Sideways

by Lisa Hughey

  She paused. “Because they seem like they’d make a good match.”

  “Why not let them discover that on their own?”

  Tracy couldn’t help herself. She was good at matchmaking. She knew she was. This current fiasco had shaken her confidence in herself and her abilities, but the only way to move forward was through. Sometimes people just needed a little nudge. She propped her hands on her hips and tilted her chin in the air. “I am a fairy godmother.”

  He snorted.

  But she ignored him. For just a moment she wanted to do something she excelled at. Waiting tables had been humbling. Trying to keep track of multiple orders and the timing of food being released from the kitchen and just the sheer amount of walking threw her off balance. She’d spent her morning trying to figure out if and how her app had been breached and her late afternoon and evening running around the Speakeasy. She was exhausted and dispirited.

  She was good at two things: matchmaking and marketing. She could check matchmaking off her list for today. And setting up a social media account as her alias Cee-Cee was fun.

  She was hyperaware of him sitting next to her and felt the need to distract him. Her whole body ached. “I had no idea how hard this was.”

  He dug into his hash. Even the way he chewed was sexy. That had to be illegal. Right? And someone as irritating as him should not be sexy. Her body needed to get the message.

  He stopped eating to look at her. “I’m sure.” There was a note of censure in his tone. A disdain that she didn’t understand.

  She didn’t know why he didn’t like her.

  Everyone liked her. She went out of her way to be cordial and welcoming. But this guy had a shield around him so thick that even in a crowded bar he sat alone and isolated. He watched the action on the restaurant floor with a bit of wistfulness. And she wondered what his story was.

  “Is there a reason you don’t like me?” She couldn’t believe those words had spilled from her mouth. She had spent her entire life being nice, being polite, and being agreeable. But when she asked him, there had been a challenge in her voice. The freedom was liberating.

  He ate his hash slowly as if savoring each bite. The food was pretty amazing.

  She waited as he chewed. He glanced out the side of his eyes, a gorgeous deep brown that she totally should not have noticed. This close to him his scent was a mixture of sunscreen and warmth and clean sweat as if he’d spent the day in the sun. Earthy. Masculine. And very, very sexy.

  She shouldn’t notice how sexy he was. He didn’t like her.

  She was tired of waiting for an answer. She propped her hands on her hips and leaned into his personal space. “You don’t even know me.”

  “I don’t have to know you.” He flipped a glance her way. “I know your type.”

  Her type? “What type? Nice? Invested in making people happy?”

  “Rich, clueless, and arrogant.”

  “Yeah, well you’re grumpy, irritating, and wrong.”

  Her feet throbbed and now her head ached. She rarely cried but everything about today had been difficult. Feeling like a fish out of water wasn’t pleasant. She wanted to go back to her busy life and her active friendships. But she was stuck here for the moment. And her eyes burned.

  Tracy took a deep breath and focused on something else. She needed to channel her alter ego. What would Cee-Cee do?

  She had imagined Cee-Cee for so long. Cee-Cee spoke her mind and didn’t worry about optics. She didn’t even know what optics were.

  “I’m making the best of a bad situation.” She defended her actions.

  But as she looked at him, she realized there was more going on than his slightly derogatory comments about her. He’d done a weird turn thing so he wasn’t facing the bar but sort of sideways. It had to be hard to eat that way.

  “You need to stop running away from your problems.”

  Her heart stopped. Did he know who she was? Hopefully he was just intuitive. “Easier said than done.”

  “Of course it is. Hard things aren’t supposed to be easy.” He said it as if he was intimately familiar with hard things.

  She wasn’t about to let him off the hook. He clearly had his own issues.

  “Maybe you need to take your own advice,” she shot back. Damn straight.

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  Ha.

  6

  Tracy

  She was still thinking about the hot guy the next day. She’d almost asked him who he was. He looked so familiar. But no use in opening that box. Especially since she didn’t want anyone taking too close a look at her.

  Right now she was more worried about how she was going to pay for more nights at the hotel. She and Yolanda had gone over the data multiple times and she couldn’t find any glitches or intrusions into the system that would have revealed her identity. Which meant somehow Esme had found the information another way.

  They needed to investigate Esme but that wasn’t something that Tracy could do. Yolanda had already called a private investigator. She needed opposition research on her brother’s ex-fiancée. Stat.

  While she hadn’t cared for Esme, she had never considered having her investigated beyond the thorough background investigation they ran at Fairy Tale Beginnings. Doing that hadn’t been on her radar. She’d been happy for her brother.

  Thomas had not been as upset about the truth about their parent’s marriage. But when Tracy found out, she had been devasted. Her parents’ fairy-tale romance, the story that the press bandied about as canon, was all a lie.

  Her parents both had affairs. They just kept them very, very private.

  She had bigger problems than her parent’s fabrication of their romance and their lies to the public. In her quest to give romance and happily ever afters to normal people, someone had discovered her secret and sold the information or they’d breached her supposedly unbreachable software.

  She’d worked on the data all day and couldn’t find any answers. Then she’d come to the Speakeasy for her shift, although she pretty much expected to get fired. She really was a terrible waitress.

