What's Cooking (11 page)

The roses trembled as her hands started shaking. Perhaps she had strange expectations, but she had always thought a proposal was accompanied by words of love and affection, followed by a hug or a tender touch, even a kiss. It should have been a moment to be remembered fondly for the rest of a person's life. The suit and the flowers seemed so prepared, even calculated, and not very romantic, despite the proposal.

“I can see I've caught you off guard, and I can't blame you. Would you like to think about it for a few days?”

She nearly choked. Obviously, another grand misconception of hers was that the day a man asked her to marry him, she would have been overjoyed, filled with excitement and visions of a happy future together. She should want to scream a big yes and throw herself into his arms.

She didn't know what to say, but one thing she did know. She couldn't marry Hank. Not when she was in love with Mitchell.

As the thought hit home, Carolyn felt the color drain from her face.

“Carolyn, are you okay? You don't look well.”

He was right. She didn't feel very well at all. She was in love but with the wrong man.

But even if she wasn't in love with Mitchell, she couldn't marry Hank. She'd always thought marriage was a fulfillment of love and commitment. If Hank truly loved her, she should have been able to tell by now. She suspected that if men had a biological clock, Hank's was ticking. His proposal had nothing to do with love. She wanted to get married, too, but she wasn't desperate enough to be trapped in a loveless marriage. She would rather live alone.

Carolyn cleared her throat to get her voice to work properly. “I'm sorry, Hank, but I can't marry you. I don't need time to think about it. I like you very much as a friend, but I don't think it would work.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Well. I see. To tell the truth, even though we haven't exactly had a hearts and flowers relationship, I thought we were compatible enough to get married and raise a family. After all, neither of us is getting any younger.”

Carolyn felt sick. Compatible. She wondered if she was supposed to be flattered. The roses, which she had always thought were the flowers of love, felt like a sham in her hands. She didn't love him, nor did he love her. But yet, Hank possessed everything she'd ever wanted in a man. He was mature, carried himself with class and dignity, was a marvelous host, and had a wonderful career as an accountant for a large corporation. He chose his leisure activities with great care—golf for fitness and the theater or gallery for something educational. Often his choices had involved business contacts, which allowed her to meet his peers in a social environment.

Hank's biggest shortcoming was his attendance at church and Bible study meetings. And come to think of it, in all they discussed, they never seemed to talk about God's Word, not even the Sunday sermon topics. She didn't even know his favorite Bible verse. She didn't know if he had a favorite verse. The more she thought about it, while she knew he was a believer, she didn't know exactly how important God was in Hank's life.

She couldn't love a man who didn't love God first.

She was in love with Mitchell Farris. How could her Mr. Right be so very Mr. Wrong?

“I think you'd better leave. And take these with you.” She stood and held out the flowers, but he didn't accept them.

Hank's face hardened, and his lips tightened into a scowl. “Go ahead and turn me down now, but before long you'll be begging my forgiveness. If you're lucky, I'll consider you again. Just wait. When you're closer to forty, you'll see that life is passing you by. By then it will be too late. I'll be married to someone else.”

Her mouth dropped open then snapped shut. “Get out,” she ground out between her teeth. She thrust the flowers back into his hand, but he dropped them to the floor and stomped out, slamming the door behind him. As she stood transfixed in one spot, his car started then roared off into the distance.

Carolyn continued to stare at the closed door long after the sound of Hank's car had disappeared, stunned that he had asked for her hand in marriage not on the basis of love, but because he considered them—at least her—almost past their prime marriage years. She wasn't twenty-four years old anymore, but neither was she too old to desire a marriage based on mutual love and children conceived and raised in that love.

Rather than being sorry that she would never see Hank again, she was glad he was gone.

Her gaze drifted to the roses lying in a jumbled pile in the middle of the hardwood floor. Many of the velvety petals had fallen off and a broken leaf lay to the side, the heady rose scent made stronger by their disarray. Slowly, she counted a dozen roses, the flowers of love, lying at her feet as a wretched testimonial of the state of her love life. A man she didn't love had just proposed marriage, and the man she did love was completely wrong for her. Her throat tightened, and her chin started to quiver uncontrollably.

