He smiled and ran a finger over her shoulder, down her arm and laced his fingers into hers. “You were in love with him, Kelly. You don’t just rule it out.”

“I don’t know, Lief. I might’ve been in love with the idea of him. We have so much in common—starting with our professions. In my fantasies, I saw myself working with him, inspiring him even as he took me to the next level.”

Lief was quiet for a moment. “I have one question. How long did it last?”

“What part? The contact between chefs? The friendship? His mentoring? His attention and flirtation?”

“I was actually thinking of the sex…”

She looked at him in complete shock. Then she laughed. “There was no sex! I never slept with him!”

“Then why did his wife come to see you?”

Kelly flopped on her back and looked up at the sky. “That’s the part that had me confused for a while—but it became irrelevant. Five-star restaurants make up a small town, and in my world not only was Luciano Brazzi the king, his wife was the queen. Not only did she believe I was having an affair with him, within five minutes of her leaking it, everyone I worked with believed it. Everyone I might ever work with believed it within twenty-four hours.” She looked at Lief. “He told me he adored me, that he thought he was falling in love with me, that he wanted to end his sham of a marriage and pursue a serious thing with me. I told him to repeat all that when he was a single man. He talked a lot about it, I lapped up every word, but it didn’t happen.” She gave Lief a sheepish smile. “I did get kissed,” she said. “It was awesome.”

Lief was completely stunned. Based on what she had said, he had envisioned a long, steamy, satisfying affair. Something that would be hard to get over.

“A kiss?”

She nodded. “Like a couple of thunderheads coming together. It had me very excited about the potential.”

Lief thought about this for a moment. Then he leaned over her and put his lips against hers and asked, “Better than this?”

“Oh, far better,” she said with a smile.

He tried again, and this time he tongued open her lips. He loved the wet velvet of her mouth. And her special taste was a kind of earthy ambrosia that he was already addicted to. There hadn’t been that many kisses between them—it had been less than two weeks since that fateful night he’d had to drive her home. But God above, he wanted to live inside her mouth. “Better than that?” he asked.

“Slightly better,” she said.

“Forget him,” he said, covering her mouth in a demanding kiss that plunged into her. Ah! Her arms came around him, and her tongue joined the play, dueling with his. Their mouths were fused, open, hot and wet, and he slid his large body over her smaller, soft, sweet body. He loved the lushness of her, the fullness of her h*ps and br**sts. She made him hard, that’s what.

He pushed against her. With a knee placed in a strategic position, he parted her legs a bit and pushed deeper. Her pleased moan was music to his ears, and, though it was early stages yet, he took a chance, slipping a hand under her sweater and over her breast. He could feel her nipple harden under the bra, beneath his hand, and he desperately wanted it in his mouth.

“Better than this?” he asked, his voice hoarse and a little breathless.

“Not so much,” she said, out of breath herself.

“We’re gonna have to move on this one of these days,” he announced. “I’ve been wanting you since the minute I met you.”

“I think there’s something you should know…”

“Hm? What’s that?” he asked, placing small kisses around her face and neck.

“I haven’t had many relationships,” she said.

“Hey, I’ve only had one in the last seven years and none in the last two,” he told her. “Not a handicap, trust me.”

“Thing is, I haven’t had much… I mean, I was real busy with food. There were a few short flings, that’s about it. And I haven’t had much…”

He became more alert. “I know eventually you’re going to finish that sentence,” he said.

“Sex,” she said. “Not much sex.”

“That’s okay, honey. In fact, that’s sweet.”

“And as far as really good sex? Rock-your-world sex? Satisfying sex? Basically…” She let that sentence drift off. But he waited. He lifted one brow. She took a breath. “Basically, none.”

He was quiet a moment. “As in… None?” he asked. When she nodded, he asked, “How about sweet or comfortable or compatible sex?”

“Not really. I had a few short things. With guys I met in the business, you know. They were over quickly. And each one left me wondering why I bothered.”

“Gotcha,” he said. He brushed the hair back from her temple. “Listen, if you ever decide to change career fields, maybe give seminars to women on how to really set up a challenge for a guy, I think you’re on to something here…”

“I wouldn’t blame you at all if you decided this really wasn’t worth your time,” she said.

He was still positioned over her. He smiled into her eyes. Then he went for that delicious mouth again, teased her, demanded of her, forced her lips open and then waited for her tongue to start the play before he went deeper, harder. He kissed her with his whole body, and she felt it, pushing back against him. When she was breathing hard, gasping a little, he pulled back a bit. “No such luck, honey. You’re not going to ask yourself why you bothered this time. Trust me.”

“Kiss me some more,” she demanded. “This is pretty good. At least when you apply yourself.”

Oh, this is going to be good, Courtney thought when she walked into the counselor’s waiting room. The button-down collar of the guy’s plaid, short-sleeved shirt couldn’t have been tighter on his long, skinny neck. He looked a little like a heron.

