Fearless Love (6 page)

Joe’s eyebrow stayed up. “I didn’t notice any interruptions out on the omelet station. Did anything happen in here, Darce?”

Darcy shrugged. “No problems.”

“Leo?” he called.

The chef at the stove turned slightly. “Huh?”

“Any trouble with breakfast?”

Leo shook his head. “Nope.” He turned back to the cooktop.

“We did fine,” Joe said. “And Darcy’s doing the training. No worries.”

The chef looked as if he had a few more things he wanted to say, but after a moment he subsided. “Glad to hear it.”

Joe turned toward MG. “This is Todd Fairley. He’s the sous chef, which means he’s the second in command here.”

From where she was standing, MG had a partial view of Darcy’s face. She could swear she mouthed a particularly ripe obscenity at the phrase
second in command.

Fairley gave her a slightly stiff bow, hardly more than a brief bob of the head. For a moment, she felt like curtseying. He turned back to Joe. “I guess we can discuss her hours and her duties later this morning.”

Joe shrugged. “If you think it’s necessary.”

“I do, yes.” Fairley’s clipped words told her something was wrong, but she wasn’t sure what.

“All right then, let’s do it now.” Joe pushed himself to his feet. “You all right here, Darce? You know what you want MG to do?”

Darcy nodded. “Sure.”

She walked to the stove. Her face looked carved from stone. If MG had known her at all, she would have asked her what the hell was going on. But she figured asking anything like that under the present circumstances was likely to provide further fodder for Darcy’s relentless march toward Queen Bitch status. Better to let it ride.

She gathered the last of her diced onion into a small pan and covered it with plastic wrap. “You want this in the cooler, Chef?”

Darcy’s head whipped around like something out of
The Exorcist.
For a moment, she stared flatly at MG, as if she was looking for some kind of hidden message. Then she shrugged. “Joe and the Beav are the only ones you call
chef
. Put the onion on the third shelf. That’s where we keep the dinner prep.”

“Right.” She headed for the cooler, wondering how long she could keep this up. If nothing else, maybe she could write a song about it.

Joe really hoped Todd Fairley wasn’t going to be an asshole. He’d planned on spending the lunch shift in his office working on menus, and if Fairley threw a hissy fit, he’d have to cancel his plans. He might also have to cancel Fairley, but he hoped not. The guy had only been there a day.

“I didn’t realize we were looking for a cook’s assistant,” Fairley said stiffly.

“We’re looking for a prep cook.” Joe shrugged. “MG’s a fill-in until we can find somebody permanent. Darcy needed somebody now—she’s swamped with the prep work.”

“It’s a job a lot of culinary students would like to have. We could probably fill it with an extern.” Fairley still looked like he had a sizeable stick up his ass.

“If you’ve got contacts at any of the culinary schools, you have my permission to ask around,” Joe said easily. “We could actually take a couple of externs. Meanwhile, MG can do the scut work.”

“Does she have any kitchen experience?”

Joe shrugged. “Not professionally. She doesn’t need much to do what she’s doing now.”

“Still.” Fairley sighed. “I like to make sure anybody who comes into the kitchen will fit in with the personnel who are already here. This woman may be fine, but I wish I’d had a chance to talk with her first.”

Joe felt like sighing himself. He really didn’t want to fire Fairley on his first day, but the guy was beginning to annoy him. “Okay, in the future I’ll let you know when I hire somebody. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing—MG was available, and we needed a body ASAP.” He hadn’t actually promised Fairley he’d have any say in the decision, but maybe it was enough to keep him on board.

Fairley looked somewhat satisfied, although he still had a vaguely disgruntled expression. “I’m running lunch then?”

Joe nodded. “Right. Menu’s posted. Jorge should be in within the hour. He, Leo and Darcy will all be on line, with MG as runner. The prep’s being done now. Everything should be ready to go by eleven.”

Fairley nodded. “I’ll check to make sure it is.”

“You’ve met Bryson? The head waiter?”

