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She beamed at me. “I know. It’s free
range.”

I examined the paper wrappings. “Not
anymore.”

She laughed and peered over my shoulder into
the truck. “Where’s Max?”

“A friend’s bringing him by in the
morning.”

“You lend your dog to your friends?”

“When they need something rescued or sniffed
out, I do.”

She smiled at that. “Wow. Good dog.”

“Yeah, good dog.”

We got done grinning at each other and she
dumped the chicken into my arms and turned to the house.

“I was going to order a pizza,” I said,
balancing the chicken a bit awkwardly.

“Oh, no, no, no. Not tonight.” She started
to reach for one of the grocery bags that sat piled three deep on
my small porch.

I pulled her back to me by her elbow, up
against my stomach, the chicken between us. I lowered my mouth to
hers. “Did you miss me?”

She breathed against my lips. “Yes.”

“Did you think about me?”

“All day. I mean, no, not much at all.”

I laughed and she hopped up into the air and
hooked one of her sandaled heels around the small of my back. I
grunted and caught her with my free arm. The chicken was getting
squashed between us.

“Girl, it’s you or the chicken. I can’t do
both.”

“Well, you don’t want to miss out on my
chicken.” She kissed me, then dropped to the ground.

We carried about four hundred grocery bags
inside and a bag of her items that she’d picked up from her hotel.
I directed her to the important things—fridge, cabinets, all of
which she could have found on her own. Then, seeing as I was of no
help at all, I relaxed while she began preparations for the
invasion.

I sat on one of the stools at the kitchen
counter, a beer in hand, and watched the performance. She was like
some kind of demon. The fast-moving, dangerous kind. The
spread-flour-everywhere kind. She was magnificent and competent and
terrifying. She needed a chef’s hat. I had no idea how it was going
to taste, of course, but it looked like a lot of effort for a
fucking chicken.

“It’s all in the sauce,” she explained.

“You love this,” I said, gesturing to the
crowded counter of food and bowls and cutting boards.

She looked up. Evening sun slanted through
the windows and made her glow in shades of red and yellow. “Yeah, I
love it.”

Janey looked good in my kitchen.

She made me a drink, handed over something
that had been muddled and blended and well-iced. It was pink.

I sipped it, nodded, and set it down. “Girls
will like it.”

Her face looked smug. “You like it.”

I half shrugged. “It’s good.”

Her face fell. “You don’t like it.”

I went around and kissed the top of her
head. “I love it. It’s fucking icy, and it tastes like an orchard.
I want to have sex in it.”

She slung her arms around my shoulders and
grinned. “Careful with that, it’s prickly pear.”

“Or maybe not the sex.”

She laughed. “I’ll make you something
beer-y. Or whisky-y.”

My gaze drifted over her shoulder to the
counters piled high with prey from her shopping trip, then I
reached around her and picked up an unfamiliar knife off the
countertop. “Yours?”

Her face flushed slightly. “Yes.”

“You travel with knives?”

“I don’t travel with them. I bought it this
afternoon. I didn’t know what you had on hand.”

“A knife? You didn’t think I had a knife
here at the house?”

“It’s not a knife,” she explained loftily.
“It’s a Kyocera. Ceramic. Very nice.”

“Very expensive?”

The guilty flush on her cheeks expanded.
“Well, sort of.”

I turned it over, examining it. “Why’d you
buy it?”

“May I have it back? Before you break
it.”

I handed it over. “It’s a knife, Jane.”

“It’s ceramic.”

I nodded thoughtfully. “You bought a
breakable ceramic knife to cut vegetables for dinner tonight,” I
said, working it through aloud.

She hesitated, then looked down and set to
chopping. “What can I say, I love to cook.”

“That’s good,” I said in a highly skeptical
tone, because that didn’t actually explain anything.

She started whacking away at a stalk of
celery. “It’s a weakness. I see kitchen equipment, I have to get
it.”

