Tempted (6 page)

“It’s nice. You’ve done some nice things.”

“Oh, you’ve been here before?” I shook my head at my own question. “Of course you have.”

“Back when Jamie’s grandparents lived here, yeah. Long time ago. It’s nicer now.” His mouth stretched into another slow grin. “Smells better, too.”

There was no reason for me to be intimidated by him. He wasn’t doing anything. He was, in fact, being quite pleasant. I wanted to return his smile, and I did…but it was with a sort of hitching, confused reluctance. It was the kind of smile you give to someone who’s just offered you a mint on the subway. Wondering if they’re being kind, or if your breath’s offending. Was he just being polite, or did he mean it?

I didn’t know.

“I hope they taste good, at least. I’m not having much luck with them so far,” I admitted with a glance at the bowl.

He tilted his head to look at the mess on the center island. “How come?”

“Oh…” I shrugged with a small, self-conscious laugh. “I thought I’d be fancy and make them from scratch instead of the box. I should’ve stuck with the prepackaged mix.”

“Nah. Things made fresh are always better.” Alex moved closer to the island, and therefore, closer to me. He looked into the bowl. Without his gaze pinning me, I could watch him. “So you put the butter in with the eggs? What’s next?”

He came all the way around, and we ended up shoulder to shoulder. He hadn’t looked so tall from across the room. My head would reach the bottom of his chin. On James, I could reach his mouth without standing on my toes. Alex turned his head and gave me a look I couldn’t interpret.

“Anne?”

“Oh…oh, I guess it’s right there.” I leaned over to stab the cookbook with my finger. Several grease splotches marked the pages. “Melt the chocolate. Melt the butter. Mix together. Add the sugar and vanilla….”

I stopped when I saw him staring at me. I returned his smile with a tentative one. It seemed to please him. He leaned forward, the tiniest amount. His voice dipped low, sharing a secret.

“Want to know the trick?”

“Of making brownies?”

His grin got broader. I expected him to say no. That he had another trick to reveal, something sweeter even than chocolate. I leaned forward, too, just a little.

“Hot butter will melt chocolate. You need a low flame.”

“Will it?” I looked at the cookbook so I didn’t have to look at him. More heat rose, burning the tips of my ears. I thought I must look ridiculous and tried to pretend it didn’t matter.

“Want me to show you?” At my hesitation he straightened. His smile changed, gave us a bit of distance. Still friendly, but less intense. “I can’t promise you they’ll win any awards, but—”

“Sure. Yes, sure,” I said decisively. “James’s family will be here pretty soon and I don’t want to be worrying about dessert once they start arriving.”

“Yeah. Because they’ll take up all your attention. I know what you mean.” Alex reached for the bowl and turned toward the stove, where I’d left the double boiler I’d been using earlier.

He would know just what I meant, I thought, watching him dump the cooling butter-and-egg mixture back into the pot. He twisted the knob on the stove, bending to get his face at the level of the flame and setting it with a delicate touch. He grabbed up a spoon from the tool caddy on the counter and stirred the mixture.

“Bring me the chocolate.” He spoke like he was used to being obeyed, and I didn’t hesitate. I tore open the bag and gave it to him. Without looking at me, he shook the package gently, dropping chip after chip into the butter as he stirred it. “Anne. Come and see.”

I moved to peer over his shoulder. The butter now had dark brown swirls that got larger and larger as Alex added more chocolate chips. After a few more moments the mix was a gooey, velvety liquid.

“Beautiful,” I murmured, not really meaning to speak, and he looked up at me.

This time I didn’t feel like he’d snared me with his gaze. I wasn’t prey. He assessed me, then turned back to the thickening batter.

“Is everything else ready?”

“Yes.”

I gathered the rest of the ingredients. Together we mixed and poured and scraped the bowl with my serviceable white spatula that was guaranteed not to crack or stain. The brownie mix smelled liked heaven and filled the baking pan exactly the way it was supposed to.

