Asher busied himself taking a glass down from a cabinet and filling it with ice. “It was a wedding gift from my father-in-law,” he said, not looking at her. “He was a woodworker, and he made it to surprise my wife and I…”

Asher stopped, as if the memory were too painful.

“Oh,” said Sera. Her heart ached for him, but there was a small, petty part of herself that ached for a different reason. Clearly, her landlord wasn’t over whatever event had scarred his past—and he wasn’t over the woman he’d lost. If she were a truly decent person, she would be comforting him, not lusting after him. But what if I make it worse? She did want to ask him about his wife—was she dead, had they divorced, had she run off?—but she wasn’t prepared to ruin the evening by gauchely blundering into Asher’s private pain, as she feared she might. Besides, she sensed very clearly that he wished he hadn’t brought up the subject. She had to respect that, even if it left her burning with questions. When he set the water down in front of her, Sera guzzled it a bit too fast, spilling some down her chin. Her cheeks flamed. “See? Told you I had a drinking problem,” she quipped, hoping for at least a chuckle.

Asher didn’t laugh. Instead he leaned down and traced his thumb along the path the droplets had taken, wiping her skin of stray moisture. Sera gulped as their eyes met. An instant surge of desire rocketed through her system, nearly taking her breath away. Did he feel it, too?

He wasn’t admitting it if he was. He pivoted back to his kitchen, calling lightly over his shoulder, “Let me see what I can scrounge up for us to eat.”

God, he was the perfect man. An artisan, a musician, a wizard with plants and animals. And now, her own personal chef.

Ten minutes later, Sera learned that wasn’t quite true.

Asher was a hopeless cook.

He was all sound and fury, banging pots and sizzling pans, but if the acrid smoke and the muttered cursing in Hebrew were any indication, her landlord’s talents did not extend to the culinary arts.

“Need any help there?” she ventured after he slid the unidentifiable results of his efforts straight from the frying pan into the trash—for the second time. “It is what I do for a living, after all.”

Asher turned to face her. For the first time since they’d met, his cocksure composure had slipped just a crack, and there was a harried look on his face. “I’m a bit nervous,” he confessed.

“You’re nervous?” her voice went up a notch in disbelief.

“I haven’t cooked for a woman since my wife…” He stopped, looked chagrined. “Well, not for many years. And never for a famous chef,” he said more lightly. “I can only imagine what standards you’re used to.”

“Mr. Wolf,” she said with mock solemnity. “Let me make a suggestion here.”

“By all means,” he said with the same seriousness.

“Get your buns out of the kitchen and let a professional take over.”

In the end he didn’t leave the kitchen, but he proved to be as good a sous chef as he was lousy at taking the lead, culinarily speaking. At her direction, he washed, sliced, and diced meekly, if less than deftly. There wasn’t much to work with—typical male, his fridge was pretty barren—but Sera managed to unearth some tomatoes (homegrown from his garden, of course), mushrooms, a hunk of mozzarella, some avocado and basil (also from Asher’s garden), and a half-dozen eggs. With practiced movements, she built two respectable omelets and, within minutes, slid them onto the stoneware plates Asher provided. “There,” she said. “Not fancy, but they’ll do.”

“They’re beautiful,” Asher said, with a bit more admiration than Sera thought was warranted. He held up the plates and examined them from every angle, as if they were a set of sculptures on Canyon Road he was considering buying. “I could never master such a fantastic omelet; not with a hundred years of practice.”

She flushed at the compliment and immediately tried to deflect it. “And here I thought omelets were the one food every man knew how to make. Isn’t it, like, in the guy handbook that you’re supposed to be able to make morning-after eggs?”

“I would hate to fail you so egg-regiously on so important an occasion as the morning after,” Asher said with a grin at his own pun.

Sera looked down, more flustered by the thought of a “morning after” with Asher than amused at his wordplay. To him, it might just be light banter, but to her… well, hell. She could feel herself falling for this delightful, inscrutable man in a way she simply couldn’t afford to allow… but couldn’t seem to prevent either. All she could think was that the morning after with Asher would be… glorious.

Maybe for most women, Sera, she told herself flatly. For you, it would be an exercise in humiliation. You’d have to sneak out like some college kid doing the walk of shame after you disappointed him in the sack the way you surely would. Remember how Blake used to look at you after sex? Like he’d just been forced to ingest Starbucks instead of his usual Jamaican Blue Mountain? You can’t forget that, or you’re in for a world of hurt. Don’t ruin things here the way you did back home.

