Turning Up the Heat: A Sizzling Modern Romance Novel

15. Kelsey

Two days down, one to go.

I lay boneless at Oskar’s side after the most emotionally intense sex…

No, it wasn’t sex. It was more. I didn’t want to put words to it. All I knew was that I had never felt so connected to another person in my life. His whispered words ran along my skin like a physical caress. The experience was a slow and all-consuming frenzy that left me gasping and speechless.

I didn’t understand the words coming out of his mouth, but the expression in his eyes spoke volumes. I thought I knew, but I didn’t have the guts to ask. I wasn’t ready. It was too overwhelming. My heart felt like it would burst, and I curled into Oskar’s warm side as if his body could shield me from his heart.

The sun had set in the early evening, and the light on the patio shone on the orange tree in the backyard. The glow lit the windows of my bedroom and shone gold across us, tangled again in my bed.

I heard Oskar’s stomach rumble quietly and smiled.

I traced a finger down his profile from his forehead, over his nose, finally circling his sensitive lips. They twitched under my touch, and I moved my finger along his strong jaw. I gently scraped the palm of my hand against the stubble on his face and neck. His face turned toward mine in sleep, and I saw his eyes flicker.

He yawned and mumbled quietly.

“Huh?”

His eyes opened. “What?”

“What did you say just now?”

Oskar blinked more and stretched his long arms over his head. He yawned broadly. “What? What did I say?”

I smiled. “That’s what I was asking. It was in Danish, I think.”

He blinked. “No idea. I’m still half-asleep. Why am I awake?”

“Your stomach was rumbling. I don’t think you’ll last much longer without fuel.”

He yawned, his lips curving into a smile, and reached down to scratch his stomach along my favorite trail of hair. “Feed me, woman. You better fuel me up if you’re going to keep using me so shamelessly.”

“You poor thing. We never went to the market. We’ll have to scrounge a bit. Maybe I’ll make soup.”

“Do you have butternut squash frozen? I thought I saw some in your freezer. You could use that.”

“Good thinking. Butternut squash soup sounds great.”

“Do you have any fresh ginger hiding? I loved your recipe that used fresh ginger.” He yawned again and rubbed his eyes.

I squinted. “Which one?”

“You know, it had ginger and… jalape?o, I think.”

I racked my brain, but I couldn’t think of one that I had published in a while. Unless…

“Are you talking about that old one of my grandma’s?”

He rolled over, laid his arm across my stomach, and nuzzled his face in my hair. “Yeah, I think you mentioned it was hers in the article.”

I blinked, confused. “But I wrote about that recipe six or seven years ago. I was still in college.”

I felt him stiffen. He drew in a breath and clutched his arm tighter around my waist.

My heart was pounding, and I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Oskar, how did you know about that recipe?”

He sat up and looked at me in the dim light. I could barely see his face. I reached to the side of the bed to turn on my light and grab my robe. I put it on and turned back to the man in my bed. He looked… guilty?

I could barely whisper. “Oskar, please tell me how you know that recipe.”

I couldn’t finish. I was so confused. I knew Oskar read my articles from the Journal, but that recipe was published years ago, long before I worked for a notable magazine. It was in a little student paper, and I’d cross-published it to my blog.

His eyes were pleading. “Artichokes.”

I shook my head. “What?”

“The article about artichokes” —his voice was low— “the one I found online? You wrote it.”

I delved back in my memory to the series about farming that I had written when I first started working at the SLO Tribune right out of high school. I’d submitted an article about the cattle roundup at the ranch and the history of ranching on the coast to a friend of my grandfather’s who worked at the paper.

After that, I had done a series of articles on different local crops and farmers, particularly during harvest. I focused on the history of the food and how the crop had changed the local economy and food culture.

I remembered the artichoke article was from an issue about a year after I started writing. I was just starting college; Oskar would have been in culinary school.

“But how…? You read my writing for the Tribune?” I was so confused. It was a tiny column, and though it had been published online, those articles never seemed to attract that much traffic. I was a nobody then.

