Can't Stand the Heat (8 page)

“Shut up! Shut up, damn it! Or I'll give you something to yell about!”

He let her go with a hard shove that sent her careening back against the car. Her shoulder slammed into the car door frame.

Lauren's scream caught in her throat. She bit back a moan and swallowed down the pain that now began to radiate across her shoulder and her upper arm. She didn't want to give James the satisfaction of knowing that he had hurt her yet again.

“You
stupid
bitch. You stupid little ungrateful bitch. I loved you. I gave you
everything,”
James said in a low, menacing voice. “Everything you ever needed. Everything you ever wanted. You didn't have to ask or raise a finger. I just
gave
it to you! And this is how you repay me? Huh? By trying to embarrass me? This is the thanks I get?”

He flexed the fingers of his right hand as if preparing to hit her. Lauren stared at the hand not in fear, but in anger.

All his talk about what he had given her. Yes, he had draped her in jewels, but he paired that with a black eye, several cuts, and enough verbal abuse that she couldn't look at her reflection in the mirror without contempt most days.

She wanted to punch
him.
She wanted to make
him
hurt. She wanted to scratch his eyes out, but he was taller than her and stronger than her and she was alone and didn't stand much of a chance of winning this fight. He had lots of power, too. James Sayers pulled a lot of weight in Chesterton. Calling the police would be a mistake. She had learned that lesson before.

Just get in the car, Lauren,
she told herself silently.
He hasn't hit you, but don't push it. Just get in the car. Get far away from him.

She wiped a stray lock of hair away from her face before climbing into her car and shutting the door behind her. She tossed her bills into the passenger seat beside her bag, winced at the pain in her shoulder as she put on her seat belt, and then put her key in the ignition. She didn't look up at James as she shifted the car into drive.

“Go ahead! Go ahead and pull off! Drive your junk heap to that closet you call an apartment and take your mountain of bills with you, because I'm done with you! You hear me? You were nothing when I met you, Lauren!”

She began to ease out of the parking space.

“You were nothing but a gold-digging whore from a long line of gold-digging whores! No brain and no talent to speak of! And what are you now without me? A short-order cook who's damn near bankrupt!” He gave a caustic laugh. “When they repossess your car and evict you, you better not come crawling back to me! Because I'll laugh in your face! You hear me, Lauren? I'll laugh in your face!”

As Lauren put more distance between her and James, his thundering voice began to fade. She drove ten blocks before she realized her hands were trembling. Not just her hands, but her entire body. She pulled over to a nearby curb and put the car in park.

Oh, how she hated him. She hated him for telling her that she was useless and stupid, and she was angry at herself for letting him make her feel like she
had
to listen.

“Hindsight's twenty-twenty, chérie
,” she could hear Phillip say in that easy way of his, and Phillip was right. Hindsight
is
twenty-twenty. She just wished she had had something remotely close to twenty-twenty vision when she'd first met James, before she racked up eighty thousand dollars of debt in clothes, shoes, purses, and spa treatments. She wished she would have warned her family never to accept money or gifts from a man like him. If she had better sight back then, maybe she wouldn't be in the predicament she was in now.

She glanced at the bills on her passenger seat, willing them to disappear. But they didn't. They sat there silently mocking her naïveté. Lauren closed her eyes.

“What am I going to do? What the hell am I going to do?”

“Y
ou can put the sofa over there,” Cris said as he pointed to one side of the great room.

The two movers nodded before carrying the piece of leather furniture across the cherrywood floors. They did it in a less-than-graceful manner, side shuffling across the room like hermit crabs on a sandbar. They gave loud grunts and occasional curses with each step they took. When they finally put the massive sofa down, it landed with a thud.

“Damn, man, what you got in there?” one of them moaned as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
“Bricks?”

“No, cement,” Cris muttered. “It keeps you from wearing out the cushions.”

The young man frowned at Cris. He then looked over his shoulder at the other mover, gazing at him with an expression on his face that seemed to ask, “Have you ever heard of that?”

His companion shrugged in response.

“I'm just joking. It's a regular couch, just a heavy one. And there are two more where that came from.” He jerked his thumb toward the doorway. “When you bring them in, you can put them over there, too.”

The movers groaned. Their shoulders slumped as they walked back across the room and through the door before heading down the hall.

