by Tami Lund
She’d made a choice to take over Louisiana Kitchen instead of continuing to pursue her dream of making a living as an artist, and while she loved the restaurant—and appreciated the steady income—she also resented it. If Connor had a chance to realize his dreams, she of all people could not hold him back. Except ...
“Then why are you here now?”
“Remember, my wallet was stolen? I can’t go anywhere.”
“Oh.” Her brother’s warnings about guys with crooked smiles echoed in her head. “Right.”
***
Going back to Louisiana Kitchen had been stupid. But when he drove away from that bus terminal, he’d felt so overwhelmed, all he could think about was getting into a kitchen, getting behind a grill, throwing himself into cooking. He needed to get his hands dirty so he could think straight, so he could relieve the stress that had him twisted into knots. With no other options at his disposal, he’d made a dive for his foxhole.
He’d gone to Emily Kate.
She had been angry, and he didn’t blame her. He should have let her stay that way. It would have been easier, because damn it, he had to leave. At some point, he had to go back.
But he hated to see her upset, hated that she practically hated him. Hated being so close and not touching her. Christ, he had it bad.
But not bad enough, since he lied to her about his reason for coming back. He almost told her the truth but changed his mind at the last second. At least this way, she allowed him to stay on at the restaurant, even took him home with her at the end of the night.
“Fine,” she said after he reminded her he had no ID and no money. “You can stay. You can work tonight, and you can sleep in my guest room. But tomorrow we call my brother and let him handle this.”
He hadn’t even heard anything she said after “sleep in my guest room.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s FBI,” she said. “He’ll know the quickest way to get you a new form of identification.”
“No, I mean why do I have to sleep in the guest room?”
She’d given him such a strange look that he was certain he must have missed a large portion of the conversation.
“Connor, when you have a new ID in hand, where do you expect to be?”
“Is this a trick question?”
She harrumphed at that point, clearly growing agitated with him. “In Detroit,” she announced with a flourish. “Your ten-year dream? All your hopes and wishes? Oliver’s?”
“Oh. Right,” he said, refusing to understand the connection between his leaving and her insistence that they no longer share a bed.
“I’m not sleeping with you anymore. I’m not going to do that to myself again. How fair is it to me to keep having sex with you when I know you’re leaving at any minute? Not to mention I’m about to lose another executive chef.”
He didn’t particularly like her reasoning, although he grudgingly understood it. On some primal, female level, she did not want to get attached. Since he was already attached, he well understood that she might be worried about how that would feel.
His body, unfortunately, wholeheartedly disagreed with her reasoning. Sleeping in the guest room, which shared a wall with her bedroom, knowing she was only a few feet away, asleep, all alone in that big, empty bed, was the greatest form of torture. He lay awake for most of the night, alternately reliving the last few glorious nights and talking himself out of heading next door and climbing into her bed, consequences be damned.
Except the consequences were damned, and he knew he couldn’t do it.
Now, after dragging himself into the kitchen in search of a strong cup of coffee, he found Emily Kate sitting at the dining room table, already drinking coffee and reading the newspaper. As he pulled a mug out of the cupboard, she turned around and looked at him.
“I think you have some explaining to do,” she announced.
He poured coffee into the mug and walked over to sit at the table next to her. “What are you talking about?”
She slid the newspaper across the table and sat silently, gesturing at the front page.
“That’s me.” The article covered the entire top half of the front page and included a blown up picture of the bus terminal, with security personnel and police officers standing in clusters on the sidewalk out front. Superimposed into the corner of the picture was a smaller, grainy one of Connor. “Where the hell did they get that?”
“Your mug shot?”
“Contrary to what you obviously believe, I’ve never been to jail. What the hell is this about?”
She pulled the newspaper back in front of herself. “The FBI would like to speak with you at your earliest convenience. Something about a stolen vehicle that had been rented by the federal government.”
“I left the car at the rental place. That’s not stealing.”
She stared at him. “Why were you driving an FBI vehicle in the first place?”
He lifted his hand, cupped the back of his neck. What the hell did he do now? Tell her the truth? All of it? Part of it? None of it? Did he run again? Tempting, but he had thirty bucks in his pocket and no means of transportation. Not to mention the fact that his face was splashed on the front page of the local paper.
“I saw your brother at the bus station, and I panicked. He left the car running, so I took it. All I could think about was getting out of there.” He wrapped his hands around his coffee mug and hunched his shoulders while staring into the steaming, murky liquid.
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. And I don’t know what to tell you. I screwed up, Emily Kate. I’m involved with some shit having to do with the casinos, and I don’t want to tell you because I’m afraid the people who are after me will come for you, too.”
“People are after you? Who’s after you?”
He took a chance and glanced up—thank God she appeared more concerned than angry. But that was part of her charm. She was such a caring individual, she tended to put others first, her own wants and needs be damned. If only he could be half the person she was.
“I’m not going to tell you. Didn’t you hear me? I’ll be putting you in danger.”
