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WHILE FRED WAS IN THE bath, Mac put away his laptop, tidied up a bit, straightened the cushions, then went into the kitchen and leaned against the worktop, arms folded.
He didn’t want her to go. He was tired of being on his own, of watching TV and having nobody to talk to. On paper, it sounded like a good idea, but lately when he was alone all he did was think of Fred, and how much he missed her.
“How can we get her to stay?” he asked Scully.
Scully sneezed.
“A good suggestion,” he said, “but I need a bit more than that.”
He walked out and down the corridor to the bathroom, pausing outside the door. He could hear her singing softly, her high voice mirroring Vivaldi’s violins. Smiling, he tapped on the door.
“Yes?” she called.
“I was just wondering... I’m sure you’ve probably eaten and won’t want anything, but just in case, I thought I’d ask...” He was waffling, and he cleared his throat. “You don’t fancy dinner, do you? I could knock up some pasta or something.” Jeez. Way to make it sound attractive.
There was a slight pause. He looked at his feet and screwed up his nose. He shouldn’t have said anything. She was trying to think of a way to refuse him without insulting him.
But to his surprise, she said, “Actually, that would be lovely. I haven’t eaten yet. If you don’t mind me sitting there in my pajamas.”
He laughed. “No worries. I’ll get started. No rush though. You take as long as you want.”
“Okay, thanks.” After a few seconds, she started singing again.
Smiling, he went back into the kitchen and started the dinner.
He was just draining the pasta and mixing it in with the sauce when Fred emerged, her face pink, her hair braided and pinned up on the top of her head, and dressed in the cutest pair of pink pajamas with purple flowers he’d ever seen on a grown woman.
“Don’t say anything,” she warned him, jumping onto a barstool. “Sandi bought them for me for Christmas and I didn’t have the heart to say I’m sure they’re for an eight-year-old.”
He laughed and brought the pan over to the worktop, dished the pasta into two shallow bowls, added some salad, slid a piece of warmed bread onto the side, and pushed it over to her.
“Thought we might eat in the living room,” he said. “Have you seen Chef’s Table?”
She slid off the stool and picked up her bowl. “No. What’s that?”
“A series about head chefs around the world. It’s really good.” He led the way in to where he’d already placed a couple of glasses of wine on the coffee table. He took the right-hand side of the sofa, and Fred sat on his left. The program had already started, so they began eating while they watched the story of the famous Italian chef unfold.
Mac felt an unusual flood of happiness. His dog lay to his right, while Fred sat only inches away from him, curled up on the sofa. She smelled heavenly, of lavender and mint. Her hair was a little damp around the nape of her neck, and he could imagine her sliding down into the hot water, almost into the bubbles. She looked all soft and curvy in the pajamas, and he was pretty certain she wasn’t wearing any underwear. If he were to slide his hands beneath the top, he’d find bare skin, and her breasts would be loose and unrestrained in his hands.
He sighed happily, content to daydream. It was lovely just having someone to watch TV with, to eat with. Fred was easy company—she didn’t talk all the time, and she wasn’t always asking him what he was thinking or feeling. She didn’t goad him or argue with him just for the hell of it, which was something he’d experienced with other women, and disliked intensely. When she did speak, she asked pertinent questions and offered interesting opinions. It was like she spoke his language, and he could count the times he’d been able to say that on the fingers of one hand.
He risked a glance at her, and was surprised to find her looking at him.
“What?” he said.
She shrugged. “Ginger and Sandi have gone out tonight. They asked me if I wanted to go, and I nearly did. I was just thinking that I’m glad I didn’t. This is nice. Sitting here, eating dinner, watching TV. With you.” Her hazel eyes were bright, clear.
“Like an old married couple,” he murmured.
Her lips curved up. “Yeah.” She returned her gaze to the bowl in her hands and ate another forkful of pasta. “The sauce is lovely. What’s in it?”
“The usual—tomatoes, basil, red wine of course.”
“Of course. Have you ever been to Italy?”
