Key Of Valor - Key Trilogy 3 Part 26

"You can sit down and drink your champagne."

"I ought to be able to help with those African frog legs."

He cupped the back of her neck with his hand, kissed her, not quite so lightly, not quite so casually as he had when Simon had been in the room. "Sit down, and drink your champagne," he said again, flicking a finger at her earlobe. "Nice earrings."

She gave a quick, baffled laugh. "Thanks." Though she still felt as if she should be helping, she perched on a stool at the bar. "Are you really going to cook?"

"I'm going to grill, which is entirely different. All the Vane men grill. If they didn't they'd be drummed out of the family."

"You're going to grill? In November?"

"We Vanes grill year-round, even if we have to chip through the ice, brave blizzards, risk frostbite. However, it happens I have this very handy deal right here on the range."

"I've seen those in magazines." She watched him fire up the built-in grill on the stovetop. "And on TV, on some of the cooking shows."

He tucked potatoes already wrapped in foil around the flame. "Just don't tell my father I used this instead of standing outside like a man."

"Lips are sealed." She sipped champagne while he went to the refrigerator and pulled out a tray of hors d'oeuvres. "You made these?"

He considered for a moment as he set the platter on the counter in front of her. "I could lie and really impress you, but instead I'll dazzle you with my honesty. They're from

Luciano's, and so's the chocolate bomb for dessert, and the lobster tails."

"Lobster tails? Luciano's?" She selected one of the canapes, slipped it between her lips, and moaned as the flavors melted on her tongue.

"Good?"

"Amazing. It's all amazing. I'm trying to figure out how Zoe McCourt came to be sitting here drinking champagne and eating canapes from Luciano's. It doesn't seem real. Youare trying todazzle me, Bradley. And it's working."

"I like seeing you smile. Do you know the first time you really smiled at me? When I gave you a stepladder."

"I smiled at you before that."

"Nope. Not really. G.o.d knows I wanted you to, but you seemed set on misunderstanding and taking offense at every second word out of my mouth."

"That's-" She cut herself off, then let out a laugh. "Probably true."

"But I cagily won you over, or started to, with a fibergla.s.s stepladder."

"I didn't know it was a ploy. I thought it was considerate."

"It was a considerate ploy. You need more champagne."

She debated with herself while he went to get the bottle. "You intimidated me."

"Excuse me?"

"You intimidated me, still do, a little. And the house intimidated me. The first time I came here, to meet Malory, and saw you. I walked into this big, beautiful house, and there was the painting you'd bought."

"After the Spell"

"Yes. It was such a shock to see that, and to be here. My head was spinning. I said something about having to get back home for Simon, for my son, and you looked down at my hand, saw I wasn't wearing a wedding ring."

"Zoe-"

She shook her head. "And you got this look on your face. It set me off."

"Apparently you started misunderstanding me right from the get-go." As an afterthought, he topped off his own gla.s.s. "I'm going to tell you about the painting, and that's going to give you a very big advantage in this relationship we're starting."

Dating. Relationship. Her head was going to start spinning again. "I don't know what you mean."

"You will. When I saw that painting for the first time, well, that was a stunner. There's Dana, my best friend's kid sister. Someone I cared about a great deal."

He leaned against the bar, casually elegant in his black sweater, with her homemade candle flickering between them. "Then there was Malory. Of course, I didn't know her yet, but there was something that made me stop and think, made me look a little closer."

He paused, and tucked two fingers under Zoe's chin. "Then there was this face. This incredible face. I could hardly breathe for looking at it. I was undone by that face. I had to have that painting. I'd have paid anything for it."

"It's part of the connection." Her throat was dry, but she couldn't lift her gla.s.s to drink. "You were meant to have it."

"That may be true. I've come to believe it's true. But that's not the point I'm making. I had to have the painting because I had to be able to look at that face. Your face. I knew every angle of it. The shape of the eyes, the mouth. I spent a lot of time studying that face. Then you walked into the room that day, and I was staggered. She woke up, and she walked out of the painting, and there she is."

"But it isn't me in the painting."

"Ssh. I couldn't think. For a minute I couldn't hear anything but my own heart beating. While I was trying to think, while I was trying not to grab you just to convince myself that you weren't going to vanish like smoke, everyone was talking. I had to speak to you, to pretend everything was normal when the world had done a very fast one-eighty on me. You can't imagine what was going on inside me."

"No. I guess-no," she managed.

"You said you had to get home for your son, and you might as well have stabbed me in the throat. How could she belong to someone else before I get a chance? So I looked down, saw you weren't wearing a ring, and I thought, Thank G.o.d, she doesn't belong to someone else."

"But you didn't even know me."

"I do now." He leaned in, took her lips with his.

"Man. Are you going to do that all the time now?"

Brad eased back, brushed a kiss against Zoe's forehead, then turned to Simon. "Yes. But I don't want you to feel left out, so I'll kiss you, too."

Simon made spitting noises and danced to safety behind his mother's stool. "Kiss her if you've got to kiss somebody. Are we going to eat soon? I'm starving."

"Big fat steaks about to go on the fire. So, kid, how do you like your frog?"

AFTER dinner, and the video rematch, after Simon's eyes drooped shut as he sprawled on the game room floor, Zoe let herself slide into Brad's arms. Let herself float into the kiss.

There was magic in the world, she thought. And this night had been some of hers.

"I have to take Simon home."

"Stay." He rubbed his cheek against hers. "Just stay, both of you."