“You are angry and hurt, and I think I am leaving.” He went to her and kissed her brow. “Thank you for a mostly lovely evening.”
“Wait.” She put her hand on his arm. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“Of course you didn’t.” He pulled her close, holding her as long as he dared before releasing her. “Good night, Rowan.”
Dansant walked to the end of the block before he realized he had left his coat back at the restaurant. Not wishing to disturb his young tenant, he let himself in through the front of the building, where he heard some clattering from the kitchen.
Dansant went to the pickup window, through which he saw Rowan at Lonzo’s station. She was dicing up a conglomeration of ingredients: zucchini, tomatoes, celery, carrots, new potatoes, garlic, parsley, and fresh thyme. Her hands flew, and her chopping blade made short work of the raw vegetables and herbs. Fascinated, he stood and watched her carry the board over to a deep skillet on one of the cooktop ranges. She took down a squeeze bottle of olive oil from Vince’s speed rack, laced the bottom of the skillet with the golden liquid, and then swept the diced bits from the board into the pan. As she worked the pan, flipping the vegetables with expert rolls of her wrist, she added some scallops, chunks of bass, shrimp, and a squeeze of lemon.
She cooked so rapidly and proficiently that Dansant hardly knew what to make of it. This was not the bedraggled young woman he had hired out of sympathy; Rowan was an experienced chef. Quite experienced, judging by the delicious scent of the meal she was preparing.
“It’s stir-fry, Dansant,” he heard her say as she brought the pan over to the long table where they had their family meal every night. “My own recipe, if you want to risk it.”
He went through the swinging doors and stood beside the table. She filled two shallow bowls and handed one to him. “How long have you been cooking?”
“Like this?” She tilted her head to consider the air above his. “I don’t know. Five, six years.”
He lifted the bowl to his face and breathed in before inspecting the contents. “I know this.”
“When you made it,” she said, “it was pot-au-feu de fruits de mer.”
“Which I stewed,” he pointed out. “In a pot.”
“I didn’t feel like waiting.” She retrieved a couple of spoons from the drying rack.
“Rowan, you cannot stir-fry pot-au-feu.”
“You said au-feu meant ‘on the fire.’ That made me think of trying it as a stir-fry.” Her expression changed. “I only borrowed some of the leftover bass, and I bought the rest of the ingredients with my own money. You did say I could use the kitchen after closing.”
He set the bowl down. “You did not add clams, mussels, or squid.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t have enough money for them. Maybe next time. Oh, and I didn’t make any of that aïoli for that either. I don’t like garlic in my mayonnaise or mayonnaise in my stir-fry. Chinese five-spice is more my style.”
Dansant didn’t know whether to applaud or shake her. “Why didn’t you tell me you could cook like this?”
“Would you have believed me?” Before he could reply, she said, “Look, I’m not formally trained. I’ve read a lot of cookbooks, watched a lot of cooking shows on TV, and just . . . practiced. Kind of like Rachael Ray on a much, much smaller budget.”
“You did not learn to do this from a cookbook.”
“That’s why I watch Food Network.” She sat down. “This is not as good cold. I speak from experience.”
He glanced at the wall clock, and saw that his time was almost up. “I cannot stay to share your meal. Rowan, when Lonzo comes in tonight, you will give him a message for me.”
“Sure.” She hunched her shoulders and took a sullen bite of her food. “What do you want me to tell him?”
He rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’m promoting you to sous-chef.”
She stopped chewing, and then swallowed with difficulty. “You can’t do that.”
“I just did.”
“On the basis of what? Watching me throw together one meal? You just said you can’t stir-fry a stew.” She made a dismissive gesture. “You’re crazy.”
He bent down. “One wolf recognizes another, Rowan. I always thought there was something familiar about you. Now I know what it is.”
“You can’t do this to me.” She rested her forehead against her hand. “I just got these guys used to having me around the kitchen. They’ll never go for it, not in a million years.”
“They will do as they’re told.” He gestured toward her meal. “Eat. You’re too thin as it is. I will handle the rest.”
She stared at the bowl, and then him before she rose, carried the food over to the trash bin, and dumped it inside.
“Rowan.”
