“Really?” he asked, and he was right behind her. “If you’re poor—”
“I am not poor. I just have very little money. You, Mr. Taggert, are very poor. You think everyone has a price tag.”
“They do, and so do you. So do I, for that matter.”
“If you think that, you must be a very lonely man.”
“I’ve never had enough time alone to consider what loneliness is. Now, what can I offer you to make you cook for me?”
“Is that what you want? My pot roast?” At this thought there came a little spring to her step. Maybe she did have something to offer. And maybe she wouldn’t have to spend the night running down a mountain being chased by a bear.
“Five hundred dollars a week,” he said.
“Ha!”
“A thousand?”
“Ha. Ha. Ha,” she said with great sarcasm.
“What then? What do you want most in the world?”
“The finest education the world has to offer for my son.”
“Cambridge,” he said automatically.
“Anywhere, just so it’s the best.”
“You want me to give your son four years at Cambridge University for one week’s cooking? You’re talking thousands.”
“Not four years. Freshman to PhD.”
At that Frank laughed. “You, lady, are crazy,” he said, turning away from her.
She stopped walking and turned to look at his back. “I saw wild strawberries up here. I make French crepes so light you can read through them. And I brought fresh cream to be whipped and drenched in strawberries, then rolled in a crepe. I make a rabbit stew that takes all day long to cook. It’s flavored with wild sage. I saw some ducks on a pond near here, and you would not believe what I can do with a duck and tea leaves.”
Frank had stopped walking.
“But then you’re not interested, are you, Mr. Billionaire? I bet you could toast hundred-dollar bills on a stick over the fire and they would no doubt taste yummy.”
He turned back to her. “Potatoes?”
“Tiny ones buried under the fire coals all day so they’re soft and mushy, then drizzled with butter and parsley.”
He took a step toward her. When he spoke, his voice was low. “I saw bags of flour.”
“I make biscuits flavored with honey for breakfast and bread touched with dill for dinner.”
He took another step toward her. “PhD?”
“Yes,” she said firmly, thinking of Eli in that venerable school and how much he’d love it. “PhD.”
“All right,” he said, as though it were the most difficult thing he’d ever agreed to.
“I want it in writing.”
“Yes, of course. Now, shall we return to the cabin?”
“Certainly.” With her head held high, she started to walk past him, but he pulled aside a curtain of bushes. “Might I suggest that this way would be quicker?”