Cooking up a Storm (24 page)

‘Never mind how I know.’ Squirming under his censorious gaze, she tried to smooth her hair back into what had once been a nice French braid. ‘The important thing is I don’t know how I’m going to pay this bill. Even if I do find a way, as soon as the renovation is finished, I’ll need to hire more employees to cover the second dining room. And you’ll need a full-time assistant, instead of me just pitching in when I get a minute.’

Storm sagged back against the double sink. Now she didn’t want to work with him, either? ‘I like it when you pitch in.’

Even to himself he sounded disgustingly forlorn. His tone brought her up short.

‘Well, thank you,’ she said. ‘But you really do need an assistant and I really don’t know how I’ll pay for this or my mortgage.’

‘What about the money Jack is going to pay you for modelling?’

She huffed that suggestion away. ‘I can’t let him pay me for what we did the other night. I doubt he got a single picture he could use.’

‘But he promised you–’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘I can’t hold him to it.’ Abruptly, her big soft eyes swam with tears. ‘Oh, Storm. I’m so sorry. You came all the way out here and you worked so hard. You really turned the business around. Now, instead of rewarding you, all I’ve got to offer is a big, fat mess. Hell–’ she grabbed her hair in both hands and pulled ‘–I’ll probably have to declare bankruptcy.’

Storm’s heart stumbled for a second, then began to race. This was his moment. She was on her financial knees. He was sure Jack would insist on paying her for her work, but she didn’t know that. She didn’t love Storm. She probably wouldn’t ever love him. If he gathered his bruised and battered balls off the floor, now, this minute, he could fulfil at least one of his dreams.

‘I’ll buy you out,’ he said.

The steadiness in his voice amazed him — and her, too. Her hands ceased tugging her hair. She stared at him. ‘You’ll buy me out?’

The moment hung in the air, like the eerie hush before an earthquake. Her eyes held only confusion, but any second she might sum it up: how strange it was that a chef would slave for a restaurant he could afford to buy, and how suspicious that he would wait for this particular convergence of events to make an offer.

So what, screamed his wounded ego. This is your dream, your chance to make a real home for yourself.

But cold sweat broke out across his back at the thought of seeing his betrayal through her eyes. They wouldn’t even be friends then, not even friends. Anyway, what sort of home would this inn be without her in it? She might not be the Currier & Ives companion he’d secretly dreamt of, but she was the only woman who’d ever touched the deepest part of him. Did it really matter if she neither knew that nor cared? What kind of man was he?

He gripped the sides of his apron and tugged it straight. He took a deep breath.

‘I mean…’ His voice wasn’t steady anymore. He cleared his throat. ‘I mean, I think I could afford to buy one of your sisters’ shares. If I had a stake, it would make sense for me to help you clear your debts. Isn’t Sandra the one who always thinks she’s broke? Perhaps she’d like to have cash in hand.’

‘I’m sure she would,’ Abby said.

She covered her mouth with both hands. He noticed they were trembling. He wanted to soothe that tiny tremor. He, himself, no one else — he wanted to be responsible for its ease. He wanted to be responsible for her happiness. The thought was ridiculous. No one could be responsible for another’s happiness and yet to be responsible for even a fraction of her joy in life seemed a worthy goal, as worthy — no–
more
worthy than anything he had done with saucepan and flame.

Clearly, this love business changed one in the strangest ways. He had no hope of romantic success, none, but he was lightheaded, ecstatic at the thought of rescuing her. But Abby had pulled herself together. He had to pay attention.

‘Gosh, Storm,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you want to be partners with a woman who’s a hair’s breadth from going under?’

‘Yes, I am.’ He straightened his shoulders. ‘You’re in a tough spot right now, but once you — once
we
get past it — I think we’ll have smooth sailing. We work well together. I think we’ll make a great team.’

‘I don’t know.’ She smoothed the waistband of her skirt, her eyes earnest and worried — worried for him, he realised with a delicious little pang. ‘A partnership is such a big commitment. It’s almost like a marriage.’

‘Maybe I wouldn’t mind that either.’

He didn’t know where the words had come from, but once uttered he refused to withdraw them. He set his jaw. Abby paled. When she spoke, her voice had a breathy squeak to it. ‘What did you say?’

His heart was pounding madly but he managed a smile nonetheless. She wasn’t laughing, and she didn’t look horrified. Maybe it wasn’t hopeless. He dried his clammy palms on his thighs. ‘I said I wouldn’t mind marrying you.’

‘Oh, gosh.’ Abby fumbled behind her for a stool, then practically fell off it trying to sit down. He took her elbow to help her settle. Her eyes were huge, as startled as if he’d told her he’d flown here from another planet. ‘So I guess…’ She swallowed and folded her hands atop the workstation’s battered cutting board. ‘I guess you meant that
je t’aime
stuff, after all. You did mean it, didn’t you? This isn’t just your idea of a business merger?’

