The Glass Kitchen Read online

  “Does everything have to be your way, Portia?”

  “You’re just used to everything being your way. I know how to compromise.”

  Given the hour, the bus was empty expect for the driver and a man clearly getting off from the night shift, half asleep at the back. Portia slid onto a hard-plastic two-seater. Gabriel hung his head and sat down beside her.

  They headed north on Central Park West, her knee brushing against his as the bus swayed like a boat on a gentle sea. The sky was dark but crystal clear; the sidewalks were crowded even at midnight. To the right beyond the sidewalk, the old stone wall of Central Park surrounded the giant rectangle of trees, lakes, and winding paths. To the left, mostly prewar apartment buildings lined the way like a wall of ancient stone and brick. This new world was nothing like Portia’s old one back in Texas, but the longer she was in Manhattan, the more she fell in love.

  “Thank you for coming with me tonight.”

  He was silent for a moment. “You’re welcome.”

  When they reached the Seventy-second Street stop, Gabriel took her hand and pulled her off of the bus.

  “Let’s take a carriage through the park,” Portia said.

  “It’s late.”

  “You go on.” She started to walk toward the carriages lined up at the entrance to the park, but he caught her around the waist.

  They looked at each other before he glanced at her mouth. “I thought you were open to compromise,” he said.

  “Ha!”

  He didn’t say anything else. When he grabbed her hand and started walking up Central Park West, she followed. And when they came to the town house, a thrill ran down her spine when he guided her down the steps to her apartment.

  Eighteen

  PORTIA FELT NERVOUS. “Well, thanks again for going with me.”

  Gabriel had leaned back against the wall.

  “You have an amazing throwing arm,” she offered, her voice clattering. “Almost as good as mine.”

  He just studied her.

  She kept chattering. “It was fun. Lots of fun.”

  His lips quirked up as she rambled. And really, she did have pride.

  “So then, good night.” She raised her chin and squatted as gracefully as she could to retrieve the key she kept under the mat.

  That wiped the quirk off his mouth. “I told you not to keep a key there.”

  “You tell me a lot of things.”

  He pushed away from the wall, dragging his hands through his hair. She saw the flash of frustration she made him feel on a fairly regular basis. And right alongside all that pride she’d just had was a wide swath of sympathy, for him. She cocked her head and gave him a sympathetic smile.

  “Don’t you dare look at me like that,” he bit out.

  “Like what?”

  “Like I’m some sort of lost … puppy.”

  “You? Hardly. More like a wounded beast.”

  That surprised him. And she certainly hadn’t intended to say any such thing. The words had just slipped out.

  His frustration turned to something darker.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Really.”

  The frustration shifted again and he drew a deep breath. He nodded, and she realized that he was going to leave. Without thinking yet again, she caught his hand.

  He stilled, and looked at their fingers, his expression wary. Then slowly he looked up at her. He was fighting, she could see it, and he had no intention of giving in to her.

  “Good night,” he said, pulling away.

  She should have been embarrassed. Instead, she reached up on tiptoes, slipping her hands on either side of his head, and pulled him down to her. She had dreamed of his kiss since the night he had dragged her through the window. After an evening of carefree baseball throwing and dancing, she felt lovely and alive. Careless. She didn’t want it to end.

  They were close, she looking into his eyes. Then she pressed her lips to his. Soft. Barely a kiss. And he groaned into her mouth.

  She could feel the way he dragged in a breath, the way he worked to marshal control. Then he gave in with a groan, or maybe a curse, and he crushed her body to his.

  Portia closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of him. There was nothing sweet or chaste about their kiss now. It was hot and consuming. She tasted the smoky sweetness of bourbon on his tongue. She melted into him when he ran his hand down her spine, pressing her even closer.

  “Give me that damned key.”

