She tipped her head to the side, chewing her lower lip which he noticed she did when she was weighing her words. “Part of what I like is just the setting, usually in Regency England, and the lavish balls and all the manors of that time. But the other part is the romance. I mean who doesn’t love falling in love.”
“Me.”
She arched both eyebrows at him. “Is that true?”
“Maybe.” To be honest he’d never really thought about love. His adult life he hadn’t allowed himself to ever love anyone. But what he’d absorbed from watching others had convinced him that love seemed like the worst sort of emotion. He’d loved his parents and had felt so lost after their deaths.
He’d been in love with himself for his early adult years, thinking he was the only one who mattered until that horrible night with the fight and the crash. After that he’d pumped the brakes. Of course he’d had to. His recovery had taken all of his strength and when he was done, love had been the last thing he’d wanted to find.
“Why?” she asked.
He looked at the workbench where he’d cut the pasta into long strips of tagliatelle, pretending he had to flour them again, but the truth was he found this hard to talk about. Sure, in his head it made a sort of sense. But this wasn’t something he’d ever say to anyone. Not even Dash.
“It’s okay to tell me, as you said, this is probably the last time we’ll be together this way,” she said.
“I’m not sure I can. Life just feels saner without love. Even you have to admit that.”
“How do you figure?”
“Well, you’re here with me, for one, and you had been hibernating in Gilbert Corners before,” he pointed out.
“I wasn’t hibernating. And just because I’m not out there actively looking for love doesn’t mean I don’t want to find it someday.”
“Someday?”
“Yes. I don’t know when it will happen. Just like you don’t know that it won’t happen,” she said.
“I can’t imagine falling in love with anyone.”
“Why not? Do you think no one can live up to your expectations?”
“Not at all,” he said, realizing that Indy would probably come close to any expectation he had for a life partner. “It’s more that I can’t imagine letting myself be that vulnerable to another person.”
She got off her stool and came around the counter to him. She put her arms around his waist and hugged him from behind.
“Oh, Conrad.”
He stood there not sure what he’d done to elicit that reaction or even how he was supposed to respond.
He liked the feeling of her pressed along his back and he wanted her again, but he was already too deeply in like with her. He had to start pulling back, so he contented himself with a pat of her joined hands and then turned, breaking her hug.
“Oh, what?”
She chewed her lower lip and looked up at him until their eyes met and she sighed. “You try so hard to keep everything inside, but you can’t.”
“What do you mean try?”
She shrugged. “You won’t like what I have to say.”
“As you pointed out, we’re not hanging out after today,” he said.
“Fine. You have covered your body in thorny tattoos as if in some way those will keep people from getting closer to you or keep you from letting them close, but you reach out to everyone around you all the time.”
“How?” he asked.
“With food. You picked a career in the one area that creates a connection between you and everyone. Food is love—everyone knows that. It’s just that you cook for strangers so you can control the love. It’s not that you don’t love love. It’s that you’re afraid of it.”
Indy knew she was pushing him, but it was hard not to. She’d been sitting there watching him cook and realized what she’d known deep in her soul all along. She didn’t want this to be their only time together like this. She wasn’t someone who needed a man in her life, not that there was anything wrong with that. She’d just always been fiercely independent and shy. And after her assault, she’d gone even deeper into herself.