equipment from the bags.