“Since I can’t you convince how badly I need you in Paris, then I’m heading back,” Erica said.
He’d done nothing wrong and wouldn’t apologize to her for anything. “My home is here and I’m exactly where I want to be with the people I want to be with.”
“Including that cute little pastry chef you have the hots for?”
Donovan just smiled. He wasn’t going to let Erica get a rise out of him. Hendrix wasn’t any of her business. “She makes things interesting in the kitchen.”
“And out?” Erica probed.
“A gentleman never tells.” Donovan kissed her on the cheek. “Have a nice flight home.”
Erica shrugged. She smiled sweetly and left, just as Lydia walked out of the kitchen, a furious look on her face. She held a clipboard in one hand with a stack of orders clipped to it.
“Do you want know what I just found out?” Her voice was so angry it echoed off the walls.
“Do I want to know because you’re pregnant and my brother’s wife and you may look as sweet as an apple pie, but you scare me?”
“Donovan Clayton Russell,” she said, her hands on her hips, her chin jutting forward belligerently.
Oh, God. He braced himself.
She held up her phone. “I just found out that someone impersonating me changed the cabinet order from what I originally gave them.”
Donovan frowned. “You need to tell Scott.”
“How could anyone think I would pick something so tasteless? If Leon and David were still in town I think they were trying to sabotage me.”
For a second Donovan didn’t know who she was talking about and then remembered they were her stepsons who’d tried to force her to sign over guardianship of Maya to them. “Someone is trying to disrupt us.” But who?
“I’ll contact Scott,” Donovan said. “You straighten out the order and check with our other suppliers to make sure nothing else has been changed.”
Lydia nodded. She gripped her phone while flipping through the stack of papers on the clipboard.
Donovan called his brother and Scott told him to meet him in his office and that he would corral Hunter and Miss E. It was time for an in-depth family powwow.
Chapter 11
The meeting with the appliance company was the oddest meeting Hendrix had ever been to. When she and Donovan were back in his car, she confronted him.
“What was that all about? You insisted he call me back if anyone calls and tries to change the orders. What the devil is going on?”
He started the SUV and cool air flooded the cabin after a few moments. Donovan looked as though he was struggling to stay calm. “This afternoon the workmen were installing new cabinets in the kitchen and Lydia discovered they were the wrong ones. When she called the supplier, she was told the order had been changed. She started calling other suppliers and discovered someone had called posing as her and changed the order for the new flooring from the cream-colored tile she’d chosen to black. And the order for new ceiling fixtures had also been changed. Lydia’s on a rampage. And I don’t want the same thing happening to your kitchen.”
“Who would do something like this? I don’t get it.”
“Hunter, Scott, Miss E. and I had a meeting this afternoon to try to figure out who would want to disrupt the repairs. The only person we could think of was the executive chef who quit last September.”
“How would he know what to do?”
“Because his sister is a waitress in the diner. No one knew because she’s married and has a different last name, but when Scott looked at employee records, he discovered the connection.”
“What happens now? You can’t fire her. You don’t really know for sure if she’s informing him of anything. And it may be that she’s completely innocent. After all, he is her brother, she would talk to him. And he would know...”
“But that doesn’t explain the broken mixer, the broken and missing temperature gauges, the fire extinguishers being hidden in different places and the empty first-aid kits. Someone on the staff has to be behind that.”
Hendrix nodded. Evidence was not in favor of the waitress. “What are you planning to do?”
“Keep an eye on her.”
Donovan drove Hendrix back to her home. He pulled in behind a strange car parked in the driveway next to her VW bug. When Hendrix exited, the door to the Camry opened and Vanessa Peabody stepped out looking elegant in a pale gray suit with a purple silk blouse that matched the purple stilettos on her feet.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” Vanessa said without preamble. “Also, I’m hungry. Do you have anything to eat?” She followed Donovan and Hendrix to the front door. Hendrix unlocked the door and opened it to the cool interior. She led the way down the hallway to the kitchen where she flipped on the overhead lights.
“You’re asking me if I have food?” Hendrix said with a laugh.
“I had to skip lunch.” She opened her briefcase and pulled out her tablet and a manila file folder.
“What brings you to visit?” Hendrix hung her purse on a hook inside the pantry, and then pulled out a storage container of mixed crackers she’d made a few days before. From the refrigerator, she removed a round box of Brie cheese, a jar of strawberry jam and another one of jalapeño jam. She popped the Brie into the microwave.
She set plates on the table. While Donovan poured wine into glasses, Hendrix arranged crackers on a round platter with the Brie in the middle and scooped the strawberry and jalapeño jam into round bowls. She set the platter on the table, her mouth watering. Brie on crackers with strawberry jam on top was one of her favorite snacks.
Vanessa turned on her tablet. “Those two women are insane.”
“You mean Lisa and Susan?” Hendrix asked, though she already knew.
Vanessa nodded.
“What happened?” Donovan asked as he handed Vanessa a glass of wine.
