Blue Smoke

anything with my house I wanted. Was that lust talking, or is that straight scoop?”
    “Lust is a factor, but within reason, sure. You can have pretty much what you want.” He dribbled oil in a sauté pan.
    “Can I have a fireplace in my bedroom?”
    “Wood-burning?”
    “Not necessarily. Gas or electric would do. Probably better, actually. I don’t think I want to haul wood up the stairs.”
    “We could do that.”
    “Really? I always wanted that—like in the movies. A fireplace in the bedroom. One in the library. And what I’d really like is to turn the bedroom into more of a master suite. Incorporating the bath, maybe enlarging it some. And I want a skylight over the tub.”
    He glanced back again, considered her. “You want a skylight over the tub.”
    “I think that falls into the within-reason category. Of course, all this has to be done in small stages. I’ve got a budget.”
    He added minced garlic to the oil. “I’ll take a look, play with some designs, work you up a bid. How’s that?”
    She smiled, resting her elbow on the table, sipping wine. “Handy. You may turn out to be too good to be true.”
    “That’s what I thought about you.”
    “I don’t know what I want, Bo. For this, for myself. Hell, I don’t know what I want tomorrow, much less a year from tomorrow.”
    “Me, either.”
    “I think you do, or you have a rough design. I think when you do what you do, when you build and project, you’re able to visualize next year.”
    “I know I want you tonight. I know I’ve wanted you—or the image of you—for a long time. But I don’t know what we’ll do with, or about, each other tomorrow. Or next year.”
    He slid chicken into the pan, turned. “I think there’s a reason you moved in next door. I think there’s a reason I saw you all those years ago, but didn’t meet you until now. I don’t think I was ready for you until now.”
    He watched her, sitting at his counter with her she-lion eyes, runningher finger along the etched cup of his grandmother’s glass. “Maybe that means things are falling into place. Or it means something else. I don’t have to know right this minute.”
    “You talked about potential, when you look at a new place and it pulls at you. You have the potential to make me fall in love with you. That scares me.”
    He felt something rush into his heart, burn there. “Because you think I’ll hurt you?”
    “Maybe. Or I’ll hurt you. Or it’ll just turn out to be some big, complicated mess.”
    “Or it could be something special.”
    She shook her head. “When I look at relationships—my relationships—the glass is half empty. And what’s left in it may or may not be potable.”
    He picked up the wine, filled her glass to the rim. “You just haven’t had the right guy doing the pouring.”
    “Maybe not.” She glanced toward the stove. “Don’t burn the chicken.”
    H e didn’t, and she had to admit she was impressed that he managed to get a full meal on the table without incident. She nursed the second glass of wine, and sampled the chicken.
    “All right,” she said, “this is good. This is really good. That’s a serious compliment coming from someone who grew up in an atmosphere where food isn’t just sustenance, isn’t even merely art, but a way of life.”
    “The rosemary chicken gets them every time.”
    She laughed, continued to eat. “Tell me about your first love.”
    “That would be you. Okay,” he added when she narrowed her eyes at him. “Tina Woolrich. Eighth grade. She had big blue eyes and little apple breasts—which she generously let me touch one sweet summer afternoon in a darkened movie theater. How about you?”
    “Michael Grimaldi. I was fourteen, and desperately in love with Michael Grimaldi, who was stuck on my sister Bella. I imagined that the scales would fall from his eyes and he would understand it was me who was his destiny. But that love went unrequited.”

    “Foolish Michael.”
    “Okay. Who broke your heart the first time?”
    “Back to you again. Otherwise . . . nobody.”
    “Me, either. I don’t know if that makes us lucky or sad. Bella now, she thrived on getting her heart broken, and breaking hearts. With Fran, I remember her crying in her room because some jerk had asked another girl to the prom. Me, I never cared enough. So I guess that is sad.”
    “Ever get close to the M word?”
    “Marriage.” Something flickered in her eyes. “Depends on your point of view. I’ll