“I don't know why he hired us to move this stuff,” one of them whispered when they were out of earshot. “He's big enough to do it his own damn self.”

Cris stood alone in the great room. The house was finally nearing completion. The construction had ended, the painters were finishing touch-up work, and the movers had arrived two hours ago.

It had taken four months, but he was finally near the finish line.

“And it's about damn time,” he mumbled.

“Mr. Weaver,” someone said over his shoulder. “Where should we put these?”

Cris turned to find a young man in his twenties standing in the great room's doorway, holding up a walnut end table. Another one sat on the floor beside him.

“You can put those in the living room. It's two doors down.”

The young man nodded.

Just then, Cris's cell phone began to ring in his pocket. He tugged it out and stared down at the numbers on the screen, squinting to see who was calling him. “Time to get some glasses, old man.”

Cris held the screen closer to his face and read the numbers again. His eyes instantly widened. He quickly pressed the green button on the screen to answer.

“Hey, Cris,” she answered in a sexy, throaty voice. “How's Virginia?”

He hadn't spoken to Alex since the night she'd left his house outside of Dallas and told him she wasn't moving to the East Coast with him. Frankly, he hadn't expected to hear from her again.

“Virginia's . . . good. It's hot.”

“It's hot here, too, honey.” She laughed. “But a lot less hot without you.”

He didn't respond.

“I guess I should come straight out and say it.” She cleared her throat. “I miss you, Cris. It's been hard being here the past few months without you,
mi amor
.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“Well?”
she said, after loudly huffing on the other end of the line.

“Well, what, Alex?”

“Aren't you going to say that you miss me, too?”

No,
he thought. Frankly, he'd stopped missing her about a month after he'd moved out here. He had purposely pushed her to the back of his mind. But he couldn't tell her all this. There wasn't enough resentment or heartbreak left in him to be so mean, so he tried to think of a more delicate way to tell her the truth, but he couldn't. He changed the subject instead.

“How're your mom and dad doing?”

“How are my mom and dad doing?”
Alex repeated with barely veiled outrage. She huffed again. “Cris, are you kidding me right now?”

“Why would I be kidding?”

“I tell you that I miss you and you ask me how my mom and dad are doing? What the hell is that?”

He was getting the full brunt of her anger now. The old adage that said all Latin women had fiery tempers was a stereotype, but in the case of Alex, it was also the truth.

“Alex,” he said calmly. “The last time I checked, you broke up with
me.
It wasn't the other way around. You haven't called me in months.”

“You haven't called me either!”

“And now you call out of nowhere and tell me you miss me. What do you want me to say?”

The line fell silent. After some seconds, she sighed. “I want to come to Virginia, Cris. We should be together. I thought I wanted to stay in Dallas, but I want to be with you out there.”

That made him instantly suspicious. “Why the sudden change of heart?”

“It wasn't ‘sudden.' I've . . . I've been feeling this way for a while now. Besides, I told you the reason why already.
I miss you!
I want to be with you! Is that so bad?”

He shook his head. “It's not going to work, Alex.”

She sucked her teeth on the other end. “Why?”

“Because . . .” Cris stopped.

. . . I've already moved on,
he thought, but again he kept himself from saying something he believed might hurt her. He wasn't sure why he was being so considerate. She hadn't cared about hurting him that night when she dropped her bombshell and told him not only was she not leaving Dallas with him, but also they “needed to take a break for a while.” Despite how crushed he knew he looked that night, she hadn't pulled any punches.

When Cris didn't finish his sentence and the pause on his end of the phone line lasted too long, Alex seized the opportunity.

“I
knew
you didn't have a good reason! You don't have a good reason because you and I both know that we should be together.”

“That's not—”

“Just say the words, Cris,” she cooed. “Just say the words, baby, and I'll buy a plane ticket right now and be out there tomorrow.”

Why wasn't she listening? Didn't she realize that they were over? Did he really seem like that much of a pushover that all she had to do was call him, make a quick apology, whisper sweet nothings into his ear, and things would be back to the way they were before?

I don't think so,
he thought indignantly.

“Cris? Cris? You didn't hang up on me, did you?”

He shoved his hand into his pocket and closed his eyes. “Let me think about it.”