Oskar tried to grab my hand, but I drew back. I didn’t know what to think. But I felt like I’d been lied to, and something felt very wrong.

“Kelsey—”

“I want some coffee.” I got out of bed and walked out to the kitchen.

A few minutes later, I heard Oskar come down the hall, and then he was standing in the doorway. I’d taken out my grandmother’s old coffee mill and was grinding beans by hand.

Oskar was dressed in his jeans and a blue sweater, but his face had shut down in the time I’d left the bedroom.

He motioned to the manual coffee grinder I was holding. “Can I do that for you please?”

I nodded and went to sit in a chair by the kitchen table. I could see his profile as he concentrated on the monotonous turn of the old mill.

“I told you I read the article about artichokes. It came up on the computer when I searched online. You described the whole process so vividly. I was fascinated by the harvest, and the region. I noticed your name because I thought it sounded like a cowboy.” He glanced at me, then turned back to the grinder. “Rankin. Old-fashioned. There wasn’t a picture or anything.”

No, there hadn’t been a picture because the editor thought that if a pretty blond girl who wasn’t even in college yet was attached to the article, no one would read it.

“I had no idea. No idea how old you were or what you looked like or anything really. But after I read that article, I was curious. I looked at what else you had written. I started exploring more about the Central Coast. It was beautiful. And interesting. I told you I was looking for a change?—”

“You read my articles?”

“They were supposed to be read!” He turned. “Right?”

Of course. Of course they were. So why did I feel like he’d been hiding something?

“I didn’t read all of them,” Oskar continued. “Okay, I read most of them. And I bookmarked the Tribune’s site when I started thinking about moving to California. I would look at your column…” A small, rueful smile crossed his lips. “I guess I became a bit of a fan.”

“A fan.” I didn’t have fans. I was a food writer at a small-town newspaper that had a circulation of barely ten thousand. It wasn’t even the main newspaper on the Central Coast.

Oskar finished grinding the coffee and turned around, crossing his arms over his chest. “I was going to write to you a couple of times, but there was never an email address or anything.”

My mouth was catching flies. “No, my grandparents thought it wasn’t a good idea. And my editor at the paper didn’t want to publicize how young I was, so he never put in a picture or bio or anything like that.”

“I noticed when you stopped writing the articles and I didn’t know what to think, but a few years later I got a notice that your name had popped up again, only now you were writing for the California Food and Wine Journal.”

“What?” I frowned. “Why would?—?”

“I put an alert on your name,” he mumbled.

Okay, that officially felt weird.

“You put an alert… So if my name popped up?—”

“That was the first time I saw your picture. Only then, when you went to work for the Journal.” He looked me up and down. “When you were older.”

And not a barely-out-of-high-school teenager who wrote about artichokes.

Fuck.

I didn’t know how to feel about this.

“Oskar, why did you move to Arroyo Grande?”

He turned around and poured the ground coffee into the coffee maker, then started it, got out my cream pitcher and filled it with milk for me and set it on the table. He grabbed my favorite green mug out of the cupboard and stood silently in front of the coffee machine, waiting for it to brew.

He finally turned around and faced me. “Your article introduced me to the area, Kelsey. That was all. To be honest, I always assumed you were older—middle-aged or something. Your knowledge of the area seemed so extensive; I thought for sure you had been working in the food industry for years. When I realized that you were younger than I was?—”

“When I started writing for the Journal,” I said. “Five years ago.”

“I moved because I love the Central Coast,” he said. “I didn’t move to San Francisco to follow you. I moved to Arroyo Grande. Yes, I read your columns, but that was it. That was all.”

There was a thought bugging me. “Did you go looking for Josh?”

“I didn’t.” He shook his head. “I really did not. We were introduced, and I recognized the name but?—”

“Did you tell him you were…” It felt so weird to say it. “A fan?”

“I told him that I’d read your writing for the Journal, because of course I had, Kelsey. Everyone who’s a chef in California reads the Journal.”

