Fresh Disasters (Stone Barrington 13)

Stone was tidying up the kitchen when the doorbell rang. He picked up a phone. “Yes?”

“It’s Celia.”

Stone pressed the button that unlocked the front door. “Straight through the house and down the back stairs,” he said.

“I’m on my way.”

Stone made a quick check of the kitchen bar, which held a collection of liquor bottles, the ice bucket and a wine dispenser with two bottles of chilled white and two of red. He went to the stairway to meet her.

She came down the stairs in a fur coat, carrying two large grocery bags. He took them from her, set them on the kitchen counter, helped her off with her coat and hung it on a peg. She accepted a hello kiss.

“I’m sorry I didn’t meet you at the door, but it would have taken me twice as long before I could offer you a drink.”

“Do you have any champagne?” she asked.

“A rhetorical question,” he said, going to the fridge and removing a chilly bottle of Veuve Cliquot Grande Dame and working on the cork. “Can you grab a couple of flutes from over there?” he asked, nodding toward the china and crystal cabinet.

She was able to reach the top shelf with no difficulty and brought back the flutes.

Stone filled them, then filled them again when the bubbles had subsided. They raised their glasses and drank.

“That’s lovely,” she said. “I like it even better than Dom Perignon.”

“So do I,” Stone said. “Why didn’t you have the groceries delivered? I hate to think of you humping those bags around.”

“One bag was delivered; it was sitting on your doorstep, waiting for some homeless person to make his day. The other bag contains some of my preparations.” She set down her drink and began unpacking a sealed Tupperware container.

“And what is that?” he asked, peering through the cloudy plastic.

“That is boned chicken thighs, marinating in port as they have been for twenty-four hours.”

“I can’t wait,” he said.

“It’ll be on the table in forty minutes,” she said. “Starting from when we finish this glass of champagne.”

“I take it we should drink a red?”

“A full-bodied red, preferably a cabernet.”

“I have just the thing,” Stone said, going to the bar and bringing back a bottle. “I brought it up from the cellar in anticipation of your request.”

She peered at the label. “Phelps Insignia ’94; that should do nicely.”

“Can I help you do anything?”

She downed the rest of her champagne. “You can best help by keeping my glass full and otherwise staying out of my way.”

Stone refilled their glasses and sat down on a bar stool. “Proceed,” he said, retrieving a decanter for the wine.

And she did.

Forty minutes later they were dining on something she called poulet au porto, chicken in port with sliced green apples, saffron rice and haricot verts.

“God, this is good!” Stone enthused. “I can’t remember when anyone cooked for me, and I can’t remember ever eating anything as wonderful as this.”

“You say all the right things,” she replied. “You keep doing that.”

“I intend to.”