Hot and Bothered (Hot in the Kitchen) (25 page)

Sadness crossed her brow. “That’s awful!”

It was, but then as a kid, he had been a sensitive soul. He went into a funk when he lost at soccer. Girls were more likely to break his heart than the other way around. And that damn pig had plucked on every heartstring.

“I thought so, too. I ran away with him. Got as far as Tony and Frankie’s, but Cara turned fink when he ate one of her shoes.”

“Cara,” she muttered, shaking her head in sympathy.

“A week later we were eating bacon morning, noon, and night. Poor Ulysses.” At her arched eyebrow, he added, “I was on a James Joyce kick.”

“A pig in the backyard and no mercy. Sounds like your mom was quite the woman.”

“She was.”

Somewhere along the way, he had leaned on the bar and she had stepped in closer. Every time he opened up to Jules about his mom, another layer of the mortar cemented around his heart seemed to melt away. It still hurt, but not quite as much.

“So…”
How are your dates going? Have you found the love of your life yet? Do you miss me even half as much as I miss you?

“So,” she said, backing away from what he now realized was a hot-enough-to-scorch stare. “I’d better get going. I have to relieve Frankie from Demon Watch.”

Her parting look was an “are we okay here?” and he returned it with a confirming smile. His face ached with how okay they were.

“Maybe we could do a movie and pizza one night,” he said as she walked away.

Her shrug cheered him by degrees. “Sure, you know where to find me.” And then she was gone, taking the scent of oranges and happy and Jules with her. Taking some piece of his chest as well.

It took him a moment to realize that Kennedy was waving a hand in front of his gormless face.

“Earth to Tad.”

“What?” he snapped, tearing his gaze away from the door.

“Just do each other already, would you?”

If only it were that easy. Doing each other was no longer going to cut it.

Chapter Fourteen

The kiss is to love as lightning is to thunder.
—Italian proverb Jules was in a killing mood, and Cara DeLuca was first on her list. Next would be her online dating profile because that needed to die a quick death. Frustrated at what Cara perceived as Jules’s distinct lack of progress in the dating arena, the bloody busybody had set her up on a date.

He runs his own construction business,
Cara had said.
But he doesn’t get his hands dirty; he orders people around.
She had a glint in her eye when she said that, as if Jules was supposed to get all stirred up at the thought of a guy ordering people around. Bet he’s bossy in the bedroom, her innuendo made clear.

Worst of all was the location for the date: Vivi’s. That was Cara’s idea, too—or Cara posing as Jules. She sent an e-mail trying to cancel to Construction Dan but he didn’t respond and now she didn’t want to leave him hanging. She would pop her head into Vivi’s at zero hour, or 6:30 p.m.—rather early for a date, perhaps he was used to eating with his elderly mother—and tell him it had all been a dreadful mistake or she had a headache or her cat had died.

Then she would strangle Cara slowly and gleefully.

Thankfully, Tad wouldn’t be there until 7 p.m. He was taking part in a wine tasting event on the other side of town, so she could slip in and out, take care of business, and move on without muss or fuss.

Bella smiled a little dimly at her when she came in, still no light bulb of recognition. Either she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed or it was a calculated move to dismiss the competition. Not that Jules was competition for anyone, but she had seen how the girl looked at Tad. It was the same way all women looked at Tad—a cross between wet-your-panties lust and something more feral, where the likelihood of fangs-bearing increased with every second.

“Hey, B,” Jules said, enjoying immensely how Bella’s eyes narrowed at the faux intimacy. Jules scanned the room quickly. Three of the fifteen tables were occupied with couples and the bar was lousy with overdone, underdressed women. Charter members of the Hod Taddies club, by the looks of it. They were making do with bartender Reuben who, while handsome in a blank sort of way, was in no way a legitimate substitute for the owner. Early eating Dan had yet to arrive.

