Heidi Rice - Call Me Cupid

She shook her head. She’d been trying to keep her distance from him for weeks now. Why would she mind if he volunteered to do just that?

Kelly came and took the saucepan from her. Just as well Chloe had heard the thunder of little—and big—feet on the stairs, because Kelly’s verdict on her own cooking was not for children’s ears. ‘I always was crap at cooking,’ she explained. ‘Dan said I should just get some posh stuff to reheat from the supermarket, but I had to decide to go all cordon bleu, didn’t I?’ She tipped the contents of the saucepan into the bin and banged it back down on the hob. Chloe quickly leaned forward and turned the gas off before another catastrophe occurred.

Kelly rummaged in a drawer and produced a fan of takeaway leaflets. ‘Curry, curry, Chinese or curry,’ she said brightly.

Chloe looked at the other ingredients lined up on the counter. Bacon, garlic, chilli flakes... ‘Amatriciana sauce, right?’

Kelly nodded, looking at Chloe as if she were the bearer of ancient and hallowed wisdom.

‘It’d be a shame to waste all that lovely fresh pasta,’ Chloe said. ‘Have you got another onion and more tomatoes? I’m sure I could help...if you wouldn’t mind?’

Kelly looked as if she was going to prostrate herself at Chloe’s feet. She grabbed Chloe’s hand. ‘Please marry him,’ she said, and then she added, ‘As you can see, my tact is as well developed as my culinary skills. Blame it on having two thickheaded brothers. Blunt and direct was what was required round our house when we were growing up. Never quite learned how to switch it off.’

Chloe grinned at her. She couldn’t help liking Kelly. Her say-whatever-fell-into-her-head approach was rather refreshing. There must be something lovely about going through life like that, not having to worry about saying the wrong thing or accidentally showing a part of yourself you’d rather other people didn’t know about.

‘I take it there is wine somewhere in this kitchen?’ she asked.

‘Do you need it for the sauce?’

‘No,’ said Chloe, smiling. ‘I need it in a glass. Now where are those tomatoes?’

Kelly provided both wine and tomatoes. ‘Forget marrying Dan,’ she said as she watched Chloe sweat some finely diced onion. ‘Move in and adopt me.’

Chloe chuckled, and they continued to chat as she made headway in making the pasta sauce. Kelly was more a hindrance than a help, though, and Chloe quickly suggested she put her feet up, saying that looking after pre-schoolers must be very tiring.

She nodded in the direction of the ceiling as Kelly collected her wine glass and flopped on the sofa. ‘He’s great with the boys.’

‘He is that.’ Kelly looked up, a soft smile on her face. ‘He’ll make a really good dad some—’ She froze, scratched her nose and looked away. ‘Forget I said that.’

Inside Chloe was frowning, but on the outside she batted Kelly’s stray comment away and smiled cheerfully back, mentally searching for something to say that would dispel the odd, slightly sad atmosphere that had settled on the other woman.

‘Well, there is one thing I can guarantee,’ Chloe said jokingly as she added some garlic to the pan. ‘It’s that I won’t ever be marrying your brother.’

SIX

Daniel paused on the stairs as he heard Chloe’s voice and smiled.

No marrying him. Ever. That was practically a guarantee.

He bounced back into the kitchen to find Chloe standing at the stove and Kelly lounging on the sofa sipping Merlot. What was wrong with that picture?

‘I invited you for dinner,’ he told Chloe, ‘not the other way round.’

Chloe shrugged. ‘I like cooking, and your sister...’

‘Your sister burnt the crap out of the first attempt,’ Kelly said helpfully. ‘I’ve been banished to the sofa. She won’t even let me help.’

Daniel gave his sister a very brotherly kind of look. ‘And I can see it’s just eating you up inside.’

Kelly held up her wine glass and toasted him with it before downing the remainder in one gulp. He shook his head and turned his attention to his guest.

‘That smells amazing,’ he said. ‘You must be pretty good at this.’

She bowed her head and looked at the wooden spoon as she stirred the sauce. ‘I like picking up new skills, perfecting them.’

Daniel smiled to himself as he and Kelly laid the table. His plan was working. He could tell from the way Chloe hummed to herself as she put the finishing touches to the pasta sauce that she was starting to relax. Just what he wanted.

He didn’t want a date with starchy, let’s-pretend-we’re-being-discreet-at-work Chloe. He wanted a date with the Chloe who’d been within a hair’s breadth of ripping his T-shirt off on the balcony of the Palm House. There was a girl who knew how to have fun.

He’d been given the job of cooking the pasta and she started teasing him when she realised it was overcooked and sticking to the bottom of the pan.

‘Honestly,’ she said, snatching it from him. ‘The pair of you are as bad as each other. I don’t know how those two poor children haven’t starved to death.’

‘I have extensive skills with a can opener and advanced microwave training,’ he told her, quite seriously.

Kelly, who was now sitting at the table, glass of wine in hand, also piped up. ‘And I make a mean chicken nuggets and oven chips.’

Chloe just shook her head.

‘I’ll bet you know how to make fancy pastry and everything,’ Kelly said mournfully as they dished up.

Chloe tried to act nonchalant, but he could see just a hint of self-satisfaction in her reply. ‘I’ve done a cookery course or two,’ she said quietly.

His sister slumped on the table. ‘Ugh. I hate women like you,’ she said dramatically, but the delivery just made Chloe laugh.

Daniel decided he was a genius. Kelly was probably his best weapon this evening. Chloe liked her, despite the fact that, beside his immaculately dressed and perfectly contained date, his sister seemed a little too loud and uncensored. It was like putting an elegant pink orchid and a dandelion in the same pot together: it shouldn’t work. But the two women were getting on like a house on fire and he wasn’t going to do anything to upset that.

Chloe was like one of her orchids, he decided as they chatted over the simple dinner. Beautiful. Poised. Aloof. Just like the graceful flowers she tended, she was almost too perfect to be true.

After dinner he moved to phase two of the plan. Kelly loaded the dishwasher, batting Chloe’s efforts to help away and telling her she’d better leave it to the expert. Daniel made the coffee. Fresh not instant. One thing in the kitchen he could do really well. Then Kelly put her coat on and picked up her handbag.

Chloe’s easy demeanour slipped a little. ‘You’re going?’

Kelly nodded. ‘Big brother here promised he’d babysit tonight. He owes me.’ She gave Daniel a knowing look. ‘First night out with the girls in weeks,’ she said, then she blew them both a kiss and hurried out of the front door before anyone could stop her.

Daniel brought Chloe a coffee and sat down at the table with her. He glanced at the comfy sofa in the conservatory, with ample room for two. That would have been his preferred location, but he sensed he needed to tread carefully now his secret weapon was off to the wine bar to drink cocktails with her girlfriends.

‘For a long time Kelly wouldn’t go anywhere,’ he told Chloe. ‘Too tired. Too self-conscious about her hair. It was very patchy when it first grew back.’

A look of pain crossed Chloe’s features and she absent-mindedly fiddled with the end of a loose ringlet. ‘How awful for her. Girls need their hair.’

He nodded, understanding that now. Personally, he wouldn’t have cared if his hair was down to his knees or in a marine buzz cut, but the wallop Kelly had given him when he’d suggested, very practically, that she should just borrow his clippers and even it all out had let him know just how differently men and women saw this issue.