“What?”

“I said, ‘Let me think about it.' Look, I can't say yes to something like that right now, Alex. I'm moving into my house today. I've got guys all over the place asking me questions. I can't . . . I can't make a split decision on this now.”

The line went silent. He didn't have to see Alex to know that she was fuming on the other end. He had been with her long enough to know her reaction to those words, but to her credit, she held back her temper and didn't let it show even in the tone of her voice.

“OK, Cris,” she said calmly. “You . . . you think about it.” He could tell it was like eating glass for her to have to say that. “Give me a call when you're ready to talk.”

“All right, I will.”

“Bye, Cris. I love you.”

“Bye, Alex,” he said, purposely avoiding using the “L” word.

He hung up the phone and let out a puff of air he had been holding between his cheeks.

That phone call had been hard. He hadn't expected any visits from ghosts from his past, but one had certainly shown up today. Despite what she had done to him, part of him still missed Alex and wanted to tell her to hop on a flight to Dulles Airport. But another part of him fought that urge. He had to move forward, and letting Alex back into his life wasn't the way to do it. He had plans and he intended to follow them.

“Speaking of plans,” a voice said inside his head. “Did you forget the very important thing you planned to do today?”

Cris glanced down at his wristwatch. “Oh, shit.” He saw that it was seven minutes to three p.m. The movers would definitely have to pick up the pace if he wanted to have enough time to get to Le Bayou Bleu before the restaurant opened for the dinner rush.

He marched out of the great room with the intent to carry the furniture himself if it would speed this up.

“L
auren,” Paula called across the kitchen as Lauren stepped out of the women's locker room. “There's someone out front lookin' for you.”

“Huh?” Lauren shouted over the cacophony of kitchen noise. She tied a black apron around her chef's coat and knotted the strings in the front around her waist. She then adjusted the red bandanna on her head, making sure every loose lock of hair was tucked underneath. “Who's lookin' for me?”

Paula's pink cheeks were smudged with flour. “I have no clue. They just told me to tell you when I saw you that someone's out front waiting.” With deft hands, Paula quickly laid bars of chocolate in the center of the dough that would be neatly rolled into croissants. “Check at the maître d' desk.”

Lauren's frown intensified.
What's this about?

She was “raring to go,” as Phillip would say—ready to fire up the burners and set her knives flying—and now her afternoon was suddenly being veered off course. The heady anticipation she always felt when she entered the kitchen was being dulled by confusion. She instantly tried to think of whom the guy out front might be, but she drew a blank.

James, maybe?

God, I hope not,
she thought. The last encounter she had had with him had been ugly (she still had the bruises on her arm and shoulder to show for it) and, quite frankly, if she went another year without seeing James Sayers again, she would be ecstatic.

Was it a bill collector?

It better not be!
She had heard of bill collectors calling people's jobs to harass them about some overdue bill, but she had never heard of one coming to someone's place of work. If it was a bill collector, then he was definitely in violation of the law and she would tell him so. She would also share a few choice words with him about overstepping her line of privacy.

Lauren slowly walked out of the kitchen, leaving the door swinging behind her. She hesitantly rounded the corner and walked toward the dining section, still nervous about whom she might find waiting.

The restaurant hadn't opened yet for the day, so it was mostly empty, with the exception of a few busboys who were preparing the dining tables for the evening crowd. She watched as they neatly set out bread plates, water glasses, and napkins. They painstakingly wiped wrinkles from white linen tablecloths and removed wilted leaves from the flower vases at the center of each table.

Lauren squinted to see if she recognized the tall black man in gray slacks and white button-down shirt who stood up front chatting with Nathan near the maître d' desk. As she drew closer, he turned around and she could see the profile of his handsome face more clearly. Lauren abruptly stopped in her tracks.

It was Cris Weaver; the guy from more than a week ago, the one who had wandered into the kitchen looking for Phillip.

After Cris's promise to come back to Le Bayou Bleu, Lauren had eagerly kept an eye out for him, expecting every night that the ex-football player would step through the kitchen door. But when he hadn't shown up after a week, she felt like a silly girl with a high school crush and gave up. In retrospect, he was probably just being polite when he'd said he would come back to the restaurant. And maybe he
did
come back after all, but just to eat the delicious food, not to flirt with the sous chef.

