Turnabout's Fair Play (28 page)

“No. It’s been here since I moved in.”

He set the pan on the counter on the other side of the sink from all the food. “And how long have you lived here?”

“Just a little over three years—I was one of the first people to move in when the building was finished.” Flannery slid off the bar chair and crossed to her desk—only a few feet away—to retrieve the cup of coffee she hadn’t finished yet.

When she came back, Jamie stood with both arms locked, his hands braced against the edge of the counter. “You’re telling me that in the three years you’ve lived here, you’ve never
once
used the oven?”

She paused, halfway back up onto the chair. “What? You’re telling me that you bake all the time?” Settling onto her seat, she pointed to a small appliance on the strip of counter between the stove and fridge. “I have a toaster oven. It’s big enough for pizzas and a six-cup muffin pan. What would I need to use the big one for? It’s just a waste of electricity. The toaster oven doesn’t take as long to heat up, and it doesn’t put as much heat out into the room.” At least that’s what the materials that came with the device had said.

Jamie’s head dropped, and he shook it vigorously. But he smiled when he raised it again. “Point taken. But just in case you do decide to use the oven someday, I’m going to put the broiler pan in the storage drawer down here and let you file the owner’s manual and instructions wherever you have those for the rest of your appliances.”

Flannery took the paperwork and watched curiously as Jamie pulled open a small drawer under the oven. “That’s a storage drawer? I thought it was another oven.”

“It amazes me that you’ve survived living by yourself for this long.” Jamie straightened and leaned over to turn the toaster oven on. He pulled the top of the foil package open, set it on the rack, and closed the door.

She stuck her tongue out at his back and then smiled as she carried the booklets over to her desk. Opening the file drawer, she found the file labeled A
PPLIANCES
and stuck everything down in it. She stayed kneeling by the drawer for a moment when it finally caught up with her that Jamie O’Connor was
here
, in her condo, fixing a meal for her on a night when she’d started thinking that just skipping dinner would be the easiest thing to do.

Jamie O’Connor was
here
. She glanced around, making sure that everything looked okay. A sweater lay draped across the arm of the sofa. Her tablet computer and a stack of papers took up one side of the small dining table. She hadn’t made the bed this morning; but even though it didn’t have a door to close it off from the rest of the apartment, she didn’t think she’d be showing Jamie her bedroom.

Knees beginning to ache against the wood floor, she stood and walked the few paces back to the kitchen. Jamie had started whistling as he moved the food containers from the counter to the fridge.

“This is just sad, you know.” He jerked his head toward the fridge’s interior. “A few takeout boxes, a bunch of sodas, a lot of condiments, and not a vegetable in sight.” He clicked his tongue. “We’re going to have to do something about that.”

His
we
sent a tremor of anticipation rushing across her skin. “Big Daddy said that as soon as his vegetables start coming in, he’s going to bring me some when he comes up for the weekends.”

“Have you ever been to the farmers’ market over at the Bicentennial Mall?”

“A couple of times. There’s a really good Jamaican restaurant there.”

Jamie sighed loudly. “I know you can’t go tomorrow because of this editing project, but next Saturday, I’m picking you up early, and we’re going to the farmers’ market.”

“I don’t like vegetables.”

“I watched you eat a vegetable sandwich yesterday along with broccoli soup.” He popped the corner of one of the single-serve containers of corned beef and put it in the microwave, which hung over the stove.

He had her there. “Well, okay, yes. But that’s pretty much my quota of vegetables for the week.”

Jamie came over and leaned his crossed arms on the counter directly across from where she sat. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. I don’t like most vegetables, either. But there are a few I do like, and those are the ones I concentrate on. The rest…Cookie does a pretty good job of hiding them in dishes like stew and shepherd’s pie—which she tops with creamed cauliflower instead of mashed potatoes.”

She could almost see Maureen standing over Jamie, forcing him to eat veggies. “Does she cook for you a lot?”

Gray eyes soft, the corners of his lips raised in a tender smile. “Sort of. She cooks a lot. She always makes more than she needs to for the different Bible studies and ladies’ luncheons she goes to every week. And I know she’s concerned that I’m not taking good enough care of my health, so I think she always makes a little extra, especially of the healthier stuff, just to make sure that I’m not eating hamburgers or pizza for every meal.”

He turned and went to the left side of the stove, to the coffeemaker. “Do you mind if I help myself?”

“Cups are in the cabinet right above it. So’s the sugar. There’s half-and-half in the fridge.” She finished off the last bit of her coffee and, careful not to tip the chair over, stood on the bottom rung, leaned over, and put her cup on the counter beside the sink.

The microwave beeped, and the toaster oven dinged. Jamie pulled out the potatoes first and then the corned beef. “Plates are…?” He made a slow turn in the middle of the small kitchen.

“Upper cabinet between the microwave and fridge.”

“Ah. Logical placement. I’m impressed.” He shot her a wink over his shoulder.

A month ago his teasing would have annoyed her—
did
annoy her. Now…well, she didn’t want to think about how much her reaction toward him had changed in just a few weeks. “I can be that way sometimes.”

“Logical or impressive?” He scooped the meat and cabbage out onto the plate and poured a little of the liquid left in the container over it. He then set the potatoes—still in their foil nest—onto the plate, which she appreciated, because they weren’t down in the meat juice that way.

“Both. Aren’t you fixing a plate for yourself?” Eating in front of him—knowing he’d be watching her—was not really her idea of comfortable.

“I ate over at Cookie’s house before I came.” He set the plate in front of her and then faced the other side of the kitchen again. “Now, if I were silverware, I’d be …” He opened the drawer between the stove and fridge. “Yep, you’re right. Logical and impressive again.”

