The home locator told her Roarke was on the rear patio, off the kitchen. She couldn’t figure out why he’d be out in the nasty air when the house was blissfully fresh and cool, and provided a room for any possible activity.
But she walked the long stretch of it, and out the kitchen to find him. Then simply stood, struck speechless.
“Ah, good, you’re here. We can get started.”
He was wearing jeans—not his usual around-the-house attire—and a white T-shirt. He was barefoot, and a little sweaty, which appealed to her. The fact was, he would have appealed to her, or any woman, regardless of his attire, or the fact that he was standing on a sun-baked patio on a September evening where the air quality index had simply waved the white flag and surrendered the field.
But at the moment, she was more interested in the enormous, shiny silver contraption beside him.
“What is that thing?”
“It’s an outdoor cooking system.”
Warily, relieved she was still wearing her weapon just in case, she approached. “Like a barbecue deal?”
“That, and more.” He stroked one of his beautiful hands over the lid, as a man might stroke a woman who bewitched him. “Gorgeous, isn’t she? Just arrived an hour ago.”
It was massive, and the glare of the sun off its surface nearly blinding. There was, she noted, more than one lid as it had extensions on either side, and some doored compartment beneath the main unit.
There were countless buttons, controls, dials. She wet her lips. “Um. It doesn’t look exactly like the one the Miras used.”
“Newer model.” He opened the main lid and revealed another gleaming surface, this one full of shiny bars, with a bunch of silver cubes beneath, and a side surface of solid metal. “No reason not to have the latest.”
“It’s really big. You could almost live in it.”
“After a couple of practice runs, I thought we might have a barbecue of our own. In a few weekends perhaps.”
“By practice run, I don’t guess you mean you’re going to drive it somewhere.” She gave one of its big, sturdy wheels a quick, testing kick.
“Totally under control.” He crouched, opened one of the doors. “Refrigerator unit. We’ve got steaks, potatoes, some vegetables we’ll put on these skewers.”
“We will?”
“It’s just a matter of shoving them on.” He assumed. “And a bottle of champagne, to christen it. Though I thought we’d drink it rather than whack the unit with the bottle.”
“I can get behind that part. Have you ever cooked a steak?”
He sent her a mild look as he opened the champagne. “I read the tutorial and I watched how it was done at the Miras. It’s hardly rocket science, Eve. Meat, heat.”
“Okay.” She took the glass he’d poured for her. “What happens first?”
“I turn it on, then according to the timetable in the tutorial, the potatoes would go first. They take the longest. While they’re cooking, we’ll sit in the shade.”
The idea of him turning on the monster unit had her taking a cautious step back. “Yeah, well, I’ll just get started on the sitting in the shade part.” Several buffering feet away.
Still, she loved him, so she prepared to leap to his defense if the machine got testy. She watched Roarke arrange two potatoes on some of the smaller sections of grill, fiddle with controls.
Whatever he did had a red light, like a single, unfriendly eye, beam on. Apparently this pleased him, as he closed the lid, patted it, then pulled a little tray of crackers and cheese out of the lower compartment.
He looked pretty cute, she had to admit, carrying the tray, crossing the sunny patio in his bare feet, with his hair tied back as he often did for serious work.
She grinned at him, popped a cube of cheese in her mouth. “You put all this together.”
“I did. Very gratifying, too.” He stretched out his legs, sipped champagne. “I don’t know why I haven’t fiddled about in the kitchen before this.”
The umbrella over the table broke the blast of the sun, and the champagne was ice cold. Not, she decided, such a bad deal after a long day. “So, how do you know when the potatoes are done?”
“There’s a timer. It also suggested we might want to jab them with a fork.”