More Than This: Contemporary Christian Romance Novel (20 page)

His gaze slid down her and then back up to her eyes. “Not in my books.”

Nerves attacked her. He really didn’t have to look so good, did he? It did strange things to her heart and her ability to think straight, and trying to pretend it didn’t was going to give her an aneurysm.

“You ready?” he asked, never really moving from the spot.

“Oh, y-yeah. Let me grab my coat and my purse.”

Jake waited right there for her, really liking the visual. How she could look that perfect in simple jeans and the oversized sweater was beyond him. When she caught him watching her, he let his gaze drop before it found her again. It wasn’t his fault. It was the only place it wanted to be.

Coming back to the door, she sighed. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

They walked out and down the sidewalk. The closest grocery was down to the corner and then six long blocks away. What they were going to do with the groceries once they bought them was a mystery to him, but he didn’t have the brain cells to worry about that too, so he didn’t. “So I guess classes are about out for the semester?”

Liz nodded, the little knit hat she had added last bobbing with the movement. “Finals start the 8
th
.”

“And then?”

“Then?” she asked, glancing up at him. Man, she was cute when she did that.

So many questions he wanted to ask, but he beat most of them back. “Are you going back home for Christmas?”

She shrugged. “Probably. That weekend anyway. But I’ll probably stay here, work, maybe do the LC thing if it’s open over the break.”

“Have you decided classes for next semester?”

“I have a meeting with my counselor next week. I really have to make some decisions, see what my options are, that kind of thing. I mean, Mrs. McLaughlin talked about research. I don’t think you have to major in that, but I don’t really know. It’s all kind of up in the air right now.” Her gaze swung to him again. “How about you? You going home for the holidays?”

The question sounded so very simple. It was hard to fathom what slamming into that wall did to his heart. “Uh. No.”

She snuck another look at him. He felt it. “Where is home anyway?”

His hands dug further into the pockets of his coat. “Oh. Here. In New York.”

“Ah.” She lifted her chin as he opened the grocery store door and let her go in first.

The atmosphere on the other side was charged with frantic. With an arched eyebrow, Jake looked at the single, unused cart sitting forlornly in the corner and then to the lines at the checkout snaking this way and that. “Wow. Looks like we’re not the only ones who waited until the last minute.”

“No kidding.” Liz grabbed the cart, and they headed down an aisle, dodging the myriad of other shoppers. “Were you serious about the turkey? You don’t want ham or a steak?”

“For Thanksgiving?” Jake pulled a box of stuffing mix from the shelf and threw it into the cart.

“Just a thought.” She shrugged and kept pushing. All around the store they went, collecting cans of vegetables and one of cranberry sauce. He added a can of pumpkin really liking how nice it was to be together shopping. Strange how different it was.

“For the pie,” he said when she looked at him like he’d lost his mind.

“You bake too?”

He shrugged. “How hard can it be?”

She shook her head and kept pushing. They made it to the freezer with the turkeys in the back. The only frozen birds left were easily 15 pounds. “Good night!  These things are huge.”

Jake couldn’t disagree. He exhaled at the problem. “We’ll be eating turkey ‘til next Thanksgiving if we get this much.” He put his hand on his hip, trying to decide what to do. Pulling one of the birds up, he looked underneath to see if possibly there were other, better options.

As he dug, she pushed the cart away. “Hey, what about these?” She went over and held up a small bag that resembled a turkey but was only about half the size of even a small one. “It’s turkey parts, I think.” Carefully, she went to work reading the instructions. “Yeah. This is better, don’t you think?” She held it up for his inspection.

Something about the trusting look on her face dug into Jake’s heart and took up camp there. “Perfect.”

Laden with groceries in bags, they made it back to her apartment and inside. Once in the kitchen, Jake did a quick radar of the apartment. Empty as usual. “So do you not have a roommate anymore? What’s the deal with her anyway?” He went to work unloading the bags, putting things away as if he owned the place.

“She went home for Thanksgiving, but before that, she met this guy in Chemistry of all things. I haven’t seen much of her since.”

That was good news. He put the turkey and yams in the refrigerator. “Bummer.”

“It’s not so bad. I kind of like the quiet.”

“Huh.” Going back, he stacked the cans on the cabinet, not sure if it made sense to put it all away. They would just be getting it all back out tomorrow.

“What does that mean?”

He looked over at her, not really aware he’d meant anything by it. “Oh, you know, just that the quiet can get to you sometimes. I hate being alone.” It was then that he picked up on the fact that she was surveying him as if she could dig into his head and dissect him. “What?”

Her gaze fell into even more seriousness. “You hate being alone, and yet, I have yet to meet even one friend. You want this whole traditional Thanksgiving thing, but you’re not going home for Thanksgiving. You don’t like the quiet, but it took forever for me to get you to say two words.” She shook her head. “You’re such a dichotomy Jake McCoy.”

“Can’t figure me out, huh?”

She stood there, leaning against the counter, still trying to drill into him. “No. I can’t.”

He smiled a soft smirk, and then his gaze dropped from hers.

“What was that look for?”

Shaking his head, he leaned against the other counter, all of the groceries either away or ready. “It’s just weird, that’s all.” He crossed his feet and his arms, taking in the feel of simply being with her.

“What’s that?”

His gaze came up to hers. “You. Me. This. When did this happen anyway?”

“Good question. I’ve been asking myself that for a while now. I mean, I was just serving my little coffee, minding my own business, and all of a sudden, there’s this handsome, mysterious guy who won’t leave me alone.”

“Won’t leave you alone?” He raised an eyebrow. “Did you want to be left alone?” And there was soft worry in his deep ocean-like eyes.

