“His tripe soup was the best,” he said.
“Oh, he told me all about it. He even invited me over to have dinner with him. I actually considered it, figuring, why not? I didn’t know anyone in town hardly and I thought he was nice. He told me I didn’t know what I was missing by not having tripe soup, but that he was looking forward to rectifying the problem for me. He said that, ‘if spiced perfectly, it was delicious.’ Then I made the crack that he better spice it just right unless he wanted me spitting it out.”
“Ooh, I bet he had a field day with that.”
“Oh, he did. He said I would do no such thing at his dinner table, because all of his food was cooked to perfection. But, my favorite comment from that day was when he told me I could probably dip my finger in the broth and make it spicy enough for the both of us! Can you imagine?”
I felt my cheeks flush at the memory of it all.
“Anton was nothing if not a flirt,” Gray said, chuckling.
“I wasn’t used to overt flirting like that. Or flirting at all, really. Guys had always just sort of—throw themselves at me if they wanted something. But I liked his flirting. It was innocent and kind. Something I’d never experienced with a man before. And I knew he was being innocent enough and just trying to get a rise out of me. He told me I was even prettier when I blushed, and that I made an old man’s heart feel young again.”
My eyes watered and I dropped them quickly back to my food.
“He paid for my meat that day. He told me to stop by whenever I wanted so I could try his tripe soup. I acted hurt and asked him what happened to our date? He clutched his heart like I’d pierced him with an arrow.” Then smiling, he went on to the next.
“Did you ever try his tripe soup?”
“Nope. Tripe is disgusting,” I said.
Gray laughed and it pulled one from my lips as well, enough though my face was streaked with tears at the memories.
“You know, there were these ladies who gathered at the coffee shop in the grocery store downtown. All of them had crushes on the old man.”
I wiped away my tears and brought my gaze up to meet Gray’s as he continued.
“Anton would go down the line and flirt with every single one of them. He’d kiss the backs of their hands and toss them winks, like it was in his blood to do so. I even saw them get into a fight once over the attention he gave them. Fought like bats out of hell over whose hand was going to get kissed that day.”
I threw my head back and laughed as the mental image bombarded my mind.
“For an older gentleman, he had a grace about him. Ruddy features. That white hair swooped off to the side. Tall. Broad.”
“Sounds like you had a crush, too,” Gray said with a grin.
“It was hard not to love him on the spot. Somehow, I felt like his equal when I was around him. I wasn’t used to that.”
“He had a way of making people feel that way.”
My eyes came back to his and we sat there, just looking at each other. I got a chance to study his features. To really take him in. Those icy blue eyes. That thick dark brown hair he kept swooped directly back. It wisped around his head and fell just behind his ears. The shadows playing through the windows cast sharp edges around his chiseled jawline, and my eyes trailed down his neck, taking in the slope. It bled into broad shoulders and tapered into a strong chest.
“Pretty girl.”
Gray’s whisper hit my ears and my eyes shot back up to his. Chills ricocheted all over my body. I wanted him. I did. I wanted to crawl across that table and press my lips against his. And I was pretty sure he wanted me back. His eyes danced around my face as a grin slid across his cheeks. A
mischievous grin that matched his darkening icy eyes.
But suddenly, he shot up from the table and just like that, the dark gaze was gone, the grin slid from his features and the hissing electricity between us dwindled. I leaned back in my chair as he took my plate, then quickly made his way into the kitchen.
“You cooked, I clean,” he said. “Thank you for dinner.”
“Yeah,” I said, defeated. “You’re welcome.”
I stood up from my chair, but as the water kicked on at the sink I felt guilt pool in my gut. I didn’t want Gray to think I was a freeloader. Yes, I had cooked, but I wasn’t paying the bills here. He was footing that cost. I wasn’t buying the groceries, he was. He wasn’t going to clean up my mess after I’d made it. If he was going to take care of this house financially, then I would take care of most of the cleaning that needed to be done.
“On second thought, I can clean up,” I said.
I moved toward him as he stood at the sink.