Lauren had eventually decided it was for the best to not see him again anyway. He would be a distraction she didn't need. She had too many things going on in her life to get sidetracked by falling for some man, she'd resolved.

But all those thoughts faded now as she gazed at him. She could instantly feel the attraction toward him sweep over her with a warm familiarity. Her heart rate increased and the butterflies began to flutter in her stomach. Unfortunately, the same insecurities she'd felt the day they met also came rushing back, sweeping over her. She hastily yanked the ratty red bandanna off her head and finger combed her shoulder-length hair into place with the hope of making herself more presentable. She then glanced down at her chef clothes and decided to give up trying. This wasn't exactly Dolce & Gabbana she was wearing.

Lauren resumed walking toward the front.

He finally noticed her coming toward them. Nathan followed his gaze and turned to face her. Her knees felt like taffy when Cris smiled.

“Ah, there you are, Lauren!” Nathan said. He followed the greeting with the most fakey grin imaginable. “It seems you have quite a fan of your cooking here. Mr. Weaver asked if he could meet you. I told him you would be happy to.” He turned back to face the towering man beside him. “Though, as I mentioned before, Lauren is
only
our sous chef, Mr. Weaver. If you're really interested in meeting the talent behind the operation, you need to talk to Phillip. He's her boss and our executive chef. You missed him last time.” Nathan batted his eyes. “He's running a little late, but he should be here in a few minutes. If you'd like to—”

Cris shook his head. “No, this is
exactly
the person I wanted to see.” He stared at Lauren openly. She felt her face flush with heat.

“Well . . .” Nathan glanced hesitantly at Cris and then Lauren and back again. “If you say so, Mr. Weaver. I guess I'll . . . leave you two . . . to . . . do”—he cleared his throat—“whatever.”

Nathan turned and strode back to the dining room. He began to berate one of the busboys for placing a spotted water glass on one of the tables.

Lauren glanced up at Cris and met his eyes, but she had to break his heated gaze. It was too overwhelming. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her apron and stared at his chest instead.

“It's good to see you again,” she said.

“Good to see you, too.”

They then fell into an awkward silence that lasted for a good ten seconds.

“I bet they've been keeping you busy here,” he ventured. “Every time I drive past this place, it's packed.”

“No more busy than usual.” She forced a smile, still gazing at his second shirt button, still refusing to meet his eyes. “So how are you enjoying your retirement, Mr. Weaver? Life in Chesterton has to be different from Dallas, especially for a Dallas Cowboy.”

“Please, call me Cris. And how did you know that I played for the Cowboys?”

“Oh, you've never lived in a small town before, have you? In a place like Chesterton, news travels at lightning speed. It also helped that they wrote an article about you in the
Chesterton Times.”

“I didn't know that. I don't see why I'm worth an article in the paper.”

“You're the biggest story since we got the new Savings and Loan on Main Street, which tells you somethin'. Things aren't very exciting around here, so whenever there's something or someone remotely new, they practically break out the high school marching band and fireworks.”

He laughed and the sound of his laughter made her feel more comfortable. She finally quit staring at his shirt buttons and looked at his face.

“So how can I help you, Cris?”

Her eyes instantly focused on his generous mouth. She wondered what it would be like to kiss that mouth.

“Well . . .” He leaned back against the maître d' counter and crossed his arms over his broad chest. She wondered what it would be like to be embraced by those strong arms. “I have a proposition for you.”

Lauren felt the flutter in her stomach again, but she quickly and silently told her nerves to calm down.

“OK.” She mimicked his movements, crossing her arms over her own chest. “And what proposition would that be?”

“Dinner. Sunday. Eight o'clock. Does that work for you?”

Normally, a dinner date would be out of the question with her schedule, but Sunday was one of the few nights of the week that Lauren had off. The restaurant was closed on Sundays. She was definitely free and could probably say yes to his invitation, but something held her back.

Maybe it was his forwardness that had caught her off guard. He was an ex-football player and handsome, after all. Maybe he was used to women responding to him quickly. But now that Lauren's gold-digging days were over, she had decided that any relationship she pursued would have to be done gradually. She wanted to get to know the guy first. Plus, she still wasn't sure if she was ready to start dating again. She still had so much emotional and financial baggage she carried around. Saying yes to a date with Cris now—no matter how much she wanted to, no matter how much she was physically attracted to him—was out of the question.

