“Neither can I.” Zack’s deep voice from directly behind Lacy sent a chill over the back of her neck. She was grateful she’d left her hair down today, grateful he was unaware of her reaction.
* * *
Zack had forgotten how good it felt to eat a delicious home-cooked meal with a woman. A beautiful woman like Lacy. She’d won him over right off with that gorgeous red hair, but add in those pale blue eyes and the delicate cleft in her chin, not to mention those pretty lips, well, at the risk of seeming superficial, he was a goner. Though he certainly had reservations about their age difference, him hanging on to thirty-nine for dear life, and her barely thirty-one. Still, there was something unique between them. He clearly remembered her as a little girl, and she remembered him as a young hard hat dude. What were the odds of ever meeting again?
He glanced at his daughter to take his mind off Lacy, and saw how ecstatic she was to eat a meal she’d played a major part in. There was that, too. Lacy had a natural way with Emma, her involvement not put on or motivated by any ulterior motive. The two of them honestly liked each other. A huge plus. But what was not to like about Emma? Yeah, he was biased.
“Shortcake, this dinner looks spectacular. You did a great job.” After watching his daughter preen over the compliment, he made sure to catch Lacy’s glance and nod, letting her know how deeply he appreciated her being there. “Lacy, we can’t thank you enough for spending your Saturday afternoon with us.”
“It was my pleasure.” He believed her, too.
He’d set a place for her at the table that barely accommodated three, but she seemed to be packing up, as if preparing to go home. “Aren’t you sticking around to eat with us?”
“Oh, well, um, I wasn’t sure since this is technically a cooking lesson for Emma.”
He shook his head, surprised she hadn’t planned to eat with them. “Please join us.”
“Yeah, have dinner with us, Lacy. I want to show you how good I can cook!”
Lacy laughed lightly, and Zack thought it was the best sound he’d heard all day. “Well, in that case, I’d love to.”
To emphasize that he had indeed planned on her staying for dinner, he opened a cupboard and pulled out a bottle.
“I’ve got the perfect chianti to go with the pasta.” He smiled at Lacy, then slid a deadpan stare to Emma. “None for you, squirt. Pour yourself some milk.”
Later, the meal was great, the company natural and way too easy on the eyes, making it hard not to stare at Lacy. She was so darn sweet to Emma, too. Why wasn’t a great woman like her with someone? Too personal? Well, he couldn’t let the sudden silence at the dinner table go on much longer or it would feel awkward.
He took another bite of the delicious spaghetti with meat sauce and thought. There was one question he could ask. “What made you want to own and operate a food truck just like your dad?”
“Well, beyond the obvious of seeing how much he’d always loved it, I guess in a way I’m doing it in homage to him.”
“You mentioned he died?”
“Yes, last year. It was sudden, and it’s been hard without him, since my mother...” Lacy glanced at Emma, as though thinking twice about what she was about to say. They hadn’t talked about what had happened to Emma’s mom, and Lacey wisely dropped that line of conversation, sensing it was also painful. He was thankful she had, too. “Anyway, he supported our family with his small business, and though we were far from rich, we had a good life.” She nibbled on another bite of salad. “I like the independence of being my own boss and making my own hours, too.” She put down her fork, receiving his full attention. “Having a food truck is like owning a tiny diner. It becomes a community affair. I hope to have regular customers, that when people see me coming they’ll know I’ve got something good for them to eat and wait for me to park.”
“You’re refreshing.” He couldn’t help himself—she was. “You seem to know exactly what you want, and it’s nice to know not everyone is only out to make a buck.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind making it big, but it’s not my goal.” She laughed that cute jingly sound again. “I drive a big pink truck, not exactly a serious statement, is it?” He also liked how she used her hands when she talked and didn’t take herself too seriously.
Emma had been busy eating her smaller serving of spaghetti and meat sauce and cleaning her plate with the garlic bread. “I want to drive a pink truck someday,” Emma chimed in, and they all had another good laugh.
“Thanks a lot,” he teased Lacy for her influence on his kid.
Laughter was a sound Zack hadn’t heard much of in this kitchen over the past year and a half since Mona had left. And long before that, being honest.
When it came time for Lacy to leave later, he didn’t want her to go. He wished she’d stick around and watch a movie with them, then, after Emma went to bed, he could have time with her to himself. There was so much more he wanted to know about her.
They’d entered a sticky situation, whether she realized it or not. He had the upper hand, too, since he was the one in charge of her setting up and selling food to his men. But he’d never use his position like that. All he wanted was for Lacy to succeed, no matter what their personal relationship turned out to be. He also wanted his daughter to have cooking lessons without breaking his budget. It was probably best to keep things strictly business. Definitely safer. Yet she made him wish for more. A first since Mona pretty much crushed his interest in the fairer sex. Because they could be deadly.
After Lacy and Emma said their goodbyes, Zack broached the unspoken topic. Their business deal. “What do I owe you for today’s lesson?”
Her face scrunched up. Had he offended her? “There’s no charge.”
“But if I took Emma anywhere else for cooking lessons I’d have to pay. If nothing more, for your time.”
