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The ether a rilled tuna, herbed-up brown rice, and chunks of sauteed peppers and redients in by eye, or impulse, and seemed to enjoy it

The results were marvelous

She was an adequate cook, a co just one of her daily chores

It was probably a good analogy for who they were, she decided And another reason why itnaked in his bed

The sex had beenincredible No point in being less than honest about it And after good, healthy sex she should&039;ve been feeling relaxed and loose and coht and aard

It had been so intense, then he&039;d just rolled out of bed and started dinner Theyers, and that sweet, affectionate gesture had arrowed straight to her heart

Her proble, over-co But if she didn&039;t analyze so how did she knohat it was?

"Dinner okay?"

She broke out of her internal debate to see hile-cat eyes "It&039;s terrific"

"You&039;re not eating much"

Deliberately she forked off more tuna "I&039;ve never understood people who cook like you, like they do on so a little of this in, pinches of that How do you know it&039;s right?"

If that was really what she&039;d been thinking about with her o outside and eat a shovelful of h to be right soet inside her head, but he had to figure whatever was in there had to do with sex, or the ra it But they&039;d play it her way for theto cook, and since I don&039;t want to spend every night in a restaurant, I&039;imented it, it&039;d start to piss i to be too bland, or overly spiced? Overcooked, underdone? I&039;d be a wreck by the time I had a meal on the table" Worry flickered over her face "I don&039;t belong here, do I?"

"Define here"

"Here, here" She gestured ith both ar this really lovely and inventive ely char some sort of sexual insanity upstairs in your I&039;m-a-man-and-I-know-it bedroom"

He sat back and decided to clear the buzz froured her right, he decided, but he just never seeh "I&039;ve never heard that definition of here before Must come from up north"

"You knohat I mean," she fired back "This isn&039;t It isn&039;t - "

"Efficient? Tidy? Organized?"

"Don&039;t take that placating tone withtone, it was my exasperated tone What&039;s your problem, Red?"

"You confuse ed a shoulder "If that&039;s all" And went back to his meal

"Do you think that&039;s funny?"

"No, but I think I&039;ry, and that I can&039;t do a hell of a lot about the fact that you&039;re confused Could be I don&039;tyou, anyway, since otherwise you&039;d start lining things up in alphabetical order"

Those bluebell eyes went to slits "A, you&039;re arrogant and annoying B, you&039;re bossy and bullheaded C - "

"C, you&039;re contrary and constricting, but that doesn&039;t botherinteresting between us Neither one of us was looking for it, but I can roll with that You pick it apart Hell if I knohy I&039;ot more to risk than you do"

He sobered "I&039; to hurt your kids"

"If I believed you were the sort of man ould, or could, I wouldn&039;t be with you on this level"

"What&039;s this level&039;?"

"Evening sex and kitchen dinners"

"You seemed to handle the sex better than the ht Because I don&039;t knohat you expect from me now, and I&039;m not entirely sure what I expect fro ingredients in a pot"

She huffed out a breath "Apparently you understand me better than I do you"

"I&039;m not that coan" She leaned forward until she could see the gold flecks on the green of his eyes "A goddaeometric pattern Professionally, you&039;re one of the ners I&039;ve ever worked with, but you do half of your designing and scheduling on the fly, with little scraps of papers stuffed into your truck or your pockets"

He scooped up more rice "It works for me"

"Apparently, but it shouldn&039;t work for anyone You thrive in chaos, which this house clearly illustrates Nobody should thrive in chaos"

"Noait a estured with his fork "Where&039;s the chaos? There&039;s barely a frigging thing in the place"

"Exactly!" She jabbed a finger at hiot a wonderful kitchen, a comfortable and stylish bedroolass, covered his face "Jesus"

"And e what you&039;re going to do with them, but you&039;re not You just - just - " She waved her hand in circles "Mosey along"

"I&039;ve never moseyed in my life Amble sometimes," he decided "But I never mosey"

"Whatever You knoine and you read comic books What kind of sense does that make?"

"Makes plenty if you consider I like wine and comic books"

"You were h to move away froettingto do what makes the other person happy? Or at least try"

"You loved her," Stella said with a nod "Yet you walked away from a divorce unscarred It was broken, too bad, so you ended it You&039;re rude and abrupt onethe next You knehy I&039;d coht, yet you went to the trouble to fix a meal - which was considerate and, and civilized - there, put that in the C column"

"Christ, Red, you kill me I&039;d ht now it&039;s hing, she ound up and couldn&039;t stop "And we have incredible, blow-the-damn-roof-off sex, then you bounce out of bed as if we&039;d been doing this every night for years I can&039;t keep up"

Once he decided she&039;d finished, he picked up his wine, drank thoughtfully "Let&039;s see if I can work ot to tell you, I didn&039;t detect any geometric pattern"

