“Pickling is great, easy, and adds a completely different dimension to sandwiches. Imagine a hamburger without a pickle. Imagine pulled pork without a tangy coleslaw. You can’t—it just doesn’t work.”
“You wrote an entire article on pickled garlic, Parker. That’s messed up.”
She laughed, playfully smacking him on the shoulder. “Don’t knock it ’til you try it.” She tried to climb off him, but he pulled her back into him. Instead of resisting, she fell into his arms.
“You can pickle all of my garlic,” he said, grinning. “What do you have going on for the rest of the day? Can you stay here? We can shower together, I’ll make you breakfast, we can go swimming, watch a movie, anything you want.”
Staying with him all day was a mistake, but as she looked down at his face and the little piece of insecurity visible behind his eyes, it was one she couldn’t help but make.
“Race you to the shower?” she asked, hopping up from the bed and running full-on to the shower.
She didn’t make it far at all before he caught her, hauling her up against his chest and kissing the back of her neck. “I win,” he murmured against her skin as he walked them both toward the shower. “Fucking finally I win something.”
Much later, she watched from his kitchen island as he cooked her breakfast. Some kind of omelet that she barely paid attention to because he was wearing just a pair of shorts again, and so not just the immense size of his kitchen was distracting her.
Like his bathroom, it was a large space with even more white Carrara marble.
“Your house is really nice,” she told him.
“Thanks,” he said, cracking another egg into the skillet.
“Do you like it?” she asked, pulling out the tablet she always kept in her bag. Now was a good a time as any to start the profile.
He glanced at her, a slight frown on his face. “Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, it just doesn’t scream Hugh to me.”
That made him grin. “You think you know me already?”
“A little,” she told him, grinning back.
“Yeah, well, this is just a place to be, and I got it mainly for the big garage. My real home is in Texas at the ranch, but I get to spend less and less time there as business expands.”
“You miss it,” she guessed.
“Yeah, and I miss my family. I’ve spent most of my adult life on the road and I bought the ranch hoping to spend more time with them, but it kind of hasn’t turned out that way because of the restaurant growing as quickly as it has.”
He threw some chopped-up peppers, onions and manchego cheese into the omelet.
“Why Vegas?” she asked, genuinely curious. “I know it’s your flagship restaurant, but you couldn’t make Texas your home base?”
“The ranch is in the middle of nowhere outside of San Antonio,” he explained. “So it’s not a place for a restaurant and Vegas is the closest restaurant to home. I can catch a flight and be there in two hours if I need to.”
“Why not just open a place in San Antonio then?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “You want me to enter the ultracompetitive Texas barbecue market? Really? I mean, I might as well set my money on fire.”
She laughed. “Am I hearing doubts about barbecue ability from the great Hugh Matteson?”
“Listen,” he said, pointing a black plastic spatula at her, “I never claimed to be a chef and if you’re going to succeed in Texas, you better be the best. I’m already competing with the Big Top here in Vegas and they’re killing it even against the strength of my name.”
“So what I’m hearing is that you’re scared,” she teased, tapping away at her computer.
A hunk of cheese landed on her keyboard and she laughed harder at him. “What the hell?”
“You know, maybe if I had trust in an actual chef who could create a competitive menu, I could move home and tend to my sickly parents,” he said, giving her a meaningful glare.
“Wait a second, are your parents really sickly?” she pressed, concern settling her. “Why didn’t you say that before?”
He flipped half an omelet over the top of the other side. “No, they’re fine,” he grumbled. “But opening a place in San Antonio would have to be something new and outside the box.”
Looking pointedly at her, he slid the omelet onto a plate and placed it in front of her along with a side of salsa, sour cream and crushed-up tortilla chips for makeshift huevos rancheros. Then he got to work on his own omelet.
“You don’t really want me to create a menu for a restaurant you open,” she told him. “I’m not even Texan.”
He shrugged. “Opening yet another Texas barbecue joint in Texas isn’t a smart idea. Like I said, whatever I did would have to be different, something no one there has ever seen before.”
Their eyes met and excitement, plain and simple, climbed through her like carbonation from a shaken-up soda bottle. It was stupid and she wasn’t going to go into business with him, but just imagining all the awesome dishes she could come up with given carte blanche to make a menu was making her itch to get into the kitchen.
“We barely know each other, Hugh,” she pointed out. “Just because I beat you in a barbecue competition doesn’t mean I’m cut out to create a menu for you.”
“Do you know how much barbecue I tasted from the country’s renowned barbecue cooks when I opened Blue Smoke? Hundreds. Literally hundreds, Parker. None of them compared to your stuff. Hell, I even liked that pickled carrot salad whatever the fuck you put on the side of the brisket and I don’t even really like carrots in the first damn place.”
“Even if I wanted to, I can’t move,” she informed him, cutting into her eggs. “Chicago is my home base and I can’t leave.”