“I don’t need you to handle things for me,” she said as she turned to face him. “I’m not a kid, I’m not your girlfriend, I’m your employee.”
“And tomorrow night you will be my sous-chef, or you will find another place of employment,” he snapped back. He immediately felt sorry for issuing the threat, but from the look on her face it was too late to apologize. “Unless you are too afraid. Then you may continue fetching and carrying for the cooks until your debt to me is repaid.”
“You want a sous-chef?” She carried the dishes over to the washer and dropped them into the empty racks. “You got one.” She went to the stairs and ran up them out of sight.
Dansant was weary of trying to fathom Rowan’s moods while fighting back his own unfulfilled desires. Silently he climbed the stairs, but when he reached the door of her apartment he heard a low, soft sound coming from behind it. It took a moment for him to recognize it: She was weeping again.
Tonight a death scene from an opera had reduced her to tears, but then she had been struck in the face and made to bleed and had not uttered so much as a whimper. Now after having a simple argument, she wept as if her heart were breaking. Dansant didn’t understand her as much as he wanted to believe he did.
What woman took physical abuse without a murmur but ran away from fulfilling her own gifts?
He had no more time to wrestle with the puzzle that was Rowan. No matter how much he wanted her, he had to gather together all the pieces of her life in order to make sense of it and her. To do otherwise would be not only foolhardy, but dangerous for them both.
It tore at him to turn away from her door, and what he had to do next filled him with despair. But such was the price of his new life, and the hope that at last he had found the woman who might share it with him.
Meriden pulled on a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt before he stepped out of his apartment and stood outside Rowan’s door. As soon as he heard her, he reached up to the top of the door frame, took down the spare key Dansant had left there, and let himself in.
She hadn’t bothered to turn on any lights, so he followed the sound of crying to the source, curled up on the floor beneath the window.
“Rowan.” He scooped her up in his arms, dodging her fist and carrying her back to the big armchair, where he sat down and held her on his lap, turning on the lamp beside the chair to get a look at her.
She was a mess.
“How did you get in?” she demanded, choking out the words. “Forget it. Just get out.” She pushed at him. “Let go of me.”
“Not happening, Cupcake.” He held on, letting her struggle until she ran out of steam and went limp. She pressed her face into his shirt as she sobbed, shuddering now and then as she muttered broken, nonsensical phrases.
Meriden didn’t waste his breath on words of comfort; she was beyond that. Wherever she was, he’d be here when she came back. And gradually she calmed, enough to regain some control of her limbs and the convulsive clutching motions of her hands.
“If you say you’re sorry,” he told her when he heard her drag in a deep breath, “I will beat the living shit out of you.”
“I’m not sorry.”
“That’s my girl.” He tugged her head back so he could see her face. Her nose was more swollen than it should have been, and a small graze marred her right cheekbone. Something roared softly in his head. “Who hit you?”
“A kid with nasty hands.” She probed her cheek and the bridge of her nose. “How bad do I look?”
“Like you went a round with Holyfield.” He turned her face toward the light to check her eye, but it was clear. “So tell me about this kid.”
“He has a couple of cracked ribs now, courtesy of my elbow.” She met his gaze. “And I’m not sorry about that, either.”
He nodded, feeling his rage ease back. “So what was all this about?” He thumbed some tear trails from her cheek. “Postknockout depression?”
“Maybe.” She settled back against his chest and sighed. “You ever get into a street fight? A bad one?”
He thought of the time he’d gotten jumped outside Clancy’s by a drunken Marine and four of his buddies. “Now and then.”
“I didn’t know how to fight the first time I ran away,” she said. “I was just a little kid, and I only had a couple bucks to my name. I was looking around for someplace where I could buy some food, and these two junkies came out of nowhere. One held me from behind while the other one searched me, and even though they were sick and needed a fix they were so fucking strong, Sean. Desperate strong. They took all the money I had, and when I tried to go after them to get it back, they taught me just how easy ribs crack.”
“What were you doing on the street that young?”
“Nowhere else to go. It doesn’t matter. They picked me up a couple days later and put me back in foster care.” She knuckled her eye and winced. “Have you seen that girl who’s been hanging around the restaurant at night? About five-four, blond hair, real skinny?”