“Yes, I went on my OE—that’s what the Kiwis call their overseas experience—when I finished uni. I went to England, Spain, France, Italy, and Germany. I already knew then that I wanted to be a viticulturist, so I spent a lot of time at vineyards, discovering how they did things over there. Learnt a lot.”
“I haven’t travelled much.” She watched the views of the Italian countryside on the TV, looking envious. “I’ve done so little with my life.”
It was so unusual for her to say something personal that his eyebrows rose. “I don’t think you can say that. Looking after a sick parent can hardly be categorized as having done nothing.”
“You know what I mean. My view of the world consists of this.” She drew a circle in the air around herself. “I feel very... parochial. I try not to be. I’ve always read widely, and I try not to be narrow minded, but I’m aware that my experiences are limited.”
“You don’t strike me that way,” he said honestly. “You’re like a balloon seller in a city, who occasionally lets go of a balloon and watches it rise into the sky until he can’t see it anymore.”
She stared at him, and he watched her cheeks slowly turn blush pink. “What an odd thing to say.”
“Sorry.”
“No... I like it. It’s just... nobody’s ever said anything like that about me before.”
He put his plate on the coffee table, picked up his wine, and turned a little on the sofa toward her. “You’ve had previous relationships though, right?”
“Yes.” She pushed a piece of pasta around the bowl with her fork, then placed the bowl next to his and picked up her wine glass. “A couple. Neither lasted very long, though. I don’t know if that was their fault or mine. I knew I’d never be able to leave my mother, and I suppose because of that any effort I put into the relationship was halfhearted. Or maybe it was just because I didn’t like them that much.” Her lips quirked up, and she sipped her wine.
“You’ve never been in love?” he asked.
She wiped a mark from the side of the glass. “No.” She touched her thumb to her tongue, then scrubbed again. “Have you?”
“There was a girl I met while I was working in Blenheim. Claire. We went out for a few months, then got a place together. It was her idea, and I was twenty-five, twenty-six, I thought it was what I should do, about time I should settle down, you know. I was fond of her. I suppose I loved her.”
“What went wrong?”
He shook his head, still puzzled. “I don’t know. I guess we drifted apart. She said I wasn’t willing to work at the relationship, that I didn’t put enough effort in. To this day, I’m not sure what she meant by that. I bought her flowers, took her out to dinner. I didn’t leave my socks on the floor. I didn’t take her for granted—at least, I didn’t think I did. Maybe I did. I don’t know.”
“Perhaps she meant emotionally,” Fred suggested. “She could probably sense that you weren’t a hundred percent invested.”
“Maybe.” He ran a hand through his hair. “She called me a cold fish.” Sam had said the same about Fred, he remembered. That made him smile. “She could be right. I know I’m no James Bond—I’m not the kind of guy girls dream about.”
Fred’s gaze settled on him, holding warmth and... something else he couldn’t quite decipher. “How do you know? Not all girls dream about a man who’s flamboyant and dynamic. That kind of guy would scare the hell out of me. Some girls like men who are quiet, resourceful, hardworking.”
“That makes me sound incredibly dull.”
Her eyes met his. “I don’t find you dull.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. Neither did Fred, judging by the way she dropped her gaze.
She put down her wine and picked up the two bowls. “I’ll just wash these.”
He watched her get up, then rose and followed her out to the kitchen.
She ran some hot water, added the washing up liquid, and began to clean the bowls and the tools he’d used for cooking. Mac would have put them in the dishwasher, but if it meant she was staying for a bit longer, he was happy to let her do it.
He stood next to her, taking the items as she washed them, and drying them with a tea towel. The last rays of the evening sun slanted in through the window across the kitchen. It was growing dark, and he should put the lights on really, but he liked the way the room had turned a deep orange, the new peach-colored walls glowing, the chrome and stainless steel reflecting the sun, as if it was on fire.
The red highlights in Fred’s chestnut hair stood out in this light, and he knew that if he released it from its clip and spread it around her shoulders, it would look like beaten copper.
