LITMIR.BIZ

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manicotti. Homemade.”

      “Really? By whom?”

      “By me. My mother taught me, and she’s been known to acknowledge, though not in public, that it might even be slightly tastier than her own.”

      She remained silent, not knowing how to respond.

      “I made it for you, Joy. I know it’s not enough to make up for what happened today, but I hope it’s a start. Let me come in? I’ll drop it off for you, apologize and leave. Okay?”

      The seductive aroma of the pasta was her undoing—her stomach was listening to Rafe even if she didn’t want to.

      “Okay. I’ll meet you on the porch.”

      No way was she letting him step inside.

      She yanked on a pair of jeans she had thrown over a chair and grabbed a tank top, then headed for the door. She could still smell the manicotti. If she were a stronger woman, a less hungry woman, maybe she could have resisted, but she hadn’t had homemade manicotti in, well … ever. Her father hadn’t had much time to cook, and she followed in his footsteps in that way, too. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door.

      She wasn’t sure what made her knees weaker—the smell of the food or the image of Rafe standing there in jeans, a white T-shirt that said Little Italy in faded letters and oven mitts up to his elbows as he held out the hot pan. He slanted a charming smile that she found far too sexy, though his eyes communicated nothing but sincerity.

      “It’s hot. You got somewhere I can put this down?”

      So much for not letting him inside.

      “Uh, yeah. Here, follow me to the kitchen.”

      As she walked, she realized she hadn’t thrown on a bra in her haste and she covered her chest with her arms, nodding to the butcher block near the stove. She had little counter space and made up for it with added pieces, the butcher block, the small table in the center with two chairs, though she rarely used both.

      “You can set it there. It will be okay on the wood.”

      He did and stripped off the oven mitts as he did so, revealing strong, tanned forearms. All of her hunger signals were getting mixed up—did she want manicotti or the guy who’d made it?

      Stop, she ordered herself, shifting from foot to foot as they stared at each other quietly. She knew she was supposed to say something, but she didn’t.

      “Okay, well, listen. I hope you enjoy it—it freezes well, so when it cools down, you can cut it up into portions and have dinner for a month. I just wanted to say I’m sorry—about the tape, and the hose, uh, mistake. I didn’t mean any harm, and you know, I’ll leave you alone now,” he said with an air of finality and turned toward the doorway, grabbing his mitts as he went.

      She stepped forward, unsure why, but words were coming out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Um, this is an awful lot of food—have you had dinner?”

      He turned, his smile brighter, his eyes more hopeful. Dammit. He had gorgeous eyes, a velvet-brown that drew her in, fringed with the long, thick lashes men were so often unfairly graced with.

      “Thanks—I am starving, but I wanted this to be a gift. You sure you want to share?”

      He was offering her an out. But he had made her a nice dinner, and she’d invited him. So they’d share some food, make nice conversation, and her day would end on a better note than it had started.

      “Yes, please, let me get the plates, and you can serve. I don’t have any fancy kitchenware, but what I’ve got is in the drawer there,” she babbled, pointing and then turning away in order to compose herself while she got some plates. She rarely had guests for dinner, meeting people out in restaurants instead.

      “As long as we can lift out a few pieces, I think that’s the basic requirement. My mom says the TV cooking shows have been great for gadget sales, but they make people think that working in a kitchen is more complicated than it needs to be.”

      She smiled, her spirit lightening as she reached into the cupboard.

      “I know,” she added, taking out two plates. “Same with the organizational experts—you know, the people who go on the morning shows and clean up someone’s messy office by stacking all kinds of new bins and baskets and labeling everything? Like that does any good,” she said as she turned back to where he carefully lifted the manicotti from the pan.

      Her mouth literally watered while she watched the cheese stretch as he put a large helping on a plate.

      “Exactly,” he agreed.

      The heady aroma nearly brought her to her knees, and she blanked her mind when she started to calculate calories. Fat content be damned.

      “If people aren’t organized in the first place, adding more buckets and shelves for them to put stuff in will only make the initial problems worse in the long run,” he continued.

      She stood holding both plates of manicotti, staring at him as if she was seeing him for the first time. Not as the guy who was bugging her about sleep-talking, not as the erotic lover of her dreams, and not as the idiot who’d almost gotten her in deep trouble at work.

      She saw a nice, handsome guy with whom she was actually comfortable for more than five minutes at a time. Someone who didn’t act as if she had to prove her worth or meet some invisible expectation. Someone who’d brought her dinner. Who had made her dinner.

      “Are you okay?” he asked, breaking her out of her fugue. “Let me take those, they have to be getting heavy—you want to sit down in the other room or here?”

      She blinked as he took the plates. “Here at the table is good. That smells so good I could cry,” she said sincerely and then caught his eye as he put the plates down. His face had become far more serious suddenly, and the atmosphere shifted between them.

      “I don’t want to make you cry again, that’s for sure, Joy. I couldn’t be sorrier about the first time.”

      He sat, indicating that he wanted her to start first, his hands at his sides as she took a bite and closed her eyes in bliss.

      “Let’s not talk about that. This is so good I can’t even begin to tell you.”

      He grinned. “Thanks. Mom would be pleased. Well, maybe not that I helped screw up your day, but that her cooking lessons worked.”

      “She must be a fabulous cook.”

      “Straight from heaven,” he agreed, digging in to his own dinner.

      “Are you an only child?”

      “Nope, three sisters, and Mom insisted we all learn to cook, and Dad insisted we all know our way around a toolbox and a car engine.”

      “Sounds like a great family.”

      “I love them, but I’m biased,” he said, grinning.

      She set her fork down, taking a breather and reaching for her glass of water, frowning as she looked at it. “You know, I think I have some wine in the other room—I’ll get it. It was a gift, and I haven’t had a chance to open it. Food this delicious deserves more than water to accompany it.”

      “Sounds good,” he added, smiling as she stood to leave the room.

      She walked away, weirdly light in her step—after such a terrible, horrible day, she was almost … happy. Reaching to retrieve the wine from the top of the cabinet where she’d set it six months before—she didn’t often drink by herself—she didn’t question why she was so happy, and returned to the kitchen, stopping short of the table.

      “Oh … damn.”

      “What?”

      “I don’t have a corkscrew.”

      “No problem—do you have a toolbox?”

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