  It was late. And her feet were killing her. Phoebe had asked if she could stay later; one of the other waitresses had a babysitting emergency and Tracy needed the money, so she’d agreed. She’d managed to get a pair of tennis shoes from the local shoe store but to buy shoes with enough support she’d had to spend money she didn’t really have. She’d also had to buy more gas for the car—which seemed crazy since she was mostly just going back and forth between the motel and work. And another night’s rent for the motor lodge was due.

  To her surprise, sexy grumpy guy walked in about half an hour before the bar area was set to close. The kitchen had shut down thirty minutes ago, and the chefs had all gone home. Her job was to buss the rest of the plates and wipe down the tables and chairs with sanitizer.

  It had been a quiet night and today’s bartender, Matteo, was cleaning the bar while the last of the drinkers finished up their cider and ales.

  Hot grumpy guy took one look at her and glared. She was sitting on the stool at the end of the bar taking a quick ten-minute break.

  Tracy sighed and slipped her shoes back on. “Back to the grind, Hamish.” She’d taken to chatting with the ghost on her breaks.

  Before she could get to him to tell him that the kitchen was closed, he pushed his way through the swinging door.

  Tracy followed him into the kitchen to chastise him. “Hey, you aren’t supposed to be in here. Kitchen is—” She stopped cold. He stood in the center of the restaurant kitchen on the rubber honeycomb floor mat with a lost look on his face. “—closed.”

  “I am aware.”

  Tracy frowned at him. “Then you should leave.”

  “I wish.” He headed for the large walk-in refrigerator.

  Holy shit. She just figured out how she knew him. Grumpy hot guy was Colton Vega. He was thinner and had a deeper tan than a few years ago. He had been the darling of the celebrity chef circuit
until he had a breakdown. He had lost his shit and thrown something, burning his sous chef and destroying his career.

  Tracy had eaten at Vega’s a few years ago. His food was transcendent—which said a lot since she was more about food as fuel than as a culinary experience. She didn’t think a lot about it. But that meal had been amazing. One of the top meals she’d ever eaten.

  Colton Vega.

  She was pretty sure her mouth was hanging open. Colton Vega. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that a Michelin-starred chef was chopping up vegetables in a kitchen in rural Vermont.

  Celebrity blowups weren’t a regular part of her news intake. Unless they referenced a dating app. Or took a political position. She remembered being sad about his demise and then she’d forgotten all about him.

  But things were coming back to her. Rumors about late-night drinking and out-of-control behavior.

  She followed him into the fridge. “You can’t be in here.”

  “’Fraid I can, Deb.”

  “I told you, it’s Cee-Cee.” She straightened her spine.

  “Well, Cee-Cee, I’ve got to get to work. So you can head out.”

  She couldn’t leave him alone in here. Could she?

  What if he had an episode and wrecked the kitchen? Technically she was responsible. Although really what were they thinking to put her in charge? She was a stranger. She could be a serial killer for all they knew. Or a thief. Or, or…something worse that she couldn’t even think of right now.

  When Phoebe had asked her to stay late, clearly she was last on the list of employees to handle things, but everyone else had plans, so Tracy agreed. Since she’d been entrusted with closing up, she needed to stick around. But she’d be sure to mention to Phoebe that she really shouldn’t trust a stranger.

  He headed for the giant sink and scrubbed with the antibacterial industrial cleaner using his fingers to clean between his other fingers and scrubbing up his arms to his elbows. Then he flipped a towel from the stack of clean linens on the corner of the counter and dried off his arms.

  His very sexy arms. Focus, Tracy!

  “Can I…help with anything?”

  He turned around and glared at her. “Are you still here?”

  Sweat had formed on his brow and he had a slightly panicked look in his eyes.

  “Here and ready to assist.” She wasn’t about to leave. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to be more assertive. She executed a mock salute.

  “You know how to cook?”

  She laughed nervously, because of course she didn’t. “I am a great assistant.” Which actually wasn’t true. She tended to take over. And butt in. But maybe she could rein in those tendencies while she kept an eye on him.

  “I don’t need help,” he practically growled at her. And he might not need help, but he hadn’t moved since he’d washed up. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen with that lost look on his face again.

  “Everyone needs help sometimes,” she said gently.

  “Fine.” As if he couldn’t help himself, he lifted his chin toward the industrial sink. “If you’re going to help, wash up.”

  Colt

  What was he doing encouraging her to stay? He couldn’t do this.

  Then he reminded himself: he was helping out a friend who had helped him out. But he was in the last place he ever wanted to be in.

  He stood in the industrial kitchen feeling lost. His gaze skimmed over the wiped-down stainless-steel countertops, the deep restaurant sink, and the walk-in refrigerators.

  An empty vessel waiting for input.

  His fingers twitched and he patted his pocket.

  The rich debutante who had haunted his nightly dreams—which frankly was better than his old dreams where he re-lived the worst moment of his life—hovered in the kitchen as if unsure whether to come or go.

  Colt resolutely set his chef’s skull cap over his hair, surprised at how long it was, curling out the bottom. When he’d been an active restauranteur, he never let the ends get longer than the edge of the cap.