Fairley nodded again. “And the delectable Ms. Maldonado.”

Joe managed not to frown. Kit Maldonado, the manager of the restaurant, was indeed delectable. But he wasn’t crazy about hearing Fairley say so. “There’s a new hostess, Martha, a friend of Kit’s. Things may be a little slow at first, but they’ll pick up by noon. Lunch is our biggest meal, what with all the daytripper tourists.”

Fairley nodded again. “Right. Anything else I should know?”

Joe debated with himself. He hadn’t decided what to do about the whole contest thing, but Fairley was here and it was a decision he should be in on. “There’s this,” he said, pulling the letter from the bottom of the stack of papers on his desk.

Fairley’s eyebrows went up as he read. “A ‘culinary competition’?”

“Yeah, well, Craven, the guy in charge, gets a little carried away sometimes.”

“A contest?”

“Sort of. More like an exhibition. The Wine and Food Festival is a big deal around here. One day. Pulls in several hundred tourists. Up until now it’s been mainly the local wineries who get the attention. Craven wants to do something to feature the restaurants this year.” Craven had, in fact, come up with this idea after a particularly alcoholic lunch at the Rose.

Fairley frowned as he looked at the letter again. “He says it’s going to be the climax of the day.”

“That’s just because it’s the last thing they’re going to do. Two hours at the end when we do a sample dinner—appetizer, entrée and dessert. Four restaurants. The judges will give prizes for each.”

“Like
Top Chef
or
Chopped.
” Fairley gave him a delighted grin.

Joe managed not to grimace in return. The last thing he wanted was to take part in some idiotic television contest. “Sort of like that. But we get to choose what we fix—they’re not giving us some half-assed basket of mystery ingredients.”

“So we just go with our specialties, right?” Fairley looked faintly disappointed, like he’d been hoping for a chance to show what he could do with dried squid.

“Not exactly.” Joe rubbed his eyes. “We won’t have a real stove to work on, just something one step up from a hot plate. They’re trying to get some ovens, but my guess is those won’t be restaurant quality either. So we have to come up with a menu that we could do on a goddamn Coleman camp stove if it came to that.”

Fairley nodded slowly. “A challenge. Simple but good.”

“Simple but good and original. And with a wow factor thrown in. Steak Diane isn’t going to cut it.”

“No.” Fairley still looked serious. “That wouldn’t be right.”

“Well, we got a few weeks to work on it. Give it some thought.”

“Yes, sir.” Fairley nodded, his smile returning. Apparently, he’d forgotten all about the MG Carmody thing. He pushed himself to his feet, heading for the door. “I better go check on the lunch prep.”

Joe watched him go, leaning back in his chair. Crisis averted. He stuck Craven’s letter back in the stack on his desk, promising himself he’d look at it later and knowing he might not. A contest on a camp stove. Crap on a stick.

He rubbed a hand across his face, then smiled.
The MG Carmody thing.
MG Carmody in her red apron and ball cap, like a pixie transformed into a prep cook. At least she’d brighten up the kitchen at breakfast.

Maybe things were looking up after all.

Chapter Five

MG limped inside the house at four thirty, wanting nothing so much as a beer and a place to rest her feet. The sandals had seemed like a good idea when she’d put them on in the morning—they were comfortable and they looked okay. They’d work for standing around, which is what she’d expected to be doing. Besides, it was September in the Hill Country and most people still dressed to keep cool.

Now she knew better. When she could bring herself to move again, she swore she’d dig out her running shoes. At least she’d finally get some real use out of them.

She’d driven to the discount store at the edge of town and found a chef’s knife. It looked like Darcy’s but she was betting it wasn’t in the same class. Still, at least she’d have something with an edge on it.

Once she pulled into the drive at the farm, she felt like groaning. Of course. She couldn’t put her feet up yet. She had the freaking chickens to deal with.

