“Then why are you here, in my home, all angry and in my face?” She stood with her hands on her hips, frowning at him. “You could have said something this morning.”
“Because you have to understand the casino is about gambling, the hotel is about comfort and the food...the food...”
She held up a hand. “Stop. Don’t lecture me about food.”
His mouth fell open. “Uh...excuse me?”
She wanted to stamp her foot in frustration. How could she make him understand? “Food is why we get up in the morning. Food doesn’t just feed our body, it nourishes our souls. Food should be surprising and unexpected. Food should be...should be...an experience like riding a roller coaster.”
His lips moved, but nothing came out.
She held up her hands to forestall his interruption. “Are you getting ready to fire me?” She bunched her shoulders, resigned herself to hearing the words. Was one week on the job some sort of record?
He grabbed her by her arms and looked at her. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I’m going to take you off the leash. I’ll deny it with my last breath, but I want people to come to the Mariposa for the food. I want them to come for the mouth-watering desserts. I want...” His voice trailed away.
She smiled. “Okay, done. Do you swing dance?” At least now she wouldn’t feel guilty every time she modified one of his recipes.
He drew back startled. “No.”
“Do you want to learn?” He’d be terrific at swing dancing with that long lean body and natural grace of his. She enjoyed watching him move. She wondered if he knew how beautiful he was to watch. Besides, he was wound a little tight and needed to loosen up. He took food way to seriously. Food should be fun and she was determined to show him how to throw a bit of nonsense into his world.
“I don’t know. Should I want to learn?” He sounded skeptical.
She wasn’t trying to talk him into how to rob a bank. “You should always be open to new things.” Hendrix laughed at herself, she almost sounded like her mother trying to coax her into eating chocolate covered ants.
“I went cliff diving three years ago. I’m good for a few more years.”
Hendrix shook her head. “Swing dancing won’t break your neck.”
He stared at her thoughtfully. “I thought you would admire me for doing something reckless.”
“Swing dancing isn’t reckless. It’s fun, but you do sweat.” She pointed a finger at him. “Friday night. The Orpheum Ballroom. Be there. Eight o’clock.”
“Are you asking me on a date?” His eyes narrowed.
“I’m not asking you on a date. You’re my boss—that would be inappropriate. I just think you need a little fun in your life.”
He stared at her, mouth slightly open as though searching for words.
“Trust me. You’ll love it.” She shooed him away. “Now go. I need to think.”
* * *
Donovan sat in his hot car not totally certain what just happened. Somehow he’d been manipulated and he wasn’t certain how she’d done it. After all, he’d once lived with the master manipulator of all time—his grandmother.
Hendrix was slick. Well played, Hendrix. Well played. He started the car and headed back home.
He hadn’t even had a chance to sit down at his desk before Nina Torres barged in holding a brownie.
“Where are you hiding this amazing pastry chef you hired?”
Donovan sighed. He had the feeling he’d be hearing those words a lot in the future.
He had no idea how Nina and Scott had gotten together. They worked as a couple, a fact that amazed Donovan. She was just so energetic, so high maintenance. So not the type of woman Scott generally dated and here he was engaged to her, their wedding only a few months off. Another brother down, caught in the throes of matrimony. Donovan felt so out of the loop. The three of them had always been close and now the two eldest had defected to marriage and commitment.
Donovan always thought of the three of them as the three musketeers, plus one, with Kenzie, their sister. He missed their childhood, the fun adventures they’d had and the mischief they could get into. Sometimes, being all grown up sucked. Hunter had finally married, Scott was about to be, which left Donovan the odd one out. He didn’t consider his one year marriage to be anything important. Miss E. had known before even meeting Erica that the marriage wouldn’t last, but Donovan had refused to listen.
“I want to know all about the person who masterfully crafted this brownie.” She held it almost reverently.
“She’ll be here at four tomorrow morning like she is five days a week.”
“I can get up at four in the morning,” Nina replied. “If I don’t go to bed.” She took a tiny bite. “This brownie is incredible. I want to sleep with this brownie. I want to have babies with this brownie.”
“Nina, does Scott know you’re so weird?”
“That’s why he chose me. He needed weird in his life.” She gave him a smug smile and went back to nibbling on the treat. “I have to get this to my dad. Do you have any brownies left so I can ship a care package?”
Nina’s father, Manny Torres, owned a high-profile restaurant in Hollywood specializing in Brazilian food. Donovan had planned to eat there once, but had been sidetracked and never made it.
“I’ll have Hendrix make up a special batch and ship it overnight.”
“Do you think she’ll do a cake for my wedding? Or maybe just make a wedding brownie. That would be cool and different. I could build my entire wedding around a brownie.” She took a bite, her eyes closed, a look of total ecstasy on her face.
Donovan mentally rolled his eyes. “Miss E. already talked to her about it.”
“Thank you.” Nina finished the brownie and licked her fingers. “I can’t wait to meet her. I’m going to make this brownie a star.”
“What about me?” Should he feel jealous of a brownie?
