A Cookbook Conspiracy (3 page)

But lots of cool new restaurants and hip boutiques were sprouting up daily along Eighteenth
Street and up and down Mission and Valencia, all the way over to picturesque Dolores
Park and several blocks farther in all directions.

I tried not to make a face, but I was dismayed to know that I would soon be sharing
my beloved city with the likes of Baxter. There was nothing I could do about it, though.
Savannah seemed happy and I had to admit that the trendy but rough-around-the-edges
Mission District was an ideal location for an opportunistic slug like Baxter Cromwell
to make a killing.

“He’s got a fantastic two-week opening planned,” Savannah explained, excited and clearly
ignoring my strong feelings against Baxter. “It’s going to be huge, the foodie event
of the century.”

“Of the century?”

“Maybe bigger,” she said, ignoring my sarcasm. “He’s featuring a different visiting
chef every night. Some of our old friends from Le Cordon Bleu are coming to cook.”

“Is Kevin coming?” I asked. Kevin Moore had been Savannah’s roommate and best friend
in Paris. Despite her boyish name, Kevin was all female and beautiful to boot. She’d
been so nice to me while I was staying there. I couldn’t wait to see her again.

“Kevin and Peter will both be here,” Savannah said.

My heart gave a little tug on hearing Peter’s name. I’d developed something of a crush
on him while I was visiting Paris. “Are they still together?”

“No,” Savannah said, and made a sad face. “They broke up a year or so after I left
Paris, but Kevin insists they’re still friends. It’s too bad. They always seemed to
be so much in love.”

“I thought so, too. I’m sorry they broke up.” But it would be cool to see them again,
anyway. “Who else is coming?”

“Raoul and Margot and some others you might know. Baxter’s giving each of us a night
to highlight our own styles of cooking.”

“That sounds like fun.” And the thought of seeing Savannah’s fine-looking friend Raoul
again sounded equally fun.

“It will be,” she said. “And it’s very generous of Baxter, so be nice to him.”

I curled my lip. “If he’s nice to me. Anyway, I’m excited for you. Will you get us
reservations for your night?”

“Of course. I’ll call tomorrow. It’s going to be a sellout.”

I could believe it. It was a clever idea and would surely receive lots of media coverage.
If only Baxter hadn’t been the one to come up with the concept.

“So you’re giving him this book as a…what? A thank-you?” I tried to keep the tone
of incredulity out of my voice, but it was impossible. It was such a waste of a beautiful,
rare book. Couldn’t she just buy Baxter a box of chocolates or something?

“Jeez, Brooklyn. Lighten up about the book.” She poured herself more wine. “If it’s
any of your business, I’m giving it to Baxter because it originally belonged to him.
He gave it to me
while we were dating in Paris. And to tell you the truth, I’d forgotten all about
it until he called out of the blue to ask me to cook at his new place. When I remembered
that I still had it, I thought it would be fun to give it back to him as a surprise.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know which detail shocked me more. The fact that my sister had literally
forgotten that she possessed such an exquisite old book or the fact that the book
had originally belonged to Baxter, who didn’t seem the type to appreciate such a fine
piece of art and history.

I capitulated with a nod. “Okay, I get it now. So, was it handed down through his
family?”

“I don’t know exactly.” She sipped her wine as she considered for a moment. “I realize
you think it’s special, but Baxter didn’t. I remember him brushing it off as some
tacky English village version of a ladies’ church society cookbook. He thought I would
be amused by some of the horrible old recipes. We laughed about them, and then he
told me to tuck the book away and forget I ever had it. He seemed sort of embarrassed
about it, which I thought was terribly endearing at the time.”

“Oh, please. The man is as endearing as a badger.”

“I know.” She laughed lightly. “I was an idiot.”

“No, Bugs,” I said fiercely, using her childhood nickname for emphasis. (Savannah
had been given the middle name of Dragonfly, so naturally we kids had always called
her Bugs.) “Baxter was the idiot, not you.”

She set her wineglass down and hugged me. “Thank you. But you can see why the book
isn’t as valuable as you seem to think it is. If it was, then why would he ever have
given it to me? I wasn’t important to him, so why would he give me something so rare?
It’s not like he considered me anything more than a fling.”

