Chapter 6 #3
“The woods out back. Won’t take a minute.”
“There are chickens just running loose in your woods?”
“Give me a second.” And he’s out the kitchen door before I can get a word in to stop him.
I stand there holding a piece of celery, certain he’s messing with me, certain a grown man and former international athlete is not about to go poach poultry out of a forest because I mentioned soup.
Four minutes later, the door swings open, and Marcus walks back in with a dead chicken hanging from one fist.
The spoon I’d picked up clatters out of my hand onto the counter.
“Did you just—” I point at the bird, lost. “You went and caught a chicken? In the woods? Right now?”
“You said you needed one.” He hefts it, unbothered. “You want me to skin it, or do you handle that part?”
I keep staring at him, and he takes my silence for an answer.
“Okay.” He gives me a sheepish look. “I’ll clean it up and bring it over to you.”
He takes the thing to the far sink, and I cannot stop the film looping behind my eyes, this man strolling into the dark trees and coming back out with dinner in his hand. It’s the single most ridiculous thing I’ve witnessed in a life that has lately specialized in the ridiculous.
Ten minutes on, he’s at the sink rinsing a cleaned, skinned bird under the tap without a flicker of concern.
“Is this a normal thing for you?” I ask. “You just wander into the trees and grab a chicken whenever the mood strikes?”
“We don’t eat chicken much.” He works the water over it. “But if Bella ever wants some, that’s where it comes from.”
“If your fans could see you now.” I shake my head. “The great Marcus Steele, poaching hens behind his own house.”
He flashes me a grin over his shoulder. “They’d think I’m multi-talented.”
A laugh slips out of me, breathless and unguarded. “Sure they would.”
The chicken goes into the pot, and I lose myself in the rhythm of it, the chopping, the stirring, the salt.
Marcus stays close the whole time, handing me a knife before I ask, finding the pepper when I can’t.
The talk comes easy, easier than it has any right to.
I keep waiting for the old anger to flare back up. It stays quiet.
The girls thunder down the stairs around the second simmer, Bella wrapped in a blanket and looking better for the company, both of them clamoring for Marcus to come build a fort or play a game or be a horse.
My jaw tightens as I see Mia, along with Bella, pulling at Marcus’s hand.
A stab of pain in my chest has me looking away to regain my composure. Then I turn to look at them.
“Up you go, both of you.” I shoo them back with the spoon. “Bella needs to rest, and Marcus is helping me cook. I’ll call you when the food’s ready.”
They groan and trudge back up, and the instant they’re gone, Marcus turns to me with a slow grin spreading over his face.
“So you wanted me all to yourself.” He props himself on the counter beside me.
“This spoon is very hot.” I level it at him. “And I will smack you with it.”
He drops onto a stool, hands raised in surrender, though the grin doesn’t quit.
I stir, telling myself the warmth in the room is coming off the stove. “Is Bella really the only reason you’ve stayed single all this time?”
“Maybe.” He props his chin on his hand and watches me work. “Could be I’ve been holding out for the right woman. Maybe one who makes soup in my kitchen.”
“Oh, please.” I scoff to cover the foolish little flutter the words set off low in my chest. “Does that line usually work for you?”
“I’ll let you know.”
The soup’s ready before I want it to be, rich and golden and steaming. I ladle a little onto the spoon, blow across it, and hold it out toward him.
“Here. Tell me if it needs salt.”
He leans in and takes it from the spoon, eyes sliding shut for a second as he tastes. “That’s incredible.”
“You don’t have to sound so shocked.” I take a sip myself.
“I’m not shocked. I’m—” He opens his eyes, and they fix on me, dark and warm. “I’m impressed.”
The word comes out low, and I realize too late how close we’ve drifted, the spoon still hovering between us, his stool pulled flush to where I stand at the counter.
A drop of broth has caught at the corner of my mouth, and before I can reach for it, his thumb is already there, wiping it from my lips slowly and carefully.
He doesn’t pull his hand back, just brings the thumb to his own mouth and sucks the broth from it, his eyes never once leaving mine.
I look at his mouth and can’t look anywhere else.
I should step back. The stove is on, my daughter is upstairs, this man is the single greatest threat to the life I’ve built, and I still don’t move.
He tilts his head. The space between us shrinks by a degree, then another, until the heat of him is all I can feel.
Ten years of keeping him at arm’s length count for nothing, and I tip up to meet him.
His breath ghosts across my lips.
I don’t stop it. Whatever’s pulling me toward him is older and stronger than my good sense, and for once in my life, I let it win.