Page 46 of After The Storm
He meant that. Even though he’d only known her for a couple days, he silently swore if anyone tried to hurt her, he’d kill them. And he didn’t make that pledge lightly.
“Says the man who just pulled a gun on me for wanting to cook dinner,” she said with a slight smile.
“Not exactly,” he said, sitting down at the island in the center of the kitchen. “So you’re making dinner for us? What’s on the menu?”
She turned and headed toward the other side of the room. “I’m thinking my world famous shrimp scampi.”
“World famous?” he teased as she stuck her head in the refrigerator. “Are you a celebrated chef too?”
Leaning back, she threw him a nasty glance. “Keep it up and you’ll get bread and water for dinner while I eat all the shrimp scampi.”
“What? Am I in jail now?” he said with a chuckle, enjoying how she reacted to his giving her a hard time.
Her arms full of ingredients, she kicked the refrigerator door closed and made her way back to start preparing their meal. Kate dumped an onion, a garlic bulb, a stick of butter, a bag of raw shrimp, and a single lemon onto the top of the island.
With a smile, she asked, “Are you a scampi over rice kind of guy or scampi over pasta kind?”
Roman didn’t answer quickly enough as he tried to remember the last time he had shrimp scampi and what it had been served over, so she narrowed her eyes to a squint and leaned forward toward him.
“I’d say you’re a pasta guy. Am I right?” she asked with a quizzical look.
He didn’t really care what she served the meal with, so he nodded and let her think she was right in her guess. “Pasta sounds good.”
Without saying a word, she spun on her heels and marched over to the counter to reach up into a cabinet. Roman stared up at it, surprised at how stocked Butcher kept his kitchen. Did he routinely cook for himself, or did he just keep the place ready for friends who asked to crash for a few days? He had a hard time imagining him being much of a cook, to be honest.
No matter how much she stretched, she couldn’t reach the top shelf and the boxes of pasta remained just an inch away from the tips of her fingers. After a few moments of frustration, she looked back at him and asked, “Can you get this for me? I’m about a millimeter too short for your friend’s cabinets.”
Happy to be of assistance, Roman walked over and easily grabbed a box of linguini. He’d never liked that particular pasta, though, and grimaced at the thought of eating it that night.
Kate stood looking up as he held the pasta box in the air. Her body pressed against his as he stood there in front of the cabinet loving the feel of her next to him.
“Not a fan of linguini? I think right next to where that was there’s a box of angel hair.”
He replaced the box on the shelf and pulled out the second box of pasta. “Yeah, let’s go with the angel hair.”
Handing it to her, he remained frozen to where he stood, looking down at her smiling at him as she said, “Okay, angel hair it is. But I’m going to have to move out of this corner if we actually want the dinner cooked.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, closing the cabinet door and then stepping back out of her way.
“Not really a kitchen kind of person, huh?” she said, chuckling at him.
He couldn’t disagree. At least not at the moment since he appeared to misunderstand the basics of spatial relations and conversation. He didn’t usually act so damn awkward, but then again, it wasn’t every day that a beautiful woman made dinner for him.
It had been long enough that he couldn’t remember the last time a woman made the effort to do anything for him. More accurately, when he allowed a woman to do anything for him. Keeping people at arm’s length made gestures like the one Kate was about to make rare.
And that was no one’s fault but his own.
Kate began preparing the ingredients for the meal, starting with the garlic. After mincing four cloves, which filled the room with its fragrant odor, she turned on the gas burner. Then she drizzled virgin olive oil and tossed two spoonfuls of butter into a large frying pan.
Stirring the mixture in the pan, she asked, “Can you look up in the cabinet in the corner for white wine? It’s there, but I forgot to take it out.”
He walked around the island and searched for what she needed. He found the white wine and turned to hand it to her just as she said, “Oh, I need red pepper flakes too. I’ve got the salt and pepper, but I need the red kind too.”
“Got it. Red pepper flakes,” he mumbled as he pushed aside seasoning bottles on the bottom shelf of the cabinet.
Once he found them among the dozens of possibilities in herbs and spices, some he’d never even heard of, he closed the cabinet door and asked, “Anything else?”
“Nope. Just the red pepper flakes. I just need a little bit, but it’s an important part of the recipe. I really adds that special touch to it.”