“Let me preface this by saying there are over 8,348 recipes for champagne cake on the internet. And at least another 1,301 more in various cookbooks. And I know this because I just paid my intern twenty-four dollars an hour to count them and it took her two days. And those are only the English ones.” Vanessa held up her glass of wine, looked at it and drained it in one long, extended sip. She held the glass up for more. Donovan obligingly refilled her glass.
“That’s all?” Donovan said. He sipped his own wine, his face thoughtful.
“I could have saved you the time.” Hendrix said. “I knew approximately how many recipes you would have found.” She settled on a stool, spread Brie on a cracker and dropped a dot of strawberry jam on top. She popped it in her mouth.
“I have built into the countersuit that they will have to pay all the legal fees incurred should they lose, assuming this ever gets to court. And as for that shyster lawyer they hired...” Her voice trailed off as she took another sip of wine and bit into a cracker. “I think he found his degree in a trash bin.” She poked at her tablet computer. “They have a lot of nerve...” Again her voice trailed away as she stared at her tablet. “They amended the lawsuit and are now asking for twenty million dollars in compensation.”
Hendrix sat down, stunned. “Twenty million dollars!”
“Basically, if you give them twenty million dollars tomorrow, they will be happy to drop the lawsuit.”
“Yeah,” Hendrix said, “let me go open my piggy bank.”
“You don’t have to pay them anything,” Donovan said.
Hendrix chuckled as she held up her hand. “Sarcasm alert.”
“Oh,” he said, and bit down on his cracker. The Brie oozed over the edges. “This is good.” He gave Hendrix a curious look, but she simply shook her head. She’d tell him later what else was in the jams besides strawberries or jalapeños.
“This is totally ridiculous.” Vanessa t
ackled a cracker, chewed it and closed her eyes as though she was being transported to another world. “This is amazing, Hendrix. I love it.”
“Thanks,” Hendrix said.
“I’m preparing a motion to have this dismissed as a frivolous lawsuit,” Vanessa continued.
Hendrix nodded even though a part of her just wanted to go to court and fight. “Somehow this whole thing makes it look like I cheated.”
Vanessa patted her hand. “Hendrix, I know how you feel. I want to fight, too, because not only are these women mean, but their lawyer is so shady, I want to do whatever I can to put him out of business. But, the fact of the matter is, this is going to cost money and there are other legal issues way more important than champagne cake that need to come before the judge. There are too many lawyers who waste the court’s time when more important issues with serious ramifications need to be taken care of.”
Hendrix sipped her wine. Her reputation was at stake, too.
“I can’t speak for my grandmother,” Donovan said, “but I’m pretty sure she’d be inclined to support the countersuit.”
Hendrix held up a hand. “And this is another point. As much as I appreciate your grandmother’s confidence in me, I should be fighting this suit. My reputation is being attacked.”
Donovan slipped an arm around her and hugged her. “You’re part of the Mariposa family now. Lisa and Susan have no idea what the consequences are of taking on the Russell clan. We are smart.”
“If their choice of lawyer is any indication, being smart isn’t swimming around in those women’s gene pool,” Vanessa said, grabbing a couple more crackers. “I can’t get enough of these crackers. I know chefs don’t ordinarily give out their recipes, but would you consider giving it to me?”
“I’d be happy to,” Hendrix replied.
“Anything you say to me is confidential.” Vanessa looked hopeful.
“I’ll give you copies of the jalepeño and strawberry jam recipes. The crackers take too much time—just buy a high-end brand and you’ll get the same taste result.”
“That’s assuming you wrote anything down,” Donovan said, teasing gently.
Hendrix laughed. “I don’t play with jams too much. I love the interaction of flavors between the salty crackers, the Brie, the sweet strawberry jam and the spicy jalapeño jam.”
Vanessa started to pack up her tablet and the file folder. “What do you want to do, Hendrix?”
“I want to drop them off a mountain into an active volcano.” Hendrix sipped her wine and put the glass down. “Do whatever you have to do to make them go away.” Her reputation might suffer in the short-term, but in the end she would still be the winner. She could develop other cakes. Nothing she baked was dependent on any one recipe.
“Well, I don’t think it’s ever going to make it to a jury,” Vanessa stood, smoothed her skirt over her slim hips and brushed a few wandering crumbs off her blouse. “But to be on the safe side, we’ll have to be prepared for that possibility. I better get going.”
Hendrix walked her to the front door. “I’ll message you the recipes.”
“Thank you.” Vanessa looked at her for a moment and then reached out and hugged her. “Before I met Miss E., I had the most boring practice in Reno. Now I’m making the world safe for those who love champagne cake.” She waved as she walked down the front walk to her Camry.
Hendrix closed the door and leaned back against it, almost too tired to move. She heard the clanging of pans in the kitchen. Smiling, she walked back to the kitchen to find Donovan bent over, searching through her refrigerator.
“I’m making dinner,” he announced as he drew an onion, potato, yellow zucchini, red pepper, tomato and carrots out of her refrigerator. “Have you ever had ratatouille? I make a mean one. And you have all the ingredients.”
She sat down at the table, and poured herself another glass of wine. And with her chin cupped in her hand, she watched him bustling about her kitchen and thought how comfortable he looked and how comfortable he made her feel.
“Can I help?” she asked.
