Afternoon Delight Read Free Page B

hotter. What about the flavor?”
    â€œThe flavor is amazing.”
    She nodded. “That’s the habanero-based sauce. I figured you could handle it, but go easy. It builds.”
    â€œI can tell,” he said after swallowing the second mouthful. Then he cracked open the bottle of iced tea waiting by his hip. The clean, sharp flavor cut some of the burn, leaving him wanting more.
    Had she told him her name and he’d forgotten it? He was so used to calling people
sir
or
ma’am
when he arrived at their emergency that getting names wasn’t his strong suit. He looked around the park as he dredged his memory for a name, any name that would sit lightly on this woman’s shoulders. Seward Park was one of the city’s oldest, staked out in the tenement days to ensure access to fresh air and greenery, and had the added benefit of being close to the station and his apartment.
    No name. “Trish owns the truck?”
    â€œShe opened a couple of weeks ago,” his personal chef said.
    â€œAnd you are?”
    â€œThe chef.”
    â€œI meant, what’s your name?”
    â€œSarah Naylor.”
    Angled toward him on the bench, she held out her hand. He jabbed the spork in the remaining meat and rice, and shook it. Soft, the skin a little dry, a firm grip. No lingering.
    â€œTim,” he said.
    â€œTim Cannon,” she said.
    â€œYou looked at my name tag,” he said.
    â€œJust sizing up the competition. Do you always eat like you’re doing timed trials?”
    Again, the question held no judgment, just simple curiosity. He made a conscious effort to slow down. “We eat between calls. I tend to rate food not by how good it is but how easy it is to handle and get down.”
    â€œSpaghetti is out.”
    He nodded, then ran his hand over his jaw. “Gets caught in the beard.”
    â€œNo soup.”
    â€œI don’t eat soup, for the most part. It’s sloppy, it cools down fast, I can’t eat it in the bus or I’ll end up wearing it, and it’s too slow.”
    â€œThat’s a shame,” she said, smiling at him. “I love soup. Once I cooked a different soup twice a week for a year, Wednesdays and Sundays, and blogged about it. It’s still my Sunday thing, making a pot of soup, letting it simmer on the stove on a lazy afternoon, making bread at the same time, then having homemade soup, fresh bread, and a salad. Something simple for dessert. Baked apples or pears . . .” She drifted off. “Sorry. I get a little obsessive about it, and I haven’t had a good soup for a while.”
    She didn’t seem obsessive. She seemed emotional, but if she wanted to duck that, he was good with it. “Come July and August, the last thing you want to eat is soup. Why the interest in it?”
    â€œIt was a challenge,” she said. “I wanted to see if I could make something most people think of as boring comfort food new and fresh.”
    â€œYou could have done it for a week, or a month.”
    She shook her head. The off-kilter bun tipped even more to the left, blond highlights glinting in the afternoon sun, and she automatically reached up to secure it. “That’s not really a challenge,” she said. “A week, even a month, no big deal. A year? I have to dig deep for a year.” He couldn’t imagine the expression on his face, but whatever it was made her laugh, and this time it was full of delight at her own whimsy. “I know. Weird.”
    On the scale of strange, cooking soup twice a week for a year was nowhere near the top of the odd things he’d heard that day, much less in his life, but it surprised him nonetheless. “It’s not weird. If you’re going to do something, you do it balls to the wall.”
    â€œExactly,” she said.
    The whole thing was unusual. The heat was there, in the food, the sun, the chemistry sizzling between them. He could almost smell the sap