Free Forsaking All Others by Lavyrle Spencer Page B

she admitted, “This is awful, but all I have to put in an omelette is tuna fish.”
    She turned apologetically to find him six inches behind her. Startled, she drew back a step.
    “Tuna-fish omelette?” he repeated, grimacing. “You lured me up here for a tuna-fish omelette?”
    “I didn’t lure you up here, and besides, experimentation is the mother of invention.”
    “I thought that was necessity.”
    “Well . . . whatever.” She gestured haplessly. “Right now it’s necessary for me to experiment, all right?”
    “Okay, tuna-fish omelette. I’ll grin and bear it, but we could have had a perfectly good hamburger and french fries if you hadn’t been so stubborn.”
    “I get that way sometimes . . . female pride or something like that.” She turned her back on him and rummaged for a can opener, her heart fluttering giddily at his nearness. When the tuna can was open, he reached around her, took a pinch, and popped it into his mouth. “Sorry,” he offered, without the least note of contrition in his voice, “but I’m starving, and I thought I’d get at least one good taste before you ruin it.”
    “Would you rather have a tuna sandwich?” But immediately she waggled her palms. “No, forget I asked that. I just remembered I’m out of bread.”
    “There’s one thing a person can’t accuse you of, and that’s trying to finagle your way to a man’s heart through his stomach.” He turned away and wandered to the tape deck, squatting down on his haunches to scan the titles on the shelf below. “You like The Five Senses, huh?” he noted.
    At his question something tight and constrictingseemed to settle across Allison’s chest. A lump formed in her throat as she stared, unseeing, at Rick’s back.
    He swung around on the balls of his feet to look at her, and immediately she whirled to face the cabinet. “Yeah,” she said, so crisply the word held an edge of ice.
    Immediately he sensed he’d touched a nerve. She exuded defensiveness that chilled him clear across the room. “Do you mind if I put something on?”
    She stared at the frying pan, seeing Jason Ederlie instead, wondering how she’d react if Rick happened by accident to put on the wrong song. Yet she’d just said she liked The Five Senses, so how could she possibly say what she was thinking: anything but The Five Senses.
    “Go ahead,” she answered lifelessly, leaving him to wonder what motivated her quicksilver change of mood.
    She busied herself with the omelette, and a few minutes later the music of Melissa Manchester drifted through the apartment. Relieved, she cast him a quick glance to find he was standing by the stereo, studying her across the room.
    Don’t ask, she begged silently. Don’t ask, please . Thankfully, he didn’t, but went to sit on the davenport and wait to be called to the table. He stretched out, crossed his feet at the ankles, threaded his fingerstogether, and hung them over his belly, watching her covertly as she put the food on the table and wondering what had caused her sudden defensiveness.
    A guy, he supposed. When it involved music it was usually a guy and some song the two of them had considered special. He made a mental note never to play any of The Five Senses tapes if he ever got up here again.
    “It’s ready,” she announced soberly, standing beside the table with a long face.
    He eased slowly to his feet, walked across the room, and stood by a chair next to hers. “Listen, I’m sorry for whatever I said that upset you. Whatever it was, I’m sorry.”
    Her lips parted slightly, and for a moment she looked as if she might cry. Then she slipped her hands into her jeans pockets, her throat working convulsively. “It’s not your fault, okay?” she offered softly. “It’s just something I have to get over, that’s all.”
    His sober eyes rested on her questioningly, but he asked nothing further. Wordlessly he leaned across the corner of the table to pull out her chair. “Agreed. Now