“Then tell my brother.” She reached for her phone lying on the table. Connor covered her hand, holding it there so she could not pick it up.
“I can’t talk to the FBI, Emily Kate.”
“It’s my brother.”
“He’s still an agent of the federal government.”
“What, are you afraid you’ll get arrested?”
Connor flapped his hand at the newspaper. “You tell me. What would you think, if your picture and your name were splashed all over the front page and there’s a request from the feds to talk?”
“Connor, be realistic. If they truly believed you were a criminal, they wouldn’t ask you to turn yourself in via an article in the paper.”
He supposed she had a point. Except he knew what else he’d done. Stealing her brother’s rental car was the least of his issues.
“Jack is on his way here.”
“Shit.”
“Just talk to him. Explain your situation. I’m sure he’ll understand.”
“Isn’t his job to arrest people like me?”
“Not if you’re innocent.”
Connor waved at the newspaper again. “I did this,” he said.
“I’m sure Jack will understand,” she repeated.
Connor pushed away from the table. “I’m equally as sure that he won’t. How long before he gets here?”
“About an hour and a half.”
He strode from the room.
“Where are you going?” Emily Kate asked as she stood and chased after him.
He stopped when he reached the bathroom door and she nearly barreled into him. “To take a shower. Care to join me?”
Her face reddened, like he expected it would, and she vigorously shook her head. Too vigorously. He stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.
“What are you going to do a
fter you shower?” she called through the door.
“I don’t know. Probably go to the restaurant. I think better when I’m handling food.”
***
While he showered, she retreated to the boathouse, which she’d converted into an artist’s studio after she’d moved into her grandparents’ home. Just as Connor used cooking as stress relief, Emily Kate had her painting. She noticed as she walked across the deck that someone—Connor, she assumed—had replaced a few rotted boards there, too. When had he had time, and how had she not noticed before? Nevertheless, she was grateful and appreciative that he’d done it without expecting any sort of praise. Which she found interesting, considering it seemed to her the very thing he was searching for in life was praise for his craft.
Inside the boathouse, she lifted the protective canvas off the paintings she’d finished, and then situated them in a row under the windows. Her forte was definitely landscapes, even though she still itched to paint Connor’s portrait while he was standing behind the stainless steel counter at Louisiana Kitchen.
She should hate him right now. He had certainly given her enough reason to. Leaving without telling her. Planning to do it all along. Returning and getting angry that she didn’t welcome him with open arms. His refusal to tell her what trouble he’d fallen into. His insistence—still—that he needed to go back to Detroit to realize his dreams.
Yes, she should hate him, but she didn’t. With her luck, she was in love with him, although she hadn’t actually fallen in love ever before in her life, so she didn’t exactly have something upon which to base what she felt for the frustrating man. Since the feeling was strong and passionate, and she was certain it wasn’t hate, her natural conclusion was love.
Which was a problem in itself. The anticipation of heartache —because she knew he would eventually leave for good—was, in her opinion, as bad as actually suffering through the real thing.
A noise drew her attention away from the paintings—Connor, standing in the doorway, freshly showered and reminding her of decadent chocolate and sexy baths.
“These are gorgeous,” he said, his gaze on the paintings.
“Thanks.”
“I mean it. You have talent. Serious talent. You could definitely make a living at this.”
She waved her hand in a vague fashion. “I have the restaurant.”
“But that isn’t your dream.”
“No. But I still care about it. It’s a piece of my life, my childhood. I want it to be successful. I just wish I could find a balance between the two.” She had foolishly believed Connor would bring that to her life.
“I’m sorry.”
His apology was a nice gesture, not that it changed anything. “Why didn’t you tell me you fixed the deck?”
He shrugged.
“Thank you for doing it. I really appreciate it.”
He appeared surprised by her graciousness. She tilted her head to the side. “You’ve never told me the reason behind Oliver not promoting you to executive chef. Do you even know why?”
He cupped the back of his neck and his gaze darted to the side. “I, uh...I’m not exactly the most scrupulous person.”
“So I’m beginning to notice,” she drawled.
“I slept with Oliver’s wife.”
She gasped. She didn’t necessarily have an expectation of what he would say, but that had not been remotely on her radar.
“I didn’t know it at the time.” He flapped his hand helplessly. “This is embarrassing to say, but women...I don’t know. They’re attracted to me. It’s been like that ever since I’ve worked in restaurants. I was fourteen when I took my first job as a dishwasher. And even though I wasn’t legally old enough to work, I got moved pretty quickly to the front of the house, because the manager said I was a nice compliment to the scenery. I didn’t even fully understand what he meant at the time.”
He stepped up to the row of paintings and crouched to more closely admire one of an oil pump in the middle of the lake, with a bald eagle perched on the top.
