Chapter Sixteen
“When was the last time you had a real meal and not something from a gas station, drive thru or the hospital cafeteria?” she asked two hours later as he sat at her breakfast bar while she heated the spaghetti and meatballs she’d made the night before.
The decision to go out to eat or bring him back to her apartment for a home cooked meal wasn’t even a choice in her brain when the wedding was over. The man needed nutrients, not fast, processed junk food, and she had the unwavering desire to feed him.
“A real meal? Like a sit down?”
“Yes.”
“Aruba. The night before the wedding.”
Charity cut a loaf of garlic bread into individual pieces.
“Why?”
She placed the bread in a warmed basket and said, “You’ve lost weight. Your cheeks are sunken into craters, and your pants are baggy. I noticed it the minute you got out of your truck.”
His eyes did that sexy squinty thing she’d seen many times when he was flirting with female guests.
The only effect it had ever had on her was to make her roll her eyes.
Right now, though, with that suggestive glower focused solely on her face, her toes curled.
Thankfully, she was standing behind the breakfast bar as she reheated everything, her lower body shielded from his view.
“Checking me out, were ya?”
She turned to stir the meatballs. “Don’t flatter yourself, O’Brian. A sight impaired person could see how your appearance has changed these past few days.”
She put the ladle down on a spoon rest her mother had gifted her for Christmas last year that read Southern cookin’ makes you good lookin’.
“I’ve seen you eat.” She took a breath to brace herself against the grin she knew in her soul would be across his face before turning back around.
And damn. There it was, as heart-stopping and panty-wetting as always.
She couldn’t stop the shiver of lust that danced down her spine.
“The amount of food you consume in one sitting is what I eat in a week. Your clothes have never been loose, so that tells me you haven’t been eating like you normally do.
Checking you out has nothing to do with my saying that. I’m worried about you, O’Brian.”
Surprise jumped across the smirk. “You are?”
Nodding, she said, “You’re the only photographer Colleen has, and we have a summer filled with weddings.
If something happens to you, like you get sick and can’t work, it puts a severe cramp in the business.
” Not exactly the whole reason for her concern, but it was a mitigating factor.
Colleen didn’t have a backup photographer, just like she didn’t have a backup assistant.
She and Kolby were the only worker bees in the business with Colleen as queen.
If she hadn’t been looking directly at his face she would have missed the fleeting bullet of hurt that shot across it. As soon as she registered that’s what it was, his expression changed, blanked, then went back to his normal pseudo-bored mask.
He took a sip of the bottled water she’d given him. “It was a rough week,” he said matter-of-factly. “Running back and forth to the hospital. Getting the house cleaned and returning all those purchases. Meeting with doctors.” He lifted the bottle again. “I ate when I could.”
“And probably nothing nutritious.” She pulled two plates from the cabinet and ladled portions on each. Kolby’s plate was filled three times more than hers. Before placing it in front of him, she grabbed a hunk of Parmesan cheese from the fridge and a grater from a drawer.
“Want cheese over it?”
“Please.”
She grated a large portion over the mound of spaghetti and meatballs on his plate until he said, “That’s good, thanks,” and then repeated the motion over her own food.
Handing him a fork, she commanded, “Eat.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She took a seat across from him and waited until he forked the first helping into his mouth.
“This is delicious."
Her brow shot up in a haughty line. “You sound surprised.”
“That you can cook? Yeah, I am. That’s not a dig, it’s just,” one shoulder lifted as he forked another helping. Around it he said, “Most girls I know don’t. They either don’t have the time, don’t like to, or want to.”
“First, I’m not most girls.”
That pulled a smirk from him.
“Second, I like to cook for myself because then I know what’s in the food.”
“And yet you eat a chicken sandwich from The Last Supper five days a week.”
“That’s different. I know all about the chicken Ruthie’s cook uses, and how it’s cooked on the grill, the spices used, etc. I asked Ruthie the first time I was ever in The Last Supper and she was kind enough to tell me.”
“Why so obsessive about it? It’s just a sandwich.”
“It’s not obsessive like you mean. And before you say it, it’s not because I like to be in control of everything, either.”
His quick grin told her he was going to say exactly that with his next breath.
“It’s more I need to balance what I eat so I stay healthy.”
“Do you get sick if you don’t?”
