But one thing was fairly certain, after Crockett’s exit, no other partner retirement loomed on the horizon for another several years, barring a tragic death. Zach wasn’t the type to hope for that.
Unless Zach got this, he was superglued to the treadmill, possibly for a decade or more.
The Firebird would never get restored.
Racing out, Zach skipped the creaky elevator and instead skipped down the stairs two at a time. Downstairs, he broke into a dead run for the two blocks toward Du Jour. He’d never wanted a meal more in his life, apparently.
When he got there, however, the door was locked, and the sign was flipped around to CLOSED. He’d missed it again—not only the meal, but the girl and the answer and the one remaining chance to secure his future.
The scent-remnants of whatever had been cooked for the lunch du jour still hovered in the air. Zach’s stomach roared in discontent when he conjured a mental image of the Chilean sea bass he’d missed on Thursday. He cursed Kinsey under his breath again.
He gave one loud knock of futility and dejection on the shut door. So close, yet so far. Shoving his hands in his pants pockets, he turned to see if there was a taco cart anywhere nearby he could raid before heading back to the grindstone.
She’d probably given up on him, thinking he’d stood her up, and he couldn’t blame her.
Come to think of it, that might have been the situation he’d encountered when he first saw her the other day. She was sitting there with two plates of food, hers with the sweet potato fries picked over, and the other untouched. Had she been stood up? It certainly looked like a possibility. If so, what made Zach any better than the guy who clearly cared little for her or her amazing efforts in the kitchen?
Nothing. He was the same jerk as the other guy. Chad, hadn’t she said?
It was hard to picture Piper with a guy named Chad. Chad sounded like a surfer Zach once knew with no job. Piper deserved better than that.
If Piper had shown hesitation to accept his plan and his offer last night, it was probably based on people letting her down.
But, no. Zach wasn’t Chad. He wasn’t going to let her down. One locked door wouldn’t stop him.
“Piper? You there?” He knocked three more times, successively louder.
Cupping a hand over his eyes against the afternoon sun’s glare, he put his face to the window of the door to look inside, and yes! Here she came, walking fast, shaking her head in an unnecessary apology. Man, she was cute.
“Sorry. Hang on.” She turned a lock and opened the door. “Sorry. You’re early,” she said and then glanced up at the clock. “Oh, no. Apparently not. I’m late. How long have you been standing out there?”
She was wearing an apron tied tightly at her waist, showing how well it nipped in and contrasting with the other areas that curved just right. She ushered him inside, and he followed.
“Where is everyone?” Zach looked around. There were no traces of customers or that waiter or anyone. It smelled just as good as it had on Thursday. Even the chairs were up on the tables.
“It’s Saturday.”
Zach stopped in his tracks.
“Oh. You’re not open on Saturday.” But she’d come in and cooked for him. Guilt twinged in him because he’d asked.
“I hope you don’t mind, but I’m changing things up because I’m not changing things up.” She looked nervous and discombobulated, which made her even cuter. “What I mean is I’m not following my business partner’s point of pride, which is that we make something new every day, and because I made you something that I’ve served before.”
“Oh, so you never repeat? As in, ever?” Please say it was the sea bass.
“That’s the gimmick we’re working with here.” She pressed open the door to the back part of the restaurant, and a sunny white kitchen opened up in front of him, sparkling clean, and filled with spices and steam. “When you were in here last time, neither you nor I had much of a lunch. I had a few of these fish left, and it was either cook them or use them to turn myself into one of those women who feeds the feral cat population.”
“Sea bass.” Zach’s heart collided with his ribcage. “You may have just unblocked my spiritual progress.”
“What?” Her eyes smiled. They looked even more luminescent when she smiled. He couldn’t stop staring at them.
He told her about never being able to forgive Kinsey for sending away the best lunch he’d ever almost eaten. “But now…”
“Well, we nearly had pasta with marinara sauce, but my little internal voice whispered to me to not let the bass go to waste.”
