Chapter Two
I’d kept my temper under control on the deck. That didn’t mean I wasn’t furious.
I’d spent years having strangers treat parts of my life like public property.
The house in Redmont was supposed to be the exception.
I’d chosen the wooded lot for the distance from the road and the privacy from the neighboring properties, then built the place to give me somewhere I could disappear for a few days without anybody expecting something from me.
I finally came home, and there was a naked woman in my hot tub.
She wasn’t a fan who had tracked me down or a reporter looking for a story. She was my neighbor, apparently, and she’d decided an empty house made the hot tub some kind of community resource.
I should have been thinking about the trespassing.
Instead, I kept remembering Chrishelle coming up sputtering with wet hair across her face, blue eyes blazing, and a drowned paperback clutched against her chest while she demanded to know what I was doing on my own property.
I’d looked.
I wasn’t dead.
The water and that ruined book had kept me from seeing everything, but I’d gotten a very good impression of soft curves, bare shoulders, and a body I wanted another look at badly enough that turning my back when she asked had required more discipline than I expected.
My imagination had been handling the rest just fine.
I’d showered after she left and changed into a clean T-shirt and athletic shorts. Neither had done much about the fact that every replay of Chrishelle naked in that water sent heat through me and made my cock thicken again.
Getting this worked up over a woman I’d met while evicting her from my hot tub was inconvenient as hell.
A knock sounded from the glass door off the rear deck.
I crossed the great room and found Chrishelle on the other side with a canvas tote over one shoulder. Her damp honey-brown hair fell over a soft tank, and high-waisted shorts hugged curves I’d spent entirely too much time imagining without clothes.
Apparently clothes weren’t going to help.
I opened the door.
She lifted the tote. “I brought a few things that might convince your chicken and rice they have a reason to live.”
Some of my anger gave way before I could stop it.
“Come in.”
She stepped across the threshold of the house I’d built to keep everyone else out.
Chrishelle walked straight to the island and set down the tote. Then she turned slowly, taking in the range, double ovens, deep sink, pale cabinets, and the long stretch of stone counter that had barely held more than my keys since the place was finished.
Her expression changed.
“This kitchen is obscene.”
I looked around. “That sounded judgmental.”
“It was admiration.” She ran her gaze over the range again. “With a little resentment mixed in. You have all of this, and your culinary ambition begins and ends with chicken and rice.”
“I also have eggs.”
“That doesn’t help your case.”
I laughed despite myself.
She began unloading the tote. Lemons rolled onto the stone, followed by garlic, shallots, a bunch of herbs, olive oil, and Dijon.
“You brought half the kitchen next door.”
“I showed restraint. You should appreciate that.”
“I’ll try.”
She opened my refrigerator without asking, then glanced back at me. “I’m assuming that’s allowed now that I’ve been invited inside.”
“You’re making dinner. I figured access to the refrigerator was included.”
“Good. We’re improving at boundaries already.”
There was no embarrassment in her now. No damp robe clinging to her legs, no ruined book dripping down the front of it.
She moved through my kitchen like she had every right to be there, and for the first time since I’d arrived, I understood exactly what she’d meant when she said food should do more than get the job done.
She pulled out the chicken and greens, inspected both, then found the rice.
“Do you have kosher salt?”
“Drawer beside the range.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You know where your salt is.”
“I’ve been here for several hours. I’ve made progress.”
She smiled, and there was something different about seeing it when neither of us was arguing.
“Get me the biggest skillet you have.”
I took one from the cabinet beneath the cooktop.
“That one will work. And since you’re standing there looking useful, rinse the rice.”
I picked up the rice. “I know how to rinse rice.”
“I didn’t say you didn’t.”
I carried it to the sink. “You sounded surprised that I knew where the salt was.”
Chrishelle turned back to the tote. “I’m still assessing the situation.”
The kitchen had been designed by people who knew what they were doing, but I’d been around construction long enough to know expensive didn’t always mean useful.
I’d rejected two earlier layouts because the work triangle made no sense and the island had been too narrow to justify the space it took up.
Now Chrishelle moved between the sink, range, and prep area without once having to double back around me.
I liked that more than I expected.
I rinsed the rice while she dried and seasoned the chicken. By the time I set the pot on the burner, she had a skillet heating and shallots disappearing beneath her knife in quick, even strokes.