The material of her pajama top gaped a little when she leant forward, treating Mac to an expanse of pale skin and the slight swell of the top of her breasts. It was rude to stare, and he tried to tear his gaze away, but he couldn’t. The curve of her neck, the rounded blush of her cheeks, the shell of her ear, they all fascinated him, and he had to fight not to bend his head and press his lips to them.
He felt as if the passion and fire of his youth had subsided into barely glowing embers over the last few years, and he’d been content to let the glow fade, conscious that he would never set the world alight, and happy enough to exist in his corner of the world. But when Fred had arrived, it was as if she’d fanned those embers, causing the fire in his belly to leap into life again. He hadn’t felt this slow burn, this ache deep inside him, for a long time, and it had taken him by surprise. He wanted this woman, wanted her badly, and he didn’t know how he was going to cope with being around her, with seeing her every day, if he wasn’t able to touch her.
Fred was holding the saucepan he’d cooked the pasta in, but she lowered it into the water and stood there for a second, looking at it. He paused in the act of drying a bowl, wondering what was wrong. She lifted her hands out of the water, holding them up and examining how the suds had turned orange in the evening light, sparkling and shimmering, like fish scales.
She turned toward him and looked up. Her lips parted. And then she lifted her arms around his neck, leaned against him, and pressed her lips to his.
Mac was so shocked that for a second he just stood there. Her wet, warm hands splayed into his hair, and her soft body molded to his. Was this really happening? His brain refused to work—he was afraid he’d misread the signs, that she was just saying thank you or something, and that if he touched her, she’d pull back with a start.
Then she moved her head back a few inches, and looked into his eyes. Her own were half-lidded and sultry, her lips bare and dry.
“Want me to stop?” she whispered. She wasn’t just saying thank you. She really wanted him.
Mac’s lips curved up, and joy flooded through him.
He put his hands on her hips and turned her so her butt rested against the sink. Stepping closer, until their bodies were flush, he pressed against her from her breasts to her thighs. He studied her face, thinking how beautiful she was, and how much he loved the way she hadn’t even stopped to dry her hands.
Then he lowered his head and kissed her.
She murmured her approval, clutching her fingers in his hair, and Mac sighed and gave himself over to the kiss. He felt as if he was kissing a piece of autumn, bathed in the evening glow, tasting the apple and pear from the wine she’d had, his nose filling with the smell of lavender and mint. She opened her mouth to his tongue, and he dipped it inside, fireworks going off from the roots of his hair and travelling all the way through his body to his feet. He slid his hands around her waist, still over the top of her pajamas, loving the way she was so soft, with none of the elastic and wire of women’s underwear that constrained and tightened and pushed a woman’s natural figure out of shape.
He skimmed his hands up her ribs, then behind to feel her narrow back and the angles of her shoulder blades, then over her shoulders and down under her arms, until finally he brushed across her breasts. She didn’t complain, just sighed and arched her back a little, so he cupped her breasts and ran his thumbs across her nipples. She was so soft—her breasts felt like ripe fruit in his palms, and he groaned as her nipples tightened and hardened, responding to his touch.
Finally, he moved his hands down her back and beneath the loose elastic of her pajama bottoms, sliding his hands over the muscles of her bottom, and pulled her against him, pressing his erection against her soft mound. God, but he wanted her. He’d take her, right here, right now, if he could, strip her naked here in the kitchen, and let the rays of the late sun pour hot gold over her skin, making love to her until she clenched her hands in his hair and cried out his name.
“Yes,” she whispered, nibbling his bottom lip, and he knew that once again she’d read his mind, had seen what he was thinking, and wanted it too.
“Here?” he mumbled. Surely she deserved to be in a soft bed, to be kissed and touched for hours, to be worshipped.
But she just nodded, grabbed the bottom of his T-shirt, and pulled it up and over his head. His heart swelled. Was there anything as wonderful in the world as being wanted?