“Listen to that voice, Piper. Never ignore it.”
They sat down across from one another at a small table right in the kitchen to eat. It felt homier than if they’d been in the dining room, more like he was getting a glimpse inside Piper’s real world. She took delicate bites, flaking away at the crispy skin and sipping her water.
“This is…wow.” The fish was even better than his mind had dreamed it would be. Every bite a flavor burst of soft, flaky fish. This woman was the Willy Wonka of lunches.
“If you hadn’t liked it, I don’t know what I’d be thinking right now.”
Oh, so maybe the fish had been a test? He didn’t care. It was a breeze to pass this exam. They talked about her recipes, and she told him about getting her training at Le Cordon Bleu, and then working for a while in Dominion Hills before starting this place. She clearly had a gift, and this food deserved to be tasted by as many as would appreciate it.
“Did you say you’re up for a Texas Star?”
“From Texas Foodie, yeah—assuming I don’t get deported and Du Jour doesn’t get shuttered. Its one-year birthday is in three weeks and it becomes eligible.”
“You ought to be up for a Michelin Star.”
“Oh, even I don’t aspire that high. This is a lunch bistro. I doubt Michelin even notices bistros.”
They should. This food was straight from heaven. When he’d finished scarfing it down, he got his nerve up.
It was time.
“What did your little internal voice you mentioned tell you about my offer?”
Piper frowned a moment and took the dishes to the sink. He got up and went to help her. She ran a plate under the steaming faucet.
“It wants me to ask more questions.”
“Shoot, then.” He took the clean plate and dried it with a clean towel from a nearby pile. “I’m an open book.”
“No, you’re not. And that’s the problem.”
“I was up front with you about this arrangement being in my interest as well.”
“But that’s just it, Zach. I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true, though. The structure at Crockett, Bowie, and Houston isn’t going to promote me to partner unless I have a wife.” It won’t hurt that it’s a gorgeous wife who’d bring the most delicious canapés of all time to the Christmas potluck, either.
“But I’ve been watching you, Zach. Yeah, I think you want to be partner there. You do seem like the type who wants to be in charge. Am I right?”
“You’re not wrong.” But only because he usually could see effective solutions to problems faster than most people, and it would save everyone a lot of time and money if he was in charge.
“But that’s not it. You’re not about the money. And you’re not about the prestige, either.” She’d shut off the water and was turned toward him, eyes narrowed, like she’d put on some kind of X-ray vision power. “You’re doing it for some other reason.”
Seriously? Two meals together and she’d seen through him? His mouth was drier than this plate he’d been wiping for a full two minutes. He’d never been transparent like this to a woman before, at least not that he knew of.
“And, Zach? Even though I’m desperation incarnate, I am not going through with this unless you tell me what your other motive is. I can’t.”
Although his insides twisted at the idea of telling her about his family’s struggle and the
fire and subsequent tumble into decrepitude, he kept his face a mask of calm. Up to now, he’d never opened up to any girl he’d dated about the burning of the Double T Ranch. He’d never even really talked about his parents. He’d mentioned Libby, of course, that she existed and loved to read, but no way had he taken any girls out to the ranch.
Piper, though, needed to know. If they married, she’d find out sooner or later. Concealing this big of a situation might come back to haunt him.
Then again, the full force of the sight of the destruction there, and the lack of effort to recover it, might drive her away.
Maybe he could break it to her slowly.
“All right,” he said finally. “Come with me.”
Chapter Ten
Piper still had Zach’s ring in her jacket pocket, and as they got out of his truck and walked up to the door of the storage unit, it banged against her hip. It was the prettiest ring she’d ever seen, and when he hadn’t been around, she’d tried it on her finger at least ten dozen times—and taken it off.
It’s not right. I’m in a relationship. Chad asked me to be faithful.
But what did faithful mean, exactly?
Who was she kidding? She knew precisely what Chad had been referring to—and it was a lot more physical than emotional.
