“It doesn’t sound weird to me at all.” Oh, thank God. He had a voice box after all.
Her laugh stirred around in his chest. “Really? It sounds a little weird to me, and I’m the one who said it. But it’s really how I look at the whole thing, so…” She trailed off to fill a bag halfway with apples, placing them in the cart.
“That’s how I knew I was meant to work on cars.” The words slipped out of him quietly, but they stopped Bellamy in her tracks.
“It is?” she asked, her eyes on him like emerald velvet over steel, both soft and unyielding.
The logical part of his brain, the one that had ruled everything about him until the minute he’d laid eyes on her, told him without hesitation to close his mouth. He shouldn’t dive into any of this with her, because it was going to open up a big, fat can of Don’t Go There that he’d jammed a lid over a long time ago, one he swore would never get opened again.
But the words came out anyway.
“Just because I always knew I loved cars doesn’t mean I always knew I’d be a mechanic. For a while, I wasn’t. But I was never happy, not like I am now, because nothing else ever spoke to me the way cars do. They feel right under my hands, and the complexities that turn a lot of people around when they look under the hood just make sense to me.”
Shane registered her lips parting in surprise, but kept on regardless. “So, while there are plenty of things I could do with my life, a bunch of things I’m good at, I had to pick the one that spoke to me. The one I just knew was a part of me. So, no. That doesn’t sound weird to me at all. In fact, it makes perfect sense.”
They stood there in front of the baskets of apples for a long minute, just looking at each other. Bellamy’s eyes never moved from his, and even though his mind screamed with vulnerability, the only thing that passed between them was understanding. Finally, she gave a tiny nod and spoke.
“It does, doesn’t it?”
And in that moment, Shane knew he was in over his head with Bellamy Blake.
20
“Whoa. You really weren’t kidding when you said all you had was ketchup and a frying pan.” Bellamy took a step back and put her hands on her hips, surveying Shane’s kitchen with a sinking heart. This wasn’t going to be easy.
He gave her an apologetic grin. “Yes, but there’s wine.” He bent down and rummaged through the bags at their feet until one hand shot up, victorious.
Bellamy lifted a brow. “Very nice, Sherlock. You got a corkscrew for that?”
“Oh, shit.”
Her laughter was automatic and felt so good it ached. “You mind if I help myself to the kitchen here? The sooner I get started, the sooner we can eat.” She gestured to the tiny space. The stove had to be circa 1960, but it was a sturdy son of a bitch, and all four burners looked functional. Come to think of it, she’d cooked on worse.
“I take it you want the frying pan and not the ketchup, but be my guest to either.” Shane reached into his back pocket to reveal a Swiss army knife, and started to open the bottle of sauvignon blanc that Bellamy had been thrilled to find at Joe’s.
“Thanks.” She washed her hands at the sink, looking over her shoulder at Shane. “Your cabin is nice.” Her eyes swept over stacked log walls the color of honey and the wood stove in the far corner across from the kitchen. True to what he’d said earlier, a recliner that looked to be conservatively four hundred years old stood in the middle of the room, with an end table and a small TV stand rounding out the view. It might not be the biggest or grandest thing going, but it was cozy as hell, perfect for its surroundings and definitely perfect for Shane.
“Bellamy, your room at the resort is nice. This bottle of wine”—he paused to free the cork from the bottle with a flick of his wrist, the muted pop serving as a soft punctuation mark to emphasize his point—“is nice. I don’t think I’d put my cabin in the same category. But it keeps me dry and warm, so really, I can’t complain.” His eyes gleamed over a half-smile as he reached up to open one of the three cupboards in the kitchen.
“You really are a skip-the-pleasantries kind of guy, huh?” she said, rooting through a drawer for a knife.
“What gave it away?” Shane poured the wine into two juice glasses and handed one to her. “Sorry about the glasses. It’s this or nothing.”
She held hers up and clinked it against his. “This is great, thanks. You want to make yourself useful? I could use a hand.” Bellamy was in her element, the ingredients already spinning around in her head, whispering about how they should be put together. She eyed the sweet potatoes and apples, mentally trying to work in how she wanted them to go with the pork chops still nestled in the bag. Thank God she’d grabbed fresh rosemary and some olive oil in case Shane hadn’t been kidding about having the barest kitchen in town. Yeah, this would work out just fine.
She looked up at Shane, realizing he hadn’t answered her question, or even moved since she’d started scrubbing the potatoes at the sink. “What?” she asked. He had the funniest look on his face, and hell if she could place it. “Do you hate sweet potatoes or something?” Oh, shit. He’d seen her put them in the cart, but still. Maybe he just wanted to be polite or something. She should’ve asked.
“No, they’re my favorite.”
“Oh. You just had a strange look on your face, that’s all. Are you sure they’re okay? I don’t have to put them in.” Eh, that was only sort of true. The dish would be kind of weird without them, but she could figure something out.
“Are you always this comfortable when you cook?” Shane’s expression shifted but didn’t change all the way, fluctuating into something provocative as he hooked his thumb through the belt loop of his jeans and leaned against the counter, facing her.
Heat shot through Bellamy and pooled between her hips with fiery twinges she had no hope of ignoring. “I, um…” Focus. Focus. Focusfocusfocusfocus on the food. “Yes.”
Shane kept his eyes on hers as he moved so close she could feel the warmth rolling off of his body. He snaked an arm around her waist, and she drew in a sharp breath at his touch.
“You don’t have any idea, do you?”
If she’d had any damned willpower to speak of, she’d have reminded him that she was supposed to be making dinner. But he was sliding her turtleneck away from her ear with fiery suggestion, kissing the skin of her neck with such sexy suggestion that her knees threatened to go on strike. Never mind what the rest of her wanted to do.
“Have any…oh, God, that feels really good,” Bellamy sighed, tilting her head to give him better access to her now-bare neck. Would it be bad form to just whip her shirt off in the kitchen? “Have any idea of what?”
“How happy you look around food, even in my shoebox of a kitchen.” He traced his tongue around the outer curve of her ear, following with the edge of his teeth.
“We’re never going to eat,” she murmured in the world’s weakest protest. Those pork chops had looked good, too.
“Oh, yes we are,” Shane said, pulling back to give her a suggestive grin.
She couldn’t help it. She broke out laughing. “I thought you were hungry for food.”