“You may go through and take as much time as you want, but you can’t take the recipe with you,” she said.
“Can we snap a photo?” Roan asked.
“For you, yes. I trust that you won’t tell anyone I shared my secret recipes with you.” Christine shifted her gaze to Jazzy. “You’re also sworn to secrecy.”
Jazzy pantomimed zipping her lip and throwing the imaginary key over her shoulder.
With great reverence, Christine passed the box to Roan, who clutched it as if he’d been given the queen’s gold.
“May you find the perfect recipe for you.” Pressing her palms together, Christine bowed and left the room.
“Wow,” Jazzy said, impressed. “The way Christine values those recipes you must have done something pretty special to get access to her vault.”
“Eli and I are good friends,” he said, referring to Christine’s husband.
Still, it reflected on Roan’s good character that someone as private as Christine trusted him with her secret recipes.
“We won’t use whichever recipes we choose exactly as it’s written, and Christine knows that,” he explained. “You’ll need to put your special spin on them, but we’ll find a good recipe that jazzes up easily.”
“Pun intended?” she asked, slanting him a provocative glance through lowered lashes.
A teasing smile lit his face as his gaze rambled over her body and back to her eyes. “Pun intended.”
Jazzy felt herself blush and she ducked her head. While she enjoyed his frank approval, it embarrassed her a little. Did this mean they were movingforward? Could a holiday romance be blooming?
Her heart shimmied like a dog shaking off water.Please, she thought,please.
He opened the box in his lap and glanced at her. “Get closer so you can see too.”
Before she could scootch over, he had a big strong hand on the arm of her chair and easily dragged it six inches nearer to him. She was so close that their chairs touched. She caught a whiff of his cologne, woodsy, warm, spicy. Nice scent. Guys her age rarely wore cologne. She’d bought Giorgio for Danny at Christmas one year, but he’d never worn it.
Jazzy’s nose twitched. “Is that Giorgio?”
“What?” Roan blinked at her, a yellowed index card in his hand, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“Your cologne.”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Claire claimed it’s my signature scent. I don’t know about that. I just like the smell. I’m sure there are other colognes out there I could try if you don’t enjoy it. I don’t mind switching.”
The man was willing to switch his signature cologne for her? That was something, huh? It almost made up for the Claire and Danny associations to Giorgio.
“Wh-why would you switch your cologne for me?” she asked.
His gaze locked on hers. “Did I hear you wrong in the truck?”
“Um . . .” She licked her lips absentmindedly, realized how it might look and stopped herselfmid-lick, swiftly sucking her tongue back into her mouth.
“Didn’t you say not to let age be an obstacle if I was interested in you?”
“I did,” she squeaked, hardly able to catch her breath.
Now that they were actually talking about dating each other, she felt weird and excited and a little terrified where this might lead.
“We’ll take it slowly,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of issues to address before we take things to the next level.”
“Issues?”
“My dead wife and your ex-boyfriend.”