Lacy dropped the are-you-kidding act and got serious. “It has been my pleasure getting to know Emma, here.” Emma who’d wrapped her arms around Lacy’s hips and hugged her close, like they were already old friends. That was great to see, but also set off a tiny alarm for Zack. “As well as you. I’m fortunate to have found the perfect spot to break in my new business. That’s payment enough for me.”
“Well, I’m at least reimbursing you for the groceries,” he said, figuratively put his foot down.
“Fair enough.”
Zack also liked that Lacy knew when to back down from a friendly debate. To be reasonable.
“What’re we gonna cook next week?” Emma broke in, unaware of the money issue, her little head turned up, her eyes inquisitive and crinkling with excitement.
* * *
After another week on Zack’s construction site, Lacy had picked up more customers every time she parked. By Friday she’d nearly run out of pies. A wonderful problem!
Lacy had needed to switch the next arranged cooking lesson from Saturday to Sunday since she’d gotten another invitation to work a wedding on Saturday. This time, it was an outdoor wedding at a private beach in Carpinteria that paid really well, and she didn’t want to pass up the opportunity.
Sunday afternoon, during the second cooking lesson, Zack showed as much interest as Emma in learning how to bread and bake chicken tenders instead of deep-frying them. Lacy couldn’t deny what a good man her very first crush had turned into, and how lucky Emma was to have him as a father. The next part—how overall appealing he was—she was still trying desperately to ignore and failing miserably.
The natural progression of joking around and getting to know each other in an easygoing manner had made Lacy long for things she’d given up on. Feelings and aspirations she’d shut down after losing Greg. This. This was what I wanted for myself, my own family. When that option had been ripped away, she’d given up on it. Zack and Emma were a reminder it was out there.
“Okay, Zack, your turn to smash the potatoes.” She handed off the ol
d-school potato masher, and as she did, his smiling eyes met with hers. That familiar warmth curled through her body, and when he winked—his playful show-off attitude meant for the “girls” in the room—her heart pinched.
She might be rusty, really, really rusty, at the art of flirting, and he didn’t seem much better at it, but she could’ve sworn...
Truth was, it, whatever he’d just done, had been happening a lot with Zack Gardner, even at the work site. And every single time they did whatever it was they’d started doing, because she’d completely forgotten how that worked or felt, he’d caused a similar reaction. It all added up to a word she had nearly forgotten—along with flirting. A far more dangerous word. Chemistry.
Going way back to her eleven-year-old self and the first summer she’d spied Zackery Gardner, even then her brain had recognized what it was. She hadn’t pinned a word on it back then because what did she know, but she understood that young construction guy made her heart squeeze and her mind go foggy. Of course, she didn’t understand the word back then. But she certainly did now. And yes, he still made her heart squeeze and her mind go foggy, which terrified her.
The dinner of chicken tenders, smashed garlic potatoes, and fresh peas and carrots had been another success. Emma was thrilled to learn all the steps in the simple recipes. Lacy was confident that Emma, following the handwritten recipe card, could do everything herself the next time she tried, too. When they sat down for dinner, since they’d settled it last weekend and now it was a given that Lacy would join them, it felt like a good old-fashioned Sunday dinner at home. Something she’d lost and had yearned for ever since her father had passed. Truth was, it felt too good at the Gardner home, and it mixed her up.
After saying goodbye to Emma and Zack around eight o’clock, with that nostalgic sensation flitting around in her chest and banging up against her heart, she headed to her father’s old Camry parked in the driveway. With a homesick smile on her face, she slipped inside and turned the key. Nothing.
Yes, the car was old and, yes, this was another way she kept in touch with her father’s memory. However tonight, it’d let her down. The car, that is. Not his memory. She tried again. Nothing.
Zack and Emma had already closed the door, no doubt heading to the kitchen to do the dishes together. Her underhanded method to ensure they had more father-daughter time. He could teach her that part of cooking. The cleanup!
She called for roadside assistance and hoped to avoid disrupting any more of their evening by staying put in the car and waiting. Scrolling through her cell phone, she got involved in social media, then reading emails, and discovered an offer for another wedding job next month. Why not? So she replied.
“Is there a problem?” Zack tapped on her window.
She jumped and squealed, then, seeing him standing there, sighed as the tension disintegrated. “I have a dead battery.”
“Want me to try to jump it?”
“Thanks, but a truck should be here any time now.”
“Why didn’t you knock on the door, let me know?”
“Didn’t want to bother you.”
“You’re not a bother, Lacy,” he said, seeming genuinely bothered by her assumption.
She wasn’t? Something about that phrase made her insides light up. Could what she’d been sensing around him be more than one-sided? And wouldn’t that be a new kind of terrifying if it was?
He hung around while she secretly freaked, then she got out of the car and they waited together on the welcoming cushioned chairs of his front porch. He probably thought she was a nutjob.
“How old’s the car?”
“Oh, it’s got to be ten years, over a hundred thousand miles. It was my father’s. I can’t bring myself to part with it.”
“I can understand that.”
“Sure, a guy could, but my girlfriends all shake their heads over my ride.” The friends she’d quit reaching out to since she’d dedicated herself to being a loner.