Tears welled up, and she couldn't hold them back.

She sank to her knees in the middle of the living room floor and, surrounded by the broken flowers, covered her face with her hands and gave in to sobs that racked her entire body.

The doorbell rang, but she didn't answer it. She couldn't allow anyone to see her like this.

Mitchell's voice drifted through the door. “Carolyn? I know you're in there. Your car is in the driveway.”

She didn't answer. She couldn't have spoken a word if she wanted to.

He knocked again. “Carolyn? Are you all right?”

When she still didn't answer, the doorknob rattled, then turned. The door slowly creaked open.

“Carolyn? The door was. . .” His voice drifted into silence.

Before she knew what was happening, she was pulled to her feet and locked solidly in a tight embrace, pressed against Mitchell from head to foot.

“What's wrong?” he murmured into her hair.

“It was Hank. He. . .” She couldn't finish.

His hands grasped her shoulders, and he pushed her away so he could look into her eyes. She turned her head so she didn't have to face him.

Mitchell's voice dropped to a low murmur, yet at the same time, it was very stern. “Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head, unable to stop the increased flow of tears or control the tremor in her voice. “N–no, n–nothing like that. H–he asked me to m–marry him.”

In the blink of an eye, she was pressed into his chest again, but this time, instead of holding her by the shoulders, one of his large hands cupped the back of her head, gently pressing her cheek into his chest, the other hand pressed into the small of her back, and his chin rested on the top of her head.

With her ear pressed into the center of his chest, his voice sounded gruff and rumbly, and she could hear the rapid hammering of his heart. “And you said?”

She could barely choke the words out. “I said no. He didn't take it well.”

His grip tightened, and he furthered the embrace by pushing his entire face into her hair. “Praise God. He's not right for you.”

She shook her head, with her face still pressed into his chest, without answering.

He held her without speaking while she gained control, then released her when her sobs quieted. Carolyn excused herself to splash some cold water on her face and blow her nose.

She didn't want him to see her like this, but she also didn't want him to leave. Since no amount of makeup would erase the evidence of what happened, Carolyn stiffened her posture and entered the living room, where Mitchell was waiting for her. Instead of sitting on the couch, she found him standing with his back to her, studying her needlepoint. She didn't know if he really was that interested in it, but she appreciated him knowing she felt awkward about what she looked like. She also appreciated that the flowers were gone.

She sniffled one last time and sat on the couch. “What are you doing here? I wasn't expecting you.” She purposely neglected mentioning that even though she wasn't expecting him, she had spent the earlier part of the day hoping he would show up.

“I had a few errands to do, and now that I'm done, I thought maybe we could spend the rest of the day together.”

“I think I'll just stay home. Thanks for the thought, though.”

He turned around but kept his distance. “I think it would be a good idea for you to get away for a while. It's Saturday afternoon. Why don't we go to a matinee? We can pick some weepy chick flick, and everyone will think you've been crying over the movie.”

“A chick flick?”

“You know what I mean. One of those gushy movies where all the women sit there and cry through the movie, giving the guys a chance to put their arms around them and be macho.”

Except for the putting his arms around her implication, it sounded perfect. For a while, she could get lost in the sad story of someone else's life and forget about the mess of her own life. She forced herself to smile. “I think that's a great idea.”

“Good. While you were. . .uh, busy, I looked through the paper and found one. We have just enough time to get there if we hurry.”

Mitchell yakked nonstop all the way to the theater, for which she was grateful. True to his plan, when the plot of the movie started getting weepy, he slipped his arm around her shoulders, which again started the flow of tears, allowing her the release she needed to get everything out of her system.

The whole time she cried, Mitchell merely sat there with his arm around her, every once in a while handing her another napkin to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. At the end of the movie, they remained seated until almost everyone left, then they slowly shuffled out.