I stopped beside the island.
She glanced up. “What?”
“You do this for a living.”
Her knife paused for less than a second.
Then she finished the shallot and swept it neatly to one side of the board. “What gave me away?”
“You haven’t looked for anything twice, and you’ve got three things going at once without talking yourself through any of them.”
“That could mean I’m an enthusiastic home cook.”
“It could, but it doesn’t.”
Chrishelle set the knife down.
“I’m a chef.”
The answer explained the way she’d looked through my open door earlier, like she’d spotted a neglected animal that needed rescuing.
There was a small shift in her voice, enough to remind me of what she’d said outside: the situation was embarrassing, not dangerous, and she needed time before certain people knew where she was.
After a moment, she added, “I’ve worked in restaurants. I’m between kitchens right now.”
That was clearly all I was getting, so I nodded. “Okay.”
Chrishelle looked at me as if she’d expected another question.
I went back to the rice.
“You’re not going to ask why?”
“You told me what you wanted me to know.”
Her gaze stayed on me another moment before she turned back to the stove.
“That’s unexpectedly reasonable.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
Chrishelle’s mouth twitched. “I bet.”
Whatever answer she’d been bracing herself to defend, I didn’t need it tonight. She was safe. Her father owned the house next door. She had permission to be there even if he didn’t know she was using it. The rest belonged to her until she decided otherwise.
The chicken hit the skillet with a hard sizzle.
Within minutes, the kitchen smelled nothing like the space I’d walked into that afternoon.
Garlic and shallot softened in olive oil.
Lemon cut through the richer smell of the chicken.
Chrishelle added Dijon and herbs to the pan after the meat came out to rest, loosening the browned bits with a little water and working everything together until it looked like something I would’ve paid too much for after a game.
“What do you normally do with this?” she asked, pointing toward the greens.
“Cook them. Usually in a pan.”
Chrishelle took the greens from me. “Better. The first half of that answer almost offended me.”
She gave them garlic, lemon, and enough heat to wilt them without killing them. Then she stirred fresh herbs and lemon zest through the rice.
I leaned against the island and watched her work.
Not because I was imagining her naked again.
Not entirely.
There was something satisfying about seeing somebody this good at what she did. I understood repetition, timing, knowing exactly how much pressure to use and when to stop forcing something. The setting was different, but competence was familiar.
“You’re staring,” she said without glancing at me.
“I’m figuring out whether I’m allowed to compliment you without you adding it to our property settlement.”
“You can try.”
“You’re good.”
That got her attention.
Her expression softened, not dramatically, but I knew the compliment had landed somewhere important.
“Thank you.”
No joke followed it.
I liked that even more.
She turned toward the skillet again. “Now taste this before I decide it’s done.”
She held out a spoon.
I stepped closer and tasted the sauce. Lemon came first, then mustard, herbs, and the browned flavor from the chicken underneath it all.
“Well?”
“That’s what you did with Dijon and a lemon?”
“And shallots, garlic, herbs, pan drippings, salt, and the professional experience you were interrogating me about.” She took the spoon back and gave the sauce one more stir.
“I wasn’t interrogating you.”
“You identified my occupation from the way I chopped a shallot.”
I stepped back to give her room at the stove. “That’s called observation.”
“Very defenseman of you.”
The hockey reference made me glance at her. “You looked me up.”
“Of course I looked you up.”
She said it so casually that I almost laughed.
“Most people pretend they didn’t.”
“I wanted to know who owned the property I’d apparently been trespassing on. Finding out you were a professional hockey player was an unexpected bonus. It explained the shoulders.”
That stopped me.
Chrishelle’s eyes widened a fraction, as if she hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
Then she recovered.
“You’re six-four and shaped like somebody who gets paid to move other large men away from a puck. It wasn’t exactly a difficult conclusion.”
“You went past the first result.”
“I was thorough and learned you were traded to the New York Foundry.”
There was still no celebrity awe in her. She might have been telling me she’d learned I had changed accounting firms.
“Does the trade bother you?” she asked.
“No. I’ve been doing this long enough to know the job comes with changes. New team, new city, new system. You adapt.”
She checked the chicken while she considered that. “That sounded almost suspiciously healthy.”