“Perfect,” I said, and slid it into the oven. “Thank you.”

“And of course it has to be perfect, right?” Alex leaned against the island, hands gripping the edge so his elbows bent akimbo.

I wiped my hands on the dishcloth and started putting utensils into the sink. “It’s nice if it is, isn’t it?”

“Even a flawed brownie still tastes damn good.” He watched me clean without offering to help.

I paused, mixing bowl in my hand. “Depends on the flaw. I mean, if it’s too dry or crumbly, it might not look right but will taste good. Or if the ingredients are wrong it can look perfect on the outside and taste terrible.”

“Exactly.”

I wondered if he’d been baiting me to say something he’d been thinking. “Well. They looked perfect. Unless they burn.”

“They won’t burn.”

“But they might not taste good, either?” I laughed at him. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“You never know, do you?” He shrugged and gave me an upward, sideways, roundabout glance.

Teasing. He was teasing me, judging me. Trying to draw me out. Trying to feel me out. Figure me out.

“I guess we’d better taste it then.” I held out the bowl. “You go first.”

Alex raised a brow and pursed his lips, but pushed himself off the island and held out a hand. “In case they’re vile?”

“A good hostess always allows her guests to have the first portion,” I said sweetly.

“A perfect hostess makes sure everything’s grand before she serves it,” Alex countered, but he scooped a finger along the bowl’s side. It came away smeared with chocolate.

He raised his finger, showing me. Being theatrical. He opened his mouth, tongue showing intimately pink. He put his finger in his mouth and closed his lips over it, sucking hard enough to hollow his cheeks before his finger popped out with an audible noise.

He said nothing.

“Well?” I asked, after a moment.

He grinned. “Perfect.”

That was enough incentive for me. I slid my finger along the small amount of batter left in the bowl and licked it with the tip of my tongue.

“Coward.”

“Fine.” I stuck the whole thing in my mouth and sucked as hard as he had, making a show of it. “Mmmm, that’s good!”

“Brownies fit for a queen.”

“Or James’s mother,” I said and immediately covered my mouth to pretend I hadn’t said anything so remotely derogatory.

“Even her.”

We smiled at each other again, drawn together by our mutual understanding about what sort of person James’s mother was.

“Well…” I cleared my throat. “I should go change my clothes and take a shower. And show you to your room. It’s clean and ready, I just have to bring you some towels.”

“I don’t want you to go to a lot of trouble.”

“It’s not any trouble, Alex.”

“Perfect,” he said, not quite a whisper and not really a sigh, either.

Neither of us moved.

I realized my fingers were numb from clutching the bowl too hard. I loosened my grip at once and put it in the sink. I had chocolate on my fingers from the bowl’s edges and I laughed, gesturing.

“What a mess.” I licked them, the pointer, middle, thumb. “I’m chocolate all over.”

“You have some just…there.”

Alex’s thumb traced the outer edge of my mouth’s corner. I tasted chocolate. I tasted him.

That was how James found us, touching. An innocent gesture that meant nothing, yet I backed away at once. Alex did not.

“Jamie,” he said, instead. “How the fuck’ve you been?”

They collapsed into a flurry of backslapping and insults. Two grown men reverted to the behavior of fourteen-year-old boys in front of my eyes, both of them rumbling and posturing. Alex grabbed James around the neck and knuckled his hair until James stood up, face flushed and eyes bright with laughter.

I left them like that, to their greeting. I crept away down the hall and into the shower, where I ran the water cold as ice and stood beneath the spray, mouth open, to wash away the taste of my husband’s long-lost best friend.

Mrs. Kinney often looks as though she’s smelling something bad but is too polite to say so. I’m used to it being directed at me, that carefully curled lip, those delicately flaring nostrils. I assumed it was meant for me this time, too, until I saw how her eyes had focused over my shoulder.

