Blue Dahlia

“This isn’t ... It isn’t—”
    “Efficient? Tidy? Organized?”
    “Don’t take that placating tone with me.”
    “That wasn’t my placating tone, it was my exasperated tone. What’s your problem, Red?”
    “You confuse me.”
    “Oh.” He shrugged a shoulder. “If that’s all.” And went back to his meal.
    “Do you think that’s funny?”
    “No, but I think I’m hungry, and that I can’t do a hell of a lot about the fact that you’re confused. Could be I don’t mind all that much confusing you, anyway, since otherwise you’d start lining things up in alphabetical order.”
    Those bluebell eyes went to slits. “A, you’re arrogant and annoying. B, you’re bossy and bullheaded. C—”
    “C, you’re contrary and constricting, but that doesn’t bother me the way it once did. I think we’ve got something interesting between us. Neither one of us was looking for it, but I can roll with that. You pick it apart. Hell if I know why I’m starting to like that about you.”
    “I’ve got more to risk than you do.”
    He sobered. “I’m not going to hurt your kids.”
    “If I believed you were the sort of man who would, or could, I wouldn’t be with you on this level.”
    “What’s ‘this level’?”
    “Evening sex and kitchen dinners.”
    “You seemed to handle the sex better than the meal.”
    “You’re exactly right. Because I don’t know what you expect from me now, and I’m not entirely sure what I expect from you.”
    “And this is your equivalent of tossing ingredients in a pot.”
    She huffed out a breath. “Apparently you understand me better than I do you.”
    “I’m not that complicated.”
    “Oh, please. You’re a maze, Logan.” She leaned forward until she could see the gold flecks on the green of his eyes. “A goddamn maze without any geometric pattern. Professionally, you’re one of the most creative, versatile, and knowledgeable landscape designers I’ve ever worked with, but you do half of your designing and scheduling on the fly, with little scraps of papers stuffed into your truck or your pockets.”
    He scooped up more rice. “It works for me.”
    “Apparently, but it shouldn’t work for anyone. You thrive in chaos, which this house clearly illustrates. Nobody should thrive in chaos.”
    “Now wait a minute.” This time he gestured with his fork. “Where’s the chaos? There’s barely a frigging thing in the place.”
    “Exactly!” She jabbed a finger at him. “You’ve got a wonderful kitchen, a comfortable and stylish bedroom—”
    “Stylish?” Mortification, clear as glass, covered his face. “Jesus.”
    “And empty rooms. You should be tearing your hair out wondering what you’re going to do with them, but you’re not. You just—just—” She waved her hand in circles. “Mosey along.”
    “I’ve never moseyed in my life. Amble sometimes,” he decided. “But I never mosey.”
    “Whatever. You know wine and you read comic books. What kind of sense does that make?”
    “Makes plenty if you consider I like wine and comic books.”
    “You were married, and apparently committed enough to move away from your home.”
    “What’s the damn point in getting married if you’re not ready and willing to do what makes the other person happy? Or at least try.”
    “You loved her,” Stella said with a nod. “Yet you walked away from a divorce unscarred. It was broken, too bad, so you ended it. You’re rude and abrupt one minute, and accommodating the next. You knew why I’d come here tonight, yet you went to the trouble to fix a meal—which was considerate and, and civilized—there, put that in the C column.”
    “Christ, Red, you kill me. I’d move on to D, and say you’re delicious, but right now it’s more like demented.”
    Despite the fact he was laughing, she was wound up and couldn’t stop. “And we have incredible, blow-the-damn-roof-off sex, then you bounce out of bed as if we’d been doing this every night for years. I can’t keep up.”
    Once he decided she’d finished, he picked up his wine, drank thoughtfully. “Let’s see if I can work my way back through that. Though I’ve got to tell you, I didn’t detect any geometric pattern.”
    “Oh, shut up.”
    His hand clamped over hers before she could shove back from the table. “No, you just sit still. It’s my turn. If I didn’t work the way I do? I wouldn’t be able to do what I do, and I sure as hell wouldn’t love it. I found that out up north.