Chapter Twenty-Six

You look lovely.”

“I believe that’s my line, Bliss,” Asher said with a smile.

Sera blushed, wishing her internal censor hadn’t chosen tonight to take a hike, allowing her to blurt out her admiration for her new beau like the dork she profoundly didn’t want him to know she was.

Asher didn’t seem to mind. He leaned in and kissed Sera’s cheek, stroking it, as was his wont, with a gentle caress of his fingers. Despite the chill in the air, the inch or so of snow that had fallen over Thanksgiving Day, his hand felt hot to her as he stood in her doorway, tall enough so Sera had to crane her neck to meet his gaze. “I hope you won’t mind if I borrow the sentiment back from you. You are stunning this evening.”

“Thank you, Asher,” she said, feeling absurdly formal. In honor of the occasion, she’d worn the earrings he’d given her, along with a forties-style V-neck dress in cherry red that managed to look retro-cute while not being too costume-y. She’d found it in a boutique on Water Street this morning after the belated realization that her regular uniform of jeans and a ratty tee probably wouldn’t cut it for tonight’s big date. Wrapped in the dress’s flattering folds, she was fairly confident she looked her best. She just wasn’t sure her “best” put her in the same league with her dashing landlord, who looked effortlessly elegant in a black button-down and black slacks that showed off his lanky frame to mouthwatering effect. He had the peacoat on again, open despite the cold, and she saw that he wore a sharp black corduroy blazer beneath it.

He did say we’re doing it up fancy—or at least as fancy as Santa Fe gets. Good thing I took him seriously. She’d even dug out a pair of black pumps from deep in her wardrobe, and was glad of the extra couple inches they added to her less-than-towering physique.

“You want to come in?” she asked, gesturing behind her to the living room, where Pauline was doing her unsubtle best to eavesdrop while pretending to point out items from the Ecstasy Emporium’s catalog to an indulgent Hortencia.

Asher shook his head. “Normally I’d love to, but I’m afraid we’re on a tight schedule.” He waved at the two women on the sofa. “Hello, Pauline. Hello, Hortencia.”

“Heya, studly,” Pauline called out, dropping her pretense of catalog shopping. “You got that little item we talked about?”

“Got it,” Asher called back. “Your aunt’s a lifesaver,” he said with a wink for Sera, ignoring the look of alarm she shot in his direction.

Pauline better not have slipped Asher any of her darn sexual aids, Sera thought darkly. The potential for humiliation was practically limitless. Then again, if things get hot and heavy, this date is about 99 percent likely to end with me in a state of extreme mortification anyway. Why worry about a few stray sex toys?

Asher had refused to tell Sera where they were going tonight, promising that she’d be well fed and pampered but denying her any details. My mystery man. Sera wasn’t sure she liked surprises, but if she couldn’t trust Asher, whom could she trust?

Trust yourself, Sera, said a voice in her head that was part Margaret, part Pauline, and part finally growing-up Serafina Wilde.

“Are you all set?”

His question jolted her out of her thoughts. “Ready as I’ll ever be,” Sera said, giving him a smile that was only half bravado.

*  *  *

“Ohhhhhhh!”

Sera clapped her hand over her mouth, ashamed of the frankly carnal noise she’d just emitted. But seriously, how could she help it?

“This is delicious!” She put down her fork and looked around. “Wait, where are we, and how did I just put such a fantastic piece of food into my mouth without knowing it?”

Asher laughed. “I must be slipping. I can see I’ve failed to capture your attention.”

Quite the opposite, in fact. Her attention had been so focused on her date that she’d failed to notice where he was taking her.

The short journey in Asher’s Land Rover from Pauline’s place to the restaurant on Canyon Road had passed in something of a blur (caused, in large part, by the kiss her landlord had laid on her just as he was helping her into the car). She remembered being ushered inside a farolito-lit adobe compound that looked like it must be a historic property, then sitting down and folding her napkin in her lap automatically, but she’d barely taken note of their surroundings as the hostess seated them. She’d been too homed in on Asher—his attentive behavior, the hand he’d placed on the small of her back. Now, mouth full of lingering delight from the delicate truffle-infused amuse bouche their waiter had started them with, Sera gathered her wandering wits and gazed about her.

Freshly whitewashed adobe walls and gauzy cream draperies gave Sera the impression of having alighted in some ethereal haven, far from the ordinary concerns of life. The high ceilings were graced with discreet fans, stilled now that it was nearly winter. Wall nichos boasted tea lights that flickered romantically, and piñon logs crackled merrily in the kiva fireplace. Stark, modernist art installations and dried floral arrangements lent an embarrassment of elegance to the dining area. It was unlike anything one would see on the New York dining scene, and yet, based on that first fantastic bite Sera had just enjoyed, this place could go head-to-head with some of the top restaurants in Manhattan and come out with nothing to be ashamed of. In fact…

“Oh God, this isn’t Blake’s new restaurant…” she blurted out.

