Chapter 8 #2
"Just under ten minutes," I say, pushing myself up from the floor and brushing off my knees. "And your kitchen isn't flooding."
Sunny stares at the pipe, then at me, and the expression on her face is something I wish I could photograph. Her lips are parted, brows slightly raised, and there's an expression that combines genuine surprise with reluctant admiration.
"You actually fixed it," she says.
"Was there ever any doubt, Sunshine?"
She shakes her head slowly, and the smile that spreads across her face is the relaxed one that reaches her eyes and crinkles the corners. It makes everything else in the room disappear. "Well, Hayden. I owe you dinner."
"You don't owe me anything."
"I'm making you dinner, so sit down and stay out of my way." She's already at the refrigerator, pulling it open and scanning the shelves. "I hope you like pasta."
"You could feed me cereal out of the box and I'd be happy to be here."
She shoots me a look over the refrigerator door, but her cheeks are flushed and her shoulders are loose in a way that tells me her walls have come down for the evening. I settle onto one of the two stools at the small kitchen counter and watch her work.
Sunny cooks the way she makes wine, with precision and quiet confidence. She fills a pot with water and sets it on the stove, grabs garlic and tomatoes, and reaches for olive oil. Her movements are efficient and she doesn't consult a recipe.
"My mother taught me to cook," she says, mincing garlic with quick, practiced strokes.
"She worked double shifts most of the week, but Sunday nights were ours.
She'd let me stand on a chair next to the stove and stir whatever she was making, and she'd tell me stories about growing up in southern California. "
"What kind of stories?"
"The good kind. My grandparents had a little place between LA and San Diego, nothing fancy, just enough room for a garden and some fruit trees.
She used to say the best meals she ever ate came from that garden, because my grandmother could make something out of nothing and make it taste like everything.
" Sunny slides the minced garlic into the olive oil, and the sizzle fills the kitchen.
"When my father left, cooking was the one thing that still felt normal.
We didn't have much, but my mom got a position as a chef at a high-end restaurant in Austin. We always ate well after that."
"She sounds like a remarkable woman."
"She is." Sunny's voice softens. "I drive over to see her when I can, though not as often as I should." She stirs the garlic and reaches for the tomatoes. "She'd like you, by the way."
"You think so?"
"She likes capable men who show up when they say they will." Sunny glances at me, and the vulnerability in her expression makes my chest ache. "She's got high standards. But I think you'd pass."
"I'll always show up, Sunny," I answer.
Her hand pauses on the cutting board. The kitchen is quiet except for the soft bubble of water beginning to boil and the low sizzle of garlic in the pan. She holds my gaze for a long moment, and whatever she sees there makes her swallow hard and look away first.
"You can set the table for me," she says, her voice huskier than before. "Plates are in the cabinet above the sink. And open that bottle on the counter, would you?"
I set the table and open the wine while she works, and the domestic simplicity is peaceful.
The scent of garlic, basil, and tomatoes and the sound of Sunny humming something low and tuneless while she stirs feels more like home than any room I've occupied in years.
It isn't the size or the luxury. It's the woman standing at the stove.
She plates the pasta with the same care she brings to everything, a generous portion on each plate with the sauce ladled over the top and fresh basil torn across the surface.
She carries both plates to the table and sits across from me, and the candlelight from a small votive she lit without comment catches the gold in her hair.
"This looks incredible," I tell her.
"It's my mother's recipe. If it tastes wrong, I'm blaming you for distracting me."
I take the first bite, and the flavors are bright and clean, the garlic and tomato balanced with something peppery underneath that gives the sauce warmth. "Sunny, this is exceptional."
"It's pasta with tomato sauce. You're easily impressed."
"I'm impressed by both the flavors and the chef."
Her fork pauses halfway to her mouth, and the flush that spreads across her cheeks tells me the compliment landed where I intended. She recovers with a sip of water and redirects. "I want to hear about this stock show you mentioned. How does it actually work?"
"The majority of what we’ll be doing is networking, although we’ll probably sell a few horses there. There’s a lot of interest in what Mason and I have built."