‘No.’ Feeling somewhat giddy, he gathered her hands in his. ‘I meant it, though I wasn’t ready to admit it at the time. But what about you, Abby? How do you feel about me?’

The tip of her nose turned pink. ‘Well, I, I’m very fond of you. I suppose I probably might love you, too.’

He threw his head back on a laugh and pulled her into his arms. How very extraordinary this was. Here she was, stinking of another man’s cologne, and he felt so happy he thought he might float right off the ground. It didn’t matter. He would scrub her clean. He would love her till she stank of nothing but him. Ah, she loved him. He was home now.

‘Abby, Abby, Abby.’ He rocked her from side to side. ‘We’re going to be so happy.’

‘Wait, Storm, please.’ She pushed free of his embrace. ‘I said I loved you. I didn’t say I’d marry you. We hardly know each other. But I will tell Sandra you’re interested in making an offer.’

He stepped back as if she’d struck him. ‘Is it because of the other men? You can’t bear to give them up?’

Abby caught her breath in shock. His awareness that she’d been with other men did not come as a complete surprise. The depth of his distress did. The skin around his lips was white. Tears shimmered in his eyes. Not wanting to embarrass him, she looked down at her hands. ‘The other men bother you?’

‘Yes, they bother me!’ He paused to gather himself. His speech grew stiff and formal. ‘Whether or not you choose to accept my proposal of marriage, if you wish for us to go on as we are, I would like you to ask me before you sleep with other people and I would like the right to say no.’

‘The right to say no,’ she repeated, meeting his gaze. No tears threatened now. In fact, his expression was quite formidable. ‘And will you choose to exercise that right?’

‘I imagine I will, at least for a while.’ A faint smile touched his sensitive lips. ‘My association with you seems to have left me unusually insecure.’

That set her back on her heels. Her other lovers had made him feel insecure, the great Casanova? She could see how he might be possessive, but insecure? She never would have guessed it, or dared to try such a ploy if she had. It was so underhanded, so childish. All the same, the fact that she, Abby Coates, had succeeded in humbling Storm Dupré inspired a primitive — albeit guilty — satisfaction.

Pricked by the guilt, she shook the crowing pleasure from her mind and considered his demand. Could she confine her amorous intrigues to him and him alone? She shook her head at her own question. Of course she could. Bill hadn’t been half the partner Storm was and she’d never cheated on him. The real question was: did she want to?

She thought back on the past few weeks. She remembered Storm and Jack and Horace and Peter and Ivan — and Marissa, of course. She remembered tying and being tied, watching and being watched. She remembered sand and sunshine and racing whales and sighs at midnight. She remembered dildoes and vibrators and a dusty electric cord. She remembered fear and courage, pleasure and regret. It had been a wonderful rollercoaster ride, and maybe someday she would want to soar into that boundless place again. Jack she would miss, but whether they slept together or not, they would always be friends.

Storm was the only lover whose absence would break her heart.

‘I won’t let you dictate my every move,’ she warned.

He must have heard the whisper of surrender. He caught her arms and pulled her close. ‘I wouldn’t try to, love. Just give me your word that you’ll ask before you go tomcatting. That will be good enough for me.’ He buried his face in her hair and mumbled, ‘I’ll give you my word as well, you know.’

‘Mm,’ she said. ‘What about your motto? You know: no commitments, only pleasure.’

Storm smiled against her temple and kissed her hair. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I will allow actions to speak in place of promises.’

Abby let herself believe him then. Her shoulders relaxed. She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him. How extraordinary this was. How safe she felt and how hopeful. Never in a million years would she have predicted this moment. Not that she was going to take her future for granted. They still had plenty of things to work out, plenty. And speaking of which…

‘There’s one thing I need to know before I consider either of your proposals.’

‘Yes?’ He rubbed her back in a long, slow stroke that made the blood heat in her veins.

‘I could never commit myself to a man whose real name I didn’t know.’

‘What?’

‘I know your mother didn’t really name you Storm.’

He sighed. A chip of ice crackled in the sink. ‘Eugene,’ he said.

‘Eugene.’ She rolled it around her tongue. ‘Eugene Dupré. I like it. May I have your permission to call you Eugene in private?’

‘Does this mean you’ll think about marrying me?’

She hid her grin against his chest. ‘We’ll see.’

He cursed in French, always a good sign. ‘Are you trying to make me insane?’

‘But I know you like to wait. How could I deprive you of that pleasure in this of all things?’

‘
Tu es méchante
,’ he said with great ferocity. ‘You are wicked.’

‘Well, you know, Eugene–’ she tipped her head back and blinked innocently into his eyes ‘–lately, I have been working on it.’

