Spooning Leads to Forking (Hot in the Kitchen Book 2)

by Kilby Blades

  “She was young, Dev. I mean, really young, when she fell in love with him. You’ve always known she had you a few weeks before her nineteenth birthday. But she was involved with him for two years before she even got pregnant with you. He was older—so much so that public knowledge would’ve gotten him arrested. She wasn’t even legal when they first got together. She was only seventeen.

  “At the time…” Trudy gave a shaky exhale as she continued telling the story. “Things weren’t great between Josie and your grandpa. You got the best of him and he loved you a lot. But, with her…he wasn’t an easy man. It wouldn’t have mattered who she brought home—her being so young and dating anybody wasn’t something he would stand for. But he would have especially disapproved of your father. So they kept it a secret, even after she came of age.

  In that moment, Trudy’s eyes darkened and Dev saw her familiar grit. It overpowered the sadness and guilt that had formerly etched across her face.

  “Turned out he had his own secrets and his own reasons for keeping them from Josie. And she didn’t find out the big one until she was pregnant with you. And when she saw him for who she really was—a lying, cheating, married man who had exploited the innocence of a teenage girl naive enough to fall in love with him—she told him to leave and never come back.”

  Dev felt like he’d been kicked in the chest. No—kicked about five times, because that was how many blows that had just been dealt. He knew in that instant that John Hamren, in all his tall, dark-haired, green-eyed, never-been-married glory was not his father, just as Trudy had said. It hit him in one way to know that he’d come from a true love affair and not from some fling with a guy just passing through town. But it hit him another way to know that his father had been a betrayer. It hit him fully, to appreciate the intricacy of the lies of a woman he’d canonized. And it hadn’t escaped him that his too-young mother had been drawn in by a too-old man who had manipulated her, just like Shea had been manipulated by Keenan.

  “But what about me?” Dev practically exclaimed, questioning his mother’s own endgame as much as his father’s. Why would both of them punish an innocent child? His mother, by choosing whether he would have a chance to know his father; and, his father, by letting her.

  The compassion returned to Trudy’s eyes. “Oh, Dev…it was more complicated than that. She found out about his wife before she found out she was pregnant. He didn’t live here. But he spent a lot of time here, and he always came alone. One weekend, his wife showed up to surprise him. Walked right into the room and kissed him on the lips in front of everyone. The wife was pregnant, too. At least six months. When he played along—didn’t deny his wife and ignored your mom like she was garbage, she decided it was over right then. They fought, of course, in private. But she told him where he could go, and he did. Three weeks later, she found out about you.”

  Dev clenched his fists at his sides, so hard that his very short nails dug into his palms, too livid to even sputter out his next question. He wanted to roar—to punch something—to run out the back door and keep running until he found himself deep in the forest. But there was more to be known. And what little control he had left reminded him not to take it out on her.

  “Did—” He gulped around his question, pushing down a lump in his throat. “Did she ever even tell him?”

  Trudy’s tears, which had been brimming, finally spilled over and made a rapid descent down her cheeks. “No. If it was anyone else, she would have. She knew he had a right. But she was scared. He was a powerful man.”

  What does that even mean?” Dev demanded.

  “It means he was rich and she was poor. It means, after his betrayal, she didn’t trust anymore that she knew what he would do. It means, after he showed her in that moment when he chose his wife over the woman he’d been saying he loved for two years, all she saw was his instinct for self-preservation.”

  Dev frowned, hurt and raw and eager to find fault with his mother, but unable to deny some of her reasons. Even when he’d been a broken teenage boy in mourning, he hadn’t wished his mother back to life as fervently as he wished it now. He wanted to hear her justification from her.

  “At the time, I’ll admit: I questioned her,” Trudy continued. “But there was a piece of it I didn’t understand until I was expecting my own children: that when you have a little life growing inside of you your instinct is to protect that life so fiercely, you might even protect him against his own father.”

  Dev shook his head, and was suddenly exhausted, his limbs heavy and pulling him down. Sinking into a chair, he put his elbows on his knees.

  “I don’t understand. Did she think he was dangerous?”

  “Dangerous and powerful are two different things. She was sure he could’ve gotten custody if he wanted it.”

  Trudy leaned closer, then, like she had when he was younger, like his mother had, for that matter. She cupped his cheek in her palm and, for a minute, he felt like a little boy.

  “It was a different time, Dev. And this place was a different place. All you remember is how things were with Eric. But before him, she didn’t have any support. Not from her father or from anybody else. If she found herself having to go up against your father, she would’ve been alone. A nineteen-year-old girl, going up against the most powerful man in town.”

  Dev pulled away a little, all while narrowing his eyes, disbelieving of Trudy’s insinuation. There was only one person she could mean. To this day, the livelihood of Sapling remained controlled by a single family. The mastermind behind it all was none other than Donovan Packard.

  But Dev didn’t have it in him to fight anymore. He didn’t have it in him to feel enraged. He didn’t even have it in him to question the sanity of what Trudy was telling him. His brain felt slow in its gradual piecing-together of small facts that filled in missing chunks of the puzzle.

