A Little Magic(41)

He walked to the peg, tugged down his slicker. “I need to work,” he said, and went out into the rain.

It would be more than she’d had, she realized, and knew that if necessary, she could make it enough.



THE storm was only a grumble when he came back. Evening was falling, soft and misty. The first thing he noticed when he stepped inside, was the scent. Something hot and rich that reminded his stomach it was empty.

Then he noticed the little changes in the living room. Just a few subtle touches: a table shifted, cushions smoothed. He wouldn’t have noticed the dust, but he noticed the absence of it, and the faint tang of polish.

She’d kept the fire going, and the light, mixed with that of the candles she’d found and set about, was welcoming. She’d put music on as well and was humming along to it as she worked in the kitchen.

Even as he hung up his slicker, the tension he’d carried through his work simply slid off his shoulders.

“I made some soup,” she called out. “I hunted up some herbs from the kitchen bed, foraged around in here. You didn’t have a lot to work with, so it’s pretty basic.”

“It smells fine. I’m grateful.”

“Well, we have to eat, don’t we?”

“You wouldn’t say that so easy if I’d been the one doing the cooking.” She’d already set the table, making the mismatched plates and bowls look cheerful and clever instead of careless. There were candles there, too, and one of the bottles of wine he’d brought from Dublin stood breathing on the counter.

She was making biscuits.

“Allena, you needn’t have gone to such trouble.”

“Oh, I like puttering around. Cooking’s kind of a hobby.” She poured him wine. “Actually, I took lessons. I took a lot of lessons. This time I thought maybe I’d be a chef or open my own restaurant.”

“And?”

“There’s a lot more to running a restaurant than cooking. I’m horrible at business. As for the chef idea, I realized you had to cook pretty much the same things night after night, and on demand, to suit the menu, you know? So, it turned into one of my many hobbies.” She slipped the biscuits into the oven. “But at least this one has a practical purpose. So.” She dusted her hands on the dishcloth she’d tucked into her waistband. “I hope you’re hungry.”

He flashed a grin that made her heart leap. “I’m next to starving.”

“Good.” She set out the dish of cheese and olives she’d put together. “Then you won’t be critical.”

Where he would have ladled the soup straight from the kettle, she poured it into a thick white bowl. Already she’d hunted out the glass dish his mother had used for butter and that he hadn’t seen for years. The biscuits went in a basket lined with a cloth of blue and white checks. When she started to serve the soup, he laid a hand over hers.

“I’ll do it. Sit.”

The scents alone were enough to make him weep in gratitude. The first taste of herbed broth thick with hunks of vegetables made him close his eyes in pleasure.

When he opened them again, she was watching him with amused delight. “I like your hobby,” he told her. “I hope you’ll feel free to indulge yourself with it as long as you’re here.”

She selected a biscuit, studied it. It was so gratifying to see him smile. “That’s very generous of you.”

“I’ve been living on my own poor skills for some months now.” His eyes met hers, held. “You make me realize what I’ve missed. I’m a moody man, Allena.”

“Really?” Her voice was so mild the insult nearly slipped by him. But he was quick.

He laughed, shook his head, and spooned up more soup. “It won’t be a quiet couple of days, I’m thinking.”





5




HE slept in his studio. It seemed the wisest course.

He wanted her, and that was a problem. He had no doubt she would have shared the bed with him, shared herself with him. As much as he would have preferred that to the chilly and narrow cot crammed into his work space, it didn’t seem fair to take advantage of her romantic notions.

She fancied herself in love with him.

It was baffling, really, to think that a woman could make such a decision, state it right out, in a fingersnap of time. But then, Allena Kennedy wasn’t like any of the other women who’d passed in and out of his life. A complicated package, she was, he thought. It would have been easy to dismiss her as a simple, almost foolish sort. At a first and casual glance.

But Conal wasn’t one for casual glances. There were layers to her—thoughtful, bubbling, passionate, and compassionate layers. Odd, wasn’t it? he mused, that she didn’t seem to recognize them in herself.