“See. I knew you wouldn't be the only one crying. Just why do women cry at stuff like that?”

Carolyn blew her nose on the last napkin and shoved it into her purse. “I can't explain it.”

He smiled and ran his thumb beneath her glasses, under her puffy eyes. “It was a rhetorical question. I think it's time to take you home. Wanna order pizza for supper?”

Twelve

Mitchell sat at the kitchen table with the blue velvet pouch in his hand. With Jake gone and the dog asleep, the house was totally quiet, which gave him time to think before Carolyn arrived.

He couldn't count the times he'd tried to take her out for a quiet, romantic dinner, and each time something had happened or she'd managed to pick someplace not at all suitable to tell her what was in his heart and present her with the ring. Though often the activity was something fun—which in itself wasn't a bad thing—every time meant yet another delay and one more missed opportunity.

Again today, ideally they could have gone out for dinner. The competitor's strike had been averted, and not only did he not have to work overtime, he'd managed to get off early, which was a rare occurrence in itself. However, the rehearsal party was now only a few days away, and this was his last chance to practice what he needed to know before he had to do it for real, by himself.

Today was his last remedial cooking lesson, and Carolyn was due to arrive any minute.

It was less than the ideal situation, but if he didn't give Carolyn the ring today, he knew there wouldn't be a quiet day or time until all the cooking was done, the rehearsal party over with, and then after the big day on the weekend, the actual wedding. Following that, he would have to see Jake and Ellen off on their honeymoon, and then there would be the fallout with returning rented items and cleaning up. He didn't want to wait any longer.

He would give her the ring today. He tucked it into his pocket and patted it again.

Since the kitchen would be a mess when they were done, he'd prepared the living room as best he could. He'd vacuumed and dusted and done his best to pick as much dog hair off the couch as possible. For a romantic touch, he'd managed to find the one candle they owned and set it and a book of matches to the side, ready for the right moment.

Again, Mitchell pulled the pouch out of his pocket. He'd never thought much about jewelry before, but the little heart really was a perfect indication of his feelings for Carolyn. As delicately as he could, he plucked the tiny ring out of the bag and tipped it, making the small diamond sparkle in the light. He could see why such a ring would be called a promise ring. In a way, between the gold and the diamond, the ring resembled a miniature engagement ring. Hopefully, giving it to her could signify a promise of giving her a bigger diamond in the near future, along with the commitment of forever.

Both the kitchen and the living room were ready for Carolyn's arrival, but first, Mitchell needed to do one more thing. He tucked the ring back into the pouch, pulled the drawstring closed, dropped it back into his pocket, then folded his hands on the table and closed his eyes.

“Dear heavenly Father, thank You for bringing Carolyn into my life. She's exactly who I needed, and I pray that I am exactly who she needs as a perfect mate, designed and chosen by You. Again, I pray that tonight will present the perfect opportunity to give her this ring as a symbol of what our relationship could be and that You'll bless our time together. Amen.”

At his closing amen, Killer started barking and ran for the door. Mitchell smiled and stood. God's timing was always perfect.

On his way through the living room, he could feel the pouch bouncing in his pocket. He craned his neck to look down at it and realized he could see its outline through the pocket of this particular shirt. Rather than run to his bedroom to put it in the drawer, he detoured a few steps and tucked it beside the lamp on the end table, where she wouldn't see it until the time was right.

She hadn't knocked yet, but that didn't stop him from opening the door to watch Carolyn as she walked up the sidewalk. The streetlights had come on, but the sky was still aglow with pink and purple, vivid with the beauty of God's creation and very fitting for Carolyn's arrival.

“Hi,” he said, making no attempt to stop the wide smile he knew was on his face.

Carolyn tilted her head and narrowed one eye as she walked past him. “We are cooking today, aren't we?”

He couldn't stop smiling. “Of course.”

She marched straight into his kitchen, and he trailed behind.