“True, and that’s his loss.”

“Well, thank you again.”

“You’re welcome.” I let her sip her wine in silence for a
moment, then added, “So I don’t suppose you’d reconsider giving him the book.”

She chuckled. “Nice try.”

“Worth a shot,” I said with a shrug.

Her expression turned somber. “The thing is, Brooklyn, I want the book out of my life.”

“Then give it to me,” I said instantly. “I’ll give it to the Covington Library and
you won’t ever have to deal with it again.”

“But I would still feel a connection to it.”

I started to argue but noticed her eyes were bright with tears. “What do you mean?”

She swirled her wine a little self-consciously. “I found the book with a bunch of
other stuff I’ve been holding on to for years. Silly things that I haven’t been able
to let go of all this time. It’s taken me years to figure out what my life’s all about,
and I think those stupid little mementos have been weighing me down psychologically.
I figure it’s time for me to shed some of that baggage and fly free. Starting with
this book.”

Coming from someone else, her insightful words might’ve caused me to contemplate my
own psychological baggage. But in truth, she sounded so much like our wacky, astral-traveling
mother that I just had to smile. “Okay, little birdbrain. I’ll clean up your book
and help you find your wings.”

We laughed together, but inwardly I was sighing. It was too bad that the delicate
old cookbook would be returned to Baxter. Did he know how valuable the book was? Apparently
not, if he’d given it away in the first place. That made it even more irritating that
my sister intended to hand the precious book back to him.

On the bright side, though, the book was mine to enjoy for the next two weeks and
I was already making plans for it. First I would photocopy the fragile pages and read
them for fun. And in my head, I was already sketching out the design for a unique,
masculine case in which to house the book. At some point during the
week, I wanted to run over to the Covington Library to let Ian check out the cookbook.

Curious, I unwrapped the book once more and carefully paged through the recipes. I
was tempted to try out some of those old-fashioned recipes on Derek. He was English,
after all. Wouldn’t he enjoy some original down-home English cooking? Perhaps something
pickled? Or fricasseed? Maybe a lovely syllabub? There were only a few ingredients
in a syllabub, and the directions made it sound easy. Did I dare? Why not? I was sure
I could whip one up for Derek, as soon as I figured out exactly what in the world
a syllabub was.

As Savannah regaled me with the latest gossip from Dharma, I felt a subtle vibration
radiate up from the floor, causing my feet to tingle. “Derek’s home.”

“He is?” Savannah looked around.

“Can’t you feel the building shake?”

“No.” She paused. “Oh, wait. I can feel something, like, it’s kind of…shivering.”

“That’s it.”

“That’s Derek?” Her eyes widened. “He makes the building shiver?”

“No, nutball,” I said, laughing. “It’s the elevator. Whenever it starts moving, it
shakes the building a little.”

She smirked. “Nice selling point.”

“I think so.” I liked the shaking because it meant that nobody could sneak up on me
in my own home. “I’m pretty sure Derek’s on the elevator.”

My six-story loft building had begun life as a corset factory back in the 1900s. When
it was converted into modern, loft-style condominiums a few years ago, the developers
updated everything except some of the more charming vintage features. Those included
the old freight elevator with its worn, thick wood plank floor and collapsible iron
gate that expanded or folded up to let passengers in and out. It was indeed a selling
point.

Whenever the heavy lift began its ascent from the garage, everyone living here could
feel it. While it had alarmed some of my neighbors initially, I found the advance
warning comforting after a number of unwelcome strangers had tried to invade my home
over the last year.

Savannah opened the pantry and grabbed a box of crackers to munch on. “Glad to know
Derek’s not so superhuman that he causes an entire building to tremble.”

“Shows you what you know,” I murmured, then snickered when she smacked my arm.

“Stop bragging,” she whined. “I’ve become a sex-starved spinster in my old age.”

“You just work too hard,” I said. “Besides, we’re practically the same age, so let’s
shut up about being old.” I went still as I heard the click of my front door lock.
Even knowing it had to be Derek, I found the sound was momentarily disconcerting.