Being with Zach threw all her emotions into a KitchenAid mixer, though. Spending lunchtime with him, as he asked about her education and her successes, and as he gushed about her food as if it was ambrosia and not just leftover fish, those emotions got stirred up even more. If her feelings continued to get Zach-attacked, and the two of them got married, being totally faithful in Chad’s sense of the word would get harder.
In fact, considering how gorgeous he looked in his suit and how cute it was as he fumbled with a key for this storage unit, it was getting a lot harder with every breath now. Her lower lip still tingled from his breath last night when she let herself think about it.
Maybe she could kiss him just once. Perhaps as a thank you for offering to come to her rescue.
“Here it is.” Zach gave a mighty lift to the storage unit’s metal roll-up door and dust billowed out. “It doesn’t look like much.”
There in the dim room sat a burnt hulk of an old car. Piper stepped toward it and waited for her eyes to adjust. Of all the things in the world she’d assumed would await them inside this locker, the thing that drove Zach to insist on a business arrangement between the two of them, she wouldn’t have expected a soot-covered hunk of metal from the 1970s.
“You’re into classic cars?” Her mind spun through the reasons this could be more important to him than money or prestige, what he’d put everything on the line for. A wealthy lawyer working at Crockett and Whoever could buy hunks of metal like this—nicer ones—all the livelong day.
“My dad is.” He paused. “Was.”
Her heart lurched inside her. Zach had lost his dad?
“He…died?” Her mouth dried as she said it. For all the annoyance and trouble her dad—and mom—had caused her in the past couple of days, and for all the weird that had oozed out of them over the years, Piper couldn’t imagine trying to navigate life without her dad’s guidance.
“No. Not exactly.” Zach dug his toe at the floor of the storage unit. “Just his ambition.”
Piper nodded, something dawning inside her, though she didn’t understand fully. Something had gone wrong inside Zach’s dad.
“That’s more complicated,” she said.
“Yeah.”
She took a longer look at the car, walking around it. It was in really rough shape. The exterior was completely torched, like a marshmallow left too long in the fire. The engine area and upholstery didn’t look any better.
“This could cost a mint. It’s a Firebird, isn’t it?” She knew a few makes. Practically everyone knew this one, though, the classic of classics when it came to sports cars from the 1970s.
“A 1978.” He ran a hand across the hood of the car. “I’ve been looking all over the internet to find an engine for it, but no luck yet. If I can get the partnership, it’ll mean I can set my hours. I’ll have time to work on it.”
“I’m sure you haven’t missed the irony that the Firebird…burned.” Piper swiped her finger across the windshield, soot blackening it. She rubbed her fingers together to lessen the black stain. “Although, I have full faith in your ability to make it rise from the ashes.”
Zach cocked his head to the side, as if he was taken aback by her vote of confidence in him. It made her blush a little, so Piper clarified.
“If whatever’s gone wrong with your dad is as complicated as you implied, you couldn’t hire it out. It’s not the money that would fix it. Only your time would.” She looked over at him, and he nodded, and his face looked almost grateful.
“I’ll do whatever it takes.” His jaw clenched.
“Even marry a complete stranger?” As she said this, her heart pounded. The ring box in her jacket pocket suddenly gained weight.
Zach walked around to the passenger side of the burnt car, where Piper stood.
“To be completely honest, I don’t think of you as that much of a stranger.” He looked at her with those heavy-lidded brown eyes of his, melting her like chocolate on a double boiler. She gulped. He didn’t seem like a stranger to her, either. Somehow she could always guess what he was concealing.
“Sometimes a short acquaintance of a couple of days can be a lot deeper than one with someone you’ve known for months.” She gulped again, his nearness affecting her. “Years.”
He nodded assent, his eyes never leaving hers. Dust particles danced in the slanting light around them, and the room smelled of cinders and petroleum.