  He unlocked the door and they crashed into her apartment, hands tugging at clothes, searching out skin. The kiss turned desperate. He tangled his tongue with hers, gentleness gone. He cupped the side of her face, tilting her head back, forcing her to look at him. Her breath shuddered as he ran his thumb across her lips. “I want you,” he said.

  More proof that Gabriel wasn’t a man who asked. He demanded. And this demanding man wanted her. The feeling was heady and emotional.

  He swept her up into his arms and headed unerringly for her bedroom. It was the only room she’d had time to paint. Small even by New York standards, it was painted a pearly blue that reminded her of a Texas sky—not on a hot day, but a cool one by Southern standards.

  She saw the room through his eyes. Upstairs, everything was decorated with exquisite, refined taste that was paid for. She’d lived that life, albeit with Texas rather than New York style. This room was all hers. She’d stenciled the moldings with cream fleur-de-lis and hung luscious silk drapes in her tall windows. No need for anyone to know that the silk had once been a ball gown of her aunt’s. In the dim light it gave the room an unmistakable luster, a touch of what she believed Paris would be like on a moonlit night.

  He set her down, letting go of her legs but holding her close, bringing her body into line with his. He dipped his head, kissing the bare skin of her shoulder. “What’s this?” he asked.

  It took a second before she realized what he was talking about. “A scar,” she said, her stomach twisting at the memory of running into that sudden storm, crying, as she fought to reach her grandmother—and then the lightning throwing her to the ground in a tangle beside Gram, both of them like rag dolls in the dirt.

  She began to push away.

  “Stop,” he said, kissing the scar in a way that made her shiver with something more than desire.

  She forgot about scars, her grandmother, the past.

  The kiss in his library had been amazing, but this was different. He backed her up until her thighs hit the side of the mattress, his hands cupping her face.

  “I’ve been trying to get you out of my head, but you keep creeping back in. You distract me, make me lose focus.” His hands drifted lower, his thumbs brushing her lips, then even lower until they brushed against her collarbone. “But I can’t stay away.”

  She closed her eyes as he swept her up and put her on the bed.

  He came over her. The scent of him filled her, like spice and wild grasses. He slid his knee between her legs, nudging one to the side before he sank down into her, and she could feel every inch of his erection through her skirt. With his arms on either side of her head, he kissed her, coaxing her mouth open, his tongue slipping inside.

  Portia ran her hands up his arms, her fingers touching his face. Reality unraveled around them like thread from a spool. Nothing in the world existed but the two of them, touching, kissing, his body pressing into hers. Just when it seemed he couldn’t get enough, he broke the kiss and pulled back to look at her. She could see restraint trying to seep back to the surface. But then it was gone.

  With one twist, he had the ties on her bustier falling to the sides. She gasped as cool air hit her skin. His palm came to her breast, pushing it high, his thumb brushing against her skin, an inarticulate sound breaking from her throat.

  She arched to him, felt his hand skimming up her leg, gathering the hem of the skirt. Then with a quick jerk, he dragged the skirt off her body and tossed it on the floor.

  He slid his hand down her stomach, slipping beneath
the thin silk of her panties. The more he took, the more he seemed to need as he reclaimed her mouth.

  She moaned, couldn’t help it when she thrust against his hand.

  “Yes,” he murmured.

  He was slow and sensual, caressing her, kissing her until she couldn’t take it anymore. She bit his lip, groaning against him. But just when he tangled his hand in her hair and entered her, hard, her senses suddenly jangled. She jolted as the images of fried chicken, sweet jalapeño mustard, mashed potatoes, cole slaw, buttermilk biscuits, and strawberry pie flashed through her mind. It was the meal that had first come to her when she was sitting on the front steps and Gabriel had appeared like a promise.

  But a promise of what?

  Nineteen

  ARIEL STILL DIDN’T KNOW much of anything about her mom’s family, other than that they had lived in a housing project only blocks from her dad’s town house, and her granddad was named Bohater. Bohater? Seriously?

