“I’m catering a banquet tomorrow night and getting a jump on some of the baking,” she answered. She was already on her way back to the kitchen, saying something about a cobbler in the oven. Lange shut the door behind him and followed, trying to keep his eyes off her gently swaying hips.
He tried to brace himself for the powerful image she made in the kitchen, her face flushed as she straightened from the hot oven and then stirred a couple of pans on top of the cook top. She was wearing another of her loose uninspired dresses, her feet were bare, and an apron was tied around her tiny waist. But Lange knew there was no bracing his heart from the devastating effect her domestic beauty had on him. God, what was it about this woman? He could not resist her any more than he could resist breathing the air around him. The air scented with her cooking, her fragrance. Her very essence.
It had only been two days since she left his apartment - two long, lonely days - so how could he have missed her so much? His voice came out a bit husky with emotion, even though he was trying to sound sardonic. “It looks like a berry bomb went off in here.”
“I know, it’s a mess, but I’m running way behind schedule. This week didn’t turn out quite the way I planned.” She picked up a bowl and began to stir. “What’s with the computer?”
“I brought my laptop so that we could log onto the criminal data base. I thought maybe you could look through a few mug shots, see if anyone looks familiar.” He sat the computer and a stack of files on the counter, then helped himself to a seat on the stool.
A tiny frown wrinkled her forehead as she dropped her eyes and concentrated on mixing the ingredients in her bowl.
“What?” he asked, seeing the look on her face.
“I-I don’t know. It’s just the thought of being stalked by a known criminal....”
Lange sighed heavily. “You refuse to believe it’s anyone that you know. Now you don’t want it to be a total stranger!” He threw his hands up in exasperation.
“More than a stranger, a criminal, someone with a track record, someone that’s done mean things before to other people and who might want to do those same mean things to me now!”
As always, it amazed Lange that she could say so much in one breath. In spite of himself, one corner of his mouth lifted in a smile.
“What, you think it’s funny?” she demanded.
“No. But I think you’re going to beat to death whatever is inside that bowl.” He nodded to the furious way she was stirring the mixture with her wooden spoon.
“Oh for Heaven’s sake, look what I’m doing!” she muttered. “This is dough for another cobbler, and it’s going to be as tough as a leather boot. Look what you let me do!” She sputtered and muttered to herself as she deftly sprinkled a handful of flour onto the counter, then turned the bowl of dough out onto its surface. After dividing the dough in half, she took her rolling pin and began to spread one of the lumps into a thin, flat circle.
Just for a moment, Lange was lost in the pleasure of simply watching her work. He could remember doing the same with his grandmother as a child. Even then, he had been fascinated with how a lump of flour and water could be maneuvered into a smooth work of art, then transformed into a mouth-watering masterpiece made just for him. Knowing how well he liked the flaky crust, his grandmother always saved a few strips of dough and baked them separately so he could enjoy the special treat.
He watched silently, mesmerized by the deft, sure movements of her hands as Ashli expertly rolled out the dough. But soon his mind was taking a path of its own, wondering how it would feel to have her hands kneading the muscles of his back, the same way she kneaded the dough; wondering what it would be like to have her smooth away the knots of frustration and fatigue, as easily as she smoothed out the dough.
Pulling himself out of his reverie, he forced his mind onto business. “You said you were catering a banquet?”
If she noticed his sharp, abrupt tone, she didn’t mention it. She continued to work with her dough until it suited her, then lifted it in one large sheet and eased it down into a large glass baking dish. To Lange’s amazement, it was a perfect fit, with no excess dough around the edges. She completed her task before she bothered answering his question.
“Yes, I’m serving a party of thirty-five tomorrow night at the Tea Party. It’s an awards dinner for a small insurance company.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this earlier?” he asked irritably.
“I didn’t think it was important,” she shrugged. She began to fill her crust with plump, freshly washed blackberries.
“Didn’t think it was important? Damn it, Ashli, have you forgotten why you hired me in the first place? You can’t be breezing back and forth at night into empty buildings and empty apartments without telling me!”
“I think you’re being a wee bit melodramatic,” Ashli insisted. She coated the berries with a generous amount of sugar as she brushed away his concerns. “First of all, I have no intentions of serving thirty-five people all by myself. My staff will be there to help, so the building will hardly be empty. And second of all, I come home to an empty apartment every single day without clearing it with you first.”
“You come in at four thirty in the afternoon, not at midnight. There’s a big difference. And don’t tell me you won’t be the first person in at the Tea Party to set up for the dinner.”
“Okay, so maybe you’re right. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. And in answer to your question, no, I haven’t forgotten why I hired you in the first place. It would be impossible to forget, even though I would love to be able to!” With a toss of her head, she grabbed her rolling pin and began to roll out the second ball of dough.
“What time is the banquet?” he practically growled.
“From seven until nine thirty.”
“What time will you go to the restaurant?”
“Probably around four thirty.”
“I’ll be there waiting for you.”
Ashli sniffed her disapproval. “You don’t have to act like you’re making an appointment to have your teeth pulled.”