Nina laughed. “You’re already a star.” Fueled by the brownie, she flounced out with the same level of energy she’d had when she’d arrived.
Donovan sat back and closed his eyes. No one was raving about his food. He’d spent years perfecting his recipes. He’d spent months retraining the kitchen staff to cook the way he wanted them to cook. And in a week, one upstart woman had everything in chaos. He had a choice. He could either back away and continue on the path he’d set or he could shake things up a bit.
He grabbed the menus for the restaurant and the diner off the shelf behind his desk. He’d been working on calculating his profit margins. And now he was going to have to rework his figures, adjusting them for the new dessert menus, recalculating prices up a bit to take advantage of Hendrix’s popularity. People would pay extra for her desserts. Then he would tackle the task of making his food at the restaurant more exciting and less continental.
He opened his food bible. Every dish he’d cooked in the past ten years had been written down at all stages of development along with comments by staff and customers during the experimentation stage. What they liked, what they didn’t like. How certain spices and herbs changed the tastes and how the final product did after being officially served to the public.
He wanted his food to be the star. What could he do to create that? He paged through his bible trying to look at each of his favorite recipes critically. He thought about substitutions, flavors, herbs and spices. He tried to think like Hendrix and ended up with a headache.
Why did he feel so compelled to change his dishes? He stared at the bible knowing that deep down he wanted to impress Hendrix. He’d been watching her for a week now and saw the way she approached each dessert. Her face lit up while she was cooking and for some reason he wanted her to look at him the same way.
He didn’t want to like her, but he did. Erica had been skin and bones, so thin she was almost em
aciated. For someone who liked to cook, she never ate anything. Hendrix’s curves told Donovan she loved food. And he liked her curves. He liked the soft lines of her face and the way her eyes grew large with appreciation after she ate a sample of something she’d just baked.
At first, he’d wanted to get her out of his kitchen and into her own, but he didn’t anymore. He wanted to watch her cook, to see what she did to give her desserts that little extra surprise.
His thoughts turned to her invitation to go swing dancing. But he didn’t know a thing about dancing. He opened his laptop and started researching swing dancing. He found videos highlighting certain steps. The gyrations made him dizzy. He didn’t think he could do that. But he was going to try because this was step one in impressing Hendrix.
Chapter 5
Donovan spent the remainder of the afternoon cooking dinner for his family. Doing the unexpected didn’t come easily to him. He decided on spaghetti. The whole world loved spaghetti, but he decided to make five different sauces. Each sauce was dramatically different. At least he hoped so.
“What is that marvelous smell?” his grandmother said as she entered his suite. She sniffed and grinned. “You’ve been experimenting.”
“I’m searching for new ways to make spaghetti interesting.”
She gave him a knowing expression as he handed her a glass of cabernet. One of the unexpected delights of Miss E.’s new enterprise had been finding one of the best-stocked wine cellars on the West Coast. Jasper Biggins, the previous owner, liked his wine, and Donovan had found some treasures. “Where’s Jasper? I thought he’d come along with you.”
“He’s in San Diego visiting friends. He’ll be back in a couple days.” Miss E. appeared radiant when she talked about Jasper. Donovan wondered if something was going on between the two of them. “So what is the big to-do about?”
“I need volunteers to sample some food and give an opinion.” He was not about to reveal his self-made competition with Hendrix.
Her eyebrows rose. “You want my opinion. You haven’t asked me for that since you were twelve.”
“I’m starting a new phase in my career.”
“Huh.” She studied him, her gaze shrewd. “People are growing and changing right and left around here. I can barely keep up with it. Does this have anything to do with all the raving people have been doing about a certain someone’s amazing, decadent desserts?”
Donovan hated when his grandmother was so on the mark. “It has more to do with reshaping my brand, as Nina always talks about.”
“Right. How are you planning on rebranding yourself?”
“I don’t know. I just need to do something new.”
Miss E. studied him so thoroughly, for so long he started to squirm.
“Then I’m ready to help,” she said with a meaningful smile.
A knock sounded at the door and he opened it to Hunter and Lydia. Maya, Lydia’s daughter, bounced in. A second later Nina appeared with Scott in tow. The gang was all there except for Kenzie, who’d taken a quick trip to Seattle to check out a new fashion designer she wanted to showcase in one of her boutiques.
His family sat around the table laughing and talking. Nina had finally chosen a wedding gown. Lydia insisted they have the wedding and the reception at her home, which had the perfect gazebo and a beautiful infinity pool that lent itself to the wonderment of a wedding.
He stood in his kitchen gazing around in satisfaction. Even though he’d redone his office to include an industrial kitchen, he hadn’t been satisfied with the kitchen in his suite. Over the past two months, he’d completely redesigned it to his specifications expanding the cooking area, adding industrial appliances and a large table to work at. Currently, he was filling bowls with the different sauces. He then placed them on the dining table and added a heaping bowl of noodles, crusty garlic bread and a large bowl of salad greens.
Maya wrinkled her nose at one of the sauces. “Does that have red peppers in it?”