“But you didn’t tell me,” I whispered. “You could have told me all this weeks ago, and you didn’t.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “I just felt like… a fool. And maybe a little bit of a stalker.”

“But you weren’t.” I felt frozen. “Right?”

He shook his head. “No. That’s not what it was. I never even looked for you on social media. I can’t lie—when I saw your picture, I could tell you were attractive. I mean” —Oskar motioned to me— “fuck, Kelsey. Look at you. But I never contacted you. And I wouldn’t have. If I hadn’t met your brother, you would have remained this incredibly talented writer who helped me fall in love with California.” He let out a long breath. “And that’s all.”

I felt myself relax. “So… no cyberstalking?”

He shook his head and rubbed his large hands over his face as if to clear his eyes. “No. God… This is why I never mentioned it before. I don’t know, it’s weird, right? I mean, in a crazy way, you are the reason that I moved to California. But it’s not like I moved here because of you. Does that make any sense?”

I was still trying to wrap my brain around the idea that Oskar had been reading my columns for nearly ten years and had never mentioned it.

His shoulders slumped. “I wanted to tell you how important your writing was to me, but I was afraid you would think exactly what you’re thinking right now.”

“Why did you go into business with Josh?”

He turned then and looked at me with a hard expression and narrow eyes. I saw more than a hint of temper behind them. “I went into business with Josh because he’s a damn good farmer and winemaker. Whatever…” He swallowed hard. “Whatever happens between the two of us, I consider your brother a friend. Our relationship has nothing to do with how much I respect him. Do you understand?”

I felt tears prick my eyes. “I didn’t mean?—”

“You can be as angry with me as you want, but don’t for a minute think that I had any ulterior motive when I became friends with your brother. It insults both of us.”

Oskar poured a cup of coffee and set it in front of me with a thunk. Then he leaned back against the kitchen counter and crossed his arms over his chest.

I worked to contain the tears that wanted to roll down my cheeks while I stared at the cup of coffee he’d made me.

He was looking at his feet, and his shoulders were hunched a little, as if he was curling into himself. When he spoke again, his voice was dispassionate and quiet. “Are you going to end this?”

“What?” I was honestly shocked. “Oskar, I haven’t even thought about that.”

He looked up. “Really?”

“If you had been cyberstalking me or something, that would be one thing. Sending me weird letters, following me on social media.”

“I hate social media. Sophie does all that stuff for the restaurant.”

“I can tell.” I pressed my fingers to my temples. “Everything you’ve mentioned makes perfect sense.”

“It was a coincidence.”

“It’s a weird coincidence.” I looked at him. “But I believe you.”

“Then why did you ask about Josh?”

I sighed. “I don’t know, Oskar. It was a stupid question. Can we chalk that one up to being very shocked by a strange situation?”

He nodded and finally looked at me. His eyes were doing that intense stare that he got sometimes when he was really concentrating. For a moment, I felt like a particularly stubborn sauce he was trying to figure out.

“Are we okay? Really? Ask whatever you want, I don’t want this biting me in the ass any more than it already has.”

I shrugged and smiled a little. “I don’t know. Which article was your favorite?”

His face broke into a crooked smile. His eyes were warm again when he looked at me, and the faint chill left my body. He curled his fingers toward me to motion me closer.

I got up and walked toward him at the counter. He spread his legs and pulled me between them to place his hands at my waist. I leaned into his warm chest and wrapped my arms around him, putting my cheek against his hard chest. I could hear his steady heartbeat under my ear. His hands stroked small circles on my back, and his cheek rested on top of my head. I felt right again.

“Probably the one about the avocado harvest. I really like avocados.”

I smiled before tilting my head up for a kiss. He framed my face with his hands and kissed me long and sweet.

We were okay… Maybe better than okay.

Oskar sighed and buried his face in my neck. “I was so afraid you were going to freak out about this.”

“You think some weird cosmic-transcontinental coincidence is enough to freak me out? I’m made of tougher stuff than that, Chef.”

