by Cate Morgan
Chapter one
The flowers on Jo’s desk were gorgeous, no doubt about it. Gorgeous, and expensive. It was a shame, really. Such flowers didn’t deserve the astoundingly dark look with which she regarded them. It certainly wasn’t their fault Paul had proved to be a greedy cheat as well as beyond arrogant, but had she possessed superpowers they would have caught fire in sheer embarrassment. To say his apologies fell on deaf ears would be like saying rain fell from the sky in Seattle.
Fortunately, Paul didn’t dare show his face in Chicago, not unless he wanted to risk getting overly friendly with a water tower and a roll of duct tape. Her twin brothers were still legend for what they’d done to her hapless prom date.
Her phone rang. She reached for it without shifting her Grim Reaper gaze from the ostentatious display taking over her desk, in the hopes they might recede of their own accord. No luck. “Jo Kinney.”
“Josephine, you beautiful, darling girl. We must have dinner—it’s been simply ages since we’ve had a proper date.”
Jo grinned, no doubt to the relief of the flowers. “How are you, Trevor?”
“Famished. You’re late and I’ve got a beautiful bottle of white burgundy keeping me company instead.”
“That well?” Jo perked up. White burgundy boded well for her byline. Trevor Georges, ne Darling as he was known in his own byline, was one of less than two hundred master somms—sommeliers—in the world. He’d retired into food and culture writing, and, when he was feeling especially at rights with the world, invited Jo to join his latest escapades.
Usually, she ended up smuggling something. The first of her “dates” with Trevor had been Havana and smuggled Cubans—the cigars, not the people. Her debut piece for The Home Gourmet had been due to Trevor taking her to a garden party—in Tangiers. That time, she’d had to smuggle home Trevor, who’d nearly gone ex-pat over an admittedly divine Pastilla.
Naturally, a phone call from Trevor meant a double-edged sword swinging over her head—one one hand, there was the story. On the other—well, it was best to make sure one’s passport and shots were current at all times. “What have you got for me?”
“What else? News, darling girl. News!”
“An exclusive?”
“Only if you get here in time to capture it—say, in the next twenty-four hours.”
“That’s a tall order.”
“Any later and it might be too late.”
Jo tried not to sigh, and just about managed it. “I’ll get there faster if you give me a destination—not to mention a lead I can sell to my editor.”
“Three words. Montreal.”
“That’s one word.”
“That’s because the other two are ‘Ian’ and ‘Michel’.”
Jo switched her phone from way hand to the other before she dropped it. “Really.”
“Would I lie to you?”
Yes, if it served his purposes, however well-meaning. Tangiers had been a case in point.
But she trusted him implicitly in the matter of food. He never, but ever lied about food, no matter how much it pained him—he was that rare breed of food critic who desperately wanted everyone to succeed. And he was never, ever wrong.
“How do you know it’s him?”
“A little birdie told me he’s been popping up—quite literally—all over town several nights a week for the last month. It’s causing quite the stir. After judicious sampling—at every venue possible—I’m inclined to believe it’s Michel.”
Jo drummed her fingers. Again, she reminded herself Trevor never lied about food—and he was never wrong.
Damn.
“I’ll run it by Mel and call you back in half an hour.”
Warm approval melted his voice. “There’s a good chef.”
“I’m not a—
Click.
All things considered, Trevor “Darling” Georges was one of her most favorite people in the world, second only to her family. This fact did not make him any less a pain in the ass. She’d duct tape him to the nearest water tower if she didn’t suspect he’d enjoy it. Knowing him, he’s spot some rare, mythical Illinois state truffle while he was up there, and then she’d never hear the end of it.
Damn. Again.
“You’ve got that look on your face.”
Jo looked up to find Mel peeking over the Hanging Gardens of Babylon with a bemused expression. “What look?”
“Equal parts annoyance and hope that screams ‘Trevor Darling.’
“Accurate as always—especially the ‘screams’ part.” Jo sat back, twiddling her pen. “How do you feel about shipping me off to Montreal?”
“With or without the air holes?” She dipped her head to inhale the flowers. “Speaking of a-holes…Paul again? This is the third time this week.”
Jo’s gave her a smug smile. “He lost his Michelin star.”
“You mean your Michelin star.” If Jo’s smile was smug, Mel’s was downright feral. “Serves him right.”
Mel was that most perfect of friends—never pushy, but fiercely protective and ferociously loyal. “Sounds like a trip to the frozen tundra of fine cuisine will make as good as an escape as any.”
“It’s not an escape. It’s a ‘strategic retreat’.” Jo crooked her fingers into air quotes.
“Semantics. So what’s the story?”
“Get this: Ian Michel might be back.”
Mel’s perfectly groomed brows lifted. “Really? Is Trevor sure?” She caught Jo’s expression and, like all good best friends and editors, read it on sight. “Of course. Book it, and start an expense ledger. And don’t forget to call your dad.”
Jo blinked. “My dad? Why?”
“Depends—is the chili cook-off still on for this Sunday?”
Jo groaned. Of course Mel would remember—that enthusiast of all things chili and firemen. As her editor sashayed away, Jo reached for the phone a second time.
“Well, lads,” Ian said in solemn tones. “You’ve had a good run. But now, I’m afraid, it’s time to say farewell. I’ll miss you all—especially you, Skip. Your lively spirit will be missed by all.”
Ian got no response. But then, one generally didn’t from a fresh bucket full of crabs.
