Can I see you?
His reply took a few minutes to come back.
Sure—come to the back door.
She wrapped the pie with its golden, buttery pastry crust in one of the beautiful French tea towels she’d found in a kitchen drawer.
It was only when she stood at his back door waiting for Declan to open it that she seriously began to question the sanity of baking a pie for her boss.
* * *
Declan was surprised to hear from Shelley so late on Sunday afternoon. He was not long awake, having had to catch up on some sleep after the Estella marathon. He’d only just started his workout in the basement gym and normally wouldn’t tolerate interruption.
He threw on a sweatshirt over his bare chest. Perhaps it was an emergency in the apartment that needed his attention, he told himself as justification for breaking his no-interruptions rule. As an excuse for the brightening of his spirits when he’d seen her name flash up on his smartphone.
He was even more surprised to see her at his door bearing the most amazing home-made pie. Apple, he guessed, if the enticing aroma was anything to go by.
She held it out to him on both hands like an offering.
‘I wanted to thank you for letting me live in the apartment it’s fabulous and I can’t believe my luck to be living there,’ she blurted out.
‘You don’t have to cook for me,’ he said and immediately regretted it when her face fell.
‘I wondered if it was...appropriate,’ she said, biting her lower lip. ‘You mentioned you liked mulberries. Mulberries aren’t in season so I couldn’t get you mulberries. I’m hoping apple and raspberry might be acceptable. I had to use frozen raspberries because they’re not in season either but they’re very good and—’
‘Shelley,’ he said. ‘Stop. I’m delighted you made me a pie. It was just...unexpected.’ He took it from her hands. It was warm to the touch. ‘Thank you.’
‘Just out of the oven,’ she said. ‘An oven that’s a very good one, by the way.’
‘Come in,’ he said.
‘Oh, no, I shouldn’t, I—’
‘Please,’ he said. The realisation he had no one to share the creation of Princess Estella with had made him feel...lonely.
He was also surprised to see Shelley all dressed in pink. Pretty, girly pink. She even wore jewellery, a chain holding a silver horseshoe that rested in the dip of her cleavage. Lucky horseshoe. He didn’t know why he had assumed she would always dress in mannish clothes. Perhaps he’d forced himself to think too much about Shelley as warrior instead of facing up to his attraction to Shelley as woman.
‘Okay,’ she said and followed him inside.
During the major renovation of the house the back had been opened up and a family room and what the architect had insisted on calling a ‘dream kitchen’ had been installed.
‘Wow,’ she said as she unashamedly looked around her. ‘This is an amazing space.’
‘It’s hardly used,’ he said.
‘Shame,’ she said. ‘That’s truly a dream kitchen for someone who enjoys cooking.’
So the architect had got that one right.
Most of the house wasn’t used and was quiet and still with air unbreathed. He couldn’t bear to go into the rooms he’d shared with Lisa. They’d been closed off for two years. He’d never gone into the nursery they’d prepared with such hope. But he wouldn’t let anyone clear it. His life in this house was confined to his top-floor workspace, the turret room and the gym with occasional forays into this kitchen.
And now Shelley had brought a shaft of her particular brand of sunshine with her into this too large, too empty, too sad house.
He carried the pie over to the marble countertop and put it down.
‘I’m going to have a piece right now while it’s warm,’ he said. ‘You?’
She shook her head. ‘I baked another one to share with my sister and her fiancé. I’m having dinner with them tonight.’
Any thought of asking her to join him for dinner—to be delivered from a favourite restaurant he hadn’t actually set foot in for two years—was immediately quashed. It was a stupid idea anyway. He reminded himself it was more important than ever to establish boundaries between them now she was living on site, so to speak.
He took out a plate, a knife to cut the pie and a fork with which to eat it, and served himself an enormous slice. Then pulled up a stool at the breakfast bar. Shelley took a seat two stools away.
‘So I get to eat this pie all by myself,’ he said, circling the plate with his arms in exaggerated possessiveness.
‘You could put half in the freezer,’ said ever-practical Shelley.
‘Believe me, there won’t be half left to freeze,’ he said.
He bit into his first mouthful, savoured the taste. ‘Best pie I ever had,’ he said with only mild exaggeration.
She laughed. ‘I don’t believe that for a minute.’
‘Seriously, it’s delicious.’
‘My grandma’s recipe,’ she said. ‘Trouble with learning to cook from your grandmother is I tend to specialise in old-fashioned treats.’
‘This is a treat, all right,’ he said. ‘It’s been a long time since someone baked for me.’
She looked around the room. ‘So who uses this kitchen?’
‘I do. But only for the most basic meals. I’m useless at anything more complex.’ Declan had never needed to learn to cook. He’d moved out of home at age eighteen, already wealthy enough to eat out or hire caterers whenever he wanted.
Shelley leaned her elbows on the countertop. ‘Was Lisa a good cook?’
He was so shocked to hear her mention Lisa’s name he nearly choked on his pie. But why shouldn’t she? It was a perfectly reasonable question. Shelley didn’t know of his guilt over the deaths of his wife and daughter and his determination to punish himself for their loss.
‘She...she did her best—but we used to laugh at the results more often than not. We ate out a lot. I think she was hoping this kitchen would transform her into a culinary wizard. She used to talk about doing classes but...but she never did.’
‘She... Lisa...she sounds lovely.’ He could tell Shelley was choosing her words carefully.
‘She was. You...you would have liked her and she...she would have liked you.’
He realised it was true. The two women were physically complete opposites; Lisa had been tiny and dark-haired. But there was a common core of...he hesitated to use the bland word ‘niceness’ but it went some way to articulating what he found almost impossible to articulate.
‘I... I’m glad,’ Shelley said. He could see sympathy in her eyes. But not pity. He wouldn’t tolerate pity.
Even two years later he still found it difficult to talk about Lisa. It was as if his heart had been torn out of him when she’d died.
But if he were going to talk to anyone it would be Shelley. There was something trustworthy and non-judgemental about her that made him believe he could let his guard down around her. If only in increments.
‘Lisa was...vivacious. That was the word people used about her. When I was young I was a quiet kind of guy, awkward around girls. Females ran a mile from me when they learned what a geek I was.’
‘I don’t believe that for a minute,’ Shelley said with