Asher hastened to reassure her. “This place has been here for years, and believe me, after the other day, I went out of my way to make sure your… ex… had no stake in it.” The way he said “ex,” Sera knew there was much more he would have liked to say—or ask.

“About that, Ash…” Surely, he had to be wondering what she was doing with such a skeevy ex-boyfriend in her not-so-dead-and-buried past. Asher deserved to know the truth—especially if Blake decided to rear his ugly head again. Since Ash was her landlord, anything Blake did to ruin her business could end up having an effect on him, too. So much for small talk, Sera thought. We’re headed right for “nasty revelation city” before we’ve even ordered our main course. “I don’t want to bring up unpleasant business in such a beautiful place,” she said, “but I should probably explain…”

“Bliss.” Asher’s hand covered hers, and Sera forced herself to stop straightening the already perfectly aligned silverware that gleamed against the snowy table linen. She dared a glance up, finding Asher’s gaze warm and kind—no judgment in evidence. Sera forced her shoulders to relax, willing them down from somewhere in the vicinity of her ears. Asher had never given her reason to fear mockery—unless it was of the gentlest kind. “You don’t have to tell me anything, Bliss. You owe me no explanations.”

“But I want to,” Sera demurred. “Remember that night at your house a few weeks ago… how you said you liked what you knew about me, and I told you you didn’t know anything at all?”

“How can I forget?” He laughed ruefully. “My lavender bushes still haven’t recovered after the way you tore out of the driveway.”

Sera colored. “Yeah, well…” She looked down, hesitating.

“I’m only teasing you, Serafina. Please, continue.”

Hearing her full name coming from his lips stopped Sera short. Somehow it felt even more intimate than his nickname for her. It was an intimacy she desperately feared losing. “I want to tell you about my past, Asher—and there are some things you probably need to know—but I’m scared that after I do, you’ll… that you won’t…”

“Won’t what?” He stroked the back of her hand with featherlight fingers.

“Won’t want to be around me anymore,” she whispered. She looked away, blinking rapidly. It was times like these that Sera really regretted not being able to have a glass of wine—or ten—to take the edge off. But she knew that without her sobriety, she’d never have found herself in this moment—this potentially magical moment—with a man as wonderful as Asher. And she knew enough about herself to know that, even if he rejected her, she’d be okay—eventually. She wouldn’t need booze to help her get over the heartache. She’d just want it a whole lot.

She made herself look up and meet his gaze.

His angry gaze.

Not a lot angry, from what she could tell, but definitely a wee bit pissed. Or perhaps exasperated, she wasn’t quite sure. All she knew was that his green eyes were shimmering with turbulent emotions, tender and fierce by turns.

“Bliss,” he demanded, “do you think I’m a bad judge of character?”

“What?! No, of course not!”

He cocked his head to one side. “And do I strike you as self-destructive?”

Sera wasn’t sure where this was going. “Definitely not,” she said. Asher was the liveliest, most engaged man she had ever met. Nothing about him spoke of dark, twisty bits. Sadness, sure. Heartache, perhaps—in his past. But not in such a way that he would want to harm himself, or make bad choices.

“Then please, do me the courtesy of assuming that I would not ask a lady to dinner if I believed her to be of less than sterling character.”

“Oh,” she whispered. He thinks I have “sterling character.” Tears stung her eyes, and tenderness melted her heart. Remember that mascara, Sera! Keep it together. “Good point. Sorry about that, Ash. I didn’t mean to insult you. I just hope you don’t change your mind when I tell you the rest…”

Asher leaned in and kissed the hand he was holding. “After all the lovely qualities I have seen in you, Bliss—your courage, your kindness, your humor—I doubt there’s anything you could tell me about your past that would make me turn away from you. I’m not so faint of heart as all that—and you need to know that about me.” His hand tightened around hers, firm and urgent. “You must trust that about me, if we’re to make a go of what’s between us. And, Bliss, I very much want to make a go of things with you. So,” he challenged, “whatever it is, why don’t you try me?”