I had intended to nod and smile but not really listen to her commentary on the dinner, how it was being prepared, how much to serve, where everyone should sit. So when she stopped, stuttered, actually, like a wind-up doll whose key has rusted, I turned to follow her gaze with mine.

“Hi, Mrs. Kinney.” Alex had showered, too, and changed into a pair of black trousers and a silk shirt that should have looked too dressy but didn’t. Smiling, he came forward for the sort of hug and kiss to the cheek she insisted on giving me every time we saw each other, though I hate casual embraces.

“Alex.” Her reply was as stiff as her back, but she inclined her head to accept the peck he put on it. “We haven’t seen you in a while.”

Her tone clearly said he hadn’t been missed. Alex didn’t seem offended. He merely shook Frank’s hand and waved at Margaret and Molly.

“James didn’t tell me you were back,” continued Mrs. Kinney, as though if James hadn’t told her it simply couldn’t be true.

“Yeah, for a while. I sold my business and needed a place to crash. So I’m here for a few weeks.”

Oh, he knew how to play her in a way I envied. An answer, delivered in a manner casual enough to belie the fact he knew exactly what she was fishing for but not as much information as she wanted. My estimation of him went up a notch.

She looked over at James, who was busy swinging one of his nieces in the air. “You’re staying here? With James and Anne?”

“Yep.” He grinned, all teeth. Hands in his pockets, he rocked on his heels.

She looked at me. “My, how…nice.”

“I think it will be very nice,” I answered warmly. “It will be very nice for James and Alex to have some time together. And for me to get to know Alex, of course. Since he is James’s best friend.”

I smiled brightly and said no more. She digested that. The answer appeared to be enough, if not satisfactory, and she gave him a nod that looked like it hurt her neck. She lifted the casserole dish in her hands.

“I’ll just go put this inside.”

“Sure. Anywhere you like.” I gestured, knowing she’d put it anywhere she liked no matter what I suggested. When she’d gone inside and Alex and I were alone for the moment, I turned. “What’d you do to piss off Evelyn?”

He smirked. “Aww, and here I thought she adored me.”

“Oh, you must be right. That was clearly a look of adoration on her face. If adoration looks like she just stepped in dog crap.”

Alex laughed. “Some things don’t change.”

“Everything changes,” I told him. “Eventually.”

Not Mrs. Kinney’s feelings about him, apparently. She avoided conversation with him for the rest of the evening, though she didn’t skimp on the “crap, I stepped in crap” looks.

For his part, Alex was cordial, polite, slightly distant. Considering how long he’d known James and how “welcoming” they were to everyone, the fact Evelyn was giving him the cold shoulder was very telling.

“Well, well, well, Alex Kennedy,” said Molly as she brought me a handful of plates for the ancient, cranky dishwasher I only used when we had company. Dinner had ended and everyone stayed out on the deck. The dishes could have waited, but I was looking for tasks to occupy me so I didn’t have to make small talk. “You know what they say about bad pennies.”

I slotted the dishes into the washer and filled the soap dispenser. “You think Alex is a bad penny?”

I liked Molly well enough, in that I didn’t dislike her. She was older than I by seven years, and we didn’t have much in common other than her brother, but she wasn’t as overbearing as her mother or an opinionated drama queen like her sister.

She shrugged and grabbed up the lids to the open containers of deli salad on the counter. “You know the boy your mother warned you about? That’s Alex.”

“Was,” I said, helping her close up the plastic tubs of macaroni salad and coleslaw. “In high school.”

She looked out the window toward the deck, where James and Alex were laughing quite loudly.

“I don’t know,” Molly said. “What do you think?”

“He’s James’s friend, not mine, and he’s only staying for a few weeks. If James likes him—”

Her sharp burst of laughter stopped me. “Alex Kennedy led my brother down a lot of bad roads, Anne. Do you really think someone like that can change?”

“Oh, c’mon, Molly. We’re grownups, now. So what if they got into trouble a few times as kids? They didn’t kill anyone. Did they?”