  Dev didn’t know how long he sat like that, just piecing things together—not even asking Trudy questions, but just thinking. He thought about all the times he’d watched in wonder as the Packard helicopter had arrived and departed from the mountain when he was a child. He thought of all the times he’d pointed in excitement and knew now what it really meant when his mother had frowned and gone out of her way to pull them off of the street and duck them into a store.

  He thought about his prodigious talent—about his uncanny ability to simply make all things business-related work. He thought about how he had the Midas touch for business and how in articles he’d read about Packard, they said the same thing. He remembered with clarity the cover of an old magazine in which Packard had been photographed with a scepter and a crown. Dev had always been too preoccupied with the success stories themselves—with the methods and approaches of the prodigious mogul who had touched their hometown—that he’d never taken notice of the structure of Packard’s bones or the hue of his eyes. Maybe he should’ve. Maybe if he had, he’d have had an inkling of this. Maybe others already did and Dev was the last person to know.

  “Donovan Packard didn’t abandon the town.” It came out hoarse and scratchy. Abruptly and inelegantly, Dev finally found his voice.

  Trudy shook her head. “No. He left because your mother told him to stay away. And I’ve come to believe him loving her is why he kept that promise to never come back.”

  Dev scoffed, laughing humorlessly. “Yeah...either that, or he took off the second she gave him an out and never looked back because he never really loved her at all.”

  “There was a final promise, Dev…a second piece that factors in. That’s why I’m telling you all of this. She told him that, if he had ever really loved her, even if he never set foot back in here, to promise that he would find a way to protect the town.”

  34

  The Sleepover

  Shea

  I have an apartment in Paris, too, came another text from Kendrick, around an hour after they’d hung up. It was followed in short succession by a link to a photo gallery that showed what looked to be a gorgeous place with a vi
ew of the Eiffel Tower.

  Of course you do, Shea texted back rolling her eyes at the paradox of Kendrick—the computer geek who lived like a baller. She appreciated the offer all the same, and it got her thinking again about her next move. Just because she wouldn’t skip town tonight to avoid confrontation with Keenan didn’t mean she had a plan for where to go.

  What happens after the divorce goes through? the voice inside her asked. Things with Keenan would soon be resolved. And if she didn’t end up in jail, she wouldn’t have bags of cash to lug around anymore. She’d be free to move about the country after she went back to banking like a normal person. And she’d be free to travel on her passport.

  Logistically, it would be easy enough to do. Whatever she didn’t want to take in her suitcase, she could have Tasha put in storage. She already had a unit back in New York. She would be footloose and fancy-free and be every bit as liberated as she’d dreamed of being for more than ten years.

  That was before you met Dev.

  “Holy shit,” she exclaimed out loud when the loud chime of the doorbell broke her out of her thoughts. Somehow, she still hadn’t moved from the bed. Whatever calm she’d achieved after being talked down by Carrie, Kendrick and Tasha spun up into panic the second she remembered who might be on the other side of that door.

  “Butters!” Shea hissed, calling after her dog who was already up from her favorite spot, tail wagging, and trotting toward the bedroom door. Butters stopped and turned to look plaintively back at Shea.

  “Let’s at least see who it is,” Shea scolded her dog, tiptoeing toward the same door, as if whoever was outside could sense her every move.

  Shea hadn’t been so trapped in suspense since Brody had rung her doorbell that time she’d been in the tub. It had only been a matter of weeks before, but it felt like months ago. This time, she had a better plan. She would spy out the window of the bedroom, but this time, she’d make sure not to be seen. And even if it was God himself, she might not answer the door. Short of Kendrick—who could surely get in himself and who never could have gotten there so quickly—Shea couldn’t think of only one person who could make her want to open the door.

  “Delilah?” Shea said out loud the moment she spotted her unicorn-haired friend.

  Alright, maybe two.

  The other one was Dev, who she didn’t at all expect. Dev would surely be busy saving Sapling from the younger Don Packard.

  “Delilah?” Shea repeated a minute later, face to face, after she had swung open the front door, emotion from the day welling in her chest. Delilah’s own smile was strange—part sad, part conspiratorial. Her face was tired and she didn’t look okay.

  “I’m inviting myself for a sleepover. Fair warning: I’m a shitty guest. My hair’s not long enough for braiding and I leave at 4:30 AM.”

  It only took Shea a split second to launch herself into the significantly-smaller woman’s arms, even with Delilah’s hands—as usual—laden with bags.

  “I missed you,” Shea whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. Everything’s been all fucked up.”

  When they pulled back from their hug, Delilah let out a tiny half-laugh, half-sob as she wiped with one finger at her eye and smiled sadly. “You can say that again.”

  Soon after ushering Delilah in, Shea learned that the contents of her overnight bag were, indeed, nail polish and beauty magazines and that the contents of her other bags were food. Delilah took a long, ecstatic greeting from Butters, who hadn’t had any other human contact for a week, like a champ, while Shea laughed at the fact that Delilah had brought ingredients like nutmeg and flour.

  “You didn’t think I had sugar?” Shea laughed.

  “Whatever.” Delilah rolled her eyes as she rubbed Butters behind the ears. “The weirdness of your grocery list is the stuff of legends. And, you know…I didn’t know whether you were baking again.”