“Okay.” I watched her. Her head was bent.
Her face was tense. “We’ve all got weaknesses,” I said slowly. “If
yours is knives, we can deal.” I glanced back at the knife. “I
think.”

She smiled a little and lifted her head. “I
actually have a lot more knives than I need.”

“You probably shouldn’t be telling me
this.”

She laughed, and her body started to
relax.

Because the way I saw it was, if Jane needed
knives or blenders or colanders to be okay, who the fuck cared?
Some people needed meth or liked to open fire on crowds of innocent
people. If Janey wanted kitchen things, it was hard to see how the
world would suffer.

Except for the knives, I thought, my gaze
scanning the way she held the blade in her hand, so competently and
casually. The knives were a little scary.

Maybe we’d talk about the knives
sometime.

~ Jane ~

I FELT FINN’S energy, which was a little grim, but
very accepting, and he kept eyeing the knife. This might have to be
explained a little better.

I took a breath. “It’s not just the knives.
It’s everything,” I said, admission style, my head down, my eyes
focused on the chopping. “I have way more stuff than I could ever
use, even if I was home to cook, which I hardly ever am. But I do
love it,” I added, thinking fondly of all my friendly blenders and
sturdy garlic presses and stainless steel kitchen shears, sitting
in my glistening, barely used apartment. Some people would call it
a home, but I was there so little, it was really more of a storage
unit. For all my pretty kitchen toys.

But something happened when I bought stuff
for the kitchen. I felt…safer.

Probably it was knowing my house was
well-stocked to become a home, should the situation ever arise.

“I should probably stop buying stuff,” I
admitted, glancing around at the mountain of purchases I’d
made.

“You should not.” The grimness in his voice
made me tip my head up. “You absolutely should not stop.” He picked
up a set of measuring spoons, still in their plastic tie. They were
rectangular, with sloping sides, made of stainless steel.

“These are nice,” he said in a friendly
way.

I laughed again and took them away. “You
don’t have to compliment the measuring spoons, Finn.” I set them
down. “Although they are top-notch.”

He sat back, clearly satisfied to have
top-notch measuring spoons in his house. “So what are we having to
eat?”

“Okay, well, that’s a long story.”

The corners of his mouth curved up.
“Figured.” He cracked open another beer.

I started on the other veggies, the knife
moving through them like butter. Yes, the Kyocera was an
extravagant one-trick pony—you couldn’t use it to smash a garlic
clove—but it was a pretty awesome trick. As I worked, I explained
the complicated nature of my chicken to Finn. He mostly looked
tolerant. I ended with the finale, “Wrapped in bacon.”

“That’s my girl.”

“So,” I said, reaching for a brown grocery
bag, “if you want to fire up the grill, I’ll marinate some veggies,
and we can grill them.”

“Sure.”

“Here.” I handed him the bag. “Wash and
prep.”

He took it and peeked inside. “This is
broccoli.”

“Not a fan of broccoli?”

He pursed his lips. “Not usually.”

I went back to chopping. “You’ve never had
my broccoli, Finn. Prepare to be amazed.”

He got up and went to the sink, perfectly
content to have me amaze him.

We had a companionable silence, during which
I chopped and Finn drank, then started the grill. He came back in
and watched me awhile longer.

“Well, I don’t know if I could get you
sweatier,” he finally observed aloud, “but I could make sure you
had more fun. And with some of the same stuff,” he added.

“Who said I’m not having fun?” I asked as a
tendril of sweat trickled down my temple. I brushed it away with
the back of my hand. “I love this.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the
chaos.”

I lifted my head and stared at him. “What do
you mean, ‘with the same stuff’?”

He gestured to the countertop piled with
innocent, healthy vegetables that, after all,
I’d
brought. I
snorted and resumed cutting. “Hardly.”

“Definitely.”

I straightened, the knife in my hand. “You
would use carrots?” I was incredulous. “With
us
?”