“I had planned to do something else tomorrow afternoon, but I guess it can wait. I don’t want you going there alone. I’ll be back at ten to escort you home.” He watched as she took out a pastry cutter and rolled it over the smoothed out dough, cutting it into strips with zigzag edges.
Lifting the strips with care, Ashli placed them carefully over the top of her cobbler, creating a lattice pattern. As she dropped pats of butter strategically over the top of her creation, she sighed dramatically. “Then I guess I’d better tell you about next Saturday night, you’ll probably want to know. There’s another banquet, but I’ll be attending this one as a guest.”
“With who?” He hoped the barked words did not sound as accusing and jealous as they felt while stabbing into his heart.
Her shrug was casual. “I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about a date, but I guess you’re right, I do need as escort. Most of the other people will have dates and I don’t want to be a fifth wheel.” She seemed to be completely unaware of how her rambling words of taking a date were eating right into the flesh of his heart. “Although I do distinctly remember that last year Grace Henning came without a date. She sat at our table and -”
“Ashli,” he broke in sternly, sensing she was about to lose the thread of the conversation. “What kind of banquet is this and why are you going?”
“Because everyone who’s anyone in the restaurant business will be there.” Going over to the double ovens, she bent over and retrieved a bubbling cobbler from the depths of the lower chamber. She spoke from over her shoulder, not turning to see how his gaze had slipped to caress the view of her nicely rounded bottom. “It’s the annual RRR banquet, and I go every year.” When she straightened with the pie and brought it over to the counter near him to cool, she glanced up and caught his eye.
“Looks delicious.” He glanced down at the dish, but something in his innocent act made her suspect his w
ords were not specifically geared toward the cobbler.
“Well anyway,” she said, retracing her steps with the unbaked pie and bending once again to slide it and another pan into the oven, “the Tea Party has been selected as one of the top five finalists. It’s a huge honor and one I fully intend to enjoy. So don’t expect me to cancel my plans, even if this banquet will draw a lot of publicity.”
“What kind of publicity?” he asked, his mind snapping back to attention.
“Newspaper, television, that sort of thing. Each finalist will be featured in a full length newspaper article, and we’ll have a group interview on Wake Up, Richmond on Friday morning.”
“What kind of banquet did you say this was?” He realized he hadn’t been really listening, not when presented with the view of her very lovely little upturned bottom.
“The Richmond Restaurant Review. It’s an annual event, where all the area restaurants are honored. The top five are given special awards and are featured in travel guides and national magazines. It’s wonderful publicity. I’m honored to even be a nominee; I never dreamed they would choose the Tea Party!”
“Sound like a big shindig.”
“It’s the Oscar Awards of the local restaurant business.”
He did not comment as she tended to the pans on top of the stove. While she brought two small plates to the counter and began to scoop out generous helpings of the cobbler, Lange considered the crazy thought inside his head. Did he dare?
“Ashli?” he began hesitantly.
“Yes?”
She made asking so much harder. She looked up at him with a question in her eyes, looking as young and innocent as a high school beauty queen. Hell, it even felt like he was back in high school, trying to get up the nerve to ask for a date for the prom! When she licked her thumb, sticky and red with berry juice, his pants became too tight and his palms became sweaty. He greedily followed the movement with his eyes, feeling as young and eager as a high school stud on his first date.
Somehow he managed to sound nonchalant as he made his suggestion. “I was thinking... maybe it would be best if I took you to this banquet.”
She looked surprised at his suggestion, then doubtful.
“What, you don’t agree?”
“Do you mean take me as in drop me off, or take me as in be my date?” she asked lowly, dropping her eyes.
Shifting uncomfortably on the stool, he cleared his throat. “As your escort. That way I could be there to protect you without being obvious.” Hell, he couldn’t be any more obvious than he was right now!
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Lange.” She sat the plate of cobbler in front of him and followed it with a cup of coffee, yet she never quite met his eyes.
He never considered the possibility of her turning him down. It felt like she was rejecting his invitation to the prom, and he never dreamed it could smart so much. Not that he had ever bothered with stupid things like proms and high school parties, he thought, and not that it mattered to him now. It had just been a suggestion.
Still, he had to know why. “You have someone else in mind?” he asked lowly.
“No, it’s not that.”
“Then, what?”
Her answer was slow in coming. She turned away to stir another pot, then bent to get a pan from the oven. She seemed to give its contents a great deal of attention as she slowly walked back to the bar. Finally she looked up at him, her words as clear and distinct as her beautiful blue eyes.
“This banquet is very important to me. It represents a personal victory that I am very proud of. And you have made it perfectly clear that you wanted nothing to do with any aspect of my personal life. So thank you for the offer, but I won’t be needing your professional services that night.”
Lange found it difficult to hold her gaze. She stared at him with complete honesty, making him painfully aware of the fact that he, himself, hid behind a lie. He had been lying to her, lying to himself, when he claimed their kiss meant nothing. What would she say if he was honest and admitted his offer had nothing to do with his professional services, and everything to do with personal involvement?
