9
Marguerite had not realized that Alexei was about to strip off his shirt. He gave no warning, no hint that would give her time to shield her gaze—or run away.
Did he have to be so beautiful without his shirt on? Could he not have sported at least one small roll of fat or a really bad tattoo? Instead, his torso was as spectacular as the rest of him.
She knew he’d caught her staring, and she couldn’t seem to drag her gaze away. Everything about him was too perfect. Way. Too. Perfect. Her palms itched to touch the dusky skin, to trace the arrow of hair that led over that taut belly and disappeared behind the button of his jeans. The space inside the truck seemed suddenly so small she felt she’d suffocate in her own lust.
Here he’d invited her in with nothing in mind but salad, and she was thinking how she wanted to plant her lips on the warm skin of his belly, let her hands trail... What was she doing?
She blinked. “Salad!”
His eyes crinkled in amusement. “Right. Salad.”
While he swiftly donned a creamy cotton shirt, every part of her wanted to cry “No!” as he covered up, and she had to hold herself back from yanking the shirt off again, she turned her focus to vegetables. Cold, refrigerated, extremely unsexy vegetables.
He came up to her side, taking down a large stainless steel bowl, and dumping the already prepared Greek salad from the white industrial container. “It’s not exactly a crystal serving dish, but it’s all I have.”
“Honestly, she’ll be thrilled. My mom’s dinners aren’t exactly fancy. We go more for comfort food, and plenty of it, than anything high-end or gourmet.”
“Then my salad will fit right in.” While he was talking, he sprinkled oregano over the top of the salad and then shook a bottle of his premade salad dressing and squirted it over the luscious looking salad. Then he gave it a quick and very professional toss. She watched the crumbles of white feta, the dark shiny olives, the rich red tomatoes, the chunks of dark green pepper and cucumber and the slivers of red onion tumble and meld in the dressing.
It was a Greek salad like any other, but somehow, whatever he did with the dressing and the quality of the ingredients made this salad stand out. Also, she had to take some credit for the fact that he was now using more produce grown in Washington and Oregon. As she stood watching, he reached into the bowl, picked up a particularly ripe-looking tomato and popped it into her mouth. She nodded enthusiastically as the flavors danced on her tongue, the rich, sweet burst of tomato complimented with a dressing that expertly enhanced the flavors. “It’s perfect.”
He was looking at her intently. He said, “You may not cook, but you sure enjoy food. I want to cook for you.”
She was so surprised she nearly choked on her tomato. “You cooked for me today. You brought me over that beautiful souvlaki.”
He shook his head impatiently. “No. I mean really cook for you. I took serious chef training you know.”
“I’m a vegetarian. I always feel like I’m letting a chef down when I go for dinner.”
He shook his head. “Any good chef should be able to make a vegetarian meal that’s outstanding.” Then he grinned down at her. “Now you’ve challenged my talent. You’ll have to let me cook for you and prove I can impress you.”
She had no idea what he was offering her. Was he talking about cooking for her at his house? Here in the truck? Throwing something on the barbecue at her place? She wasn’t sure how to answer him. The silence lengthened. He said, “It would be a casual thing. You can come to my place, I’ll cook you a nice veggie meal and we can think about our cookbook.”
Okay, so it was more of a business deal. At his place. Where he lived, and slept, and all his things were around him. She said, “I’d like that.” As they headed out of the truck, she was so surprised and confused by what was going on between her and Alexei that she nearly missed what was going on between his brother and her sister standing in the shadows. They almost stumbled onto an intensely passionate embrace.
She always thought of her sister, Rose, as a cool, professional woman who was always in control. But the woman twined around Matt did not look cool or in control. She was lip locked with Alexei’s brother so tightly it looked like it would take the jaws of life to get them apart.
Alexei came up behind her and, unlike her, didn’t stand there frozen in horror. Instead he called out, “Hey you two, get a room!” For a second nothing happened. It seemed as though Rose and Matt hadn’t even heard him. And then, slowly, Matt pulled back as though it hurt him to do so. He said, “Your timing always did suck, little bro.”
But he didn’t look irritated, even in the dim light she could see that his eyes were sparkling and he looked as happy as she’d ever seen him.
And Rose! Rose was practically glowing. To Marguerite’s shock she lifted her hands and wiped tears from her eyes. Marguerite could count on the fingers of one hand the times she had seen Rose cry, and have plenty of fingers left. Then she saw that there was something very large and diamond-like sparkling from the ring finger of her left hand.
She ran forward. “Oh my gosh, are you…?”
Rose held up her hand and then clasped Marguerite to her in a tight hug. “Engaged?” She said in a shaky voice. “Yes.” Beside her she heard the noisy embrace of the two brothers with much backslapping involved.
Then they switched partners and she found herself being pulled into Matt’s embrace while Alexei hugged Rose. After a moment when they’d both said congratulations, Alexei pulled Rose’s hand into his and she could see the extent of the Tiffany ring.
Alexei turned to his brother and shook his head, “Dude, that is so Greek. What happened, they didn’t have any bigger ones?”
However, Marguerite knew her sister. Rose had extremely high-end tastes, and she didn’t think having an oversized diamond was going to be a real problem for her.
Alexei wasn’t done teasing. “Did you spend all your money on the diamond, so you couldn’t take the woman out for dinner and propose to her properly? You had to go on bended knee in your future in-laws’ gravel parking area?”
Matt threw up his hands in a very Mediterranean fashion. He said, “I had plans. I was going to take her somewhere really romantic and propose in style. You know, somewhere we’d tell our grandchildren about and it would make a great story. But I had the ring burning a hole in my pocket and we got here, and we started kissing and suddenly the ring was out of my pocket and on her finger. I don’t really know how it happened.”