Her answer made him smile, and she was just about to get lost in his eyes when the tow truck arrived. She showed the guy the problem. The usual jumper magic didn’t charge the battery, so the driver offered to tow the car to his gas station for further evaluation.
“I’ll drive you home,” Zack said.
The night had become too complicated with battling feelings and car problems, but still Lacy accepted his offer, even while blinking yellow caution lights popped into her mind.
“I just need to put Emma to bed and call our neighbor to keep an eye on her while I drive you.”
“I’d hate to leave Emma alone.”
“It’ll be fine. Mrs. Worthington looks in on her all the time. And she’s happy to bring her knitting over and sit for me. She’s known her since she was a baby.”
Lacy remembered doing her first babysitting job when she’d been twelve and being left briefly on her own when she’d been Emma’s age, so she didn’t argue. “If you’re sure.”
His hand reached for and held her forearm. “Trust me. I’m sure. It’ll be all right. Plus, she’s probably got her cell phone nearby if she needs anything.”
His dead-on stare, with those heavy lids and penetrating eyes only looking greener in the tow truck headlights, left her no doubt. Okay. She nodded. “Thanks.”
But he’d never held her arm before, never sent a flurry of sensations tingling across her skin, and she needed recovery time from the simple act of him placing his palm on her skin. More important, how could she keep him from noticing her reaction? One she hadn’t experienced since she’d been with Greg.
“Well, at least it’s a beautiful night to have to wait for a tow truck to hook up my car, right?” She hoped her unsteady voice didn’t give anything away. Hoped the topic of weather would keep him preoccupied.
He gave a contented smile and leaned against the car. Could he have felt the same whatever-it-was she had? Probably not.
Not to be obvious about her shaken state, she joined him at the car, and they leaned back together nearly touching shoulders. Lacy narrowly escaped it, thinking she couldn’t handle a second contact so soon after the first—the one she was still recovering from. They gazed up at the waxing moon, inhaling star jasmine from an overgrown nearby bush, trying to identify all the parts of the Orion constellation, but having to settle for his belt and left knee. It was too early and not the best time of year to find The Hunter.
“That one is called Rigel,” he said, pointing to the bright star, nowhere near boasting, just repeating a fact.
“How do you know that?”
“I’m from Utah, you know, the third highest state. Lots of sky and stars to gaze at, and I did a lot of it growing up.”
“And why’d you leave?”
“Not a lot of opportunity for work, and the pay couldn’t match California.”
If he hadn’t come to California looking for a job, she never would’ve met the younger version of him when she’d been not much older than his daughter. And she definitely wouldn’t be standing here with him tonight. Funny, how life worked out liked that.
Fifteen minutes later, after the roadside service towed her car away, Zack delivered her to her house. When she got out, he insisted on accompanying her to the door. Unsure of where things were going and totally aware of him being right behind her, she turned to thank him when she got there. His head canted, eyes concentrating, seeming to have some internal debate going on. It gave her chills. Again. What was that about?
She found and put her key in the door.
“I was wondering,” he began, so she stopped and turned toward him. “Maybe next week, after Emma’s cooking lesson, I could hire a babysitter and we could take in a movie or something?”
Out of the blue he’d popped a question that sent her mind spinning. Maybe he had felt that zip and zing earlier, too. Sure, she’d imagined flirting with him a little back at his house wh
ile they cooked together but had assumed it was mostly on her part. Though he had kept catching her doing it while they made the meal. Now he’d just asked her out. On a date. The flirting couldn’t have been one-sided. And was no longer safe.
While wrapped up in her own internal debate about the significance of his asking her out, he scoped out the neighborhood, looking almost suspicious. What was he up to?
“I’d like that,” she said finally, a surge of adrenaline accompanying the simple reply. Like it was a big deal, which it was.
His head shot back around. “You would? I was beginning to think you hadn’t heard me.”
Thanks to the onslaught of nerves, she laughed, perhaps a bit too hard. Had he expected her to turn him down? “Yes,” she said, smiling far more than she probably should’ve. “I would...like to, that is...” Like being a teenager again, the moment seemed overly important. But being honest, that was how she felt. She would like to but was also anxious as all get-out about it.
His eyes immediately relaxed, and he looked happy. “We can talk more about that tomorrow.”
Tomorrow, that was right. She’d be at his construction site, folding wraps and heating pies and wondering where he was and what he was doing. Oh, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. “Okay.”
With her head reeling, she went back to the key left in the lock on her door, attempting to open it. She glanced self-consciously over her shoulder, wondering if she should invite him in or something, but he’d gone back to checking out her neighborhood, and he’d asked his neighbor to sit, which had to be an inconvenience for her, even though it was a better part of town.
“I know it’s not as nice a street as yours, but I’m perfectly safe here.” In case that was what he was thinking.
He’d gone serious, searching her face, studying her eyes with his amazing ones. “I’m sure you are.” He stuck his tongue into the side of his cheek. “I was just wondering how nosy your neighbors were.”
The odd explanation sent a puff of a laugh through her lips. “Why?”
Cooking Up Romance Page 6