"Is that where you find your horses, or is it where you sell them?"
"Both, depending on what you're looking for. It’s usually where you find the best bloodlines.
But the real work happens after you get them home.
" I take a sip of wine. "A horse can have the best genetics in the world and still wash out if the training isn't right.
It's the same as your grapes, honestly. You can start with a perfect varietal, but if you don't handle the fermentation correctly, none of that potential matters. "
She points her fork at me. "You keep doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Drawing parallels between my work and yours. And the annoying part is that you're usually right." She takes a sip of wine, and her eyes hold mine over the rim of the glass. "So, what makes a good rodeo horse? What are you actually looking for?"
"Heart, mostly. You need the athletic ability for sure, the quick stops, the fast turns, the explosiveness out of the gate.
But a horse without heart will quit on you when it counts.
The best ones want to work. They get low in the dirt and they lock onto a calf or a steer like nothing else in the world exists, and you can't train that into them. They either have it or they don't."
"Sounds like winemakers I know," she says, and the warmth in her voice tells me she's not just talking about herself.
After dinner, she refuses to let me help clean up, so I lean against the counter while she handles the dishes and the last of the evening light fades through the kitchen window. The smart move is probably to thank her for dinner, grab my toolbox, and head home.
But I don't reach for my keys, and she doesn't mention me leaving. The silence between us stretches comfortably, feeling less like an ending and more like a question neither of us has asked yet.
"You're staring again," she says without turning around.
"Just enjoying the view."
She turns then, and her eyes are bright with humor and something else, something that makes the air between us go still and heavy. She dries her hands on the towel and sets it on the counter, and the deliberate precision of the gesture tells me she's made a decision.
"Charlie."
"Yeah."
She takes a step toward me. Then another.
She doesn't say anything, and neither do I, because words would ruin whatever is building here.
She's close enough now that I can see the flecks of white in her blue eyes and smell a faint perfume clinging to her skin.
Her gaze is steady and unblinking, and the courage it takes for her to stand this close without deflecting isn't lost on me.
"Sunny." I say her name the way I've wanted to say it all day, low and careful, giving her time.
She presses her palm flat against my chest. My heart slams against her hand, and I know she feels it, because her lips part and her breath quickens and her pupils widen in the dim kitchen light.
"Your heart is pounding," she says.
"It's been doing that since you opened the front door, Sunshine."
Her fist tightens in the fabric of my shirt, and the gesture sends a bolt of recognition through me, because she did the same thing on her porch, the night she pulled me back down and kissed me like a woman who'd stopped being afraid of what she wanted.
"I'm going to kiss you now," she says, and the echo of my own words from our first kiss makes something inside me crack wide open. "Unless that isn't something you want. This is your chance to say so."
I don't need to be told twice. I cradle her face and kiss her like I've been starving for it, because I have.
The kiss isn't slow. It isn't careful. It's the inevitable conclusion of weeks of proximity and restraint and want.
She tastes like tomato and basil and something sweet underneath, and the hum she makes against my mouth undoes the last of my composure.
I pull her flush against me, and she arches into the contact with a fierceness that electrifies the air between us.
We break apart long enough to breathe, and her forehead drops against my chest. She lifts her gaze and leads me down the short hallway to her bedroom.
The room is small, the bed neatly made with white sheets and a quilt folded at the foot.
A lamp on the nightstand casts a warm glow that turns her hair to gold when she turns to face me.
I press my mouth to the curve of her neck and I luxuriate in the shiver that moves through her body.
Her fingers thread through my hair as she tilts her head to give me access.
I trace a path from her neck to the hollow of her throat, where her pulse is hammering so hard I can feel it against my lips.
She finds the hem of my shirt and pulls it upward, and I break the kiss long enough to let her strip it over my head. Her palms press flat against my chest, and her fingers trace the lines of muscle with a curiosity that makes my skin burn everywhere she touches.
"You are something, Charlie Hayden," she murmurs, and her voice is rough in a way I've never heard before.