"Oh, shut up"

His hand clamped over hers before she could shove back from the table "No, you just sit still It&039;s my turn If I didn&039;t work the way I do? I wouldn&039;t be able to do what I do, and I sure as hell wouldn&039;t love it I found that out up north My ets through life without screwing up We screwed it up, didn&039;t hurt anybody but ourselves We took our lumps and moved on"

"But - "

"Hush If I&039;m rude and abrupt it&039;s because I feel rude and abrupt If I&039;ure I have to be at soht, What the hell, and topped off his wine She&039;d barely touched hers "What was next? Oh, yeah, you being here tonight Yeah, I knehy We&039;re not teenagers, and you&039;re a pretty straightforoman, in your way I wanted you, andon my door unless you were ready As for the meal, there are a couple of reasons for that One, I like to eat And two, I wanted you here I wanted to be with you here, like this Before, after, in between However it worked out"

So his discourse, her temper had ebbed "How do you make it all sound sane?"

"I&039;ree with your take on the sex, I object to the word &039;bounce&039; I don&039;t bounce anyot out of bed because if I&039;d breathed you in er, I&039;d have asked you to stay You can&039;t, you won&039;t And the fact is, I don&039;t know that I&039;m ready for you to stay anyway If you&039;re the sort who needs a lot of postcoital chat, like &039;Baby, that was a&039; - "

"I&039;ravated tone that e for myself, and I destroyed you up there"

His hand slid up to her wrist, back down to her fingers "Any destruction was ht Mutual destruction The first time with a man, and I think this holds true forIt&039;s more so afterward if what happened between the in htforward," he cohtforward, to your maze It&039;s a difficult combination Gives us a lot to think about I&039;m sorry I made an issue out of all of this"

"Red, you were born toIt&039;s kind of interesting now that I&039; used to it"

"That may be true, and I could say that the fact your drus a different tune&039;s fairly interesting, too But right now, I&039;et home"

He rose when she did, then sierator He kissed her blind and deaf - pent-up teether

"So else to think about," he said

"I&039;ll say"

Roz didn&039;t pry into other people&039;s business She didn&039;t ossip came her way, but she didn&039;t pry She didn&039;t like - more she didn&039;t permit - others to meddle in her life, and afforded them the same courtesy

So she didn&039;t ask Stella any questions She thought of plenty, but she didn&039;t ask theer conducted business with her usual cal in the whirling funnel of a tornado and would still be able to conduct business efficiently

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She&039;d grown very fond of Stella, and she&039;d come - unquestionably - to depend on her to handle the details of the business so she herself could focus on the duties, and pleasures, of being the grower She adored the children It was iht, sly and noisy, entertaining and exhausting

Already, she was so used to the in her house she could hardly i there

But she didn&039;t pry, even when Stella caan&039;s with the unmistakable look of a woman who&039;d been well pleasured

But she didn&039;t hush Hayley, or brush her aside when the girl chattered about it

"She won&039;t get specific," Hayley complained while she and Roz weeded a bed at Harper House "I really like it when people get specific But she said he cooked for her I always figure when a et you between the sheets, or he&039;s stuck on you"

"Maybe he&039;s just hungry"

"A uys I&039;ve known I think he&039;s stuck on her" She waited, the pause obviously designed for Roz to comment When there was none, Hayley blew out a breath "Well? You&039;ve known hi time"

"A few years I can&039;t tell you what&039;s in his mind But I can tell you he&039;s never cooked for me"

"Was his wife a real bitch?"

"I couldn&039;t say I didn&039;t know her"

"I&039;d like it if she was A real stone bitch who tore him apart and left hi and gets him all messed up in the head even as she heals him"

Roz sat back on her heels and s, honey"

"You don&039;t have to be young to like romance Umyour second husband, he was terrible, wasn&039;t he?"

"He was - is - a liar, a cheat, and a thief Other than that he&039;s char"

"Did he break your heart?"

"No He bruised my pride and pissed me off Which orse, in my opinion That&039;s yesterday&039;s news, Hayley I&039; some silene arot a long bloo season, and they&039;ll fill in nice here"

"I&039;m sorry"

"No need to be sorry"

"It&039;s just that this wo, Mrs Peebles?"

"Oh, yes, Roseanne" After studying the space, Roz picked up her trowel and began to turn the earth in the front of the ?"

"She dithered around for an hour, said she&039;d come back"

"Typical What did she want? It wouldn&039;t have been plants"

"I clued in there She&039;s the nosy sort, and not the kind hat you&039;d call a benign curiosity Just coossip - to spread it or to harvest it You see her kind most everywhere"

"I suppose you do"

"So, well She&039;d gotten word I was living here, and was a fa me I don&039;t purinned under the brim of her cap as she reached for a plant "Good for you"