Chapter Five
Cooking for two was a little easier than making a meal for one, but not by much.
There would definitely be leftovers, even though Monica had chosen the smallest roast she could find.
She hated to waste food, but she had no choice.
She would have to leave flour, sugar, and several other things behind when she left early on Friday morning.
“No regrets,” she told herself as she slid a pan of yeast rolls into the oven. “I will not complain about not being able to pack anything perishable in my suitcase.”
While the rolls cooked, she moved the oval coffee table out to the balcony and positioned it in front of two of the Adirondack chairs.
She would have loved to have had a kitchen table so she could serve the meal family style, but the tall bar under the television didn’t have room to do that.
The food would still have to be buffet style and set out on the wider bar separating the kitchen from the living area, but at least they could have a cozy meal on the balcony as they watched the sunset together.
At exactly seven o’clock the rolls came out of the oven, and Spencer knocked on the door. The aroma of fresh baked bread filled the whole condo and wafted down the hallway. He took her in his arms and kissed her before he ever took a step inside the condo. “I missed you so much.”
“It seems like days since I’ve seen you instead of only a couple of hours,” she agreed, and then took a step back. “You are still sexy even after all that time. How was your day, darlin’?”
He raised an eyebrow, stepped inside the condo, and closed the door. “Have we gotten married in this dream world we live in?”
“How could we? You haven’t asked me, and my granny would disown me if I did the proposing,” she teased. “We are only living together.”
“I’ll have to go shopping for a ring before I can propose.” He grinned, and then it faded. “Monica, I don’t want to imagine my world without you. This has been the …” He frowned and his brow wrinkled. “The …”
“I don’t know about you,” Monica butted in, “but words can’t begin to describe what we’ve had so far on this vacation. I will never forget it.”
He tucked her hand inside his and nodded. “You said what is in my heart.” Then he sniffed the air. “Are those hot rolls that I smell?”
“Yes, it is. I made yeast bread. Hot rolls for dinner and cinnamon buns for dessert.”
“You made them yourself?” he asked as he rounded the end of the partition and went into the kitchen/living area.
“Remember how I told you that my mama and granny taught me to cook? This isn’t takeout or store-bought stuff. It’s homemade from scratch.”
“How did you do it all in a couple of hours?”
“I didn’t. The roast went in the oven this morning, and a rising of bread was on the back of the stove all day.
The rest didn’t take long to put together.
I didn’t pick the corn from a field or make my own pasta, which I do when I have more time.
My grandparents have a small farm and sell vegetables at a roadside stand during the summer and fall. ”
“Are you for real, or am I dreaming?” Spencer asked.
“It’s all bona fide real,” she assured him as she smeared butter over the top of the rolls. “Help your plate and take it to the balcony. I already have sweet tea on the table, and it’s not out of a gallon jug. I made it from scratch, too.”
“I’ve died and gone to heaven. Will you go home with me?” he asked.
He was flirting and teasing at the same time.
That, she knew, because they had agreed that this would be a vacation thing.
Oh, but it did sound tempting—at least for a minute.
In Florida, they had very little, if any, past. They were playing out a whimsical world like that ancient television show about a fantasy island where people could be anything or anyone they wanted.
She handed him a plate. “One never knows what the future holds.”
She and Fiona grew up in Hatch, New Mexico, in a population of less than two thousand.
After she graduated from the university, she took the job in Alvera because it was close to where her folks lived.
Since it was only two hours away, she often went home on Saturday when the library closed at noon and returned Sunday evening after supper.
All good things come to an end for a purpose, she told herself as she loaded her own plate.
A swimming pool, a maid, and a cook at Spencer’s house.
That meant he was a white-collar fellow and probably had a high-paying job.
She would not fit in there any more than he would in her middle-class family.
Fiona had been the only one in several generations, and certainly the only one of a handful, who had made it big in Dona Ana County.
No wonder everyone thought she was famous.
If Monica told Spencer that her father was a rancher in Hatch, New Mexico, and her mother had retired after teaching kindergarten for twenty years, he might change his whole opinion of her. She only wanted to hang on to what they had a little longer.
Spencer waited for her to sit down before he did. “Where’s your mind tonight?”
“Off in la-la land,” she said, and smiled. “You better dig in before your supper gets cold.”
“When we are at my grandparents’ place, this meal is supper. Dinner is served at noon,” he said as he picked up his knife and fork.
“It’s always supper in my other world, but we are in this one now, so we can call it whatever we please.”
“I’ll just call it delicious,” he said when he bit into a hot roll. “You should own and operate a bakery.”
“Thank you for that compliment, but I save my skills for special people.”