“I guess this is the last time I'll be helping you at home. Have you decided what you need help with today? I see you have a cookbook out. You told me you didn't own one.”

He could feel his blush warming his cheeks, and he chided himself for it. “It's my mother's. The thing I really wanted to make was her specialty—crab snaps. Actually, that's why I took the course, to learn how to cook well enough to make them. No one believes that I can do this except Ellen. She knows I'm taking your classes.”

Carolyn ran her finger down the recipe, mouthing the ingredients but not saying anything out loud. Her finger stopped moving when she got to the instructions. “This doesn't look too difficult. I don't see that you'll have a problem.”

He didn't have to close his eyes to envision his first attempt at making his mother's famous crab snaps. It still made him shudder to think about it. “You have no idea.”

They both checked the clock on the stove at the same time. “I guess we better get started.” She ran her finger down the list again. “I'm going to assume you're using canned crab and not fresh?”

Mitchell groaned aloud. “I wasn't going to take the chance it was like shelling shrimp. Yes, it's canned.”

“Okay, then go get the—”

The light flickered once, then went out.

Automatically, Mitchell walked to the wall switch and flicked it while Carolyn stared up at the dark fixture. “I don't believe this,” he muttered under his breath.

Carolyn turned her head. “The living room looks awful dark. I don't think it's the bulb; I think the power just went out.”

He strode to the window. The whole street was dark, as was his entire neighborhood and farther than he could see. “Houston, we have a problem,” Mitchell mumbled and crossed his arms over his chest. He turned to Carolyn. “I don't have time for this. I have to learn how to make these things today. The party is Friday, only four days away.”

He pulled open a drawer and grabbed a flashlight, then opened the phone directory. “I'm calling the electric company.” A few moments later, he hung up and turned to Carolyn. “The recording said they're aware of an outage and a crew was being dispatched to determine the cause. There will be updates on the radio. I'll be right back.”

Mitchell took the flashlight and retrieved his radio from the garage, where he used it when he was working on his car. He turned it on and tried to find a good station as he headed back to the kitchen.

“Do you keep everything you own in the garage?”

“Not everything I own fits in the pantry.”

She sighed, then turned to study the stack of bowls and utensils he'd spread over the counters. “I don't know what to do. We could do this at my house, but by the time we get there, the power could be back on. Besides, all the ingredients are in your fridge, and I have a real aversion to opening the fridge when the power is out, just in case it doesn't come back for a long time.”

Out of habit, Mitchell shone the flashlight on the battery-operated wall clock. “It's been out for twenty minutes already. I guess this serves me right for leaving the crab snaps until the last minute.”

“Not really. Most of these things have to be prepared within a few days of the event. They get freezer burn quickly because of the individual-size portions. Besides, I doubt you have suitable storage containers.”

He still had a couple of plastic containers he'd forgotten to give back to his mother the last time she sent him food, but other than that, whenever he had leftovers worth storing, he kept them in one of the two empty margarine containers he hadn't thrown out. Somehow he doubted Carolyn would consider those proper. He simply shrugged his shoulders, and her cute little sigh told him he was right in not replying.

“You shouldn't keep a seafood filling longer than overnight before serving. It would be best to make the pastries on Thursday, and then you could mix the filling and keep it in the fridge overnight and stuff them Friday before you have to go.” She looked around the dark kitchen. “You really shouldn't prepare any of what you're going to serve until Wednesday or even Thursday. What else were you planning on making? Maybe we should go over your menu.”

“I was going to make a few of the recipes we made in class and one of the things we did together. I really liked those rolled-up cheesy things that were dipped in the smashed-up nuts.”

Carolyn sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Did I ever tell you that you have a unique way of describing these gourmet treats we've been making?”

“Many times. If we're not cooking, I guess we really don't need a lot of light.” As if on cue, the beam of the flashlight faded, becoming slightly yellow. “It doesn't look like this battery is going to last much longer. I'd better get a candle.”

He started toward the doorway when Carolyn's voice stopped him.