“Shall we eat?” she said, rather too abruptly. Sera practically snatched the plates from Asher and set them down on the table. She was relieved to discover she hadn’t lost her touch—and if Asher’s happy moans were any indication, he thought the same, wolfing the simple omelet down with alacrity. In fact, he looked so mournfully at his empty plate when he finished that she ended up making him a second helping. It did her heart good to watch him gobble her cooking. She so rarely had the opportunity to cook for just one person—and never for a person as fascinating as Asher. At least in this, Sera knew she shined.

“I could make dessert,” she offered. “I thought I saw some stuff in your fridge that might make a nice crème caramel. Or I could whip up some cookies…”

Asher shook his head, placing a hand lightly over hers when she made to rise from the table. She couldn’t help noticing the fine shape of that hand—long, lean fingers and raw knuckles, calluses and faint scars. A man’s hand. And it lay over hers on the table where he and his wife had shared so many meals. Sera gulped.

“You’re not here to work, Bliss,” Asher said. “You’re my guest, and it is I who should be serving you. But since I am, as we have seen, a disaster in the kitchen, I’m afraid we’ll have to forgo the sweets.” He flashed a grin. “I can, however, offer you some rather decent coffee—I promise you, my coffee is far better than my cuisine.” He rose lithely to his feet, headed for the percolator, giving her a questioning look over his shoulder. “Will you have a cup?”

“Yes, please,” Sera said gratefully. “I’d love some.”

“Since I am sans sofa at present, let’s take our coffee outside,” he suggested when the pot had brewed and he’d put their plates in the sink (not before running a finger along his to catch the last savory lick). “It should be warm enough if I bring a blanket, and the stars look to be fierce tonight. There’s no better way to enjoy after-dinner coffee in New Mexico.”

Sera felt a little faint, thinking of sharing a blanket with that much manly goodness. Was it her imagination, or was Asher inventing reasons for her not to leave? She couldn’t quite read him, but she was getting the definite sense that he wanted her to stay… almost as if he had something he wanted to say to her. Even as her sober instincts were screaming caution, some part of her—the part that had recently purchased a two-ton truck, probably—was telling her to let this play out. Something big was in the wind. “I can only stay for a little while,” she hedged. “Then I really should be heading home. Pauline will worry.” Like hell, she thought privately. If I come home too early, then she’ll worry—that I’m not getting laid.

Asher turned toward what Sera figured was his bedroom. “I’ll just go grab a blanket then, if you’ll carry the coffees?” Was it her imagination, or did he seem a tad edgy, too? He was back, carrying a fluffy white comforter under one arm, before Sera could consider the ramifications of that question too closely.

Sascha and Silver preceded them out, tails wagging as they disappeared into the gloom. True night had fallen while they ate their simple meal, Sera saw. As her eyes adjusted, she noticed a two-person glider tucked away at the back of the patio. She saw two side tables, one on either end of the glider, and carefully set their coffee cups down. Gingerly, Sera set herself down on the padded cushion, as far toward her end as she could manage. She didn’t want to presume anything. Silver pawed at her leg through her jeans, whining until she helped him up into her lap. The puppy provided a welcome distraction, and Sera petted his soft fur gratefully until he grumbled with pleasure and rolled himself into a contented ball, tiny head resting on comically big paws.

Asher folded himself down next to her with seemingly no thought for her personal space, his big, loose-limbed frame warming the length of hers even before he spread the puffy down coverlet over both their laps (and Silver, who had instantly fallen asleep on Sera’s). Sascha rounded out the tableau by flopping down on the bricks at her master’s feet, her thick coat providing all the warmth she needed to combat the October chill.

This must be what family feels like, Sera marveled. She hadn’t truly had one since her parents had died, so many years ago. Pauline had done her best, and her best was damn good, but Sera had always felt something was missing. A wholeness, a sense of completion. Now, her heart felt full, though her belly felt like a meadow full of butterflies had taken up residence. Alarmed at the fanciful direction her thoughts were taking, she took a sip of the coffee Asher had made, breathing steam out into the brisk night air. He was right—the coffee was delicious. And as promised, the stars were shining fiercely in the achingly clear sky, blazing down like pinpoints of celestial mystery. But Sera barely saw them. There was a terrestrial mystery stealing all of her attention. A mystery she desperately wanted to solve.