As he dropped more toppings into his omelet, she regarded his back. The lines of his muscles formed wings out to his arms and she let her mind focus on how hard he worked on his body instead of building imaginary dreams of creating a menu for a restaurant that didn’t exist.
“Family’s there?” he asked.
She nodded, then realized he couldn’t see her. “Yeah, my dad. Mom left a long time ago.”
That had him turning around. “Sorry about that, sweetheart.”
“It’s okay, but my dad still isn’t really over it. He lives with me, so I kind of have to stick around.”
“Gotcha,” he said, not pressing her further on the issue, which she appreciated. “But you’re able to travel.”
“Yeah, of course, it’s my job,” she said. “He’s not sick or anything, just depressed most days.”
“Because of your mom leaving?”
“He has always been a little depressed,” Parker acknowledged, “but it got worse after Mom left. He couldn’t hold down jobs for very long and stopped seeing his friends. It’s gotten better in recent years, but I can’t leave him all alone in a city without me. Family sticks around.”
“Yeah, they do,” he said. “Except a lot don’t. I didn’t, obviously.”
She met his eyes in warning. Horning in on her personal life was a no-go area for her.
“Look, I’m not judging your choices,” he backpedaled. “I just think it’s a shame you’re tied to a town when you could be doing whatever you want.”
“I am doing what I want,” she told him. And it was true. She wouldn’t rather be doing any other job. Creating a menu for Hugh would be great, but she’d never give up her magazine job. And if she got a little lonely because life on the road kept real relationships away, well, that’s what this thing with Hugh was for. It generally didn’t take more than a week with a guy for her to know that she was better off alone.
Hugh turned to her, accepting her answer with a small smile. “You’re a good daughter,” he said, then pointed to her plate. “Now eat. It’s going to be a busy day for both
of us.”
“I thought we were just going to hang out and swim,” she reminded.
He raised an eyebrow and she realized what he meant. She shook her head because he was insatiable, but it also meant more to her than she was willing to admit.
“Am I really the first girl you’ve had here?”
His fork paused in the air on the way to his plate. Glancing up, he looked the slightest bit hesitant, but then said, “Yeah.”
“How can that be?”
His tongue slid into his cheek like it so often did when he was thinking. “Because I didn’t think I’d have to kick you out in the morning.”
“Wow,” she said, leaning back to stare at him.
“It just means you’re the first girl I wanted to stay, Parker,” he said, oblivious to her heart falling to his feet. “So it sucks to hear that you’re in Chicago for life.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but he just shook his head. “Eat.”
She did as she was told because sex or no sex, she liked Hugh Matteson. Which meant she needed to cut this Vegas trip short because the truth was that somewhere between ordering her first meal at Blue Smoke and eating an omelet in his kitchen, her heart had been put in danger.
CHAPTER NINE
HUGH WAS HAVING a pretty shitty day, which was a rough kick considering how great yesterday with Parker had been. Having her in his house all day as they’d eaten insanely good food, fucked hard and talked their way through the hours had made the day go by in the blink of an eye. For a fun fling, it was the best he’d ever had.
However, yesterday seemed like a thousand years away as he pulled out of the parking lot of the sports bar where he’d met up with an old football buddy.
His friend had delivered the news that Amanda and Todd’s third child had been born. They’d sold the first pictures to some gossip rag, a little girl with Amanda and Todd’s blond hair and blue eyes. While Hugh didn’t want his ex in his life, it was yet another reminder that he was no closer to the family he’d imagined he’d already have by now. Todd was living the life he’d planned for himself, still playing ball, big family. Today it was fucking him up more than usual. Thirty-five wasn’t old, but most of his close friends had a couple of kids and happy families, and he was still alone as always.
He’d stopped playing the field in any real way years ago, too. Building the business and fucking around with whoever was available had gotten in the way of him putting any real effort into finding someone. But he wanted a certain kind of life, hated that his house was so quiet and empty when he came home at the end of the day. Having Parker around brought out the stark truth of how lonely he was. He’d buried himself so deep out of fear of getting hurt again, he’d blocked everything out.
For years, he’d avoided looking at pictures of Amanda, Todd or their family. Today, he’d finally admitted why. Seeing the picture of that little baby made him acknowledge that her betrayal still hurt. He’d given Amanda everything. He’d met her in college and they’d grown up together, gone from young adulthood to adulthood side by side. He’d trusted her like his own family, and she’d screwed him over in the worst possible way.
As he navigated the Summerlin streets in the fading late-afternoon sun, he thought of Parker, wondering what she wanted for her future. Was she content having casual relationships on her travel gigs or did she want to settle down, too? After what she’d told him about her family last night, he wondered if she even knew herself what she wanted.
He took the elevator to his kitchen and when the doors opened the smell of food immediately hit him. He remembered that he had an appointment with Parker for his profile tonight and that he’d given her his code. It was a measure of trust he didn’t lend to anyone, not even his assistant, but he wanted her to be here whenever she wanted. He’d just change it when she went back to Chicago anyway.