“Find a wine to go with this. You have a nice little selection in the pantry. I’ve got the rest.”
He gave her a look that just about melted her heart. She grinned at him and went to the pantry to search for a wine to go with their dinner.
* * *
Donovan watched Hendrix put the last dish in the dishwasher. Unlike him she was very neat in the kitchen. Funny, he never thought that would be such a turn-on, but something about her flipped his switch.
“You are staring at me.” She tilted her head at him.
“You are beautiful.” With her face flushed and her hair falling down her back, she was the most alluring woman he’d ever met.
“Your ex is perfect.”
“She does look perfect, but a lot of what’s inside is fake.”
“Then why did you marry to her?”
“At this moment, I have absolutely no idea.”
“You are a weird guy, Donovan.”
“Maybe.” He walked up to her and turned her to face him. Using his body he pushed her against the kitchen countertop until she was not quite sitting on it.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you think?”
“Are we going make love here? In the kitchen?”
“I like your kitchen.”
She nodded toward her bedroom. “I have a perfectly good bed in a perfectly good bedroom.”
“You have good light and a lot of counter space right here.” He reached under her top and pulled it over her head and then unclasped her bra. Her breasts fell free, round and heavy in his hands. He cradled them, his thumbs circling the nipples until they grew hard. She leaned back, resting her hands on the counter, her breasts jutting forward. His breath caught in his throat at the way she posed.
“Like what you see, Donovan Russell?” she purred.
He kissed each breast reverently, his tongue circling the tight nub, and then pulled her legs apart so he could settle between her thighs. His erection was so hard, he was going to burst.
God, her mouth was so soft. Everything about her was soft and sweet. He liked that about her, among so many other things. She smelled like the finest cinnamon and most expensive vanilla.
Their tongues danced together and for a few moments he forgot about all the crazy things going on and focused on the warm desirable woman before him.
He cupped her face and pulled her closer to him. Her hands trailed over his back up to his shoulder and tangled in his hair. She pushed him away enough to fumble with the buttons on his shirt. He leaned farther back to help. When her bare hands touched his skin he thought he would explode.
He reached for her jeans and unsnapped them and tried to work them down her hips. “This isn’t working.”
“I have a bed in a room.” Her eyes were heavy-lidded with passion, her mouth bruised and swollen. She looked wanton and so desirable he started to unbutton his jeans.
“I want you here.”
She laughed.
He loved the deep, throaty sound of Hendrix’s laugh. It wasn’t polite and sweet, but robust, loud and unrestrained. Everything about her was so real. Alive. Passionate. Like her food. Like her personality. She was amazing.
He felt her hands on his stomach sliding down to his pants. The soft rasp of the zipper caught his attention and her fingers slid inside to grasp his erection. His breath caught in his throat. Reaching into his back pocket he pulled out his wallet and quickly pulled out a condom. Then he stepped back and shimmied out of his pants. She twisted until she worked her jeans down her hips to her thighs and then slid them down her calves to puddle on the floor.
“Let me.” She took the condom from his trembling hands. Quickly she rolled the latex over the hardness of his penis. T
he touch of her fingers made him even harder.
Hendrix slid her hips to the very edge of the counter, grabbed his shoulders and moved her legs up and around his hips. Donovan took her hard and fast, thrusting into her tight moistness. His orgasm built to such intensity he could barely keep his balance.
“You feel so good, so...so...” He couldn’t find the words.
His tensed and his muscles strained. Deeper. Deeper. She began to tremble, to whimper while urging him deeper.
Her eyes closed. He felt her orgasm build. She tensed. Her inner muscles gripped him so tightly he couldn’t stop himself. Suddenly, she screamed. He could feel the spasms of her inner muscles gripping him until he finally let go and climaxed with her. He hung suspended, his body pressed to her, her nipples hard peaks against him.
“You are going to kill me,” he said when he finally found his voice.
She laughed and kissed him. “What a way to go.”
Yeah, he thought. And he’d go gladly.
Chapter 12
Donovan cracked eggs into a bowl, whipped them and dropped them onto the hot skillet. His favorite breakfast was an egg omelet seasoned with parsley, sweet basil and sage. On the counter a small flat-screen TV blasted out the dulcet tones of their morning host, Toni Aquilar, who shared her observations on the events and happenings in Reno every morning beginning at six.
Donovan stifled a yawn. He’d gotten little sleep and had only left Hendrix’s place an hour ago. She’d been elbow-deep in flour and barely even noticed him walk out the door.
“Good morning, Reno,” Toni yelled as she walked out onto the sound stage, arms wide. She was a perky looking woman with the trademark blond hair of female TV commentators, a heart-shaped face and a tiny body that made her head appear too big. She wore a too-tight dress that left most of her legs bare and jewelry that was just a tad too flashy to be tasteful. “We have a wonderful show for you this morning. We’ll be giving you the inside scoop on what is being labeled the Reno cupcake wars. Don’t miss this exposé. Back in four minutes.” She kissed the palm of her hand and then blew the kiss at the audience who clapped wildly. The opening credits flashed across the screen and then faded to commercials.
Bet on My Heart Page 13