She nodded. “When I was little, I was prone to being sickly. Whatever germs my brothers brought home from school they gave to me and for some reason, I always got sicker than any of them. Like take-me-to-the-doctor sick. My Granny Quinlan said I had a sluggish immune system."
“Is she a doctor?”
“Nope. Just the wisest and smartest woman on the planet.”
“Really? The entire planet?” His right brow lifted and one corner of his mouth quirked upward. “That’s a pretty bold statement.”
She knew he was teasing her, but she waved a hand at him.
“If you’d ever meet her, you’d know in a heartbeat I’m not exaggeratin’.
Anyhoo, she told mama that to build me up she had to change my diet.
More protein, for one. No processed foods for another.
I’ve never had a hot dog in my life or a slice of cake that wasn’t made from scratch.
Since we lived on a farm, I had fresh eggs every day.
All those changes helped. Between karate to discipline and strengthen my body and eating properly, by the time I was seven, I never had another issue.
I’ve had the flu exactly one time in my adult life and that was when I first moved to Heaven.
I never get colds, and I have no allergies.
So, to answer your question, it’s not obsession but merely a lifetime of discipline. ”
“But I saw you in the Rhapsody with half a cart filled with cookies.”
Blushing, she said, “Well, that’s because I needed some quick chocolate fixes. Those cookies were medicinal.”
His eyebrows rose. “Medicinal, huh?”
She nodded, took a sip of water, then said, “This entire meal,” she moved her fork in a circle over her plate, “I made fresh. I rolled the pasta last night using organic, unbleached flour and eggs from cage-free chicks. The meat comes from an organic cattle farmer my parents know. They brought me a freezer full the last time they visited. The cheese comes from a dairy farmer in Concord who’s an organic cheese monger.
I made the sauce myself using my mama’s recipe from slow vine-ripened tomatoes and garden fresh herbs. ”
He’d stopped eating when she’d started speaking, his fork still in his right hand.
While he stared, she lifted her own fork after spearing a meatball with it.
When she lifted it to her mouth, drew in the delicious combination of tangy sauce and spices she’d used in the meat, Kolby’s eyes tracked her movements like a lion tracking a gazelle through the African bush.
Why that analogy shot into her brain wasn’t a mystery: he was looking at her like he was starving and wanted to devour her.
Good golly.
The memory of their kitchen-kiss ( which is how she was going to refer to it forever) bloomed bright and full in the front of her mind.
The way his lips molded perfectly to hers; the sensation of drifting on a cloud that suffused her when he cradled her cheeks; the idea that being with him this way felt right.
The back of Charity’s throat caught and closed. Her mouth turned dry as cement dust. Taking a huge gulp of water helped. Some. Enough that she could ask, “What’s wrong? You’re looking at me like I’m a junkyard dog with three heads an'a purple tail.”
Kolby blinked several times, his mouth splitting into a grin and his brows lifting under that fringe of still-needing-a-trim hair.
One loud guffaw escaped him.
“I don’t see what’s s’funny.”
Kolby’s grin softened, and he shook his head, his gaze never wavering from hers.
“That accent,” she thought he murmured, but she wasn’t sure because his voice had dropped so low.
“What did you say?”
Another head shake, and then a sip of water. “I said this once before, but you, Charity Quinlan, are a revelation.”
“And I didn’t understand what you meant by it the last time you said it, and still don't.”
His grin grew but, he didn’t clarify his response, instead, forking in more of the meal he’d termed delicious.
“Tell me about your family,” he said out of the blue. “The brothers you’re always referencing. Five of them, right?”
The abrupt change in the conversation was jarring, but he looked better than when he’d arrived at Inn Heaven, so she asked, “What d’ya want to know?”
“Are they older? Younger than you? Their names. Status in life. Stuff like that.”
He hadn’t told her anything about his week yet, anything that had happened with his mother. It was obvious he didn’t want to talk about it, even though Charity knew he should. If, for no other reason than to relieve his mind of a few things. But she wouldn’t push, despite wanting to.
“They’re all older. Considerably. The closest one to me in age is MacCallum, and he was thirteen when I was born.”
“Unusual name. MacCallum.”
“No one in the family calls him that.”
“Mac?”
“Nope.” She tried to keep the grin contained. “Guess again.”
“Cal?”
“No.”
He shrugged. “The only other nickname I can think of is Liam, and that doesn’t seem to fit.”
“That’s my brother William’s nickname. Liam.”
“So, what do you all call him, MacCallum, then?”