He looked away, diverting his gaze to the pan she was setting between them on the counter. And when he saw the thin golden strips of extra crust, just like the ones his own grandmother used to bake, a sharp ache began in his heart and brought the sting of moisture into his eyes. “I-I can’t believe you baked extra crust,” he murmured.
The change of topics threw Ashli a little off guard. “Oh, that,” she shrugged. “My mother used to cook the extra crust for me and my brothers. It’s really very good.”
“I know. My grandmother used to bake the extra crust for me, too.”
Hearing the odd ache in his voice, Ashli glanced up. He wore that same look of longing on his face she had seen at her parents’ table. His obvious turmoil was so intense that she forgot her own grievances with him and sought only to comfort him. “Tell me about your grandmother, Lange,” she said softly.
He did not even stop to think about the implications of sharing his feelings with her. He was lost in a memory as he softly spoke. “She was the only mother I ever knew, the only real family I ever had. She was everything a grandmother should be ... good food and good advice, all wrapped up in a hug and a kiss. Looking back, I see that I gave her a lot of hell, but she never complained. She was the only person who ever thought I would ever amount to anything.”
“She sounds wonderful,” Ashli said, encouraging him to continue.
“She was a gentle woman, softly spoken, but she would fight like a mother bear when the other kids would pick on me. She taught me to defend myself and not take flak from others if I knew I was right. She taught me about honor and trust and all those things that grandmothers know so much about.”
“Your grandfather?”
“He died before I was born. It was just Grandma and me. We didn’t need anyone else. I didn’t want to share her with anybody else. She was the one thing, the one person that was really mine.” He lifted a strip of crust and examined it as if peering into a picture of the past. “I remember one time when she was baking a cobbler and didn’t have enough dough for extra crust. She took one look at my face and decided that the lattice on her cobbler was too ‘fat’. She took off every single piece and trimmed them down, until there was a whole pan of extra crust, just for me.”
“I think I would have liked your Grandmother,” Ashli decided with a smile.
“I never thought I’d ever meet another woman like her. I thought she was too perfect to be like anyone else in the whole world.”
“And then you met Lauren?” she guessed softly.
“Lauren was as different from my grandmother as day and night. Truth is, I don’t think Grandma would have approved of Lauren,” he confessed lowly. He frowned slightly as he studied the piece of crust one last time. Then he slipped the morsel into his mouth and let it melt upon his tongue. Savoring the taste with his eyes closed, he could picture being a child once more in his grandmother’s kitchen.
When he opened his eyes, Ashli was looking at him, her beautiful face filled with compassion. It wasn’t pity; he knew that now. It was just Ashli’s amazing ability to care about other people and share their emotions. It was part of what made her so damned irresistible, part of what fueled this incredible weakness he had for her.
“You,” he said in a strangled voice. The word peeped out of his heart, squeezing past the lump in his throat. “My grandmother would have liked you,” he managed in a voice raspy and gruff. “You’re so much like her.”
The heartache he exposed himself to was worth the pain. Her smile was all the reward he needed for willingly breaking off a piece of his heart. Her smile was like the very first rays of sunshine after a gentle spring rain; slow and hesitant at first, gaining confidence as it peeked through the clouds, then bursting into its full, brilliant glory. Seeing her smile, Lange felt his heart swell and threaten to burst.
“I think that
’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she whispered, tears in her eyes.
Lange stared at her for a long, hungry moment, his own eyes not quite dry. But then as he realized what had just happened, his head rolled back in weary defeat. He cursed the ceiling he stared at, but there was no real anger in his voice. “Damn it, Ashli, you’ve done it again. You’ve gotten me telling you things I have no right to say to you.”
She made no reply, just stared down at the remaining strips of crust in a brave effort to keep the tears at bay. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“I- I’m not.”
“A mere technicality, at best,” he chided gruffly. “You look like a kinked water hose, about to burst.”
Unshed tears thickened her whispered voice. “Maybe I’m just dense. Maybe I really am clueless. But I don’t understand. What has telling me about your grandmother got to do with your protecting me?”
“We’ve been through all this.” His voice was low, rough.
“But this has nothing to do with me, nothing to do with the investigation.”
There was a silence that followed, a silence that stretched into the sound of two hearts in pain. At last Lange spoke in a voice so low it was practically a rumble. “I thought I had explained this to you. I can’t get personally involved with you.”
“Would it be so terrible, Lange?” she asked, hurt creeping into her voice. He made caring about her sound so detestable.
“Yes, Ashli, it would. If I let myself get too close, I might lose my objectivity. I can’t do that. I’ve already stepped over a line that I should never have crossed.”
“Aren’t you being a little hard on yourself? It’s not like the man slipped through your fingers while you weren’t looking.”
“How do I know that? All I can see is you, Ashli.” He made the admission in a voice raw with vulnerability. “In every color of blue, in every ray of the sun, in every dream. The man could be right under my nose and I wouldn’t even see him because I can’t take my eyes off you!” He slammed his fist down onto the bar, rattling his pie plate with the force.
He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not Page 14
