chrome kitchen smelled a-mazing.
“There’s a little milk jug in the top cabinet,” she called out helpfully.
Glen yanked open the fridge door. “I’m not petty enough to only give you a jug.”
He pulled out a small, unopened carton of full-cream milk and nudged the fridge door shut with his hip.
“Oh—” Her hand jerked up to snag his attention. “You don’t have any no-fat or skim, do you?”
“Do I look like the kind of guy to have no-fat in his fridge?”
“Well, you look good—” A beat while her tongue curled into a mortified ball and heat mushroomed over her cheekbones. “I mean you’re obviously health conscious, you probably eat nutritiously and work out regularly.” Shut up, Sav. Shut, up, now. She bet if she pressed her face to the door, her cheeks would melt the glass.
Glen’s frown flipped into a white-toothed, wolfish grin. “Uh huh.” His glasses slipped down his nose as he studied her over the frame. “I work out at the local a couple of times a week, but mostly I run. And I fence.”
“Fence? Like on a farm?” A mind picture popped into her head of Glen strolling around a paddock with a coil of number eight wire over one bare shoulder. Cue for her saliva glands to work overtime…of course, the delicious smell wafting out of her oven must be the cause.
He strolled back around the island counter, his grin expanding. “Wrong kind of fencing.” He bumped the carton on the left side of his stomach, against the hard planes of his abs. “The kind like my tattoo—with a sabre, foil or épée.”
She stepped over the threshold into the house as he set the milk on the counter nearest the door.
“I was in the fencing club in high school, then at university,” he said.
“What? No rugby or cricket or soccer?”
“My brother, James, was the rugby star at Kelston Boys’. I was a beanpole back then—one tackle from a fullback and I would’ve ended up in traction.”
“Ouch.”
“I figured doing this”—Glen angled his body to the side, his knees bent and his left arm raised shoulder height behind him. Muscles rippled across his torso and down the length of his extended and slightly bent front arm—“reduced the likelihood of getting the shit kicked out of me and it took advantage of being fast on my feet.”
He shuffled forward a few steps and did some fancy twisting thing with his wrist. If he’d had a sword in his hand she would’ve been disemboweled.
A little flame kindled low in her belly. “Oh.”
“I’ve always been fascinated with knights and swordplay.” He straightened, pulled in his outstretched hand and ran it through his hair, offering her a smile. This time a full three-quarters smile. “Kind of geeky, I know.”
“No.” He’d reduced her vocabulary to one syllable words with the hint of vulnerability in his tone. She scrubbed a fist over her thudding heart. “I used to love reading about heroic knights who went on quests to win a lady’s favor.”
“The whole knight in shining armor complex?”
“No complex, just a naive ten-year-old who still believed in that sort of thing. I grew out of it by the time I hit my teens.”
Their gazes met, locked, then shattered when his icy blue eyes blinked, and he turned back to the counter. “Do you want the full cream or not?”
And…that concluded their little moment. Obviously, it had been an imaginary moment.
“Yes, please. I’ll replace it next time I go to town.”
He shrugged and picked up the carton. As he turned to pass it over, her stomach let out a loud, complaining rumble.
“Hungry, diva?”
Back to the diva thing. Steamrolling over what could’ve been a civil conversation.
She raised her chin. “Not really. I ate before I came over.”
If you counted a raw carrot as eating, which she totally didn’t. Not when the spicy scents of tomato and basil and garlic came steaming out of the oven—her oven. Again her stomach rudely demanded a share of whatever was cooking. She snatched the carton out of his hand. “It does smell delicious though.”
See? She could play nicely with others.
“Thanks. It’s basil and tomato pasta. Kind of my specialty.”
While she had a low salt, low taste can of vegetable soup waiting. Plus a boring green salad with diet French dressing and bottled water since beer had over a hundred calories. Hugging the carton tight to her belly to try to freeze the rumbling, she stepped backward—and her fluffy socks slipped on the wood-paneled floor.
She uttered a startled squeak. Glen sprang forward, grabbing