The Angel Wore Fangs(18)

Her shoulders slumped at his flippant words, and she glanced quickly out the windows, just now realizing that they were airborne. Her cheeks bloomed with embarrassment. She had to think he’d only kissed her to distract her from airlift jitters. Which he had. At the beginning.

The flight attendant took their drink orders—a light beer for him and cranberry juice for Andrea. “Are you sure you don’t want a glass of wine?” he suggested. Anything to relax her.

She made a face of distaste. “The wine they serve on airlines might as well come in screw-top bottles.”

“A wine snob?”

She seemed surprised at his question, but then shrugged. “Probably. I lived in France for a while when attending cooking school. The French claim to make the absolute best wines in the world. Even the working class there appreciates a good vintage. I’m not sure that’s true anymore, about French wines being superior. There’s so much competition today, including American vintages.”

“The Franks always did consider themselves superior beings. No surprise then that they self-proclaim themselves the kings of grape. Personally, I am more a beer guy. All Vikings are, having been practically weaned on the sweet mead of our culture.”

She blinked several times at his seemingly irrelevant comment. “Okay, yes, I am a wine snob,” she conceded, “but I feel the same way about food, in general. Garbage in, garbage out. Quality ingredients, quality product.”

He put up his hands in mock surrender. He’d meant to distract her, not get a lecture.

She caught the frown on his face and apologized. “I get carried away on the subject. It’s a sore point with me. We’re a nation of processed food addicts. Quick and cheap wins over fresh and homemade every time.”

“I don’t disagree with you. I love good food.” All food, actually, but his taste buds had become more refined over the years.

No surprise then that when the attendant came to take their order for lunch, beef Wellington or chicken Cordon Bleu, Andrea declined both and said she’d packed her own meal. He sat eating the red meat encased in a flaky crust with small potatoes, and it wasn’t half bad, but he had to admit the sandwich she’d pulled from a soft-sided freezer bag under her seat looked more tempting. Noticing his stare, she pulled out a second plastic-wrapped sandwich and handed it to him. It was delicious, and he moaned his appreciation. Chicken salad on a crisp croissant, but not just chicken and the dressing; there were other crunchy things in it besides the usual celery and onion. Grapes, walnuts, and apples. And covering it all was some kind of sweet-sour relish, a combination of cranberries and oranges, maybe. The lettuce on top was coarse-chopped and bitter, but not unpleasantly so. Arugula, he guessed, from his TV food show gleanings.

She also handed him several clear bags, one with slices of hard yellow cheese, seeded crackers, and thin slivers of crisp apples. In addition, there were tiny, easy-to-peel oranges; crunchy red grapes; yogurt with pomegranates; and apricot-filled nut rolls.

A gourmet meal, he recognized, even in its simplicity. And he ate every sumptuous bit of it.

Was that a sign of his continuing gluttony, or just an indication of his refined taste buds? He knew which one Mike would choose.

“How do you stay so slim? Eating this kind of fare every day? All day, I assume, since you must taste what you make.”

“Genes.”

“I would gorge myself on this kind of food and blow up like a grotesque balloon.”

“Oh, I doubt that. I’m sure you get enough exercise to burn up the calories.” She sized him up in a way that made him glad he was half his former size.

“I once weighed more than four hundred pounds,” he blurted out, though he had never actually weighed himself back then, of course, nor would the term pound have been used as a measurement. It was a guesstimate. He could have said, I once weighed as much as a small longboat. Or, I once weighed as much as a large, wild boar. That would have just raised questions he was not prepared to answer, like how much exposure had he had to longboats, and how did he know anything about wild boars?

But where his sudden disclosure had come from, he had no idea. He never discussed his past life of gluttony. The only ones who knew of his shameful former self were his brothers, who loved to needle him on occasion. Usually, he ignored their jests. Betimes, he gave them a bloody nose or blackened eye, if they persisted too long.

“Really? Well, you are tall.”

“Not that tall. Six foot four.”

“You were obese?”

“Fat.”

She gazed at him in disbelief, giving him another of those full-body surveys that warmed him in places that should not be warm in a public setting.