There’s a difference between being in charge and taking on the role of household drudge. Armstrong wives don’t appear in public with dishpan hands.
Lithe and agile, Edmund swung down into the cabin and closed in on her again. “How much longer before those eggs are ready, woman?” he said, eyeing the frying pan devoutly. “The smells floating up top have driven us to drink. Hank’s lacing the coffee with rum.”
“They’re done,” she said, dividing the omelet into three unequal parts and sliding the two larger portions onto plates. “These are for you and Hank and I’ll be right behind you with mine.”
When he’d gone, she fanned her face with a dish towel and decided there was a lot of truth to the old saying about getting out of the kitchen if a person couldn’t take the heat. She definitely couldn’t take the kind of heat Edmund Delaney generated!
His head reappeared in the open hatch. “Want me to bring up anything else?”
What she wanted was a few minutes in which to collect herself, because try as she might, she found herself constantly comparing him to Mark and finding her former fiancé coming up short. How could that be when Mark was the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with? The possible answers were too disturbing to contemplate.
“Good grub,” Hank announced, when she came up on deck. “You ever want a job, you’ve got one. Tourist season’s just around the corner and I could use a cook like you.”
The idea had merit. Her bruised spirit craved the prospect of a simple life, uncomplicated by the demands of a family who, sadly, had viewed her marriage to Mark as a passport to high society and easy living. The anonymity of being a stranger in a remote village cut off from the stress and bustle of the Lower Mainland held enormous appeal.
Edmund was watching her closely. “Tempted by the idea?”
“Good grief!” she said, pressing her palms to her cheeks. “Am I that easy to read?”
“Clear as glass,” he said, his blue eyes disconcertingly intent. “Your face is an open book. You’d make a lousy poker player.”
I make a lousy everything, she almost replied, the self-pity she’d managed to subdue suddenly rearing up again.
Was it the bright, sunny day that made her fight it? The grandeur of the scene around her beside which her little tragedy seemed pitifully insignificant? Or the man sitting across from her and seeing into her heart so much more clearly than Mark ever had? “Then I’d better stick to cooking,” she said, drumming up a smile even though the effort made her face ache.
Hank looked hopeful. “You takin’ me up on my offer?”
“Thanks, but no,” she said, her smile more genuine this time. “I have other things I need to do.”
Like fighting her demons, laying certain ghosts to rest, and facing the rest of her life without Mark.
She gave an involuntary shudder at the enormity of the task facing her, and hugged her elbows close to her chest.
“Wind’s pickin’ up,” Hank observed, squinting at her in the sunlight. “Usually does about this time of day. Might be best if you found something a bit heavier to wear than that flimsy jacket you brought with you.”
“I don’t need—” she began, but Edmund cut her off.
“Yes, you do.” He reached into his canvas bag and pulled out an extra sweater. “Put this on, sweet pea. It’ll cut the wind out and keep you from catching cold.”
It was easier not to argue, and truth to tell, comforting to have him care. Obediently, she slipped the sweater over head. Thick and heavy like the one he was wearing, its sleeves hung well below the tips of her fingers and the hem reached almost to her knees.
“Sure it’s big enough?” Hank snickered. “Looks to me as if there’s room for two in there.”
“Not quite,” she said, her senses swimming as Edmund slid his fingers along the back of her neck to free her hair trapped inside the collar. “But you’re right. I won’t make any Best Dressed Lists with it.”
“It isn’t the packaging that counts,” he said, slinging a arm around her shoulders and giving her a friendly hug. “I thought you were smart enough to know that.”
He meant nothing special by the gesture, she was sure. But that didn’t stop her from wanting to lean into his solid strength, and pretend, just for a minute, that she was on her honeymoon and married to a man like him.
Heavenly days, where was her head, that she’d even entertain such an idea?
“Is it too late for me to try my hand at fishing?” she said, hurriedly pulling away and pretending an interest in the contents of the tackle box before she showed herself completely lacking in good judgment and wrapped her arms around him.
“Sure you want to try?”
She inspected the wicked-looking hooks and grimaced. “Not if I have to use one of these. They’re instruments of torture.”
“You can use a barbless hook,” Hank said. “Lots of folks do if they can’t stand the sight of blood.”
She ventured a glance at Edmund. “I suppose you think I’m ridiculously squeamish.”
“You suppose wrong—again. We’ve already got one salmon in the cooler. We don’t need another.”
“Well,” she said doubtfully, “if you’re sure you don’t mind…?”
“I’ll make you a deal. You can throw back anything you catch if you’ll come with me to The Dungeness Trap tonight.”
“Dungeness Trap?”
“Don’t look so suspicious. It’s a restaurant in town that serves the best crab you’ve ever tasted, not the local den of iniquity!”
“I don’t know….”
“I’m not asking you to sign over your firstborn, Jenna,” he said persuasively. “I’m simply inviting you to have dinner with me.”
“But I can’t keep imposing on your time like this. You’ve already done so much and been so…kind.”
“Hey, I’m no Boy Scout, if that’s what you’re thinking! The way I have it figured, you owe me. I’ve had to listen to your tale of woe and it’s your turn to listen to the grisly details of mine.” He extended his palm. “So what do you say? Do we have a deal?”
She placed her hand in his and tried to dismiss as indigestion the little spurt of pleasure churning her stomach as his fingers closed around hers. “We have a deal.”
“Sweet pea,” he said, his grin so disarming that she went slightly weak at the knees, “you just made my day!”
From the outside, the restaurant looked like little more than a dimly lit shack perched on pilings over the water. Inside, though, it was cosy and comfortable, with oil lamps on the tables, heat blasting from the big open hearth, and fishing nets strung with glass floats anchored from the ceiling. A wine rack covered one wall. At the rear of the room, a woman played a guitar. Beyond a serving hatch was the kitchen with a brick bread oven and huge stainless steel pots simmering on a gleaming range.
“Just as well I made a reservation,” Edmund said, after they’d been shown to a table overlooking the harbor. “The place is packed.”
None of the men wore ties, though, and for the most part, the women were in slacks and sweaters. “I’m afraid I’m very much overdressed,” Jenna said, nervously smoothing the full skirt of her velvet dinner dress.
Edmund looked up from the wine list he’d been perusing and frowned. “Didn’t you hear me, this morning? It’s what’s underneath the surface that matters.”
“Mark