“How many?” Bella asked, still with that vacant look where Jules couldn’t be sure if she had connected the dots.

“Zero,” Jules replied, her eyes drawn to Kennedy, who had just exited the kitchen. Her body language spoke to extreme agitation, or perhaps it was the fact that she whipped off her apron and beelined right for Jules.

“Thank God you’re here,” she said to Jules with a toss of her auburn fall of hair, her blue eyes wide with worry.

“What’s up?” Jules asked.

“Come with me. Now.” Kennedy was already steering her through the tables toward the kitchen.

“What’s going on?” Jules urged again. The actress in Kennedy was in full throttle, shaking her head dramatically without actually parting with any information. “Kennedy, you need to spill.”

The spitfire threw open the swing door to the kitchen and pointed. “That’s what’s going on.”

The kitchen was small enough that she could take the details in with a single glance and a slight sniff: half-finished prep at the counter, a plume of smoke wafting from the troublesome pizza oven, and one big bear of a chef slumped over the sink, losing enough blood to make him pale as his starched chef whites.

“Derry!” She raced to his side and turned over his huge hand to reveal an ugly gash bisecting his palm.

“Fine,” he muttered. “First-aid kit.”

Kennedy produced the red box and rummaged around in it, removing a couple of scrappy bandages that would barely cover this man’s pinkie.

“We’ve only got these small ones.”

The slice looked deep enough to have damaged a tendon or some nerves.

“You need to get to the emergency room,” Jules said, grabbing a clean kitchen towel and wrapping it around his hand. “I’ll take you.”

Derry grunted. She knew enough about his flavor of guttural communication to discern that was disagreement.

“I’ve already told him that,” Kennedy said in exasperation. “The big oaf won’t budge.”

Jules held his cloudy gaze squarely. “That hand is your livelihood, Derry. Even if you could stop the bleeding, there might be permanent damage.”

She shared a glance with Kennedy, who shook her head solemnly.

“Need—a chef,” he ground out.

Around his tree-trunk forearm—her fondness for forearms didn’t quite extend to Derry’s—Jules’s gaze curved to the prep station, where colorful yellow peppers were dotted incongruously with drops of blood. It was a sanitation nightmare.

Her mind searched frantically for a solution. “I’ll call Jack and get him to send someone over.”

“You could do it,” Kennedy said blithely as she unpeeled a finger bandage from its wrapper and held it over Derry’s hand. Her forehead crimped in annoyance; she tried another one. “I’ll take him to the ER. It’s so dead out there that you should be able to manage until Tad gets here in thirty.”

“I—I can’t,” Jules said, bobbing between Derry and Kennedy, neither of whom seemed to grasp the gravity of the situation. Derry was bleeding out, Kennedy was planning to leave them server-less, and Jules Kilroy was the one to save them all?

Ignoring Jules’s clear distress, Kennedy tucked a guiding hand under Derry’s elbow. “All right, Dare-Bear, do you need me to carry you or do you think you can walk to my car without fainting like a little girl?”

Derry’s grunt this time sounded slightly less disapproving. The bastard was going to leave her.

“We’ll go out back,” Kennedy said, steering him toward the alley door. “Don’t want to make the customers gag on their Chardonnay. Well, no more than usual, right,
Julia
?”

Talons of panic clawed at Jules’s innards. “Seriously, you guys, I don’t think I can do this.”

Kennedy was already shoving Derry out the door. “It won’t get busy for another hour so Bella can serve in between seating guests. I’ll text Brooke and Tad on the way to the ER and tell them to get their tushes over here lickety-split.”

Derry spoke out of the side of his mouth. “You’re ready, Jules.”

The door closed behind them with a condemning whoosh.

Shit.

She whipped out her phone, still cracked from when she’d smashed it after Simon called. It worked just fine, but immediately she questioned whether a call to Jack or Tony would actually save the day. By the time anyone arrived, customers would be fainting with hunger and composing their nasty reviews on Yelp.