She let out a long, slow breath. “I thought I did.”

He didn’t want to ask, but he needed to know. “And now?”

A sad, languid smile drifted to her lips. “Now?” Her shrug almost wasn’t. “I’m kind of liking this.”

Happiness split through him, and he smiled all the way to his toes. “Me, too.” Drawn to her in a way that scared him, he heaved a sigh and clapped his hands. “Okay. I think we need to do that pie tonight.”

That made her move. “Tonight? Now?”

“Well,” he said, turning back for the counter as feelings and desires threatened to overcome his good sense, “Mom always did her pies the night before. That way the oven was free on Thursday for the turkey.”

Somehow Liz hadn’t thought of that. Probably because she’d never actually made turkey or pumpkin pie.

He picked up the can. “Here.” Handing it over to her, he made himself busy. “Read it.”

“Oh. Okay.” She started at the top with the part about the crust. “Have you ever made crust?” Worry encapsulated the question.

“Once.” Jake worked through the memory. “I don’t think it’s too hard.” He picked up the flour from the counter. “Do you have a big mixing bowl or something?”

Together, him directing and her reading when necessary, they dug into the task. The crust quickly became more of a problem than he had anticipated, however. In no time they had a blob of dough, but it was crumbly and wouldn’t stick together at all.

Liz looked at it skeptically. “I don’t know a lot about crust, but that doesn’t look right.”

He had to agree considering it was falling apart in his hands. “I think we need more water.”

“More water, coming up.” She got a cup and was back beside him in seconds.

“Just dump some on.”

“Okay.” With that she dumped half of it before he had the chance to stop her.

“Oh! Whoa! Hold up there, Water-girl!”

“Oops. Too much?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He dug into the dough, working the water through it. In no time it was squishy and back to not sticking. “Well, hmm.” Putting his hand to his forehead, he rubbed it with the back of his wrist. “I think we’re going to need more flour now.”

“I told you we should get a recipe for this from the ‘net.”

He kept working his fingers through the mixture. “Just get the flour.”

“Yes, sir.” She saluted him and got out the flour. Tipping it up, she angled it at the now soupy dough. “Tell me when.” She dumped a very tiny amount.

“More,” he said. Timidly she added more. “A little more.”

More landed in the center of his masterpiece complete with a lovely little cloud of the stuff that did a great job of covering him. “That’s enough.”

Liz pulled the bag up and looked inside. “We don’t have much left.”

“Then this had better work.” He kneaded and kneaded, pushing into the dough until his hands were covered with dough well beyond his wrists. “Okay. This is better. I need just a little bit of sugar.”

“Sugar.” She went to work searching for it and came back with a little jar. “How much?”

“Teaspoon.”

“Teaspoon.” She went back to search for that. “Okay. Got it.” Digging out some sugar, she held it over his workstation. “Now?”

“Yeah.” He reached up to scratch his temple with his forearm and then went back to work. “Do you have a rolling pin?” Okay, he should have thought to ask that before they’d made it this far.

“A rolling pin?” She looked around the kitchen but didn’t move. “Uh, no. I don’t think so.”

“Well, we’re going to have to get this flat. What do you have?”

A moment of thought and she went over to the little drawer and started pulling stuff out. “Can opener. Spatula.” Holding that up, she looked at him expectantly.

“No.”

“Um. How about a serving spoon?”

“That all you got?”

“Pretty much.”

“Then I guess it’s going to have to work. Bring it here.” He worked the dough onto the cabinet and got it as flat as he could with his hands. “Okay. Spoon time.” He took it from her, looked at the project, and shook his head. “Here goes nothing.”

With a nice whack, the dough spread just slightly. This was going to take forever. He whacked again and again.

“Nice technique,” Liz half-yelled to him.

“Thanks.” A whack and another.

“I want to try.”

He turned surprised eyes on her. “Go for it.”

She took the spoon from him and stepped between him and the cabinet. Yes, this was much better. She took three hard whacks at the large semi-circular ameba that was flattening out. “Hey, this is fun.”

“I can tell you’re enjoying it,” he said, leaning back against the cabinet and enjoying watching her.

“You can really get some frustration out like this.” She pounded several times as if beating her worst enemy. “Take that!”  Whack. “And that!”  Whack. Whack.

“Hey, you’re pretty good at this.”

“Who knew, right?”

“Never would have guessed.”

Liz was kind of sad to see that the crust was flat enough. She really liked having him stand right there watching as she beat the thing into submission. When she finished, she stepped back, realizing the crust was hardly shaped like crust. It snaked across the cabinet in an amorphous, chaotic form. “Lovely. Now what?”

“We finish the filling and bake it.”

“Cool.” She grabbed the pumpkin can and started reading. This cooking thing was the best idea anyone had ever come up with.

Thirty minutes later, the crust was in the pie pan. Well, most of it was anyway. The rest was on a cookie sheet doing an experiment a la Jake. Butter, sugar, and a little cinnamon mixed with pie smells filled the whole place.

With the oven set to ding in ten minutes, they went to the living room. On the couch Liz took one side, he took the other as she clicked on the little lamp.

“So, how’s writing going?” she asked, curling up on her side with one knee and a mug of hot apple cider.

He shrugged. “Don’t know. I’ve been a little busy making pie.”

She smiled despite the understanding he was trying to throw her off. “Have you worked anymore on that one?”

“Which one?”

“Either one.”

He let out a long sigh as his gaze fell into the semi-darkness between them. “Some. I guess. A little. It’s just…” He shook his head as his repentant gaze came up to hers. “It’s so clear in my head, you know? And then I start trying to put it on paper, and it gets so hard to make everything line up right.”