  Not that she knew much more about her dad’s family that wasn’t the standard brown-haired, brown-eyed sort of stuff. Not the ingredients of an A-plus social studies report.

  Determined to find something that fell between boring and the whole “My really fancy, rich mom used to be a wild partier and never bothered to tell anyone that she grew up in a really bad part of town” that would get her killed by her dad, she went back to the Internet. Googling her parents still didn’t bring up anything she hadn’t already learned.

  Then it occurred to her: She had never heard a peep about her mom and dad getting married. Didn’t that stuff show up someplace? And if her parents had been in the news for parties they attended, didn’t it make sense they’d be in the news when they got married? Didn’t weddings make for great stories? A wedding report had to get her something decent, right?

  She Googled that, too, but found nothing. If only she knew the date they got married. Didn’t there have to be some kind of record?

  After more searching, all she came up with to find records was the City Clerk’s Web site. She’d have to go downtown, which was practically like going to New Jersey. No way.

  The house was super quiet; Ariel was home only because her school was off a half day for teacher training. She hadn’t bothered to tell her dad, since she had a key to the house and could take care of herself. Besides, she had wanted time alone at home. All the better to exercise her detective skills.

  Well, no time like the present. Her dad was at work; Miranda’s school didn’t have a half day; Portia was probably down in the basement cooking her brains out, or whatever she did in her spare time. Even if Ariel couldn’t make it to the City Clerk’s, she had time for a house search.

  She bolted up the steps to the top floor that her dad used more for storage than for anything else. There were cedar closets and cabinets filled with drawers that lined the walls. There was a TV and a sound system in there, not set up, sort of like extra. And her old bike was there, too.

  She ignored the stairs that continued on to the roof and started going through every nook and cranny. Surely there had to be more stuff about her family. A wedding date. Birthdays.

  Looking in drawer after drawer at all the stuff the movers had unpacked and put away, Ariel found nothing. She grew more frantic with each cabinet she finished.

  She had nearly given up when she found a box marked MIRANDA in the back of a closet. Not exactly what she was looking for, but she’d take what she could get.

  Inside was a baby book. Date of birth. Footprints. A hospital bracelet. A photo. Miranda’s first curl. First tooth. But then the book went blank. It was as if their mom had gotten tired of documenting her first child’s existence.

  No matter how much she dug, Ariel couldn’t find a corresponding book for herself.

  “Figures,” she muttered to the empty room. Maybe she’d always been a little bit invisible.

  When she’d searched every corner, Ariel stopped and looked around the room, mystified. She knew that the only stuff her dad had brought with them from the old house was important stuff like papers and files. But even with that, it was like her mom had disappeared, too. Her mom, her parents’ marriage. Her stomach churned.

  Returning to the kitchen, she realized what she had to do. It was already after one, but if she took a cab, she could be down at the records office, get her parents’ wedding record, and hightail it home before her dad even thought about leaving his office.

  Yanking on a light jacket, counting out a wad of ones and fives, and even a ten-dollar bill, Ariel flew out the front door. A cab was driving by, and she waved her arm.

  When she barreled inside, the cabbie barely glanced at her.

  “The City Clerk’s office,” she said in a tone of voice that meant business.

  He craned his neck. “Where?” His accent was thick, and he looked like he ate little girls for breakfast.

  “One forty-one Worth Street. It’s downtown.”

  “I know where Worth Street is.”

  “Okay then, good.”

  He snorted, turned, and threw the car into gear. They were off.

  Panic set in as soon as they turned left onto Columbus Avenue. “Be brave, be brave, be brave,” Ariel whispered to herself.

  She hadn’t given much thought to the fact that she was going to be in a car. The kind of car that wrecked. Just like when she was with her mom. She had barely been in a car since.

  Ariel reached up, wrapped herself securely in the seat belt, and prayed.

  The cabbie careened through traffic, clutching the steering wheel with both hands and talking the whole time into his cell phone headset. She couldn’t understand a word. There was a ton of traffic, but that didn’t faze him.