This was important to Tad.

It was important to
her.

She had wanted to do this and now was her chance. Through the window to the dining room, like a porthole onto another world, she surveyed the restaurant that needed feeding. Bella had just seated a table of four and another party hovered at the hostess podium. Who the hell were these people and why were they eating so early?

She looked down at the hands that fed her son, rubbed his tummy when he was ill, soothed him when he was teething. She was more than a mom, a sister, a friend. One day, she would be a chef and it looked like that one day was now.

Time to brief her staff on the new world order. She was headed to the front of house to tell Bella who was running tonight’s show when in walked her date.

Bollocks.

* * *

Jules was actually enjoying herself. The menu was so small that she knew it by heart. Food was getting out in a somewhat timely fashion and nothing had been sent back. Bella was struggling but Jules was usually on hand to recommend a cheese or charcuterie and wine pairing.

She had installed Dan at the bar and asked Reuben to give him whatever he wanted. Having to work at the last minute was actually the perfect excuse to send him on his way, but he had seemed so forlorn when she started in on her story about the scheduling snafu that she didn’t have the heart to cut the night short.

Besides, he looked no more than twelve and was sporting a bow tie. That indicated a certain level of sadness that she didn’t want to pile onto.

Ten minutes to go before Tad got here and rescued her, except she realized that she didn’t need rescuing. She had always thought that she had, from the moment she stood in class to read and felt the cruel stares of the other children before she had opened her mouth. They had all known what was coming. The stuttering, coughing delivery of an imbecilic schoolgirl, light years behind her peers. She had wanted the cheap linoleum tile of her classroom to open up and swallow her because rescue was inconceivable. It had taken the life-changing event of Evan for her to meet Jack halfway. To let him rescue her. And he had been doing it ever since.

Well, no more.

Blimey, what a great night! Except for Derry losing five pints of blood, that is.

Bella popped into the kitchen to pick up the cheese and charcuterie for Table 3. Jules had suggested a nice creamy Camembert and a smoky duck prosciutto that she was very fond of. It went so well with that medium-bodied Chilean Pinot Tad had introduced her to last week.

“I think it’s her,” Bella said as she picked up the plates. She could only manage two at a time, bless her.

“You think it’s who?” Jules asked absently. She smeared golden-toasted ciabatta slices with her artichoke and mortadella spread. Pride swelled her chest.
My food is on the menu.

“
Her.
You know.”

“Going to need more deets, B.”

Bella put one of the plates down, then picked it up again, getting a better grip. “The woman from
Tasty Chicago
. I just seated her at Table 8.”

Jules bounded over to the kitchen window on a cloud of panic and verified her worst nightmare. Monica Grayson, über-critic. was in the house.

7:15 and no sign of Tad. Dread curled around every positive thought and choked it dead, not unlike the malicious weeds that tried to steal the life from her garden’s produce. But it didn’t have to be that way. Jules knew the menu—maybe not the wine menu as extensively as a knowledgeable server would, but she knew it better than Bella.

“Bella, go check on your tables.”

“But, what about—?”

“I’ll handle this,” Jules said with steel in her tone. Ooh, she liked how that sounded.

Bella’s usually blank face registered surprise, but she merely nodded and went back out front.

She’s just a critic. A sharp, all-knowing, intimidating critic.
Imagine her naked.
Imagine her soft, porcelain skin… and soft, porcelain hands tracing Tad’s lean musculature.

Maybe don’t imagine her naked.

Untying her apron, she hauled an edifying breath and walked out to Monica Grayson’s table.

“Hullo, how are you this evening?” she asked, only to be ignored by Monica, whose sharp, asymmetrical sweep of hair made her jaw jut ominously.

Her male companion looked up, then down again. “Perrier for now. You do have Perrier, don’t you?”

She had no idea. “I’ll check. Will another brand of H
₂
O suffice if we don’t?”