Perfect Pairing (9 page)

Hal's cheeks flushed, and she thanked God Sully wasn't within earshot of that little gem. “Right, but I'm not talking about people. I'm talking about food. I don't have the space to prep on sight. I don't have the space to store extra ingredients. When we're out, we're out.”

“Like in the park. When you were going to have to turn people away.”

Way to remind me of how you bailed me out
. “Yes.”

“And that bothers you.”

“Of course it bothers me.” Hal hung her head. “I can't stand to turn people away hungry.”

She didn't say she didn't want to lose business, Quinn noted. The comment was more personal than economical. When Hal was frustrated, she revealed little things like that. Maybe Quinn needed to keep her off balance more often. “What else?”

“It also means I can't carry all the tools I want with me.”

“Like what?” Now that she had the answers flowing freely, she intended to keep them coming.

“Blenders, food processors, canners. All those things have to be used ahead of time or not at all.”

“Is that really a big deal?”

“Obviously not big enough to stop me from turning down your offer for a restaurant.”

“Touché.” She'd walked right into that one, but she mentally tipped her hat and moved on. “What's the big ticket item?”

Hal opened her mouth, then hesitated. The answer was there, but she was smart enough to know she should worry about handing it over.

Quinn gave her credit for the natural defense, but she wouldn't let it hold. Stepping closer, right to the edge of Hal's personal space, she met her eyes and held them, silently challenging her to show her cards.

“Ovens,” Hal finally said.

“Ovens? That's it?” Had she started bullshitting again, or was that really the word that had almost died on her lips? “You can't have an oven in a truck?”

“Oven's aren't small. They give off a ton of heat. The people who use them usually have trailers, not trucks.” Hal pushed off the counter and began to gesture with her hands while she continued. “The trucks that do have them sacrifice a lot of space and energy for a small one. You can only do one thing at a time, and usually you can't even do that well. They're glorified toasters.”

“Wow, tell me how you really feel.”

Hal snorted and shook her head. “You asked, you got an answer.”

She got more than that. She got passion, she got a personal reaction. She got a spark where there'd only been a brick wall before. More importantly she'd gotten her in. “Thank you, Hal.”

“What?”

“I said ‘thank you.' You gave me an honest answer and some knowledge to help me as I look for a professional-grade kitchen.”

“Are you really in the market for one already?”

“Absolutely. And I had a pretty good idea what was needed to do
the work you do in the truck, but now I also know what I'd need to take it to the next level.”

“Glad I could be of service,” Hal said slowly and in a tone that made it clear she wasn't at all sure she meant it.

Quinn smiled and laid her hand on Hal's shoulder. “And that wasn't so hard, was it?”

“Easier than pulling teeth, I suppose.”

“You sure know how to charm a lady.”

Hal finally grinned. “I get that a lot.”

“Dude, what happened in there tonight?” Sully asked as soon as the door closed behind Quinn and Ian.

“I don't know. I think maybe we cleared the air.”

“You don't seem very clear on it right now.”

Hal flopped onto the couch they'd dragged two blocks from the curb it had been left on a year ago. Intellectually she understood that nothing left on a curb should ever be flopped onto again, but it was more comfortable than crashing on the distressed hardwood floor of their first-story apartment. “Quinn is complicated.”

“High maintenance.”

“I don't know, man. I think it's something more than that.”

“More woman than you can handle?” Sully scoffed. “I'm disappointed in you.”

Sully's estimation of her skills had always been highly inflated, but Hal didn't like admitting that, so instead, she stared at the ceiling.

“Why are you letting her jerk you around?”

“I'm not.”

“You are. You have all the power here. She needs you. She wants you.”

“She wants a name, she wants a restaurant, she wants to make money.

“She's going to dump me the minute she has what she's after.”

“So what? Get what you want before that and let her go, unless of course the only thing you want is for her to stay.”

The word hit her like a punch to the gut. “Don't be daft.”

“Daft? Have you been watching the BBC again?”

“Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that you're a moron.”

Sully shrugged. “Probably not. It also doesn't change the fact that you're letting this woman jack you around.”

“No one is jacking, or jerking, me in any direction.”

Sully laughed. “Maybe that's your problem.”

“Yeah yeah.” She rolled her eyes. “Sex. That's what it always comes down to, right?”

“You got a problem with sex?”