“Unlike your electric mixer, I can understand storing candles in the garage.”

“Actually, I was going to the living room.”

“I give up.”

Mitchell soon returned to the kitchen. The smell of sulfur filled the air as he lit the candle and set it in the center of the table while Carolyn turned off the flashlight, which was almost dead anyway.

Carolyn pulled his mother's recipe book across the table. “What else were you going to make?”

He pulled up a chair and sat beside her. “Just the crab snaps. I wouldn't dare try to make anything else in there. I thought I'd stick to stuff I did in your class.” He reached to the drawer behind him, grabbed the stack of handout sheets, and spread them over the table. “I know how to do these things, within reason. I was thinking I'd make the ones I liked best.”

“You're just doing this now? You haven't decided on your menu or done your shopping yet?”

“I just bought what I needed to make the crab snaps because that's what I thought we were going to do today.”

She grumbled something under her breath while she paged through the pile and pulled out the recipe he'd referred to earlier.

“Am I in trouble?”

“When did you expect to do this? Do you have a pen and paper?”

Mitchell found a pen, but he couldn't find an unused piece of paper in the dark, so he reached on top of the fridge and gave her the envelope from the phone bill. Her eyes narrowed as she accepted it from him, but she didn't say a word. He settled into the chair beside Carolyn and sat in silence as she skimmed the ingredients on the recipe he had selected and wrote out the shopping list in the flickering candlelight.

She slid the pile of paper back to him. “Which other ones do you want to make? And what did you do with the recipe for the dessert squares that I gave you?”

“It's in the pile somewhere.”

Mitchell gave her his best smile, but it didn't ward off the annoyed sigh he knew was coming.

Together, they began the process of selecting the best choices for the party, and Carolyn dutifully added everything to the grocery list.

Instead of the romantic setting the candlelight was supposed to provide for the big moment he had planned, they now struggled to read by its questionable light; and instead of being receptive to him as he prepared to bare his soul, she was mad at him because he hadn't done his grocery shopping yet.

He couldn't believe how long the whole process took, nor could he believe that by the time she was finally adding the last of what they would need to the list, the power still hadn't come back on. The battery in his radio had expired during the wait.

Carolyn continued to write while he tried to think of a way to change the subject from cooking to how he felt about her when Killer ran to the door.

“I think your dog wants out.”

“Killer would go to the back if she wanted out. She's at the front, and she's not barking, so that means Jake is home.”

He heard Jake's voice before he saw him. “Wow. You should see the extent of this power failure. Did you know that it's dark all the way to. . .” His voice trailed off as he entered the kitchen. “Hello, Carolyn. It's nice to see you again.”

She laid the pen down on the table. “Nice to see you, too, Jake.”

Mitchell couldn't begrudge his friend's arrival. After all, Jake lived there, too. However, Jake's arrival had just disintegrated Mitchell's last hope of trying to have that private talk with Carolyn—unless the power failure was going to last a lot longer and they went to her house. “Did you have the radio on in the car? Any idea how much longer before the power comes back on?”

“They said about half an hour.”

Carolyn stood. “That's too late to start, and it would take at least that long to pack up and move everything to my house.”

Mitchell stood, as well. “What about grocery shopping? We can do that, now that we have a list.”

“Sorry,” Jake said. “Everything is out. They said on the radio that twenty-five thousand homes are without power.”

Carolyn stepped toward the door. “Then I guess I'll be going.”

Mitchell clenched his teeth and followed her to the door. Today, power failure or not, right moment or not, he could no longer wait. If he didn't give her the ring now, it would be another week before he could, and he didn't want to wait that long.

Since Jake's arrival meant no privacy inside, Mitchell followed her outside to her car parked on the dark street.

She reached for the handle, but before she opened the car door, Mitchell laid his hand on top of hers and gently pulled it to him.

“What are you doing?”

He massaged her wrist with his thumb. “I wanted to talk to you. I have to ask you something, and I don't know how to start.”