The Ashtons - Cole, Abigail & Megan

to all this quiet.”
    “You’ll get used to it,” he assured her.
    “Or I’ll find a way to fix it,” she told him.
    One eyebrow lifted as he studied her. “This is going to be a long year, isn’t it?”
    Now Megan smiled for the first time since that morning. “You betcha.”
    Simon watched his new wife move around the kitchen and was amazed at how much at home she seemed. She’d changed into a pale green T-shirt and white shorts that displayed her long, tanned legs to an incredible advantage. Not that he was noticing or anything. “I would have thought an Ashton wouldn’t know one end of a toaster from the other.”
    She shot him a quick look over her shoulder as she rummaged in the stainless steel refrigerator. “My brother and sister and I all learned our way around the kitchen early.” She straightened up again, her arms full of bacon, eggs and bags of vegetables. Slamming the fridge door shut with her hip, she carried her booty to the granite island in the middle of the room.
    Standing on the opposite side of the counter from him, she unloaded her things and grinned. Simon’s breath caught in his chest and he had to remind himself to breathe. Why hadn’t he noticed her smile before? During the last few weeks they’d worked together more than a dozen times and yet, that smile had never hit him quite so hard before.
    Then it dawned on him.
    Working with him rarely induced people to smile.
    “I’m not saying we’re great chefs or anything,” Megan was saying as she broke several eggs into a cobalt-blue mixing bowl. “But if left to our own devices in a kitchen, we wouldn’t starve.”
    “Your mother taught you then?” he asked, remembering his own mother insisting that he learn to cook—saying she wouldn’t have his future wife blaming her for raising a helpless man.
    Megan laughed again. “Oops. Sorry.” She shrugged as she grated cheese and then added it to the mixture of eggs she’d already whipped into a froth. “But the thought of my mother willingly walking into a kitchen just struck me as funny.” She shrugged. “Our cook taught the three of us. We used to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. You know, after school or in the summer…”
    “You enjoyed it.” It wasn’t a question. He could see it in her eyes.
    “Sure. What kid wouldn’t? Being able to make a mess and play with fire?” She grinned again and Simon felt the same punch of awareness slam into him. And even as he savored the sensation, he reminded himself that this was not a real marriage. That they’d both come into this unusual arrangement knowing that it would end in a year.
    Still, he reasoned, that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the year while it was here, did it?
    Rummaging around in the drawers of the island,she found the knife she was looking for, then went to work on the vegetables. Broccoli, bell peppers and mushrooms fell beneath the quickly moving blade until she was satisfied. Then she reached up to the wrought-iron cage above the island and pulled at a copper-bottomed pot.
    As she did, the hem of her tight T-shirt lifted, baring her belly button and enough smooth, tanned skin to make Simon curl his hands into fists to keep from reaching for her. Instead, he got up abruptly, went to the fridge and opened it. “Want a beer?”
    Megan finally freed the skillet she’d been working on and dropped back down. Slanting him a look, she said, “You’re asking an Ashton…of Ashton Estates and Winery if she wants a beer?”
    “Yeah.”
    She nodded. “Just checking. And yes, I would.”
    He smiled to himself as she walked to the eightburner stove built into a wall of honey oak cabinets. Slapping the skillet onto a burner, she dropped a slice of butter into the pan and melted it before adding the eggs, cheese and vegetables.
    “Now,” she said, pausing for a sip of the beer, “I don’t want you getting used to this kind of treatment.” Glancing at him, she continued. “I make a great omelet, but that’s not to say I’m going to cook one every night.”
    He cradled his beer between his palms and looked at her. Her wide green eyes sparkled in the overheadlight and her hair fell in a long, thick ponytail to just below her shoulders. She smelled like summer and smiled like a devil. She was going to torture him, he could feel it coming. He told himself he never should have agreed to that whole one-week getting-to-know-each-other-thing. Who said you had to know a person before having great