The food critic from
The Boston Globe
wasn’t expecting much of The Coates Inn — a glorified crab shack at best. But the invitation had piqued her interest. On its front was a truly stunning photograph of a naked woman with a circle of oysters on her flat, tanned belly. Her daughter, Nan, immediately pronounced the model scrumptious, despite the fact that nothing rude was showing. Elise had found the picture tasteful, but the oysters glistening on their pearly half-shells made her mouth water. Oysters were a particular vice of hers. She could have eaten them by the bushel.

So she decided to come and here she was — unannounced, of course.

To her surprise, the inn was lovely, a fine example of old Cape architecture. She felt at home just walking through it. A pretty waitress led her up to the second-floor dining room and sat her next to a window with a view of the gently frothing ocean. The jangle of the city fell away as she gazed through the diamond-paned glass.

She forgave the owners the faint smell of plaster.

The waitress filled her glass and ran through her patter on the menu. Elise couldn’t help noticing she was just about Nan’s age. She had a nose ring and a small tattoo of a beach rose on her shoulder, but she was neatly dressed and friendly. All in all, she seemed much less dangerous than most of Nan’s friends. Elise found herself wishing for some polite way to ask a total stranger if she swung a bit to the left.

Too bad lesbians didn’t have earring codes the way gay men did — or used to. It would have made a mother’s job much easier. With a futile inner sigh, she set the menu aside and asked the waitress what she’d recommend.

‘Everything is good,’ she said, her pencil poised above her pad. ‘In fact, the only thing I wouldn’t recommend–’ she lowered her voice conspiratorially ‘–is eating here alone very often.’

Elise furrowed her brow and slid her bifocals down off the top of her head. She hated wearing them. They made her look old, which she wasn’t. She was a bright, pass-for-fortyish woman with a lifetime of experience and plenty of healthy appetites, appetites that had — thank the Lord — survived the death of her dear, dear husband two years earlier.

Bifocals or no, she wasn’t old. The spectacles did, however, help her see the world more clearly. Now she saw the waitress had a distinct twinkle in her eye. ‘Why do you say I shouldn’t eat here alone?’ Elise asked. ‘Is this a pick-up joint?’

‘No, no.’ The waitress laughed. ‘But you may find yourself wishing it were by the time you’re finished eating.’

She wouldn’t say more but, in truth, her teasing charmed. How Elise wished Nan would hook up with a nice girl like this! Elise wasn’t holding out for a doctor or anything so bourgeois. Any chit with a job, a brain, and a modicum of tact would have suited her.

Oh, well. Short of moving to the Cape, she couldn’t see any way to further this particular matchmaking scheme. Not that moving to the Cape would be a hardship, she thought, gazing contentedly at the ocean vista. She could start compiling that cookbook she’d always meant to edit:
Hardwicke’s Best of New England Cuisine
. She’d need a good photographer, of course, and a presentation chef, but in an arty community like this one, she was sure she’d find herself tripping over them.

She was still braiding happy thoughts when the appetiser arrived. A paper-thin slice of salmon with a whisper of seasoning, it could only enhance her mellow mood.

Superb, she thought, letting it melt in her mouth and slip slowly down her throat. She settled back in her chair and wriggled her toes. Good food always made her feel sensual and this was better than most. She could hardly wait to see what the chef did with the Oysters Rockefeller.

Tingling with happy anticipation, she gazed around the crowded dining room. The tourist season was young yet, but business seemed brisk, and most of the customers looked as happy as she felt. Two seventy-year-olds cooed like teenagers at a table across the way. She loved seeing that. She and Aaron would have been like that, if they’d had the chance. She smiled. Funny how time and knowing you’d been loved could change a wrenching pain into a sweet nostalgia. She’d been very, very lucky and, who knew, perhaps someday she’d be lucky again.

Her gaze travelled onwards, noting a table of three laughing men, one fat, one thin and one bulked up like a body-builder.

Then an older gentleman sitting alone at the next table over caught her eye. Dressed like a fisherman in a worn cotton shirt and jeans, he was scribbling in a cheap spiral notebook. Normally, neither of these things would have attracted her attention. He looked very fit, though, and his face bore an expression of such concentrated intelligence that she immediately wanted to know all about him.

Who was he? What was he writing? And why wasn’t some lucky, laughing matron fixing him dinner at home?

She must have been staring very loudly because after a few seconds he looked up, stared back, and winked at her — winked at her, for goodness sake! Her hand fluttered to her throat. She looked away, of course. Appetites or not, Elise Hardwicke did not flirt with strangers. It had been a nice wink, though, and a very nice face that housed it: a humorous, weathered face with a look of gentle wisdom.

A good face to wake up to, she thought, then scolded herself for acting like a twit. The man had merely winked. He probably thought she was being rude.

When she looked up a minute later, however, he was staring at her.

Oh, why not, she thought, and this time she winked at him.