Sera could not deny him. After a speech like that, he could have demanded a kidney, and she’d have handed it over on her great-grandmother’s prized silver chafing dish. So she took a deep breath and, in a torrent of words, told Asher everything. How the famous Blake Austin had recruited her, wide-eyed and painfully shy, right out of culinary school. How she’d lost herself under his influence, lost herself even more under the influence of alcohol. How he’d found her wanting, how she’d found the solace of vodka. Sparing nothing, she described the humiliating Meltdown at the Maidstone, Blake’s vendetta, and her slow crawl back to respectability in the year since. She left out only Blake’s recent comments in the Chile Paper this week, not wanting to dump her drama on Asher lest he feel a need to get involved. Blake is my problem, not Asher’s, and I’ll be the one to face him down if it comes to that.

Appetizers came and went as Sera spilled her story, Asher refusing the wine list in an act of solidarity she didn’t fail to notice.

At length Sera stumbled to a halt. “Anyhow, that’s about it. The whole sordid story. My failures, my shortcomings, and the chef-shaped monkey that just won’t get off my back.” She stared down at her barely touched plate. What a waste of foie gras, she thought, apropos of nothing. She wasn’t sure if she felt liberated or nauseated. Or maybe liberation itself was a bit of a queasy thing. It all depended on how Asher reacted.

Her date leaned back in his chair, crossed his long legs at the ankles, and folded his arms across his chest. “I’m disappointed, Bliss.”

“I’m sorry?” Oh, crap-covered-crap. He’s totally disgusted now. We probably won’t even make it to dessert. And I so wanted to know how the sweets in this place would stack up to my own… But it wasn’t the potential loss of pastry that had Sera’s heart squeezing painfully in her chest.

“I don’t see why you should be,” said Asher. He saw her look of confusion and unfolded his arms, reaching forward to touch her again. This time it was her wrist he captured in a gentle vise. “Don’t see why you should be sorry, that is. I’m only disappointed because, after all that buildup, I expected you to tell me you smothered kittens for a hobby or baked straight razors into your layer cakes.” He shook his head, speaking urgently. “Bliss, from what you’ve described, you’ve done nothing to be ashamed of—nothing that you could help anyway—and the things you couldn’t help at the time, you’ve since put to rights as best you could. You’ve been paying penance for events that happened long ago, and paying far too much, if you ask me. Isn’t it time to let them go?”

Sera sighed, turning her hand over in his, tracing her fingers across the jeweler’s scars and calluses that marked his sensitive flesh. She’d thought the Blake years were behind her, that she was no longer the sad, messed-up woman she’d once been. Yet when Austin had showed up, he’d brought with him a whole lot of baggage she’d hoped to leave behind forever. Part of her still feared Asher would see her as Blake always had—someone pitiable, flawed. Someone who couldn’t satisfy.

“I’m trying,” she said, giving Asher a wobbly smile. “But there are times I still feel… I don’t know… wanting somehow.”

“Let me tell you something,” said Asher. “That was one deeply petty little man I met the other night. He cannot steal what you possess now.” His grasp tightened. “Bliss, you’ve got a spirit that shines out, that’s so infectious I smile each time I see you coming. That is the woman with whom I want to dine—and not just dine, if I’m fortunate, but laugh, and chase dildo-thieving dogs, and slay my unfortunate shrubbery. That’s who you are to me, Bliss. Not a failure. Not wanting.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Asher,” Sera said, letting the tears spill, and damn the mascara. Her voice caught. “There’s something I’m ‘wanting’ very much right now.”

She stood up, came around the table, and showed Asher exactly what—and who—she wanted, making herself at home in his lap and giving him a deep, wholehearted kiss.

*  *  *

Their server waited as long he could, but eventually the strain on his arms began to take its toll. He cleared his throat politely. “Ah, sorry, hot plates over here…”

Sera blushed, removing herself to the correct side of the table. Asher discreetly adjusted his napkin over his lap as the embarrassed waiter placed their entrées on the table and made himself scarce.

“Hungry?” Sera said a little too brightly.

“Ravenous,” said her date.

They dug in with a will.

“Perhaps you will tell me something of how you came to be a chef,” Asher suggested once they’d sated the only appetite that was polite to attend to in public. As soon as the plates were removed, he’d returned his hand to hers, absently tracing the bones beneath her sensitized skin, drawing swirls across her knuckles.

Sera smiled, the outstanding elk tenderloin in peppercorn sauce having mellowed her mood. She was high on a cocktail of haute cuisine and hot date, and it felt fantastic. “It all started with bundt cake,” she said.

“I’m sorry?” Asher looked blank.

“It’s a type of pound cake that’s made in a tube-shaped mold,” she explained. “The pan can be anything from a simple ring to a fanciful castle complete with turrets.”

“Ah,” said Asher, not looking particularly elucidated.