“Courtney, hello!” he said cheerily. “I’m Jerry.”

“Hi,” she said, deadpan.

“Come in the office.” He stepped aside and let her enter ahead of him. She took the chair facing the desk, and he went behind the desk. “Something in your manner tells me you’ve done this sort of thing before.”

“Ya think?” she asked, lifting a thin, black eyebrow.

“Assuming that’s the case, what do you think we should talk about?”

She leaned back in the chair. “I guess you probably want to talk about the fact that my mother is dead.”

He didn’t register even the slightest shock. He tilted his head and said, “I would’ve started with how you like it around here. Must be quite a change for you.”

“Quite,” she echoed. She knew she had several choices—she could make this a challenge, make it easy, make it interesting or make it horrible. “It’s a little more rural than I’m used to.” She decided on interesting.

“Are you getting to know people yet? Making friends?” he asked.

“I have one friend, but she’s sort of someone who needs me to help her with homework, so once she gets it she might not be my friend anymore.”

“There’s a troubling thought,” he said. “Don’t you suppose she could have found someone she liked to help her rather than someone she would just use?”

She considered shifting to horrible. Except that he seemed to speak her language, oddly enough. “I think she probably likes me. In her way.”

“And do you like her?” he asked. “In your way?”

She shrugged. “I guess.”

“Let’s start there. What do you like about her?”

Courtney narrowed her eyes. “Her lameness does not totally offend me.”

Jerry smiled indulgently. “What else?”

She decided to take pity on him since he was truly an inferior nerd. “I kind of like hanging around her house, her farm. Her family is kind of nice. Her dad is funny. Old and pretty broken down, but silly. When I stay for dinner I get good, fatty, greasy stuff instead of all that health-food shit my dad makes.”

“Right there is a massive recommendation,” Jerry said. “I’m afraid I’m falling down in the health-food-shit department.”

“No kidding? And she has a little nephew in a wheelchair. Her older brother’s kid.”

“Oh?”

“Muscular dystrophy. He’s eight. He might have some times he’s less sick than others, but he’s not going to get better. He’s going to get worse until he dies. Not very many people make it to adulthood if they get it as a kid.”

“Did your friend explain all this to you?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I looked it up on the internet. Because of what she said, I pinned him down to DMD—Duchenne muscular dystrophy. She said there was no cure and he wasn’t getting better and he’s already in a wheelchair. He’s really kind of cute with his glasses sliding off his nose—looks like that little kid in Jerry Maguire. And he’s scary smart—he’s eight and doing seventh grade spelling and math. And he’s funny. His parents let him zone out on video games to keep his reflexes exercised, but there’s nothing they can do about the muscles in his back or legs.”

“You like him. You like the whole family,” Jerry observed.

She gave something like a nod. But then she said, “Makes you wonder if there’s any God, seeing a kid like that get something like that.”

Jerry leaned forward. “Courtney, you joined the geniuses of the centuries in wondering that very thing. Unfairness and injustice are two things that really threaten blind faith.”

“Why are you talking to me like I’m an adult?” She made a face.

He looked surprised. “Did I say something you didn’t understand?”

“No,” she relented. “Yeah, I like the family. I like the animals, even if there aren’t that many. My dad grew up on a potato farm and we used to go there. We haven’t been there in a while.”

“What animals?” Jerry asked.

“There’s a golden retriever mix who’s about to have puppies and you can feel them move around inside her—I bet there’s gonna be nine. I mean, it’s a real bet—I even put a dollar in the jar. There are chickens, goats, one cow and two horses. A million cats, like at my dad’s Idaho farm. They keep the mice down.”

Jerry smiled at her. “If you like hanging out at farms, you’re going to make plenty of friends around here. Lots of farm kids around here.”

“Yeah, well. I have exactly one friend so far.”

“But do you trust her? Like her? Is she a good person?” Jerry asked.

“She is good. Kind of lame and dorky, but she wouldn’t know how to be a bad person.”

“I’m going to tell you something that might be a little hard for you to buy into right now, but a couple of good, trustworthy, loyal friends—it’s a lot. In junior high and high school, kids collect friends in such big numbers it sometimes seems ridiculous to think you could get by on just a couple of good ones. But really, one good friend rather than a dozen you’re not too sure of—no contest.”

She was quiet for a minute. “I had a lot of friends before my mom died.”

Jerry was respectfully quiet for a minute also. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Courtney. The death of a close loved one can often change the landscape of everything else in your life.”

“Is this where we segue into talking about my dead mother?”

He smiled at her, but it was a comforting smile. “Segue. Movie talk. You’ll probably have to explain that term around here. I thought we’d keep this short today, our first day together, and sneak up on the more difficult subjects over time. You okay with that?”