“When it happened—when I hooked up with Oliver’s wife—I had been working at his restaurant for four years and was pretty sure I was next in line to be promoted to executive chef. She was waiting for me one night after my shift. Standing next to my truck, wearing a trench coat and this sexy, practically see-through number underneath. Introduced herself as Gina. Never mentioned her last name. I’d never seen her before. She was a silent partner in the restaurant and rarely visited. I was single, she was hot, so I took her home.” He shrugged, as if to say, What else would you expect me to do?
“Obviously, Oliver found out,” Emily Kate commented, her anger morphing into a mix of emotions. She was still upset, of course, but sympathy pushed its way in there, as well as jealousy. While it had happened six years before she met him, frankly, Emily Kate didn’t want to think about Connor with any other woman, casual affair or not. That was beside the fact that he’d left without saying goodbye. Or, truthfully, that he’d left her at all.
“She told him. I don’t think it was anything personal to me. I was simply who she chose. For whatever reason, she was angry with her husband and sleeping with some other guy was her way of lashing out at him. And instead of blaming her, Oliver blamed me, and I spent the next six years working my ass off to prove he should promote me anyway.”
“Why? Why didn’t you leave and go somewhere else? What was so special about Oliver’s?”
“Besides the fact that it’s the premier restaurant in Detroit?” He shook his head. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, actually. And I’ve come to realize it isn’t even that. It’s the fact that he wouldn’t give it to me. The ultimate challenge. If I could just convince him to promote me, my life would be complete.”
“What about now? Do you still believe that?”
“I think it’s damned difficult to change the mindset I’ve had for most of my adult life.”
She turned to the window and watched the bayou meander by for a few seconds. “Jack will be here shortly.”
“Your brother?”
“Yes.”
“I’m not ready to face him, Emily Kate.”
She heard the fear in his voice. Whatever he was involved in, if it was connected to the casinos, and if her brother was also involved, Connor probably was smart to be afraid. A small part of her wanted to help him, but at the same time, his recent honesty not withstanding, she still wasn’t entirely ready to forgive him. Although in truth, she figured he was also doing the right thing by not telling her. He had far more morals and scruples than he believed he did. Still feeling uncertain, she dug the car keys out of her pocket and offered them to him. He looked up, a surprised expression on his face.
“I suspect you’d like to go to the restaurant,” she said.
“Yeah.” He covered her hand, squeezing it for a moment, and she thought he might try to pull her into a hug, but he let go instead. “Thanks. Call me when you’re ready to go in, and I’ll come get you.”
“I will.”
“Thanks, Emily Kate. I ...”
“I know,” she said simply, and then he nodded and left the boathouse.
***
“Hey, Jack,” Emily Kate said a short time later, when her brother stepped into the kitchen and gave her a hug.
“I don’t suppose you’re in the middle of making breakfast?” he asked hopefully. “I’m starved.”
Emily Kate chuckled and began pulling eggs, butter, and a package of sausage patties out of the fridge.
“How’s the case going?” she asked as her brother helped himself to a cup of coffee and then sat down at the table.
He lifted the newspaper and glanced at the front page. “I see you’ve read all about it.”
“So that’s connected to your casino case?” She knew that, of course, from what little Connor had told her, but she hoped her brother might give her more information. Information that could somehow help Connor out of the hole he’d dug for himself. Maybe, jus
t maybe, if she helped him fix his problems here, he might realize the dream he thought he wanted could be had anywhere. Including Louisiana Kitchen.
Jack nodded and sipped his coffee. “I swear, it gets more fucked up by the day.”
Emily Kate stood at the stove, grilling sausage patties. “So this guy Connor is a criminal?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“I don’t know what he is. I know that the local bus terminal was on lockdown for about four hours yesterday and that he was there, and a half dozen witnesses saw him get into my rental car and drive away. Not to mention the fingerprints we pulled from the steering wheel match his. What we can’t figure out is why the hell he stole the car and then left it at the rental place without trying to wipe his prints. Either he’s trying to get caught or he’s stupid.”
“Or maybe he’s not a criminal and doesn’t exactly know how to act like one.” She glanced over her shoulder and saw Jack’s scowl.
“He’s the same guy Vik pegged as spearheading this scam he insists is happening at the casino. The reason Cullen and I are here in the first place.”
Emily Kate lost her grip on the spatula. It clattered to the floor, splashing grease on her legs, the floor, and the front of the stove. “W-what did you say?”
Jack jumped to his feet. “Shit. Are you okay? Did you burn yourself?”
She waved away his concern. “What do you mean, he spearheaded the casino scam? How do you know this?”
He gave her a funny look before bending over, retrieving the spatula, and placing it in the sink. “We don’t know for sure. Vik claims it’s him. That’s why we were at the bus station yesterday. We had a tail on Vik’s guy, and when the tail told us he was camped out at a bus station, along with a guy who matched this Connor Rikeland’s description, we headed over, figuring one or the other was trying to skip town. What is wrong with you?” He grabbed the pan of smoking sausage patties and flipped off the burner.