“No,” Hal said, then thought some more. Maybe she did. She hadn't had any in a while, so that could be a problem. A bigger one might be the way every conversation about Quinn led back there, and so quickly. Was she really that hard up, or was Sully driving that part of her brain? Actually, Quinn didn't do anything to break up those associations either. She stood way too close, and what was with all the arm touching? She found an excuse to do that almost every time they were together. Was it a move that came naturally to her? Was it meant to be soothing? Or was it part of her practiced persona, a well-rehearsed gesture to make her seem sincere and interested? “That's the thing with her, though, you know?”

“No. I have no idea,” Sully said.

Had she said that last part out loud? “Nothing.”

“I call bullshit.” Sully calling bullshit was like a ten-year-old boy calling shotgun. There was procedure to it that only they could understand, but that didn't stop them from expecting it to be honored.

“It's just that I never know what's real with her and what's some ploy to get under my skin.”

“Who cares if it gets her under your sheets?”

Hal sat up. “Thanks for all your help.”

“No, wait,” Sully said, her tone growing serious. “I just meant that she's going after what she wants in this relationship or whatever it is. She's never lied or led you on. Why can't you do the same?”

“The same what?”

“Go after what you want. Use each other for mutual benefit.”

“What do I get out of the trade-off?”

“Whatever you want. You want business? Do business. You want sexy? Do sexy. She's got money, she's got connections, she's got a good business mind and a sharp tongue. Then on the other side she's got a rockin' body, a fiery temper that you know is going to set off fireworks in bed, legs that go on forever, and, well, a sharp tongue. Put the tongue thing in both columns.”

Hal chose to ignore the last part and focus on the bigger picture. Quinn did have a lot more to offer than sixteen dollars an hour. She was smart on multiple levels, she was fun to spar with, and there was no use trying to deny she tripped a lot of physical triggers, too, but what was she supposed to make with all of those building blocks?

“I don't know what I want from her.”

Sully raised her eyebrows.

“I know you have a hard time believing this, but I really haven't spent the last few weeks entertaining sexual fantasies about her. I think I've been so busy trying not to get burned, I never really thought of anything other than how she could hurt me.”

“Maybe it's time to relax a little bit and let yourself consider some new options.”

Hal didn't respond. She didn't want to give Sully any false hope, or dirty joke fodder, but as she returned to staring at a hairline crack in the high ceiling, she had to admit, if only to herself, she did like the idea of having options.

Chapter Six

“Are you going over to Hal's?” Ian asked from his spot on the couch. He had to sit in the corner farthest from the coffee table so he had room to extend his long legs. He could stay there for hours, his laptop resting on his thighs like a security blanket. The couch cushions had become a lopsided reminder of his imprint even when he got up for something, which had happened more often lately. He'd worked with Sully and Hal four times since Tuesday, sometimes at lunch and sometimes into the night, but Quinn had fought off the silly urge to tag along. She had made some slight inroads with Hal last Friday, and she wanted to give them both space to process that. Plus she had other cards on the table she wasn't yet ready to reveal.

The separation must've worked, because this time the invitation had come from Hal. When Ian had delivered the message that Hal wanted Quinn to come help her can some tomato sauce, she could tell he was as surprised as she was, both at her inclusion and at the news he could take some time off. She understood the consternation in his face at the rare disappointment of being given a day off. Having been in his role all week, she felt a little bad for him, but not bad enough to invite him along.

“Yes, but remember we're not going to be in the truck, so no chicks to score.”

He relaxed just a little at that reminder. “Is Sully going to be there?”

“I honestly don't know.” She sort of hoped not, but she knew from Ian's constant chatter about his newfound heroes that they lived together.

“Oh well, tell her she can come hang out over here, or something like that if she's bored or whatever.”

It wasn't a great invitation, but the fact that he'd extended it showed progress. He clearly admired Sully a lot, and while she wasn't exactly the role model Quinn would choose for her little brother, his showing any interest in being social had to count for something. “I'll mention it.”

It took her a few minutes to get to Hal and Sully's house since they lived only on the other side of Allentown. The houses in this area were bigger, grander, remnants of a more prosperous age in Buffalo, but many of them had been broken up into apartments. Hal's was on the ground floor, with an entrance toward a driveway just big enough to hold Cheesy Does It.

“Hey, Quinn,” Sully said, opening the door wide to let her in. She wore jeans, loose and faded, along with a T-shirt featuring stacked silverware with the message “Spooning leads to forking.”

“Good morning, Sully. What's on our agenda for today?”

“
Your
agenda features canning, which means my agenda doesn't have to.” She grinned and slipped past her. “So I'm going to make myself scarce. Remind me later that I owe you one for that.”