“So, now you know.” He took a step closer, his hand taking her elbow, the warmth spreading. She knew he meant this car and his dad and his need for the promotion. There was more, she could tell, but right now he was touching her, and that stole too much of her mind.
“Uh-huh.” There was a hissing in her ears. He’d been this close to her once before—in the boat. Her blood had caused this same sound then, too.
“I’m going to have to get back.” His face tipped down toward hers. She reflexively lifted her chin and felt his breath on her lip again, teasing her, enticing her. “So I’ll need an answer, Piper.”
“So soon?” It came out breathy. He couldn’t leave her yet. Not with the tremors between them bouncing the Richter scale’s needle like this. “On a Saturday?”
“You see why I need this partnership.” That could have meant more than one thing. She nodded, almost unable to think with his skin and breath and torso so near. He pressed a soft kiss to the side of her mouth.
“I do.” It came out husky, like she’d imbued it with five thousand meanings.
His eyes shut, and he grazed her lower lip with his before saying, “I’ll meet you at the courthouse steps at eight Monday morning.”
She nodded, entranced.
“Wear the ring.”
She put her hand in her pocket and slid it onto her finger immediately. It fit.
∞∞∞
Piper stood on the landing in front of her apartment door.
What have I done?
She fumbled with her keys for the third consecutive minute, still unable to get the right key in the lock. Her hands were trembling, possibly under the weight of the new green gemstone ring.
More likely under the weight of the lie she was telling Zach Travis.
When she’d asked him the what are you hiding question, she’d fully expected him to cross examine her in return. He was a lawyer, wasn’t he? That was what lawyers did.
She shook her keys loudly in frustration.
“Come on!” she growled. They had to work.
And it wasn’t like she was telling a lie. It was more like she was concealing something, something huge: the fact that even if their phony marriage scheme did work and she magically didn’t get deported to Kiwi land, there was a very good chance she’d be jaile
d here for using forged documents for her identification.
If that happened, he could be in trouble for aiding and abetting, or being complicit, or some other legal term that meant Zach could be in big trouble, too.
She shook her keychain again, frustration gurgling at the back of her throat about her prior promises: the one she’d hastily and foolishly made to Chad, and the lifelong one she’d made wisely and deliberately to herself—about her chastity.
Yeah, his deep, dark secret Firebird was a lot less likely to burn her than her secret would burn him. By marrying someone who’d committed fraud, he could be jeopardized. She was putting a nice, helpful guy in danger; and by marring someone who’d made a vow of chastity until marriage, real marriage, he’d be in for a world of disappointment if he maintained other hopes.
A tear of frustration slid down her cheek.
“Hey, there, sweetie.” Birdie poked her head out of her apartment. She noticed Piper’s distress. “You all right?”
“Long day. Sorry.” She gave her entire key set another squeeze, the metal teeth gouging her fingers. “It’s fine.”
In an instant, Birdie was at her side, but her breath caught.
“My lands! What is that ring?” She took the keys from Piper’s hand and turned the fingers over to see the ring in the light. “That is…wow. Are those demantoids?”
“I don’t know. I like them, though.”
Birdie whipped out her phone and spoke into it. Piper loved that this eighty-year-old woman was such a hipster—smart phone and old vinyl record player to match her cat-eye glasses and pink hair. “Here. Look at this. I’ll bet you dollars to doughnuts that’s this stone.”
Piper inspected the image of the light green stone that looked so similar to the one shining in the ring from Zach.
“Russian. Very expensive.”
“It’s from Russia? Are you sure it’s expensive? I saw the brown wispy inclusions in it and figured it was flawed.” And wasn’t worth very much, rude of her to admit.
“Horsehair, they call those wisps.” Birdie pocketed her phone. “I used to work in jewelry. Demantoids, oddly, are more valuable with lower clarity. It’s about the only stone like that. One that size—I can’t even imagine what it’d set you back in a retail store.” She made a whooshing sound and swiped at imaginary sweat on her brow.
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