don’t know that I say it, but it is true. I’m a pretty capable person, despite the damsel in distress act earlier.”
“I don’t doubt that. And accidents can happen to anyone. That you climbed up there at all either spoke of great confidence or—”
“—gasping idiocy.”
He smiled as he took the seat across from her and spread the linen napkin on his plate across his lap. “I hardly think that would ever describe you.”
“You’d be wrong, but I appreciate the gentlemanly response. Especially given you have actual proof to the contrary.”
“Like I keep saying, accidents happen.”
She took the lid off the serving dish. “Chicken and mushroom over rice. Salad, too. The dressing is there,” she said, motioning to the small tureen. “It’s Italian. I hope that’s okay. Biscuits in the basket there.”
“More than okay. Smells incredible.”
“Sorry about the pot roast.”
“I can’t tell you the last time I had home-cooked anything. I’m more than grateful.”
Her smile was a bit self-deprecating as she served herself salad. “Well, I did use the stove, but it’s hardly cooking. Pour a can of mushroom soup over a few breasts of chicken. Make instant rice. Crack open a tube of biscuits. Not exactly going to give Rachel Ray a run anytime soon.”
He smiled as he filled his plate. “Don’t knock yourself. My specialty is ordering room service or takeout. Left on my own, I’d be surviving on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Captain Crunch. This is five-star for me.”
Kirby lifted a quizzical brow and looked like she wanted to ask some questions, but continued to munch her salad instead. He’d have answered anything she asked him, but he had to admit he kind of liked that she had absolutely no idea who he was, and therefore was willing to take him strictly at face value. Her curiosity would get the better of her eventually, and then things would go in whatever direction they did. Probably not all that differently here in Vermont than back in Vegas. Money and fame tended to affect people the same no matter where they hailed from, he’d discovered.
It didn’t occur to him until he was on his second serving of chicken that he’d naturally assumed he’d be sticking around long enough for her to find out anything at all.
“So,” he said as he cracked open another biscuit. His third. “Is this the first place you’ve owned?”
“That obvious?” she said on a laugh. She was working on another biscuit herself.
He liked a woman who wasn’t afraid to eat in front of a man. Not that this was a date, or that she was remotely concerned about his opinion of her eating habits…but he’d spent most of his life surrounded by women for whom eating was an elaborate science of carb totals and protein gram calculations that would give even the most anal retentive scientist a migraine, all while making sure nothing that contained actual fat ever crossed their lips. He swallowed a smile as he watched her slather on the butter, thinking how hated she would be in his hometown if she regularly ate chicken and biscuits and still looked like she did.
“No, it’s not obvious,” he said. “You have a really nice place here. All of it, inside and out. I just…when I was signing in. I noticed…” he trailed off, not wanting to insult her or make her feel bad. Quite rude given he was enjoying a meal prepared by her. “I’m sorry, none of my business.”
“That’s okay; it’s a fair question. This is my first and only establishment. A culmination of a lot of hard work, a long ago dream…and quite possibly a large portion of that gasping idiocy I mentioned earlier.”
“I’d call it flying in the face of fear.”
“Terror, yes. Lots of that.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a requirement. You’re only afraid because it matters if you fail. And so that’s a good thing.”
She paused for a second, as if considering that. “I’ll take your word for it,” she said, and polished off the rest of her biscuit. “I wouldn’t mind if the fear took a break. At least on alternate weeks.”
He gave a short laugh. Then he reached over to dab a bit of errant butter from the corner of her mouth before he thought better of such a personal action. Her gray eyes widened a bit, but she didn’t jerk from his touch. “Sorry, I just…” He smiled…and licked his finger.
She cleared her throat then and shifted back in her seat. “No problem.” He saw the color steal into the smooth cream of her cheeks and figured he should feel badly about that. But…not so much, as it turned out.
“Would you care for another helping? More salad? I don’t know who I thought I was feeding. Enough here for an army. Biscuit?”
He liked the nervous chatter. A lot. “I’m hungry enough to eat at least a platoon’s worth.”
“Please then,” she said, all but shoving the serving dish at him. “Help yourself.”
He did…but he was thinking how what he really wanted to help himself to wasn’t on the table, but sitting at it. Although having her on the table wasn’t exactly a bad idea, either.
Now he was stifling a smile at his own expense. Big talk for a guy who hadn’t put moves on a woman in…well, it was too embarrassing to actually factor out. But, safe to say, a long while. Hard to put moves on women who were already draping themselves all over you. Then, with the string of bad stuff happening over the month or so after he’d left the casino world, that hadn’t exactly been uppermost in his mind.
Unlike now. When it seemed to be all he could think about. Thank God he knew his poker face was unshakable. Because if she could read even a fraction of the thoughts running through his mind at that moment, a whole lot more than her cheeks would be turning pink. And he doubted he’d be a guest at her dinner table again anytime soon.
He’d read the stuff that had come tucked in the well-worn leather folder on the dresser in his room. Or some of it, anyway. Pennydash Inn provided a gratis breakfast and evening après ski wine, cheese, and hot toddy hour…and box lunch service to order if placed the night before. Nowhere on there was any mention of dinner. Just a list of places in town, and at the resort, along with carryout menus for the local deli and pizza shop.
Dinner with Kirby definitely didn’t come with the room.
Which meant he owed her. This was a debt he wouldn’t mind settling. He wondered if she’d let him reciprocate by taking her out to dinner. She looked up just then, caught him staring, so he said the first thing that popped into his head. “What made you decide to open up your own place? Where did the long-ago dream begin?”
She was splitting open her third biscuit and paused, then tore it the rest of the way open and put it on her plate uneaten.
“That’s okay, you don’t have to answer,” he said, realizing he might have stumbled into a sensitive area. “Just making conversation.”
She flashed a quick smile, but it was polite, nothing more, then reached for the butter, keeping her hands busy. “No, that’s okay. I basically grew up in a ski resort out west, in Colorado. Eventually got a degree in resort management, but thought I’d rather do something on a more intimate level.”
It was clearly the polite, rehearsed answer, but for obvious reasons he didn’t press. “Why Vermont and not Colorado?”
“Couldn’t afford the property out there. And it’s all pretty much developed at this point. I heard about the resort coming in here from some connections I had out west and thought it was the perfect opportunity to make the dream finally come true. So, I did my research, found this place, and the rest is history. Or would be, if it would just start to snow.” She smiled, shrugged a little, then bit into her biscuit. Subject closed.
There was more