“Oh, I do like the idea of you being indebted to me.”

“I thought you might.”

“If you want to be even more indebted, you can go hang out at my place. There's a fridge full of food, a big screen TV, and a nineteen-year-old boy who thinks you're so cool, he'd do pretty much anything you told him to.”

Sully grinned. “Sounds like a pretty sweet joint. I might have to go check it out.”

Quinn went up three stairs and through another door Sully had left open. Hal was already so busy at work she didn't look up right away, giving Quinn a chance to watch her.

She stood with her back to the door, clad in a plain black T-shirt and dark blue jeans that showcased a very nice set of glutes. She rose up on bare tiptoes to peer into a giant pot on the industrial-grade, six-burner stove, and Quinn felt a wash of affection surge through her. That was a new feeling, and she didn't enjoy the way it tightened
her chest. Attraction she could handle; flirting was not an uncommon way for her to get a job done. But the mix of sexy and homey stirred something more personal, and personal generally meant counterproductive in her world.

She cleared her throat loudly. “I wouldn't have pegged you for the barefoot in the kitchen type of woman.”

Hal didn't turn around. “Does it offend your feminist sensibilities?”

“Not at all.”
Quite the opposite
. “Unless you expect me to follow your lead?”

Hal finally glanced over her shoulder long enough to look at her quickly before returning her attention to the stove. “No, those shoes will do fine enough for today.”

Quinn glanced down at her brown leather business loafers, wondering what made them fine for today, but possibly not for the future?

“There are some aprons hanging on the wall by the fridge,” Hal said. “You're going to want to put one on.”

“Why aren't you wearing one?”

“Because I didn't dress like I thought we were going sailing today.”

Quinn rolled her eyes but put on the apron anyway. There was nothing overly formal about khaki-colored linen pants and a lightweight cream-colored sweater, but she didn't see any sense in splattering them with tomato sauce if she didn't have to. “What are we working on today?”

“The batch of tomatoes I picked up earlier in the week have been skinned, cored, chopped, and cooked down,” Hal explained. “Now we're going to separate some out to keep reducing for paste and season the rest as pizza sauce.”

“Okay, what should I do?”

“Here, keep stirring this while I get the spices.”

She accepted the big wooden spoon and moved in front of the pot Hal had been hovering over. She noted that, even while wearing flats, she didn't have to stand on her tiptoes to watch it. She imagined that made her look more in control, but she still missed the image of Hal balancing on her bare toes.

“Be careful. It's getting thick enough that when it bubbles, they
burst with a bit of force,” Hal said, pulling several unmarked, industrial-size bottles of spices from an overstocked cabinet above them. She popped open the tops, letting a new mélange of scents mingle with the sweet smell of the cooking tomatoes. “You keep stirring nice and slow while I add a few things. It's important to incorporate them evenly.”

“Got it.” She suspected Hal had inflated the importance of her job to make her feel better about her contributions.

Hal set about sprinkling various powders into the mix without ever using a measuring spoon. She added some from each bottle, then inhaled deeply and added more from just two of them.

“What are you adding?”

“A lot of garlic powder, some basil, a healthy dose of oregano.”

“How can you tell? There're no labels on any of them.”

“Sight and smell. Also since I'm the one who made them, I remember which bottle is which.”

“You
made
the oregano?” Quinn didn't buy it.

“I grew it in my garden, I dried it, I crushed it, and I bottled it.”

“Okay, I'll give you credit for that answer,” she admitted, once again impressed by the amount of work Hal invested in even the smallest ingredient.

Hal grabbed the lone ingredient that had clearly come from a store and sprinkled a smaller amount into the sauce.

“What's that?”

“Onion powder. I buy this.”

“Why not use real onions in the sauce? Wouldn't they make the flavor bolder?”

“I use less onion than I do the other spices, and they take more space to grow than my city herb garden allows. Plus onion powder is better for keeping the texture of the sauce smooth. I don't have chunks of anything else, so biting into an onion would be discordant,” Hal said, then stopped abruptly and threw up her hands before adding, “and onions are nasty.”

Quinn stopped stirring. “Onions are nasty?”

“Yes,” she replied, folding her arms across her chest like a child refusing to eat her broccoli. “I hate them.”

“You hate onions?”

“Don't say it like that, condescending and motherly.” Hal pouted. “Everyone has foods they don't like.”

“Yes, like liver, or creamed spinach. Onions are so basic. They go in everything.”

