Where Dreams Are Born (Angelo's Hearth) (14 page)

“You look fantastic!”

“And,” Perrin pointed, “It matches the sweater and her hair. You, my friend, are incandescent hot.”

# # #

“Thanks for cleaning up.”

“Is this good enough for your majesty?” Russell tugged once more to settle the corduroy blazer over his sport shirt. He’d even unearthed a tie with sailboats on it, but decided to go with the open neck instead. There had to be some limit.

“You look more than half human. Maybe even three-quarters. Now be nice and have fun.”

“Yea, right.” He hadn’t been this nervous about a date since sixth grade. Of course, it was strange having your first ever blind date in your early thirties.

“So, Angelo, how is this my idea?”

His friend just grinned at him. “Notice the wine labels at dinner.”

“I don’t need wine, I need a really big scotch.”

“Yeah, well forget it. I’m making you a great meal and I want you to be able to taste it.”

For the next couple minutes Angelo rattled off facts about the wines he was planning to serve. Would she be tall and fair, maybe remind him too much of Melanie? Short, dark, and beautiful like his mother? Dumpy and dull like he feared no matter how much Angelo claimed otherwise?

“Got it?”

“Huh? Not a word.”

Angelo punched his arm hard enough to get his attention.

“Look. The last wine. The dessert wine. Cinque Terre Sciacchetrà. It’s a dessert white. Amber. Flowery. Look for orange, grapefruit, and lemon tones. Dry finish. A lot of alcohol in this one. Can you remember that much?”

“Sure. Why?” He punched Angelo back just for the hell of it.

“It’s your idea. Local. Local. Local. It’s not just Tuscan, it’s Ligurian, from my family’s home town. If you want to leave a good impression on her, knowing that much at the end may help.”

“Okay.”

“Get out there.”

“Is it time already?” Suddenly he wanted to head for the back door and the nearest bar for that good scotch. Hell, he’d take a bad scotch right about now.

“Go.” Angelo pointed. “Did you bring something for her?”

“I was supposed to bring something?” He started patting his pockets as his friend sighed. “Jewelry, clothes, what?”

Angelo went over to a huge vase of red roses, pulled one out and brought it back.

“If the girl those are for accepts her boyfriend’s proposal tonight, she’ll never notice that she’s one shy of her two dozen roses.”

Russell eyed it carefully. “I didn’t do so well with the red roses with Melanie.”

Angelo stuffed it in his hand and pushed him out through the swinging doors. The other patrons turned to stare as the restaurant’s chef shoved Russell to a table set for two and pushed him into one of the chairs.

He pulled the rose from Russell’s hand and laid it across the opposite place. He leaned down to whisper.

“Stop being such a goddamn wimp.”

He left before Russell could hit him again.

# # #

Russell missed her entrance.

He’d sipped his water. Played with his fork. And started thinking about the layout of the galley. He shook out the swan or whatever the napkin was supposed to be and refolded it into the same general shape of the space he had to work with. A couple of sugar cubes became a row of cupboards. The salt shaker where the sink would go. Pepper mill for the fridge. The knife defined the edge of the counter. More sugar cube storage below.

Stove. He smacked his forehead. He’d forgotten the stove. Had to be in line with the keel so that it could swing when he was on a tack. He might be heeled over ten or fifteen degrees for weeks at a time. Gimbaled stove would have to go where the pepper-mill fridge was. The fridge traded places with the salt shaker. Stove to the right or left? He plucked a petal off the rose and moved it to one side then the other of the sugar cubes.

“Some boys never outgrow their toys.”

He glanced up at the woman standing before him. His eyes made it halfway back to his napkin-galley before they were drawn back.

Red coat. She wore a knee-length red coat. He opened his mouth, but closed it again as disappointment rocked him back in his seat.

This was n
o parka and she wasn’t his Lady of the Lighthouses, ready for heavy weather. Instead, she’d been wrapped in red leather so tailored to the body beneath that it belonged in his studio, not out on the street.