  He hadn’t picked up a chef’s knife in over a year. After agreeing to help out Phoebe when she had an emergency, he hadn’t wanted to do so in a crowded kitchen. So he waited until the kitchen was empty, the staff all gone so he could cook in private.

  Except she was here.

  He couldn’t decide if it was better that this relative stranger was watching him as he teetered on the edge of panic or if he’d be better off with friends who knew how hard this was and asked him for help anyway.

  He needed to do the prep work for a small event tomorrow.

  The menu was laid out and the base goods and produce purchased and delivered. All he had to do was cook.

  Even that was going to be a challenge.

  Colt really didn’t want an audience. For several reasons, chief among them he still wasn’t sure he could keep down the sandwich he had eaten earlier. Just being in the kitchen was causing his stomach to pitch and roll. Then muscle memory kicked in and Colt’s mouth watered. Now, in addition to wanting a cigarette, he really, really wanted a scotch.

  Colt was sweating as he placed the squash, carrots, and onions on the stainless-steel prep counter. He slid a cutting board out from a storage slot beneath the counter and put the silicone mat beneath it so that it wouldn’t slip.

  When he turned around, she was still there.

  Deus, he really did not want an audience for this. But he had some weird push-pull fascination with her. And his heart rate settled.

  Since she walked into the kitchen, his stress level had plummeted.

  Sparring with her kept him from thinking about the fact that he was going to cook again. She clearly had her own problems. He really didn’t have a clue why she was waitressing, but if she kept him distracted and focused on cooking rather than on the bar full of bottles in the main dining area and the urgent need to self-medicate, then it was a win.

  The look on her face when he took her up on the offer to help was priceless.

  “What’s the matter, Deb?” Colt put all the vegetables in the large metal colander and washed them, prepping for the next step. A fine dice. “Can’t you handle it? If you weren’t sincere, then get out. I don’t like company.”

  She snapped her mouth shut, straightened her shoulders, and headed for the sink.

  Colt pressed his palms against the cool stainless-steel counter and closed his eyes. He noted the chilled metal beneath his hands. He listened to the thump of water hitting the bottom of the sink as she scrubbed her hands. He inhaled slowly, and then let it out, searching for a measure of peace.

  He could do this.

  He had to do this. He had promised.

  But damn he sure didn’t want to.

  The bright overhead light started closing in on him. The therapist he’d gone to right after the incident had a calming technique. Go outside and take in nature. Focus on the horizon.

  But it was nighttime and no horizon in sight. His vision narrowed to the tang of the knife, and his scarred fingers clenched around it. Too tightly. He felt like the first time he’d clumsily wielded a chef’s knife when he was a kid and hadn’t known how to grip it properly or how to cut efficiently and easily.

  His heart thundered, pounding so hard that it was all he could hear, like a death knell.

  Then her scent, that sweet rose, wormed its way in to his consciousness and calmed him.

  “Tell me what to do,” she commanded. But her words were soft, gentle.

  Once when he’d been in high school, his girlfriend had taken him riding. The stables had been trying to rehabilitate an abused horse. The trainer had soothed the skittish horse with a tone similar to what she was using on him.

  She stood next to him waiting patiently.

  His hand was shaking as he used the chef’s knife to dice the vegetables. They were a mess. Not uniform. Clunky and odd-shaped. He would have ripped a sous chef a new one if they had chopped like this in his kitchen.

  Colt paused and
tried to get a handle on his seesawing emotions.

  He swore creatively. “God bless a cucumber.”

  Suddenly her soft hand closed over his. “They don’t have to be perfect, do they?” She squeezed his hand and let him go.

  That innocuous touch was more arousing than full frontal nudity. Of course that could be a defensive reaction. His body was flooded with adrenaline, which had morphed into arousal and overpowered his fear response. Which would be great if it wasn’t so freaking inappropriate.

  He cleared his throat and loosened his grip on the knife. “They don’t have to be perfect.”

  “This isn’t Boston’s restaurant scene. The patrons here like good food and the casual ambience. They will forgive some oddly shaped carrots.”

  His heart iced. Well that got rid of the stiffy he was sporting. She knew who he was.

  Irrelevant right now.

  The vegetables would end up pureed in the end. But they wouldn’t cook evenly. And he had standards that he wanted to uphold.

  However, she was right. No one was judging him. If he kept his name out of it and just cooked this one meal, he could deal. He would handle this and then return to avoiding the kitchen.

  As much as he wanted to just ignore her comments, he needed to acknowledge her attempt to help him. He cleared his throat, eased the tightness. “Good point.”

  It was a damn pot of soup. Not a gourmet meal for four hundred at the White House. No one was going to know he cooked it. He could do this and then slink back to anonymity.

  His heart rate settled. Colt grabbed the onions and got to work.

  It had been a particularly warm day, and heat had trapped in the walls of the kitchen. During the day, they kept the back door open and the screen door let in a breeze off the river, but tonight everything was already locked up tight.

  The kitchen was quiet, peaceful, reminding him of the early days of his career when he would toil extra hours developing new recipes after the restaurant was closed and the staff had all gone home. Experimenting with flavors and textures. Losing himself in the creativity of inventing new food combinations.