Saved By The Greek Doctor (Greek Gods #3) - Holly Rayner Page 0,19

understood absolutely. And I’d thought at the time that I’d probably be better off on my own.

Now, however, as I slid a load of vegetables over to Trish, I realized that I was tired of being alone. I wanted to cook with Trish. I wanted to make her smile and laugh.

I wanted to get as close to her as I’d been when I came out of that cupboard.

Perhaps, that voice continued, you didn’t cook with your ex-wife because you were waiting to cook with Trish.

Well, that was just silly.

Still.

“What am I doing with this mess?” Trish asked, looking at me expectantly.

I returned the look, dividing it evenly between her and the knife she was holding. “I told you I’d keep your hands busy. Chop away, sous chef Trish.”

I laughed as my petite sous chef shoved her hands into the boiled potatoes and started mashing them enthusiastically with her fingers, and laughed even more when she observed that hand-mashing potatoes felt so amazing that it could possibly be considered therapy.

“I’m serious,” she said. “You’ve got to try this. It’s like having sex with your hands.”

I moved over next to her, bumped her hip with mine to encourage her to give me some more space, and sank my hands into the potatoes, and together we mashed, our fingers tangling occasionally and our laughter filling the kitchen. And yes, the sparks were flying. Because neither of us, I thought, had forgotten that moment when I got out of the cabinet to find her straddling me.

I knew I hadn’t. I knew for sure that my body hadn’t. But I was doing my best not to let it interfere with the making of dinner. Some things were just too holy to mess with. And moussaka was one of those things.

“If you think that’s good,” I murmured in her direction. “You should try crushing grapes with your feet.”

“Ooooh,” she moaned—doing nothing for the feelings already circulating in my nether regions. “That sounds amazing. Kind of conflicting. But amazing.”

“We do it every year when we’re making wine,” I said with a sideways glance in her direction. “It’s a tradition in Italy, and one that some Greeks have taken on. I think it gives the wine a little something extra.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Like bacteria from your feet?”

“Like tradition,” I said, chuckling. “It makes you a part of the process in a way you can never forget. And it’s something people have done for hundreds of years. There’s a lot to be said for that.”

“When do you do it?” she asked curiously, finally taking her hands out of the potatoes and walking toward the sink to rinse them off. “Is that how you actually make the wine?”

“It’s the first step,” I said. “You gather the grapes in the fall, when they’re ripe. Pile them all up and step all over them—if you’re into doing it the traditional way. It breaks the skins and lets the air in, and that’s what starts the process. The juices take the tannins from the skin, and the air brings in the yeast. Then you let it sit like that for about a week, just sort of baking. After that, you press out the juice and get rid of the solids—the skin and the stems and the seeds—and from there you start the fermentation process.”

“In the fall?” she asked, frowning. “But it’s only spring right now.”

I leaned over and bumped her with my shoulder. “Then I guess you’ll have to come back in the fall.”

She leaned over toward me. “It’s a date,” she said out of the corner of her mouth. “I want to feel what it’s like to have grapes squishing up between my toes.”

I paused, but only for a moment. Fall was months away, and I didn’t know if she’d thought about it at all before she said that it was a date. I decided to pretend, though, that she had—and that we were still going to be in touch at that point, and that she would actually come for that particular part of the ceremony.

My ex had never been involved in that part. She’d never wanted to be—she wasn’t one for getting her hands, or feet for that matter, dirty. But things with Trish felt different.

I paused on that… and then I pushed on.

“So, the potatoes are mashed, the meat sauce is cooked, the eggplant is baked, and the olives are…”

“Oliving over there,” she said, pointing at the dish. “I take it they don’t need any special preparation.”

“They don’t,” I