“It’s me, darling,” he called out immediately, knowing I still worried about someone
breaking into my place. Which made him totally superhuman in my book.

“‘Darling,’” Savannah whispered on a sigh. “Isn’t he romantic? Especially with that
accent.”

“We’re in the kitchen,” I said loudly, then walked around the bar and into the dining
area to greet him.

If my breath happened to catch a little whenever I saw him, I could live with that.
Today he wore an elegant black business suit, and his dark, close-cropped hair and
military bearing were a perfect counterpoint to his glittering blue eyes and knowing
smile.

My sister might mock me later, but I didn’t care. Derek was just so hot. Tall. Self-confident.
Mine.

Even without the help of the ancient elevator, Derek could make me tremble. But I
wouldn’t be so cruel as to mention that to Savannah anytime soon.

He tossed his jacket over a dining room chair and pulled me close for a hug and a
kiss. I held on to him for an extra moment, savoring his closeness and his subtle
scent of forest and spice.

He spotted my sister over my shoulder and eased back. “Savannah, what a delightful
surprise. Are you staying for dinner?”

“Yes, she is,” I said. The doorbell rang and I twirled my hands in the air as if I’d
just made magic happen. “And there’s dinner now. I’ll go buzz the guy into the building.”

“Weren’t you going to make pasta this evening?” Derek asked as he poured himself a
glass of wine.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I rummaged through my purse to find cash, then headed
for the front door.

“You know she’s a hopeless mess in the kitchen, right?” Savannah said.

“I heard that,” I shouted.

Savannah snorted. “With ears like a desert fox.”

I met the delivery guy at the top of the stairs, paid him for the take-out food, then
watched him trot downstairs and waited to hear the sound of the ground-floor security
door shut behind him. I hurried back inside, locked and dead-bolted my door—I had
become a real security freak—and jogged to the kitchen. After shoving the pizza, box
and all, into the warm oven, I found space in the refrigerator for the large chopped
salad. Grabbing napkins and utensils, I set the dining room table while Derek pulled
plates from the cupboard and added them to each place setting.

Savannah set the wine bottle on the table and kept us entertained with her latest
adventures in the restaurant biz. Somehow she worked her way back around to my dismal
cooking skills.

As I pulled the pizza box out of the oven, I admitted, “I’m getting better at chicken,
but I still can’t make pasta to save my life.”

Derek stepped forward, brushing my hair back as he lifted my face and kissed me lightly
on my temple. “Not to worry, love. You’re good at so many other things.”

“Aww, sweet,” I said, and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

“Break it up, you guys,” Savannah groused. “I’m a lonesome, bitter woman and the sickening
picture of you two nuzzling and cooing is now imprinted on my brain forever.”

I smiled up at Derek. “Our work here is done.”

“Excellent,” he said, winking at Savannah. “Let’s eat.”

*   *   *

I
offered Savannah the use of our guest room for the night, but she was eager to get
back to her restaurant in Dharma to refresh her stockpot.

Ooh, a stockpot was waiting for her. My sister led such a fascinating life. No wonder
she’d been whining earlier.

We walked her down to her car and as soon as she drove away, I turned to Derek and
pounced on something I’d noticed during dinner. “How do you know Baxter Cromwell?”

“I never said I knew him,” he demurred as we walked back to the elevator.

“I saw your reaction when Savannah mentioned him and his new restaurant. You didn’t
look happy.”

“Aren’t you the attentive one?”

“Don’t change the subject,” I said, although I tended to become easily distracted
whenever Derek slipped his arm around my shoulder.

“I’ve never met the man personally,” he finally admitted, “but I’ve done business
with him. Several years ago, he hired my company after being threatened by a competitor.”

Derek’s company, Stone Security, provided investigative services and security to wealthy
individuals and organizations all over the world. His personal expertise was arts
and antiquities.

“I’m not surprised to hear he was threatened,” I said. “He’s so unpleasant.”

The elevator came to a shuddering stop on our floor, and Derek led the way back to
our apartment. “Cromwell was one of those idiotic clients who demanded the highest
level of protection, then never followed a single bit of advice, thereby putting my
entire crew in danger.”