After a moment, she raised her chin and took off the coat. Only then did he realize he should have offered to take it. He started to rise, but she waved him back to his seat. Not a good start.

A waiter took the coat and he could that the coat hadn’t lied about what was beneath.

Black leather boots with two-inch heels clung tightly up to mid-calf, ending just where the swirling black skirt began. Her trim waist tapered up into a sweater that started dark and ended with the colors of autumn. The black turtleneck was surprisingly sexy. The sweater brought out the reds in her brown hair, wound back into one of those painfully tight coifs and…

“I’ve seen you.” Somewhere. He’d find it in a moment.

“And I you.” She slid into her chair with a grace that was as unconscious as a model’s was practiced.

“Where’s your girlfriend?”

“My what?” Russell could feel his throat closing.

“The tall blonde with legs to her ears. You were all over each other. I find it surprising that you are on a blind date after having her on your arm.”

“Valentine’s Day.” That was it. “The woman crying in the bar.”

As soon as he saw her reaction he knew it was a mistake. Her face closed. The teasing smile that had been intriguing a moment before was erased as if it’d never been.

“Sorry. Perhaps not your best moment.”

“Perhaps not.” She kept her gaze down as she fooled around with the rose with elegant fingers. A woman’s hand, not with the daintiness of a girl’s nor the sensual slenderness of Melanie’s. They were a woman’s hands.

“But you were beautiful in that moment.” Christ. Good one, Russ. Don’t know when to leave bad enough alone.

Her hands froze, but she didn’t look up.

“I’m a photographer. I would have killed to have a camera in that moment.”

“I’d have killed you if you had.” She almost raised her gaze.

“The three of you. Like you’d been together forever. I could see you fifty years from now, the same three women. Beautiful. Close.”

Under guise of rubbing his chin, he put his hand over his mouth to keep it shut before he shoved his foot in any deeper.

“Since college. Beautiful?” She lifted the rose and smelled it. Looking directly at him for the first time. Her eyes were a hazel-brown that was the color every autumn leaf longed to be. The rose accented the color in her cheeks as she brushed it back and forth below her nose. No detectable make-up.

“Yes,” his throat was dry. “Yes, beautiful.”

“Perrin maybe. The tall thin one, wild hair.”

Russell shook his head barely remembering her companions as little more than positions in a composition. A waiter passed by and in his wake, he caught his date’s scent. Warm, unperfumed, heavenly.

“No. You.”

She blushed and looked down again.

“I’m a, Russell. Russell Morgan.”

She extended a hand. “Cassidy Knowles. Nice to meet you, a-Russell.”

“Real nice.” Her grip was firm and warm.

“Charm, it’s not one of my specialties.” She released his hand.

He wished she hadn’t. It had felt good, that womanly hand against his rough palm and fingers.

He was trying to think up a good one-liner riposte when the waiter arrived.

“Hallo, I am Giorgio. Mister Angelo has asked me to tell you that he will be choosing your dinner once again.”

“Once again?” Russell aimed his question at his date who nodded so sweetly it was hard to argue.

Giorgio waited a moment, but when she didn’t speak he continued.

“He has asked me to let you know this. But, also he has said, knowing your preference for a fair sample, he only will serve selections that have been ordered already this night.
Perfetto
?”

“Yes, perfect.”

The waiter whisked away.

“Hey, I wanted to see a menu.” He and Angelo had spent long enough redesigning the damn thing. Local cuisine, an elegant montage of Tuscany and Liguria. He’d even managed to work his sailboat into the dessert page. It was one of the best pieces he’d done, had some of the old Russell Morgan flare to it. It was nice to know he still had it. But the waiter was gone and no menu was forthcoming. He turned his attention back to his date.

She’d gone quiet again. He wanted to see that smile again. It was a hell of a good smile, even if it had been directed at the waiter.

“What’s with this ‘once again’ stuff?”

She opened her mouth, but he cut her off.

“Wine taster. Right. I forgot.”