He saw her at the stove, cooking in only an apron, and his heart pretty much stopped in its tracks, his pensive mood evaporating as if it had never existed.
“You’re a miracle, Parker,” he growled, stalking toward her.
At his advance, she backed away, waving a wooden spoon between them to fend him off, which was a good move because that apron was exactly one nanosecond away from being a floor rag. “Nope, not yet, everything will burn if you distract me.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me with this,” he bellowed, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation. “You can’t dress up in a child-size apron and expect me to be hands-off.”
He reached for her again, but she slapped his hand with the spoon.
“Come on, baby, I’ll let you smack my ass with that if that’s what you’re into,” he cajoled, crowding her into the corner of the counter, reminding her of what they’d done yesterday. “You can put me in handcuffs, whatever you want. I’m flexible.”
She snorted. “Yeah, right.”
Looking over her shoulder, he saw that she was frying up some sausage in a large stainless steel skillet.
“From scratch?” he asked, noticing the meat grinder on his counter.
“Yeah,” she confirmed.
“Oh, it’s gonna be a good night!” he hooted, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.
She leaned up and planted a kiss on his cheek and he gave her a smack on the ass in return. It was well-deserved after taunting him this way. He was only a man. Who could resist a naked woman in only an apron?
Yelping, she backed away from him. “Go over there,” she ordered, pointing to the island where a cold bottle of beer was already waiting for him.
“What’s all this about anyway? You actively trying to make men fall in love with you?” he asked, settling into the barstool to watch the naked cooking show apparently. “Because I’m as close to proposing as I’ve ever been.” The words were light and joking, but after his lunch he’d be lying if it hadn’t crossed his mind that Parker could be the one, which frankly chilled him to the core. Not only could she not be trusted, she was leaving in a couple of weeks. Two extremely good reasons to keep things casual.
Parker looked back at him. “I’ve been doing research for your profile, so I saw the news about your ex today. Figured you could use a pick-me-up.”
Their eyes met and his gut took another massive hit on the day. No one had ever done something like that for him before. He had tons of people whose job it was to cater to him, but no one was doing it just because they cared if he had a shitty day. Hell, for his birthdays, Amanda usually just bought lingerie for him or booked them both a trip to somewhere she wanted to go. At the time, it’d seemed thoughtful enough, but now he knew better. Maybe he needed to let the lying in the beginning go. Because between caring for her dad, who frankly mostly sounded like a deadbeat, and cooking him dinner in the nude after a rough day, it was time to accept that she was a good person.
“That’s really sweet, Parker,” he finally said, holding her eyes a little too long probably, but craving the connection. “I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, turning to flip over a sausage link. She tossed a salad with a wooden set of tools he hadn’t known he had and stirred some sweet potatoes in a skillet.
He was vaguely interested in the food, but mostly he watched her ass shake as she moved, which was intentional and downright obscene. He was counting down the seconds until she’d let him go at her. It was the sweetest kind of torture to sit so close to her and not touch her. The gold light of the setting sun streamed through the large plate glass windows that overlooked his backyard, giving her blond hair a halo and gilding her pale skin in a dusky glow.
Turning from the stove, she regarded him, but he was mostly looking at her exposed side boob. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, her voice hesitant.
“About my ex?” he asked, not following the conversation due to all the naked.
At her nod, his head fell back
and he looked at the ceiling wondering how to navigate this minefield. He hated talking about this kind of shit, especially having had to deal with it all in the public eye at the same time his entire life went down the toilet.
“I don’t miss Amanda,” he finally offered, figuring he owed something to her since she was cooking him dinner. But hell, he was so tired of the pity. “She was someone I chose when I didn’t know any better. Young and dumb, you know how it goes. But I do want a family, and that they’re expanding theirs does remind me that I’m not close to that place yet, when I thought I’d be well into fatherhood at this point in my life.”
Parker regarded him, turning down the burners on the food to really give him her attention. “I think we all think life will look different at certain stages than it does, I guess. My parents had that kind of life. I was already five years old by the time my parents were my age. I can barely imagine having a cat right now, let alone a child.”
“I can, though,” he admitted. “Imagine having a family, I mean. I’ve been financially stable since I graduated from college. The hours I work are flexible and designed for a family. I’ve been ready, just not able, I guess.”
“Maybe you’re not as ready as you think?” she suggested. “Because you’re obviously a man of action, and like you said, you’ve been in a good position financially to have a family. Obviously something’s been stopping you these last six years from having a serious relationship with someone who could be the mother of your children.”
She’d hit the nail on the head. He hadn’t found or wanted to find a possible mate whom he could truly build a life with. “You’re probably right.”
“Have you dated anyone since your ex?”
“Not seriously,” he told her.
She looked at him like that was the answer.
“Yeah, well, I’ve got some trust issues.”
Parker smiled. “Naturally.”
“I might not mind dating you,” he said, the words coming out of his mouth without thinking. It was too much truth for the both of them, but he found he didn’t regret it.
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