She hesitated. “Look, Cris, you seem . . . you seem like a . . . very nice guy.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“I'm really flattered and I would
love
to go out with you, but now is just . . . well, it just isn't a good time for me. Honestly, I wouldn't be much of a date anyway. I'm working through a few things and . . .” Her words drifted off when he slowly shook his head and held up his hands.

“Wait. Wait. Look, Lauren, I think there's a misunderstanding here.”

“There . . . there is?”

“Yeah, I think so.” He nodded and gave a half smile. “I wasn't asking you out on a date.”

Her stomach plummeted.

“I was asking if you could cater for a small get-together I'm having Sunday night at eight o'clock. The renovations at my house are done for the most part and I wanted to show off the place to a few friends of mine. I was hoping you could cook something for us . . . if that night works for you.”

Lauren's cheeks burned. She had never felt so embarrassed in her life. She instantly wanted to disappear or dissolve into a puddle on the floor. She tried her best to recover from the mortification.

“Oh. I'm sorry. I . . . I just thought that . . . That was really stupid of me.”

“No, it's OK.” His smile widened. “You don't have to apologize. It was a misunderstanding. That's all.”

“No, I
should
apologize,” she said vehemently, wanting nothing more than to race back into the kitchen and hide in the locker room. “Please forget everything I just said. Let's start over again. Please?”

“No problem. Look, it's late notice, I know. But I want you to cater an event for me. I wouldn't expect anything elaborate; just elegant, simple food with some kick to it. Kind of like what you already do here. You get carte blanche on the menu choices. I'd like three courses. That's my only request.”

She shoved her hands back into her apron pockets, unable to meet his eyes again. “You know, if you want someone to cater an event for you, Phillip would be much better at it than me. He's done it before. I've only done it when he supervised.”

“I'm sure you could figure it out. I have total confidence in you.”

“Look, really, I'm
not
a caterer. I don't have any of my own equipment.”

“That's not a problem. I have a commercial-grade kitchen and appliances and the stove has barely been used except when I burned some baked beans.” He chuckled. “Tell me what you need and I'll make it happen.”

“I don't even have a crew to bring with me.” She threw up her hands in exasperation. “It'll be just me and only me. I can't possibly do it by myself!”

“It's only a party of four. How much of a crew do you need for four people?”

“I'm not licensed!”

“So I'll look the other way. Besides, I don't need a framed sheet of paper to tell me that you'll wash your hands and not sneeze in the food.”

She closed her eyes. “You just won't take no for an answer, will you?”

“Not if I can help it.” He pushed himself away from the maître d' desk and stood at his full height. “Look, if it's an issue of money, I'll pay you plenty for your time and inconvenience. Like I said, I know it's short notice. Will fifteen hundred work?”

She opened her eyes, blinking in surprise. “You mean
dollars?”

“Yes, dollars.” He laughed. “I'm not in the habit of paying in pesos.”

“Cris, it's not . . . it's not an issue of money. I told you I can't—”

“Not an issue of money, huh?” he repeated incredulously. “I see. How about two thousand, then?”

She continued to shake her head.

“Twenty-five hundred?
Three thousand?”

Lauren held up her hands. “Please, stop throwing numbers at me. I'm telling you:
It's not the money!
What you're offering is more than enough—
way
more—but I—”

“Thirty-five hundred,” he said firmly, cutting her off. He tugged a checkbook and pen out of his back pocket. He flipped the billfold open and started to scribble on one of its pages. “And not a penny more.” He ripped the check from its perforated edge and held it out to her. “We're up to almost nine hundred a plate, Lauren. I'll expect some damn good food for that much money.”

She stared down at the check in his hand. He was tossing an insane amount of cash at her to do only one night's worth of work and feed four people?
Why?
Was her food really that good? And like she said, she had never catered alone before. She couldn't vouch that she could produce five-star work in a kitchen she wasn't familiar with, with no line cooks supporting her, and with less than a week's notice.

“But you
do
need the money, Lauren,” a voice in her head argued. “Remember that stack of bills you have hidden away at the back of your kitchen drawer? Did you forget about them?”