"Then let's brew a whole pot," he said with a boyish grin that reminded Arabella of a younger Grady.
"I need my beauty rest." Arabella laughed, and although there were still unanswered questions between them, she didn't want to break the spell, so she sat down on a stool. "I didn't know you were so handy in the kitchen."
Grady shrugged. "I'm getting better. I still only really excel at breakfast and grilling. Oliver sucks at cooking, although he tries. Jesse is hopeless, but Jimmy, being the artsy one, is an excellent cook."
"Well, to your credit, I think breakfast is one of the hardest meals to pull off. All the cooking, flipping, toasting in a very narrow time frame. One small mishap and the bacon is burnt to a crisp or the eggs too runny."
"Sounds like you know from experience."
"I learned a lot from Granny York. She loved to cook, and I would sit on top of the kitchen table watching her flit around the small kitchen, adding a shake of this or a pinch of that. She cooked more according to taste than from recipes. Oh, but those butter cookies . . . The aroma would fill the house. I adore the smell of vanilla to this day. Calms me down."
"She was a sweet lady. I'm glad I got the chance to meet her. So, you know your way around the kitchen, huh?"
"I do. I just never had anyone to cook for," she said, and realized she'd just let him know how very little she'd dated over the years they were apart.
"Well, now you have me," he said, and held her gaze.
Arabella nodded, wondering if he thought that this day would heal the wounds they'd recently opened. She took a sip of cold orange juice, licking the pulp from her bottom lip.
///
"And you can cook for me too, whenever you please," Grady said with a smile. "Or even better, we could prepare meals together."
Arabella broke the gaze and he turned back to cooking. How could she ever give up . . . this? Was she making loving Grady more complicated than it needed to be? Would this be one concert as promised, or would it turn into what she feared the most?
When Grady put a plate of crispy bacon, fluffy scrambled eggs, and hot biscuits dripping with butter in front of her, she had to smile. He'd even put a couple of decorative orange slices on the plate, and for some reason she felt a hot wave of emotion and had to blink back tears. Luckily, he was busy fixing his own food and failed to notice her sudden distress. But then he turned around.
"Are you okay?" He tilted his head in question.
"Sure." Arabella nodded a bit too hard and reached for the strawberry jam, her favorite. "I guess I'm not used to being pampered. Fussed over."
"Get used to it," he said softly.
"This looks delicious. Of course, breakfast for dinner means dinner for breakfast, right?" she joked, but her voice sounded breathless.
"As long as you're here, eating it with me, I don't care when or what we consume or how we consume it. Chopsticks, toothpicks, fingers," he said, and picked up a slice of bacon.
Arabella smiled but then lowered her gaze so he couldn't see the longing lingering in her eyes.
"Please tell me you'll stay for the concert. That way you'll know it's just one performance."
"Grady, I don't want to hold you or your brothers back from something you want to do. That wouldn't be fair."
"Again, you're thinking about something that's not going to happen. That's not fair either."
"You're right." Arabella nodded slowly.
He looked at her with such hope. "And my brothers want you here. Come on . . ." he said, and nailed it with that killer smile she couldn't resist.
"Okay . . . I'll stay."
The relief on his face went straight to her heart. He reached over and took her hand. "Thank you. Everything will fall together after we get past the concert. You'll see."
Arabella squeezed his hand and then spread jam on her hot, buttered biscuit. "Mmm, I can't believe you made these."
"From a can," he admitted. "I still get a kick out of doing the popping part."
Arabella laughed. "Oh my gosh, takes me back to childhood."
"Yeah, we'd fight over it," he said with a rather forlorn smile, and it hit Arabella again how heartbreaking it was that the brothers had lost both parents. "Mom would usually give in to Oliver, the baby."
"I'm so glad that you've all remained close. Some families just can't get along and it's so sad."
Grady nodded. "Yeah, and I'm lucky that we're not only close but that we can also have fun together. We might butt heads occasionally, but we'll always have one another's backs."