“Anyhow, when I was a little kid, like barely five or so, I discovered this old bundt cake mold in our kitchen cabinet. I think it was a gift from some Austrian great-grandmother, but no one could really remember how it got there. At first I thought it was something you used for making sandcastles in the playground, but my mom showed me how you could bake a cake in it. I was so fascinated by the precision of the cake, how it came out so perfectly shaped, I got hooked. I mean, it was food, but it was also a toy! I guess most five-year-olds go through a phase like that. I just never grew up.” Sera smiled at her own silliness. “I started begging my mom for Jell-O molds, mini tart pans—anything that could bake up into a cool shape. Mom was kind enough to indulge me. I loved the flavors, too, of course—I didn’t get these curves from eating salad,” Sera said, gesturing dismissively at herself, “but it was the architecture of pastry that really roped me in. Maybe a little bit like the work you do with metal,” she said.

Asher nodded his understanding. “Perhaps,” he said, smiling. “Though I don’t often get to taste my work when I’m done. But go on, Bliss. Where did the bun cake take you?”

Sera didn’t correct him; she thought “bun cake” was adorable. “Well, from there, Mom started helping me bake everything from whoopee pies to meringues, even though I have a feeling Aunt Pauline was actually more interested in cooking than Mom was. Still, she always indulged my obsession. It was one of the things I remember best about her—standing in the kitchen by her side when I was little, testing out recipes and frosting cakes. She always made time for us—‘kitchen time,’ she called it.” Sera smiled wistfully at the memory.

Asher turned her hand over delicately, beginning to trace the lines of her palm and draw idle patterns up her wrist and forearm that made Sera shiver. “I’ve never heard you speak of your mother before,” he noted.

“She and my dad died when I was just a teenager, and Pauline raised me after that,” Sera said, hating and simultaneously soaking up the flash of sympathy she witnessed in his eyes. “It was a car accident. A cabbie fell asleep after a too-long shift and plowed right into them as they were crossing Third Avenue. It was instantaneous.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

She’d heard as much from dozens of people over the years. A simple sentiment, easily expressed. But when Asher said it, she truly felt his sympathy, and more—empathy.

“You know something of that pain, don’t you, Ash?” she ventured.

“I do,” he admitted. “My wife died of ovarian cancer four years ago. I thought I would die with her.”

Sera’s eyes filled. She clasped her other hand around his, stilling his abstract tracings. “I’m glad you didn’t, but I can understand why you wanted to.” She paused. “Do you want to talk about it? I don’t want to ruin a lovely evening with more heavy conversation, but…”

“It’s all right, Bliss,” he assured her. “I would have brought it up in any case, because I wanted to be sure you fully understood why it was so important that I went to Israel when I did.”

He’d spoken of it, that night together in her store, but she sensed he had more to say. “You mentioned needing to make peace with your wife…” She trailed off delicately.

“Yes,” he said softly. “As I said, I went home to lay my wife’s spirit to rest, at least in my heart. When I met you, I knew it was time. My world had been about her loss for so many years—my art, my work; everything suffered. I left Israel to escape my memories, running from all our mutual friends, family—anyone who had known our life together. I came here hoping to hide from the pain, but of course, it traveled with me.

“I suppose that’s why so much of my jewelry looks the way it does,” he mused, as if it were occurring to him for the first time. “Maybe I was trying to recapture some of the music and harmony of that time. My wife had been a violinist, you see—a very accomplished violinist with the Tel Aviv Symphony Orchestra. We met when she commissioned a new instrument from my workshop. I was a luthier, and an amateur musician myself. We fell in love almost immediately, and for a time our life was full of music and laughter. We envisioned our future, planned out the names of the children we’d have. In fact, when Tali’s belly began to grow, we thought at first that she was pregnant. We were so happy. But our happiness turned to horror when we learned the truth.”

Asher’s eyes were unseeing, lost in memories. “The tumor spread quickly, and there was nothing anyone could do. Tali was gone in months. And I…” His voice thickened. “I could no longer make music. I couldn’t even listen to it, or be any part of its creation. I had no trade, and everything in our home reminded me of what I’d lost. So I left. I came to the American Southwest looking for spaciousness and a place where no one knew me; where I could let the past go. Eventually, I discovered I could parlay my skills with woodworking to metal smithing, and with my jewelry business and managing the other properties I’d purchased as an investment, I made a life for myself here.” He rubbed his jaw, thoughtful. “I have been content. But now…” His green eyes sharpened, locked on to Sera’s gray ones. “Now… I think I can be happy.”

Their waiter chose that unfortunate juncture to bring out the dessert tray. He was forced to cool his heels for quite some time as Sera made her happiness known to Asher with another passionate kiss.

She thought nothing could top the delight of this moment.

But their date was just getting started. For a nightcap, Asher took Sera to Japan.