Cavanaugh In The Rough. Marie Ferrarella

valiantly trying to conquer the two slender pieces of polished wood and make them do his bidding.

      Unable to stand it any longer, Suzie put down her own chopsticks, then picked up his and carefully positioned them in his hand.

      When the result was less than successful, she tried another approach.

      This time, she placed the chopsticks in his fingers and wrapped her hand around his, carefully guiding it to the contents in the container.

      After three attempts, Chris, with her help, managed to secure a single morsel of shrimp. When, with her hand still around his, he brought the piece to his lips, Suzie experienced a feeling of triumph that somehow, in the next moment, seemed to transform into a completely different emotion.

      She felt a warmth traveling through her limbs and torso, and even felt, heaven help her, a momentary shortness of breath that had nothing to do any condition that might have sent her hurrying to the ER, and everything to do with the man she was attempting to instruct.

      Suzie pulled her hand away as if she had just come in contact with a hot frying pan filled with boiling oil.

      “I think you have the hang of it,” she said crisply, doing what she could to distance herself from the moment—and from the man.

      “Oh, I don’t know,” Chris confessed. “But it certainly isn’t for lack of you trying. You know,” he told her with a laugh, “I think I might have discovered a brand-new kind of diet. We could call it the chopstick diet. Dexterity-challenged people like me eat all their meals using chopsticks. The pounds’ll start dropping off from day one,” he enthused. “And people won’t have to invest in some big initial layout of cash. All they have to buy is a pair of chopsticks and then try to eat what they normally eat.” He smiled broadly at her. “I can smell the success from here.”

      Suzie shook her head. He was actually laughing at himself. He really was one of a kind, she thought. She pushed the plastic fork toward him.

      “Eat,” she told him. “You don’t need to lose any weight. You’re fine the way you are.”

      Chris put his hand over his chest, feigning surprise. “Why, Suzie Q, is that a compliment?”

      “That,” she informed him, “was a slip of the tongue. Now eat,” she ordered. “These containers can’t stay here while I do my work, so once I finish eating, they’re going to have to be cleared away.”

      “Fair enough,” he agreed, nodding. “I consider myself warned.”

      As she watched, he picked up the chopsticks again. “Use the fork,” she told him.

      If he continued to eat using the chopsticks, he would be here half the night, and despite what she’d just said, she couldn’t very well toss him out, not after he’d sprung for dinner the way he had—never mind that she hadn’t asked him to.

      But he’d already begun to eat again.

      To her surprise, as she watched, Chris didn’t drop anything. As a matter of fact, he was wielding the chopsticks like someone who didn’t just use them on occasion, but who was very skilled with them.

      When he looked up to see her watching him, her lips slightly parted in surprise, Chris set down his chopsticks for a moment.

      “What can I say?” he asked with an expression she was forced—unwillingly—to describe as modest. “I learned from the very best, and you, Suzie Q, are a very skillful teacher,” he concluded, adding a postscript. “Thanks for taking the time to teach me.”

      He was good, she thought. Ordinarily, she would have said he was a con artist. But in this case, she didn’t know if O’Bannon was being genuine, or if she’d just been played.

      He did look sincere.

      Because she couldn’t decide one way or the other, for now she decided to concentrate strictly on the meal, which she had to admit, with its variety, was excellent. If nothing else, Christian Cavanaugh O’Bannon did have one redeeming quality.

      The detective knew where to find a good Chinese restaurant.