A sigh from the corner of the kitchen interrupted his pep talk. His former partner Thomas leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “Get on with it, will you? It’s not like they’re going to get any fresher.”
The kitchen door swung open, then, as Ian’s restaurant manager Sam entered. He looked at Ian, then peeked over the counter to get a look at the crabs.
“Lovely. Dead Crustacean Scuttling, then, is it?”
Thomas snorted.
Ian ignored his partner, and upended the bucket of struggling crabs into the steaming cook pot. “They could be innocent,” he argued. “You never know.”
“Nah, they all say that,” Sam said in his working-class English drawl. “Criminals, the lot of them. Let ‘em fry, I say.” He took another peek. “Or steam, as the case may be.”
Ian closed the lid. “Followed by smoking for a finish. All to achieve that better ravioli in the sky.”
At the thought of smoked crab ravioli, they all took a moment to salute the cook pot. There were just some things in this world worth the sacrifice of live crab, innocent or not.
Ian studied the cook pot in silence, though he could feel two pairs of eyes boring into him, compelling what he didn’t want to say. So he said it. “What if it sucks?”
He immediately hated himself for the self-doubt trickling into the cracks of his outward calm. He was a chef—he wasn’t supposed to care what people or the industry as a whole thought. Thomas certainly never had. But Ian feared he cared too much, that his lack of confidence would cause him to flare out before he’d even begun.
“It won’t suck,” Sam said.
“It might suck,” Thomas added. “But who cares.”
Which just illustrated the vast difference between his two best friends.
“I came in here to warn y
ou,” Sam said, changing the subject as though it were of no account. He handed over his tablet for Ian to read. “You’ve been outed.”
Annoyance heated him more than the steam of the cook pot as he skimmed the editorial. “How? And by who?”
“Two questions, one answer—Trevor Darling.”
Ian swore. “Who could have tipped him off?”
Thomas snorted again, inelegantly. “Who do you think?”
Ian noticed his manager’s nervous fidgeting. “Burnsy? You?”
Thomas mimed being stabbed in the heart with great fervor. “Et tu, Burnsy?”
Ian ignored him while he waited for an answer.
“Look,” Sam said heatedly, “Trevor was always on your side, right? Called you the Trojan horse of Gilt more than once—while everyone was watching Thomas, Trevor was always had his eye on you.”
“‘The Trojan horse of Gilt?’” Thomas repeated. “Now that’s just insulting.”
“You need Trevor if you’re going to have a successful launch. Yes, he’s a sneaky, manipulative bastard, but play this right and he’s our sneaky, manipulative bastard.”
Ian deflated at little. “You’re right. Of course you’re right.”
“Good. He’s our best shot to pull this off.” Sam paused. “He’s also been calling for a quote, trying to confirm whether it’s you popping up all over town like one of those horrible whack-a-mole games the Americans are so fond of.”
Ian handed the tablet back to his manager. “Put him off a little longer, if you can.”
“Put off Trevor Darling?” Sam questioned.
“Burnsy has a point,” Thomas agreed. They rarely agreed on anything. “Give him a chef’s table at the next one.”
“You’re right.” Ian nodded thoughtfully, picturing it. “Find out how many will be in his party, and make up a chef’s table at the next pop up. Tell him I’ll join him for a glass of wine after.”
A successful meeting with Trevor took preparation—not to mention a valid passport and a credit card company with a lax stance on increasing limits at a moment’s notice.
Sam nodded happily. “Right you are.” He tapped his tablet a few times and left Ian to his noble—or possibly criminal—crabs.
“So what if it sucks?” Thomas repeated.
“It may not matter to you,” Ian argued, “but it does to me. I can’t help it.”
“Only as far as you learn from it. Own the suck, like a thousand dollar a night hooker.”
That was Thomas, to a T. Cooking as rock and roll and grand opera. And for Thomas, it was. Cooking philosophy and life philosophy, rolled into one.
“I’m pretty sure at that price they’re called call girls. Or escorts, one of the two.”
“Then own it like a thousand dollar a night call girl-slash-escort. Because that’s how you evolve.”
Ian lifted the lid of cook pot, and began spooning the crabs, one at a time, into neat lines on smoking rack.
“Rock and roll, baby,” Thomas approved from his corner.
Yeah. Rock and roll.
OTHER BOOKS
Enjoy the romance of new beginnings with the Heart Linked line:
HEARTH & HOME (Waking Muse #2)
FALLEN ANGEL (Waking Muse #3)
Into action and adventure? How about magic and mayhem? Check out these titles from speculative ink:
AIKA (Keepers of the Flame: Origins #1)
BRIGHID’S CROSS (Keepers of the Flame #1)
CALLIE (Keepers of the Flame: Origins #2)
BRIGHID’S MARK (Keepers of the Flame #2)
TARA (Keepers of the Flame: Origins #3)—Forthcoming February 2015
BRIGHID’S FLAME (Keepers of the Flame #3)—Forthcoming March 2015
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cate Morgan hails from a long line of Irish storytellers and musicians, so it came as no surprise to her mother when she taught herself to read from the back of cereal boxes at the ripe age of three. Now she’s fulfilling her family obligations by foisting her own stories on an unsuspecting public.
She resides in Florida with her long-suffering--if supportive--husband, two resident Ninja Katz underfoot, and gators in the backyard.
Author Website/Blog
Facebook
Twitter
Goodreads