“Well, I
could
. If you wanted. Worth
a try.”

“A try— If I
want…?”
I looked at the
vegetables in horror. “Celery? And the…not the
broccoli
.”

He grinned and pointed with his beer.
“You’re scared. That’s okay.”

I stilled. “I am not scared.”

“Mm. You seem it.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I just don’t think
celery seems comfortable.”

He laughed. “I have no affinity with the
celery. I wasn’t even thinking of celery. Pick whatever you
want.”

I slid my gaze up, then looked over my
shoulder with deep suspicion at the pile of foods. Dusty-brown
ginger root, pale green celery, ripe red strawberries. I
sniffed.

“Strawberries. You’re probably thinking
strawberries. How predictable,” I said, my disdain lofty, and went
back to my complicated celery work.

“I’m never predictable, Jane.”

I stared down at the julienned celery. No,
Finn hadn’t been predictable, not for five seconds. Oh, he was
easy-going and laid back, so you could misunderstand him.
Misattribute him. Underestimate him. But Finn was volcanic, and I
was pretty sure it wasn’t just in bed.

And…not strawberries?

I slid my gaze up. “What is it exactly that
you do for a living?”

He laughed, long and loud, beer in hand. He
was back to a five-o’clock shadow, the dark hair making him
handsome and dangerous and highly alluring.

“You probably do more than build pavilions
for rich people. Why don’t I know what you do?” I demanded.

“Because you’ve been too busy having
orgasms. So, you’re scared, that’s fine.”

I laid my fist down firmly on the counter,
knife pointing up. “I am not
scared
.” But I felt a strange
excited shiver, as if he’d said we were going to jump out of an
airplane. “Fine.” I gave the pile of food a swift glance.
“Ginger.”

His grin grew. “Good choice.”

My face fell. “You know something to do with
ginger?”

He nodded.

My knees got weak. “That’s just….” I trailed
off. I was going to say
wrong
. I should have said
wrong
. Or at least
morally bankrupt
. But I was
suddenly, rabidly curious. Worried. Scared.

Excited.

I leaned forward a little and whispered, “Is
that even legal?”

“We won’t tell anyone.” His voice was
teasing. He leaned partway across the counter and said, “What is it
you think we’re going to be doing with the ginger?”

“Using it on my….” I faltered, not up to his
level of audacity. “In me….” I cleared her throat. “My….”

“Pussy?”

“Yes,” I whispered primly. I was cooking a
chicken, for heaven’s sake.

He shook his head slowly. I stopped all
chopping.

“Not my…?”

“Pussy?”

A long, jamming rush of heat, a hammer of
it, pounded my flesh so hard it pulsed.

“I mean, we could,” he allowed, running the
neck of his beer along his chin in a thoughtful way. “That would be
fine with me.”

“But then whe…?” I set down the heel of my
hand on the counter, knife pointing up, and looked at him flatly.
“Do you want this chicken or not?”

His gaze swept the chicken and all the
accoutrements, from my super-slicing ceramic knife to the bright
green, fragrant basil leaves to the wedges of tomatoes, sitting
innocently in their salty red juices. His gaze came back to
mine.

“Of course. I can’t wait,” he said, lying
through his teeth. We both knew it.

I picked up the knife. “Good. It should only
be about an hour.”

If he stifled a groan, I never heard it.
Which turned him from a sexy, dangerous man into a sexy, dangerous,
good
man, and that was a turning point I’d never come back
from.

We talked through the hour that turned into
two, drinking beer (Finn) and water with a hellacious amount of
lemon squeezed in it (me) as the sun set through the windows. I
suspected he missed whatever he was supposed to do that night,
again, and I didn’t care enough to try to fix that thing up, that
error in communication or expectation or agreement, even though
that’s what I did by, trade and inclination and the dug-deep fear
that things would get Out Of Control and perhaps be Broken
Immeasurably.