Two more eggs lay in the nest boxes. Fortunately, the hens in question hadn’t felt like coming back and sitting on them since that would probably have resulted in cracked eggs. Hen Nine muttered curses at her from her new position on the roost. She knew it was Hen Nine even though the bird looked like all the others—Hen Nine’s nest box had been moved to the coolest part of the hen house, making it no longer fun for her to sit on and brood.

She cleaned the nest boxes, then added more pellets to the feeder and checked the levels in the water can. Around her the hens clucked amiably enough, except for the malevolent mutterings of Hen Nine. She stepped outside and collided with the outraged Robespierre, who danced around her, squawking.

“Oh, give it a rest,” she muttered and tossed him a handful of cracked corn. He paused in mid-squawk, then started pecking at the scattered kernels, ignoring her intrusion into his domain.

MG looked regretfully at the green side yard. If she weren’t so tired, she’d run the hens out to let them do a little grazing, but she just wasn’t up to it at the moment. Sighing, she carried the eggs back to the house then returned the feed sack to the utility shed.

Inside, she checked the refrigerator. Yes, she had one can of the cheapest beer available. At least now she’d be able to afford something better, assuming she didn’t devote all her cash to the mortgage. She popped the top and sat down to review her day.

Lunch had been an exercise in thinly organized chaos. Three chefs handled the orders, Darcy and Leo from breakfast and a third chef, Jorge, who’d come in while she was washing cherry tomatoes. He’d glanced at her, unsmiling. “That’s my hat.”

By then, MG had forgotten that she was wearing a hat at all. She gave him a cautious look. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

He shrugged. “Looks better on you than on me.” She didn’t think he’d uttered another word for the rest of the afternoon.

“Your job is to make sure we’ve got all the stuff we need at each station,” Darcy said grimly. “Keep an eye out to see if anybody’s running low on anything. Today you’ll blow it. Tomorrow you won’t.” She didn’t add
or else,
but she didn’t need to. MG got the message.

Actually Jorge and Leo didn’t need much from her—they set up their own stations at the grill and the range, all their bowls of ingredients within easy reach and the garnishes ready to be arranged on the plates. She figured they knew about how much they’d need of anything, and unless there was an unexpected rush on some dish, they were probably set for the duration.

It was Darcy who needed replenishing most often with the salads and cold plates she was fixing. MG trotted from cooler to counter to pantry shelves, keeping her supplied with the premade salad bases, refilling the bowls of dried cranberries and walnuts, locating hotel trays of pulled chicken and shaved steak and crumbled bacon.

Fairley’s role seemed to be largely traffic cop. He stood near the computer where the orders came across, yelling the names of the dishes they needed in shorthand. “Ravioli, Cobb, Special.” The finished plates appeared on the counter in front of him for inspection, then moved onto the waiter’s trays to be taken into the dining room.

The only crisis had come late in the lunch rush. “You,” Leo yelled in her direction. “More frozen ravioli. Now.”

MG stiffened. Freezer. She knew where the cooler was, but the freezer was something else, wasn’t it?

“What are you waiting for? Get moving. Now!” Fairley’s voice cracked across the kitchen.

“Over there.” Darcy inclined her head toward a double-door stainless steel cabinet at the side.

MG ran to open the freezer door, then stopped, staring. The interior was full of bags and containers, all carefully labeled. Was she supposed to take the time to read the labels on every bag?

“Here.” Fairley’s hand shot by her face, and he yanked a bag of pasta from the top shelf. “Learn your job, goddamn it. We don’t have time for your screw-ups.”

He tossed the bag to Leo, who emptied the contents into the pan in front of him.

MG walked back to Darcy’s station, trying to make herself as small as possible. She really didn’t want to attract any extra attention just then.

After a moment, Darcy glanced at her. “More cranberries. Come on. Move.” Her voice didn’t have quite the same bite. MG didn’t look at her to see if she really was being kind—she’d just as soon not know.

The lunch rush finally dwindled and stopped altogether. She emptied the bowls Darcy had been using and returned their contents to the cooler, all except for the chicken and steak, which were being moved on to other uses. She found herself hoping that was all she needed to do for the day, but it was a vain hope.