“Yes,” Donovan answered.
He could see she wanted to tell him that she didn’t like red peppers, but a sharp glance from her mother stopped her. She shrugged but managed to still act in as polite a manner as a nine-year-old girl should.
He placed all the bowls in the center of the dining table surrounding the big bowl of spaghetti.
“We’re the tasting committee,” Hunter said forking spaghetti noodles onto his plate.
“I need unbiased opinions.” Donovan’s brothers were always willing to tell him their feelings about his food, which was usually why he seldom asked. They were both meat and potato eaters, and Donovan knew he wasn’t cooking for a French palate anymore.
They all sat down to eat. For a while the conversation was on Nina and Scott’s wedding and Donovan was relieved Hendrix wasn’t the topic for a change.
“Did you make brownies for dessert?” Maya asked. “Because I really like those brownies Hendrix made and there weren’t any left at the diner when I went in to ask.”
Hunter coughed, trying not to laugh. Lydia looked embarrassed at her daughter’s comment. Miss E. just grinned.
“No brownies. I made gelato in five different flavors.” From the look on her face, Donovan wasn’t going to appease her. Maya wanted brownies. “But I’ll call down to the kitchen to see if they have any brownies left.”
She smiled happily at him, nodding.
“What do you think?” Donovan asked after he cleared the table and everyone waited as he scooped gelato into round bowls.
“I like the meat sauce,” Hunter said.
“But the garlic-butter sauce is so delicate,” Nina said. “I really like that.”
“I like everything,” Miss E. chimed in.
Maya pointed at the plain red sauce Donovan had made. He wasn’t surprised. Some children just weren’t willing to try new foods. He pretty much had the children’s menus down pat—hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches and plain spaghetti. Scott weighed in on the white sauce and Lydia commented on the pesto. They were so not helpful.
“If this is really for the buffet,” Miss E. said, “then use all these different sauces. Give people choices.”
“That is what I would to do,” Scott said. “If you’re redefining the buffet, I think people will eat whatever you offer them. Spaghetti is spaghetti.”
Donovan closed his eyes. He’d hoped for more definitive comments.
“Donovan, dear,” Miss E. said kindly. “You look a little confused.”
“I’ve been cooking for Paris for six years now, and I don’t have a good grasp on what the American palate wants anymore. I need ideas.”
Everyone started talking at once.
“Chicken enchiladas.” Nina looked transported at the idea.
Maya wriggled in her chair. “Hot dogs.”
“Jambalaya,” Lydia chimed in.
“Steak,” Hunter added.
“Steak and baked potatoes with lots of butter and sour cream,” said Scott.
Donovan held his hands up. “Stop. Stop. Everybody stop.” Asking his family for their opinions had not been a good idea. He’d thought that each person would give an orderly collection of feedback on each dish but they’d gone off in their own directions making him more confused than before. “Just stop.”
“When you kids were still in grade school,” Miss E. said, her voice loud enough to capture everyone’s attention, “I volunteered at your school for lunch period. I’m sure all of you remember. Mrs. Bickley was in charge of the kitchen. She had a lot more autonomy over what to cook then. She used to observe what the kids weren’t eating. Maybe that’s what you need to do.”
“How would I do that?” Donovan asked.
“Mrs. Bickley used to go through the trash every day after lunch to see what was not being eaten.”
&
nbsp; “You want me to go through the trash!” The idea stunned him.
“Yes,” Miss E. said. “Go through the trash and find out what people aren’t eating.”
He stared at his grandmother. That was going to be a huge endeavor. He had a hard time visualizing himself in hip waders standing in piles of food.
“Hendrix would do it in a heartbeat,” Miss E. said slyly.
Of course she would. Hendrix would do whatever it took to manage her resources. And if that meant searching the food bins, she’d do it without hesitation.
He glared at his grandmother.
“For the greater good.” Miss E. added, grinning at him.
The argument raged in him throughout the rest of the evening. He stacked plates in the dishwasher, cleaned the pots and, long after his family left, he was still battling with himself.
But it was for the greater good. He would have to suck it up and be a trash picker.
* * *
Hendrix parked her car in the parking structure. She leaned wearily against the steering wheel before forcing herself out. She was tired this morning. She’d spent the night tossing and turning with so many ideas floating around her head. After her conversation with Donovan, sleep had been elusive.
She walked briskly to the hotel. Even at four in the morning the hotel and casino were lit up like Christmas trees. As she approached she saw the waste collection area behind the kitchen illuminated by towering lights. She stopped just outside the area and stared. What the heck?
Donovan Russell sat on a stool with a huge blue tarp spread out across the asphalt. He was with three other men who had trash bags duct taped to their legs with latex gloves on their hands and surgical masks over their mouths. The smell almost knocked her down.
She couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across her face. “Dumpster-diving day. I did this at the bakery.”
Donovan looked up, his face scrunched with irritation. “Why would you Dumpster dive?”
“Same reason you are. To find out what people weren’t eating.”
“What’s not to like at a bakery?”
Bet on My Heart Page 5