“Did we meet before?”

He thought about the first time, as she’d thanked Angelo for a fabulous meal. He’d been, what, eating spaghetti while covered in boat dust and dirt. No. Fiberglass resin. She’d have discounted him as useless, beneath notice, no more than a blemish on the Angelo’s pristine kitchen. Best not to remind her.

The sommelier showed up and started chatting wines with her in a way that totally eluded him.

Listen to her, Russell. New York. It was all over her. Her clothes
so perfect, her hair probably done weekly. Her brisk way of addressing the wine steward with short, clipped, quick words. He wouldn’t have noticed if Dave and Betsy hadn’t teased him about his New York way of speaking. She was everything he didn’t want. One hundred percent not his lady in the red coat. She and Melanie could be best friends.

Even her boots were a joke. Who spent four or five hundred dollars on boots except at a fashion shoot? God, his final shoot. He’d photographed Melanie in exactly those bo
ots for another ad before he’d switched her to the mid-thigh Chanel’s for the BMW ad. Though he’d never photographed anything like that sweater. It dipped and swelled in a splendidly provocative—

The sommelier was gone
, and he was staring at her breasts. Had stopped doing that in high school, as soon as he learned what a turn-off it was. The great paradox of women, he got to see a lot more breasts unclothed as soon as he stopped staring at them clothed.

He checked her eyes. Oddly, there wasn’t anger, but laughter crinkling the edges.

“What?”

She shook her head, but the smile didn’t go away.

# # #

“The Penne Agli Scampi, Angelo. Simply exquisite.” Cassidy leaned toward Angelo and rested her chin on her palm, elbow on the table. “But wasn’t that a Piedmont white rather than a Tuscan?”

Russell couldn’t look away from her. She was so unaware of every motion. There was no posing. Her emotions weren’t carefully considered and exhibited for the benefit of the camera or the moment. She had a natural honesty that had him mesmerized.

Angelo pulled up a chair and joined them. “I cannot fool you, Miss Knowles. I thought the Tuscan wines a little too fruity for something as delicate as the scampi. I decided that as long as the wine was Italian, I’d let it wander a little farther afield than the cuisine.”

“Absolutely right. Now the heaviness of the San Rocco Barolo was the perfect choice for the Tagliata, I’ve never had such tender beef. What was the spicing?” She’d described the flavors for him. He could taste the sage and rosemary after she’d told him. But the bay, he had no idea. He’d say she was making it up, but she’d been kept a running commentary on flavors for each new dish and wine. When she’d asked about the other flavor in the beef, he had no idea what she’d been talking about.

“Oh no, Miss Knowles. You do not get my mother’s secrets so easily.”

Secret recipe. Right. He’d seen that. Time to pay back Angelo for setting him up with this New York woman, the one who snagged his attention like a harpoon.

“Anchovy paste instead of salt.”

Angelo looked put out as Cassidy inspected him.

“I’ve watched him rub it in.”

“Watched him…” She ran the words over her tongue, the same way she rolled the wine there.

“Watched him… while you ate pasta.”

“What was that?” Angelo didn’t catch it, but Russell bowed his head in acknowledgement. She had an eye for detail. Had picked him out of the mess he’d been when she was here for the wine tasting three months ago. She could probably be a decent photographer with a bit of training.

“You aren’t a…” She caught her upper lip between her teeth, but he could read it on her face.

“Contractor… or a homeless person eating on Angelo’s charity?”

She tilted her head to one side for a moment, made him want to run a finger down the length of neck exposed from ear to turtleneck collar. She arched her eyebrows and shrugged a yes.

He laughed, “Depends on who you ask.” Melanie would say he was homeless, so would his parents. For that matter any of his New York friends would. And certainly this woman across the table. No way would she be happy with the wind blowing through her hair. She might shatter if you took her anywhere rougher than the Cutter’s lounge or Angelo’s or Nordstrom. She had every mark of coming from money and none of ever touching the great outdoors.