Amos Lee sang quietlyon the radio in the background of the kitchen while I cooked butternut squash soup for Oskar after our very revealing argument.

As I added the fresh ginger to the pot, I peeked at Oskar, who was sitting at the kitchen table, texting Sophie every few minutes.

It was the first time that Oskar had ever let someone else open Mesa for the week, and I knew he was nervous. He’d been texting back and forth with his hostess for the past half hour.

Though Oskar was sitting at the table, he would occasionally get up to pace in my small kitchen, and every time he passed me at the stove, his fingers would trail up my arm, stroke down my hair, or linger for a moment at my waist. The contact seemed to soothe him; then he would settle again at the table before shooting another text off to Sophie, and the cycle would repeat.

“Oskar.”

“Hmm?” He was typing again on his phone.

“Has Sophie said how many reservations there are for tomorrow night?”

“Um… She said the whole week is looking pretty quiet. For now.”

I glanced at him again, and his forehead was wrinkled in worry. “Tell me more about growing up in Denmark. You hardly ever talk about it. Do you miss it?”

“No.”

“Really?” I stirred the pot. “I miss home all the time, and I’m not even that far away.”

Oskar opened his mouth as if to say something but then shut it again. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, his voice was quiet and I noticed his accent grew a bit heavier. “I miss living in the city at times. I liked the convenience of it. I enjoy the quiet more though. I miss being in school sometimes. I miss the… What’s the word?” He looked up. “The camaraderie of it. Like Felipe and me being able to trade stories about work or butchers or things like that. I miss that sometimes.”

I nodded and stirred the soup again as it simmered on the stove. “What about friends?”

He looked back at his phone. “I wasn’t very close with anyone from school. People in Denmark… Most people. Not all people, obviously. But ambition is…” He hummed a little bit. “Maybe a little bit looked down on. I want to be the best at what I do, and I’m open about that. I think I’m more American that way.”

“I can see that.”

“And there was a lot of very hard partying when I worked in the city. Late nights. Some drugs, but a lot of drinking. I got tired of it after a while.”

“What about your family?”

“Not a big, extended family. Growing up, my immediate family was very close.” He paused, and I didn’t miss the grief that flashed across his face. “We were very close, the four of us. My parents, Hanna, and me. When they died…” He shrugged.

“It wasn’t the same.”

“Home is more about people than places for me. You love Paso Robles, but it’s more about Josh and Talia and Kurt being there. If it was just a pretty and interesting place, it’s not the same.”

I smiled. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“After Hanna left, Copenhagen was just a pretty and interesting place.” Oskar set down his phone. “It was fine but full of strangers who didn’t care about me. And I kind of checked out. I didn’t want to know new people because it didn’t feel like home anymore.”

I leaned against the counter. “That kind of reminds me of why I left Central California after my grandparents died.”

Oskar just nodded. “I like Arroyo Grande. I see the same people at the drug store that I see at the restaurant and the beach and the farmers’ market. I like that. I don’t have to talk to everyone all the time?—”

“Even though they want you to.”

He smiled, and his accent got a bit heavier. “Yeah, the small talk is a lot more here than in Denmark. But people still know who I am, even if I’m quiet.”

“An introvert’s dream?”

He smiled. “You have that here, you know, with your little cafés and markets.” He stood up and moved behind me, putting his arms around my waist with his chin bending toward my shoulder. “I think that’s why you don’t want to live in the city.”

I turned my head to meet his lips in a kiss. “The soup is almost done.”

He swayed a little with the song as we stood over the stove.

“It just needs to cool off,” I continued, “and I’ll blend it and add the cream.”

Oskar didn’t say anything, but he reached around me to turn off the stove. Then he grabbed my hand and turned me toward his chest. He pulled me into the center of the room and put his arm around my waist as I leaned into him. He moved us slowly to the music drifting in the background.

We danced silently, and his hand came up to my cheek as he leaned down. We kissed in the middle of my tiny kitchen, Oskar’s fingers playing at my waist while his lips lingered on my own.