“I’ve never been called special before,” Spencer said.
“Like I said earlier this week, you haven’t been around the right people.”
Spencer awoke the next morning and reached over to wrap his arms around Monica. All he got was a pillow where she had been. He inhaled deeply and smelled coffee and bacon.
The aroma of bacon and coffee floated down the hallway. Starting off their last day together with a home-cooked breakfast made him wish even more that they were going back to Louisiana together.
“Breakfast is ready and on the bar.” She stepped out around the partition wearing nothing but a wet T-shirt and a smile.
Spencer got out of bed and hurriedly dressed, but when he reached the kitchen he stopped in his tracks. “Sweet Jesus.” He gasped. “I’m not sure I can eat until we …”
“You have to. Biscuits and gravy, hash browns, and all your favorite foods will get cold otherwise. This is as close to skinny-dipping as I could manage.” She took a couple of steps and met him in the hall, wrapped her arms around him, and tiptoed to kiss him.
When they were both panting, she took his hand and led him to the living area.
“Take off all your clothes,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because we are having breakfast in bed, and we are doing it naked,” she answered.
He did as he was told, leaving his khaki shorts, T-shirt, and sandals strung from the kitchen to the bedroom. She followed behind him with a platter of food in each hand. “We are going to eat a good breakfast because we’ve got to have energy for today.”
“Yes, ma’am. What are the towels for?”
“I’ll show you. Prop those pillows behind you.”
He slid up in the bed, and she spread a towel over his lap. “It’s not easy to be all exposed when we are eating hot biscuits and gravy. When we are done, we can toss them aside and use the energy for some steamy hot sex.”
“What a way to start the day.” He grinned.
He rubbed his eyes when he awoke and couldn’t believe that he had slept until noon. He got up and followed the sound to the kitchen, where Monica was making lunch wearing the Western shirt he had worn on that first night. “Breakfast and lunch? What’s next?”
“Have you ever read the instructions on a bottle of shampoo?” she asked with an impish grin.
“Of course,” he answered. “Wash, rinse, repeat.”
“That’s the way we are spending our last day and night,” she told him.
“You got to plan several things throughout the week. Today is mine. I’m using last night’s leftovers to make open-faced hot beef sandwiches with mashed potatoes.
And we’ll have another cinnamon roll for dessert.
After an afternoon in bed, we’ll watch the sunset from the balcony and spend the night together. ”
“What about supper?” he asked.
“Pizza will be delivered at seven o’clock,” she told him.
“If this is a dream, please don’t wake me up until I am one breath away from dying,” he said.
“I won’t, and when I do, I’ll be one breath away from dying with you,” she promised and sealed it with a long kiss.
He wished the kiss could go on forever—another month or until Christmas.
He had teased her about falling in virtual love with her, but as the time drew closer for them to leave, he felt as if it was real.
Monica sat on Spencer’s lap out on his balcony that evening.
The leftover pizza was on one of the small side tables, and the sun was sinking down past the horizon too fast. Where had the days and nights gone.
She had arrived thinking she might even get bored, but Spencer had filled every waking moment.
She had done her best to make the last day something he would remember as well as she did.
However, if she was truly honest she did it for herself.
Spencer made her feel whole and filled her with confidence, and she was going home to Texas with a whole new outlook on the past and the future.
Dense fog rolled in from the west, obliterating the sun.
It looked like it was marching right up the beach, covering everything on the way.
Monica held up her phone and took a picture with all the gorgeous colors of a sunset both in the sky and reflected in the water on one side and what looked like a blizzard on the other.
When the fog covered up the hotel and the balcony, she set her phone to the side and snuggled up in his arms.
“We are the only two people in the whole world. We can hear the waves, but we can’t see them. What do we do now?” she asked.
“I want one last night with you in my arms. We can have sex one more time or not, but I want to feel you next to me all night and wake up with you in my arms. I still love you, Monica, and although we’ve lived in a virtual world of our own making, I am serious now …” He paused.
“About what?”
“I want you to go home with me … Please … will you just think about it? I’ve fallen in love with you in a real world, not a make-believe one.”
She got a case of the warm fuzzies when he said those words, but she had lived long enough to decipher the difference between a romance book and reality. They had experienced magic while they were in Florida, but the real world was very different.
“I love you,” she said for the first time in her life, “but tomorrow we turn into regular people with our own lives to live. Tonight belongs to us, though. We don’t even need to argue to have make-up sex, but let’s go to your room.
That’s where we slept together the first time.
Let’s make a full circle and return to where it all began. ”
“Gladly,” he said as he picked her up and carried her from her condo to his.