When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [40]
She winked at him. Made a face. She loved to play, and she just couldn’t resist.
Then Max closed her wings and did a fancy loop that propelled her away from the plane and any danger of a collision.
See that, mister big-shot pilot?Idon’t needaman-made plane to fly.Ijust needalittle sky space.
I was made for this.
Chapter 41
I KNOCKED on the cabin door, the cabin that I own, the little house where David and I had lived once upon a time. This was right up there with the weirdest things I’ve done in a while, and I occasionally do talk to geese and chipmunks.
But since Kit Harrison had gone out on a limb for me, literally, and since he was handsome as sin, I felt it was only right to accept his invitation to dinner that night. He had even promised to cook.
I’d put on a weathered chambray shirt and clean jeans. Clean, semipressed clothes—imagine that. Even a few drops of Hermès perfume I’d bought once upon a time in Aspen. I also had a bottle of decent Pinot Noir in the crook of my arm.
Very, very weird. Bringing a bottle of wine as a gift to my own house.
When Kit Harrison pulled open the door I noticed three things immediately: the clean shave, the fresh haircut, the smell of good old-fashioned Ivory soap.
“Where’d you get the haircut?” I asked.
“You don’t like it?” he said, and looked a little hurt.
I was surprised he was so sensitive about it, or anything else. He hadn’t seemed the type. Actually, he was surprising me in a lot of ways. I had been too tough on him in the beginning, and he’d even taken that well.
“Bob’s Hair Joint. In town,” he said. “Do I look really bad?”
“No, I like it. It’s very nice. You look great, actually. Bob Hatfield did a great job.”
“Thanks,” he said, and showed his modified Tom Cruise smile. The way Cruise did in Jerry McGuire, cocky and yet vulnerable at the same time. He took the bottle of wine from me, opened it with a flourish, poured two glasses.
“You look pretty great yourself,” he said. “Honestly, you do.”
“Thanks.” Suddenly I was the shy and vulnerable one. In my own house.
Kit handed me one of my wineglasses, originally purchased at Marshall Field’s in Chicago, if I remember correctly. I sipped some, then went to the refrigerator and put ice in the glass.
“Water that vino down,” he said, and grinned again. “We don’t want this dinner to get out of hand.”
“It’s not that. I always drink wine coolers.” I told a little white lie. Time was when David and I partied a bit—in Boulder, here in Bear Bluff, in Denver. Life had been good to us. For a while, anyway.
Actually, this was the first time in a year and a half that I’d stood in this room, in the presence of a man, and David’s image and taste were everywhere; overflowing bookshelves, familiar couch, the muted watercolors of northern Wisconsin on the walls. I had spent so many hours obsessing about David’s senseless murder. I felt scared, but I couldn’t tell Kit why. I felt a little guilty, too, though there was no reason to be. Was there?
I made funny, polite chatter about the fox and how she was doing and then I asked if I could help out with dinner.
“I think I’ve got it all under control. Thanks, anyway,” he said. He was doing better than controlling it; he was mastering the chicken breasts, the garlicked green beans, the grilled red potatoes, a misto salad. The smell of it made my tongue get up on its hind legs and beg.
Kit had his back turned to me, which was a good thing. I let out a big, deep breath. I couldn’t believe how nervous I was, how excited, how completely over the top my emotions were.
I accidentally brushed his butt as I got silverware out of the drawer. Firm, sculpted, very pleasant to brush against. That caused me to inhale sharply again. “Where’d you learn to cook?” I asked.
“My wife taught me what my mother hadn’t. My mother strictly specialized in Italian. Once I learned to expand my culinary art, we took turns every other night. Kind of cool,