  Ariel closed her eyes, concentrating. “If you take one yellow cab,” she whispered to herself, “moving at one hundred miles per hour for five-second intervals, how long will it take the cab to go three miles?”

  But word problems didn’t calm her.

  “You say something?” the cabbie called back to her, their eyes meeting in the rearview mirror.

  “No. Not a word. No reason to look back here. Best to look up ahead.” Where the traffic and cars are, Ariel added to herself.

  They took rights, then lefts, and swooped under a bridge. By the time they arrived in front of a building made of huge rectangular bricks, Ariel’s legs were rubbery. On the backside of a heinous cab ride, she wasn’t sure she was up to the task of sleuthing out any information.

  But which was worse? Stay in the cab and ask to be taken home, or get her sea legs back and continue her mission? The decision was made for her when the driver barked out the fare.

  “Eighteen?” Ariel squeaked. “You mean eighteen dollars?”

  He jerked around, eyes murderous. “Eighteen! If you don’t have money, you should no get in my cab!”

  “Oh, no, it’s fine. I have the money.”

  Keeping her hands from shaking by sheer force of will, Ariel counted out eighteen dollars. She knew she was supposed to tip, so she added some more. The cabbie grabbed it, waved her out of his car, and raced off, leaving her standing on the curb with only three dollars.

  As much as she couldn’t imagine getting back in a cab, the thought of taking the subway home paralyzed her. She didn’t have a clue how to take the train home from downtown.

  She started to panic.

  “Buck up, Ariel,” she chided herself. “It’s a subway. You take it on the Upper West Side all the time.”

  She turned to face the imposing heights of the City Clerk’s office. “You are fine,” she whispered to herself.

  Inside she was confronted by intense security. She made it through, though not without a few raised eyebrows, and stopped at the information desk. “I’m here for the records department.”

  A gruff woman with steel-gray hair looked down at her. “What kind of records?”

  “Marriage.”

  “You seem kinda young to be getting married.”

  A man behind the desk glanced up
from whatever he was doing and chuckled. “A mite young, indeed.”

  Great. A couple of jokesters. “I’m doing a report for school.” Ariel tried to look young and smart and like she had a really good reason for them to let her in. “We have to document a city record’s search. I’m going to write about my experience working with New York City and the kind of treatment one gets while pursuing their rights within the law.”

  “Whoo-whee,” the man said with a chuckle.

  The woman got serious. “Are you some kid reporter?”

  “Well no. Just doing a report for Miss Thompson’s social studies.”

  The woman glanced at her watch for the first time, probably noting that as it was early afternoon, Ariel should have been in school.

  “It’s a teachers’ training day. I’m using the time to finalize the details of my research.”

  God, she was good.

  “Whoo-whee,” the man said again. “A smart one.”

  The woman debated, and then nodded toward a hallway. “Third door on your left.”

  “Thank you,” Ariel said. “I appreciate how helpful you’ve been.”

  Maybe that was a little much, she conceded. But she was glad she had thought of the whole research angle. She was even gladder after waiting in line for nearly an hour only to learn that she had to be one of the spouses to get the record.

  “But, ma’am, I’m just doing a report. I don’t want the actual record. I’m just reporting on how it’s done.” Ariel trotted out the whole social studies angle, eyes wide and earnest. “So if I could just look up a record and explain how the process is handled, you know, how easy it really is for New Yorkers to get the things they need from the government, I would appreciate it.”

  This woman gave her a strange look, half disbelief, half worry. No one wanted to be shown up by some kid publishing a tell-all blog.

  And her dad said the Internet was a bad thing.

  “Fine,” the woman said. “Go to that door over there and tell Ida I said to help you.”

  Thankfully, Ida couldn’t have cared less who Ariel was, why she was there, or what she wanted. Ariel blurted out her mother’s maiden name and father’s name, and with a few keystrokes, Ida came back with a date. “June 27, 1998.”