She blinked at him, her eyes like dark whisky behind her cat-eye lenses. “You know what’s nice about being kind of awkward? People underestimate me. I can get away with a lot because people think I’m just socially clueless. I mean, I am sometimes. But I can also use it, if you know what I mean.”
“So you did do it on purpose!” Delighted, he leaned forward and dropped a kiss on her cheek. “I owe you, Ruthie. You’re like my magic charm. From now on, I want you with me whenever Waverly’s within six feet. Can we make that happen?”
She laughed. He loved that throaty, goofy sound, had ever since he’d first heard it. “You’re being ridiculous. Didn’t you live in Lost Souls Wilderness for a month with bears and mountain lions? She’s just a person.”
He stood up and moved into the kitchen. “We can have a debate about people versus bears, but not on an empty stomach. Are you still up for tacos? Because I can get more fancy. You’ve earned it. I can whip you up a caviar omelet that will make you cry. Or how about some biscuits and moose sausage gravy? It’s a new recipe I’m trying.”
As soon as his back was turned to her, he ran his tongue across his lips. He could still feel the softness of her cheek and the flavor of her skin. He’d never kissed Ruthie before—on the cheek or anywhere else.
As an expert in flavors, he ranked the taste of her skin higher than…caviar.
Eight
“So that’s why you never talk about your family.” Ruthie had offered to help Alastair with the tacos, so she was carefully chopping some scallions with his second-best knife. He still didn’t trust her with his best one.
“Good God, woman, wash your mouth out. Waverly is not my family. Never was, even when Carole was alive. She made sure I knew that every chance she had. Angle the knife a bit more, like this.”
He took the knife from her and demonstrated his technique. His skill with his knives always amazed her. She watched his hands in fascination. They moved as if they had their own intelligence, as if she could have a conversation with them and never be bored.
Her cheek still tingled where he’d kissed her. He’d never done anything like that before. It was no big deal, just a platonic kind of peck. She had no idea why she would still be responding to it. But she had no control over her cheek sensations, so there it was.
“So who would you consider your family, then?”
“Carole was my family. My only family.” The soft burr in his voice gave that statement an extra wistfulness. “The two of us were orphans. She’s the one who raised me. She worked lots of jobs, housecleaning and baby-watching, that sort of thing. Tended bar at a pub in Aberdeen. That’s where she met Anthony. She thought he was her fairy-tale prince in shining whatever-the-fuck. She thought all our problems were solved. But she didn’t know the Berensons, now did she? Then when she died, I was orphaned all over again.”
She stopped chopping scallions and went over to the stove where he was frying breaded strips of halibut. Without overthinking it, she wrapped her arms around him from behind. Hey, he’d kissed her on the cheek. Didn’t that mean she could do something just as affectionate?
He startled and glanced down at her. “Jaysus, Ruthie, you don’t need to look so tragic. It was a long time ago. I’m looking to the future now.”
“Oh.” Feeling foolish, she let her arms drop back to her sides. “Sorry.”
“No need for apologies. I could have used that hug for sure when I was seventeen. Though I might have misinterpreted it back then.”
“It was just a hug of sympathy,” she assured him. “From one orphan to another. I mean, I’m not an orphan now, but I was. My parents adopted me when I was a baby.”
“Now how the devil did I not know that?”
“Why would you? Very few people know. I think most everyone’s forgotten. But I look nothing like either of my parents. My mother looks like a fairy princess and my father looks like a Viking. Not a speck of red hair or myopia between them.”
“Maybe that’s why we get on so well,” he said wryly. “Two orphans washed up in a storm on the shores of Lost Harbor, Alaska.”
Smiling, she carefully scooped the chopped scallions into one hand. “Where should I put these?”
He whisked a little dish from a cupboard and slid it onto the counter for her. “Nice job on those.”
“Maybe someday I won’t take ten minutes per scallion.”
“You’re meticulous. That’s not a bad thing. We’ll keep working on your scallion-per-minute rate.”
“At least my knife-wound-per-minute rate is practically down to zero.”
They smiled at each other, and it occurred to her that they were almost like family themselves by this point.
“Found family,” she said out loud.
“Excuse me?”
“Not every family is the one you’re born into. Some people feel closer to families who are more like friends. Like us.”
“So we’re family now, that’s what you’re saying?”
He spun a cheese grater in one hand, gunslinger-style, then rapidly grated a block of pale cheddar onto a plate. It fell like snowflakes into a pile within the grater.
“We could be. In a way. Maybe you could be my big brother.”
He frowned at her. “Never been a big brother before. What are the duties and responsibilities involved?”
“I don’t know, I never had one. I always wanted one, though. A big brother would have beat up anyone who teased me. He’d teach me how to fix cars, that sort of thing. Boy stuff.”
“I just taught you how to chop scallions, didn’t I?”
She laughed. “I like your definition of boy stuff. There’s also the question of people teasing me.”
“Seems like a dead issue to me. Does anyone here tease you anymore? Can you open the package of taco shells?”
She opened the cupboard and retrieved the plastic package. “Yes. You. I guess you’ll have to beat yourself up.”
Unable to open the plastic packaging of the shells with her hands, she tried her teeth. That worked better, except that it ripped open too suddenly and the taco shells flew out of the package and onto the counter. They slid across it like pinballs, bouncing off each other and skidding off the countertop.
Alastair dove for them and, amazingly, managed to catch most of them before they hit the floor.
“Sorry.” Ruthie made a face as she gathered up the runaways. “I’m very bad at opening plastic. I should have warned you.”
“Yeah, I know. I forgot. I remembered just in time.” With a wry smile, he added the shells he’d rescued to the pile on the counter.
“See? Who else would know something like that except a family member?”
“Anyone who’s spent any amount of time with you in a kitchen?” He spread the taco shells onto a cookie sheet and slid them into the oven. “Just a couple minutes for these to heat up and we’re ready. Want to put out some plates? I have some paper plates if you want to be completely safe.”
He winked at her. She scrunched her nose at him. The usual, in other words.
“Very well, let’s say you are my found family,” he said abruptly. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the refrigerator. He had very nice forearms, she noticed. Muscular with just a light sprinkling of black hair. “What do you think I should do about Waverly?”