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I looked up from setting out Brandon’s food dish and water bowl to see my dog licking Michael all over the face like the attention whore he was. I shook my head and called him over. Brandon heaved a sigh. He knew what was coming.
“It’s okay, baby.” I gently tented the skin at the scruff of his neck, quickly injected the needle, and then released him. It was over in the blink of an eye. I gave him several pats, but he was more interested in his food bowl.
“That wasn’t too bad,” Michael remarked.
“I don’t think it hurts him much. And he’s used to it by now. He was diagnosed four years ago, when he was still less than a year old. He’s had thousands of injections at this point.”
Michael stood. “Are you hungry?”
I followed him to the kitchen, where the smell hit me right in the stomach. “I am now.”
He poured me a glass of wine and leaned against the counter. “It’s almost ready. A couple more minutes.”
I looked from the wine to the pot on the stove. Penne pasta, Italian sausage, tomatoes, garlic, and kale. I looked at Michael. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
His eyebrows pushed together. “Come again?”
“You look like that.” I gestured to his body. “You cook like this.” I gestured to the pot. “And you bound through mountains searching for people to save. Don’t you think that’s a little much? I mean, how are the rest of us mere mortals supposed to compete with that?”
Something washed over his face that I couldn’t quite read. Surprise, mingled with…doubt? Hope? He lowered his head, obscuring his expression before I could fully decipher it. His hand gripped the edge of the countertop so tightly his knuckles whitened as he stared at his feet, a blush spreading over his cheeks. And oh, shit. The adorableness of it might actually kill me.
When he looked up again, he was grinning. “I throw everything in a pot and then it cooks for twenty minutes. Start to finish, the whole thing takes me half an hour, tops. But good to know you’re easy to please.”
I glanced at the pot again and took a sip of wine. “Hmm.”
“What?” he asked.
“I was going to say, my advice is that if you want to impress your date, don’t tell her that, but you know what? Go ahead. I think you’ll still do all right.”
He stared at me for a second and then suddenly he was in my space, his arms around me, and he stuffed his face into my neck. I could feel his body shaking with laughter.
“Eep!” I said, trying to maneuver my wine out of harm’s way.
He laughed harder.
“Stop laughing,” I commanded.
But I didn’t really mean it. His body was warm and hard and he smelled good, and the food smelled good, and his beard tickled my neck, and he was practically radiating happiness, the way a buttercup beams yellow on your chin. I wanted to freeze this moment, right here, and tuck it away for safe keeping. Something to remember when he was gone and I was feeling lonely.
Damn. I hadn’t even realized that Iwaslonely until this very second. Like, I had friends, but this was different. A feeling of connection seeped into a hole I hadn’t known was there, filling it.
“Pasta’s probably done,” he said. “You ready to eat?”
“Hell yes,” I said enthusiastically, shaking off the wistfulness that had invaded my thoughts. Anyway, I was dying to shove all that food right in my mouth.
“Good.”
He touched my lower back lightly, steering me toward the table. “Hang on while I clear this off.”
I looked at the maps strewn about. His laptop was open to a rather gruesome photo of a man getting his leg set in a makeshift splint, under the serene gaze of the mountains. The back of my neck tingled with nervousness. “Is all this for tomorrow?”
“No. When I’m not doing rescues, I teach wilderness first aid and first responder training. Sometimes it’s for someone who wants to get certified to work as a guide. Sometimes it’s for families who want to go backpacking in Rocky Mountain National Park.”
“Wow.” Suddenly I felt much better about tomorrow. I was in good hands with Michael.
He heaped pasta onto our plates, I grabbed our wine glasses, and we sat down across from each other. I took a bite. It was all spicy, garlicky goodness. “Damn. You’re good.”
He grinned. “Thanks.”