  Shea was glad for the light topic. It took her mind off of far headier things, like what Keenan would do when he got his head around everything he had possibly already learned, and what to do about Dev.

  “Technically, I do…” Shea admitted. “Why? What are we making? Don’t tease me.”

  “Let’s just call them evening buns.”

  “What’s the difference?” Shea wanted to know.

  “They’re 100% guilt-free. No one judges you if you chase them with alcohol.”

  Half an hour later, the buns were in the oven and the kitchen was warm with great smells—cinnamon and citrus zest and sugar and butter. A bottle of Bailey’s sat between them. Delilah liked hers neat, but Shea had been sipping hers on the rocks and she was really beginning to enjoy her buzz.

  “I’ve been trying to stay out of the middle,” Delilah said to Shea at the very same time Shea blurted out, “I’m Kent.”

  “As in…” Delilah trailed off.

  It was only the fourth time in her entire life that Shea had uttered the phrase. Shea nodded. “Yeah.”

  Something in Delilah’s face cleared and she gave a little smile. “Suddenly, it all makes sense.” Delilah shook her head. “And I don’t want to pry, but…why would you being Kent cause problems between you and Dev?”

  Shea shook her head and looked down into her drink, ashamed of the twisted mess she’d gotten herself into.

  “He doesn’t even know about Kent. He found out something else. There’s a lot going on with my ex. I’m having some legal trouble. And what I didn’t tell him…it put him in a bad position, him being the sheriff.”

  “Oh, Dev’s not the acting sheriff anymore. He resigned this morning. Duff’s still not 100%, but she tagged back in.”

  “Wait—this morning? Like, at what time?”

  “He told me last night he was headed over to tell her before lunch.”

  “Did he tell you why he was resigning?”

  Delilah raised her eyebrows. “No…but now I’m thinking it had something to do with you.”

  “Look…” Delilah baited after a pause of silence. “Your problems with your ex seem temporary. I mean, it’s not like you’re going back to the guy…the two of you are divorced.”

  Shea cringed. “I call him my ex-husband, but the “ex-” part still isn’t legal …we’re going through a really messy divorce. Like, so messy, I’m going under an assumed name and I had to take money from somewhere I shouldn’t have just to get out of the marriage.”

  Delilah blinked and repeated her question. “But you’re not going back to this guy, right?”

  “Hell, no. It’s beyond over.”

  “And you told all of this to Dev?”

  “He found out about the money and then stopped me before I could explain. He said, the less he knew, the better—that since he was the sheriff, I shouldn’t tell him if I was doing anything illegal.”

  “Only now he’s just Dev again. So you can tell him the truth.”

  “If he’ll even talk to me again,” Shea said with defeat.

  Delilah gave her a look. “Oh, believe me. Dev’s been miserable for days. He will.”

  With that, Delilah picked up the bottle of Bailey’s, unscrewed the cap and poured them each some more before hopping off of her chair and striding over to the oven.

  “I think he’s got another lead on the case,” Delilah reported as she turned on the oven light and craned her neck to see inside. “He, like, flew out of the restaurant tonight.”

  “Wait…I thought he resigned.”

  “Yeah, but they’re still trying to move on the buyout proposal. He spent most of today holed up with the EDC. Arresting a suspect who points to an inside job strengthens their negotiating position. I know he’s been working with an attorney who helped us in the past. Maybe he left to drive to Denver to meet with the guy.” Delilah grabbed an oven mitt. “Give Dev another day or two so he can be in the right frame of mind. The next twenty-four hours are gonna be intense for him.”

  “Him and me both…” Shea mumbled under her breath, her mind snapping to Keenan as she thought of what her ow
n next twenty-four hours might be like.

  Delilah looked up. “Why? What’s happening tomorrow?”

  35

  The Awful Truth

  Dev

  Dev awoke in his own bed, though something about it felt wrong. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so late that bright light streamed through his window. He also couldn’t remember the last time he’d set an alarm. Something told him that he’d slept a long time, and deep. His head hurt and his limbs felt heavy, though he didn’t quite feel hung over. His brain was foggy and he didn’t remember coming home the night before or getting into bed. And he certainly didn’t remember taking the NyQuil that sat on his bedside table.

  Shit.

  Dev only took NyQuil when he really needed to sleep and something stressful plagued his mind enough that he couldn’t—either that, or when he was sick. But Dev was rarely sick, nor should he have been, thanks to his other green elixir. He felt thirsty and off and really hoped he had some of yesterday’s leftover juice in the fridge.

  He grabbed his phone to turn off his alarm and saw he’d also set it to Do Not Disturb, then speculated he might have done all of this for respite from thinking about Shea. Since he’d found that money in her house, he hadn’t gotten a decent night’s rest. Maybe he’d finally surrendered to the idea that any good sleep he wanted, he’d have to engineer himself.

  Shea.

  His mind caught on her name as he thumbed through his phone and made to check his text messages, as was always his instinct to do. As he tried to navigate to that screen, a dozen alerts popped up. Some were for texts, some for voicemail, and they were coming through so quickly, he couldn’t see who all of them were from.