Dangerous Liaisons in the Kitchen: Adele Carrion's Menu (Passion)

(from: SUMMER MEMORIES, first course)
That morning was very hot.
The sounds of the children playing in the pool drifted in through the window. They splashed, laughed, joked, and challenged each other. Lulu had decided to stay at home to cook something; perhaps a light meal with a glass of white wine, instead of the usual sandwich she had for lunch in the summer. She hadn’t done that for some time, as her husband had left her for a younger woman some years previously.
She had noticed two beautiful purple eggplants in the kitchen garden, ready to be harvested, so she put on her sunglasses and went to pick them. It was certainly too hot to do any gardening. She should have done it earlier, but the idea had occurred to her too late.
The kitchen garden was just twenty meters away. It was a small piece of land, but it yielded a constant supply of lettuce, peppers, and eggplants. Only the zucchini had met a sad end.
As she approached, however, she saw that someone else was already there – a man was bending over her eggplants!