“Not in my kitchen. When they're raw, they overpower everything they touch, and when cooked they get this awful membrane that squishes in your teeth and ruins everything. You might as well eat worms.”

Amusement tugged at the corners of Quinn's mouth, but she tried to hide it under her genuine disbelief. “Tell me how you really feel.”

“I really feel it's fine to use their flavor in moderation, hence the powder. Sometimes I cook with them in cheesecloth, then pull their slimy wasted membranes out before serving, but there's no excuse for biting into one. Ever.”

“Wow, who would've thought? A chef against onions. Don't you think your customers deserve the best possible sauce regardless of your personal feelings about onions?” She pressed Hal's buttons just for sport now, and maybe she should have backed off when she saw a little muscle in her jaw twitch, but risk of getting burned be damned, she loved to see the fire in Hal's eyes dance.

Hal's vision tinged red. “The best possible sauce?”

Who the hell did Quinn think she was? Not a chef, not even a connoisseur—no one with any right to question her culinary decisions. “This
is
the best possible sauce. Smooth and rich, every bite perfectly matched without hot pockets of uneven flavor or chunks of squeaking, mushy, globs to stick to your teeth, wreck your breath, and make you utterly unkissable.”

Quinn raised an eyebrow, looking wholly unconvinced.

“Here.” Hal took the spoon and scooped up a bit of the sauce. Holding it close to her mouth, she blew gently a few times, causing wisps of steam to curl around her mouth and nose before evaporating. Then she held the spoon out to Quinn. “Taste.”

Hal cupped her hand under the spoon and lifted it to Quinn's slightly parted lips. Quinn sipped tentatively first, then a little more, running the tip of her tongue slowly along the edge of the spoon. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back as she savored the last of the sauce. All the tension slipped from her shoulders, and her arms fell relaxed at her side. She took a deep breath, and Hal watched her chest rise slowly, then fall quickly. God, was anything more beautiful than a gorgeous woman with her eyes closed in rapture? Hal grew lightheaded knowing something she'd done had inspired such a serene gesture of pleasure in a woman who always seemed on guard.

Quinn's light eyes fluttered open, glazed, almost disoriented. “Oh my Lord, that may be the best thing I've ever tasted.”

Hal turned back to the sauce to hide the extent of her happiness. Quinn got it. She could taste the difference, and she appreciated it. The reaction had been unguarded, genuine, and for the first time since they'd met, Hal felt certain she'd seen the real Quinn.

What was this warmth spreading through her chest? Pride? Vindication? No—something more personal. Something curling around her heart in wispy tendrils, like the steam rising off the sauce. Affection? Attraction? No . . . something deeper, more robust.

Relief.

A deep, muscle-aching relief settled deep in her core. She'd been tested, pushed, challenged by Quinn from the moment they'd met and hadn't realized how much—behind all the bravado, the anger, the frustration—she'd feared being found lacking.

Stupid, silly fear. They weren't really talking about her at all, but rather her food. The product was the only thing in the question, but that was such a blurry line, one Quinn had nearly erased with her dizzying blend of formal business proposals and casual touching. Hal had spent the last few weeks off balance, and every time she'd thought she'd righted herself, there was Quinn to pull the rug out from under her again. Beautiful, poised, unflappable Quinn, always one step ahead and one rung up on her. Then, for just one minute, she'd been caught off guard and admitted she found Hal unexpectedly adequate.

Sully had encouraged her to tip the scales back in her favor, and while she'd suggested using some methods very different from tomato sauce, Hal enjoyed being the one to surprise for once. If pressed, she'd also cop to feeling a little bit of want as well. She wanted to be respected, she wanted to be appreciated, she wanted Quinn to—

“How did you do that?”

“Do what?” she asked, snapping her attention back to the woman in front of her.

“Make the sauce taste like that?”

“You watched me.”

“I know, but you added something before I got here, some secret ingredient?”

Her shoulders fell. Maybe Quinn didn't understand after all. “All I'd put in that pot before you arrived were slow-cooked tomatoes.”

“Why does your sauce taste so much richer and sweeter? You didn't use any sugar.”

“The taste doesn't come from something extra. It's what you get from leaving things out.” She spun to face her, and so many emotions she hadn't even realized she'd pent up came pouring out. “That's what real food tastes like. Pure, without anything fake. There's nothing trying to contain the flavors or make them something they're not meant to be. No games, no tricks, just raw ingredients stripped of all the restraints.”