He handed her a fork and table knife. “The meat has already pretty much fallen apart, but there are still a few chunks you might need to cut up. Do you want more coffee, or do you want one of the cans of soda from the fridge?”

“Lemon-lime soda, please.” The first bite of corned beef melted like ambrosia in Flannery’s mouth, tender and juicy, with spices that coated her tongue and filled her nose with their pungent aroma. She closed her eyes and chewed.

“Told you it was good.”

She didn’t open her eyes, even at the
clink
of the aluminum can against the granite bar. “Don’t watch me eat, please.”

When he grunted, she finally opened her eyes. “You’re a heavy guy, aren’t you?” He straightened, holding Liam. He picked up his large, bright-green ceramic mug of coffee. “We’re going to go sit in the living room and get better acquainted. That way, I can’t watch you but we can still talk if you’re so inclined.”

“Be careful. Liam likes coffee.” The first bite had triggered Flannery’s hunger, and she ate quickly but still enjoyed the wonderful flavors and textures of the soft meat and cabbage and the crisp edges of the parmesan-sprinkled, smashed, roasted, baby red potatoes. He was right, she should eat like this more often. And she would if someone else cooked for her.

Liam’s tags jingled in the living room. “Liam. That’s interesting. Where’d his name come from? Is that a nickname for a longer name?” Jamie sat with his back to her in the chair-and-a-half that faced the wall of windows.

Flannery almost choked on a mouthful of cabbage. She finished chewing and swallowing. “His name is Liam. Just Liam. It’s Irish.”

“But why Liam?” Jamie persisted. He took a drink of his coffee and then set the cup on the end table to his right. “Of course, one could make the leap that you named your cat after Liam Neeson, who played Sir Gawain in
Excalibur
.”

The last bite of potato stuck in Flannery’s throat. She coughed and wheezed, eyes watering, trying to dislodge it. When that didn’t work, she took a swig of soda to wash it down. Finally, it cleared, and she caught her breath just as Jamie made it to her side and started pounding her between the shoulders.

She waved him off. “I’m okay. Just inhaled when I should have swallowed.” She cleared her throat, trying to get rid of the croakiness. No one could have ever made that connection. She’d picked the actor’s first name because
she
knew it connected back to her favorite character, but for everyone else it seemed like just another way in which she embraced her Irish heritage.

Jamie pulled out the bar chair beside her and turned it then sat facing her. He took the fork from her and set it on the now-empty plate and took both of her hands in his, making her turn slightly in her seat to face him.

“Flan, there’s something I need to ask you.”

Oh, dear Lord—no. He can’t. We haven’t been…. She knew she’d been flirting with him a little bit, but surely he didn’t think they were
there
yet! She started running rejections through her head—not wanting to hurt him, but not ready to make any kind of commitment yet
.

“You don’t, by any chance, write Sir Gawain fan fiction under the username LadyNelle, do you?”

She would have preferred the premature proposal.

Chapter 20

H
e wasn’t sure what she thought he was going to ask her—because she’d looked terrified—but she certainly hadn’t been prepared for that question.

“I…uh…I…What do you mean?” Flannery yanked her hands out of his, turned, and practically jumped off the opposite side of the tall chair. “What are you talking about?”

The urge to cover his ears at the high pitch of her voice almost outweighed his determination not to offend her by teasing her about what might be her biggest secret. “I mean, I know that you’re …” He really needed to choose his words carefully. “Seeing that print in your office, knowing it’s from the legend of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, and your nonverbal admission your cat is named after an actor who once played Sir Gawain, the pieces kind of fall together.”

Only to someone with extremely twisted logic—or knowledge he would never tell her he had. If she found out what her grandfather had told him, she’d never forgive Kirby.

“If you are LadyNelle, there’s something you should know. I’m the one you’ve been e-mailing with through the website. I’m the user who goes by the name TennesseeGawain.”

Flannery leaned over the small dining table, hands braced on the corners. Maybe he shouldn’t have sprung this on her right after she ate. But if he was going to become a nurse, cleaning up after someone got sick would be part of his job. He would have to start getting used to it some time or another.

“I should have guessed.” She straightened and stalked down the length of the open-concept, kitchen-dining-living room.

He turned, resting his elbow on the back of the bar chair. “Should have guessed what?”

“I told myself those e-mails seemed familiar because we’ve been going back and forth so often. I should have picked up on the cadence and the
seriouslys
and the
by the ways
at the end—though you don’t use
BTW
with those on the fan site e-mails the way you do on your regular e-mails.” Standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, she crossed her arms. The knot of hair at the back of her head hung lopsidedly, as if about to fall completely loose.

“I only posted my writing there because I thought it would be completely anonymous. Because I was confident that no one I knew would ever go onto a website like that.”

Jamie slid off the barstool and moved a little closer—perching on the high, padded arm of the oversized chair. “Hey, I thought it was anonymous, too, but I got an e-mail through it this week from a friend—my best friend—who’d figured out it was me because of some of the discussions I posted on and some of the things I had marked as favorites—like your story. You’re one of the best writers I’ve ever read. Why aren’t you published?”

Shoulders sagging, Flannery turned and sank onto the end of the sofa. She leaned her head back against the high cushions and covered her eyes with her left hand. “Because Arthurian fan fiction is all I’ve ever written. I’ve tried writing other stuff before, but it just comes across as a cheap imitation of someone else’s work.”

She lifted her hand and looked at him without raising her head. “You
have
to promise me that you won’t say anything about this to anyone. No one can ever know I still do this.”