into their current surroundings.
“Here you go.” She placed Daralyn’s plate in front of her, a small portion of the chicken marsala with the equally modest-sized sides of garlic mashed potatoes and seasoned grilled vegetables. “Keep some room for that dessert, now.”
Daralyn chewed every bite carefully, savoring the taste. Before coming to the Wilders, she ate the same staples every day. Plain oatmeal. Rice, potatoes, a small amount of meat or egg. Vegetables out of a can, or packaged fruit cups. The only seasoning in her father and uncle’s house was salt and pepper, and she wasn’t allowed to touch those. So when she’d first experienced Elaine’s cooking, taken that first bite, flavor had exploded on her tongue. She’d put down her fork, too overwhelmed to do more than eat a few bites.
Elaine had quickly picked up on the issue and cooked her basics. Chicken and rice, with just a little salt added, but she’d give Daralyn a tiny portion of what everyone else was eating, so gradually her palate expanded. But taste was still something that amazed her, one of many things that was the norm for everyone else.
Rory had a different approach to food as well. Before his accident, he would have ordered a bigger, meatier steak, the kind Les would tease him about.
“As if there’s not enough cow on the cow for you.”
“That’s what the potatoes are for,” he’d retorted. “To fill in the empty spaces.”
His diet now was consistently healthy. She’d picked up that it helped with his digestive system. His mother never pushed food on him the way she might with Thomas, Marcus or Les. And she didn’t push it on Daralyn. It was odd sometimes, the similarities between her and Rory that had entirely different reasons.
Rory had good table manners, but so did she. Her father had instructed her how to act like other people in the ways that mattered. To blend enough, not stick out.
They hadn’t counted on Elaine’s sharp eyes, seeing more than the obvious.
She pulled herself out of her head. Another danger of the new was comparing it too much to the old. She focused on the present. Rory made her laugh seven times during the meal. When he chuckled, it was a masculine sound, one with a sensual undercurrent. He could make heat course through her so often from doing so very little.
They talked, the music played, and gradually everything settled into a low-level hum of contentment, with the right edge of simmering anxiety. An anxiety that connected to the look in his eyes when he gazed at her. It made her want him to touch her, kiss her again.
That could cause another problem, though—like what had happened last night. She couldn’t let her mind go that way, because things would go bad again. Yet every time he looked toward her legs, she kept thinking about—wishing—he’d put his hand on her thigh. That possessive touch he sometimes had with her, that made everything in her universe still, point directly toward him. She imagined his fingers tightening, which would make her legs want to loosen, open...
No. She slammed the door shut as her body began that throb. No, no, no.
“You okay? You look tense all of a sudden.”
She nodded. “I’m fine. I promise. Thought waves.”
Thomas had helped her come up with that term. She had so many mood swings. Someone asking her about them, making her analyze each one, could be as stressful to her as having them. So the term had become a way to tell her guardians what was going on, while simultaneously indicating she didn’t need any particular attention paid to them.
Rory caressed her face with his knuckles, then dropped that touch to the side of her throat. As he stroked her there, she forgot about food. She wanted to lift her chin, give him better access. Like a cat, but it wasn’t the stroking alone she craved, but some kind of pressure. His hand circling her throat, holding her…
With a murmured sound that sounded part reverent, part oath, he reached down, gripped the seat of her chair, his fingers brushing her thigh and hip. He tugged it closer to him in one easy pull. “Move your table setting over,” he said.
She did, him rearranging his so there was room for her to eat side by side with him. He cut his steak into bite-sized pieces so that one hand was free for him to drape his arm over her seat back. He stroked the round of her shoulder