She shook her head even more adamantly. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m afraid. Okay? Are you happy now? You got me to admit it. I don’t want to ride on your motorcycle.”
Her honesty pulled at his heart. His lips gravitated forward, compelled to kiss her.
Almost.
Thankfully, he pulled back in time.
“Alright, Sugar.” He twisted his nose and locked both helmets onto the bike. “We’ll take the Jeep.”
She let out a whoosh of relief, making him realize how scared she had been. “Where are we going?”
CHAPTER FIVE
EVEN THOUGH SHE wouldn’t get on his motorcycle, Shane liked having Audrey next to him in his Jeep while he drove away from the Strip. In the months he’d been in Vegas, he couldn’t think of a time he’d had anyone besides his brother in the vehicle with him.
With the roof retracted, they motored in the open air. Audrey’s hair bounced every ray of sunlight as it whooshed around her face, and her dark sunglasses gave her a fashion that harkened back to movie stars of yesteryear. As they passed the intersection where he’d make a turn if he was going to his apartment, it tortured him to imagine the multiple activities he’d like to engage in with her if they were going there.
Instead, he continued on toward their destination. It never ceased to amaze him that just a few blocks away from the Strip, away from the lights and the jumbotrons, the endless procession of people and the clanking of the casinos, Las Vegas was an actual city. The streets were lined with gas stations, fast food restaurants, medical offices and shopping centers. Residents had jobs and kids. There was suburban wealth and the slums of poverty. Most tourists never saw any of it. The whole point of their visit was the total escape from real life that the Strip offered.
When he pulled into the parking lot of the nondescript industrial building, Audrey gave him a questioning look.
He sprang out of the Jeep and went around to the other side to open her door and lead her to the entrance. With a turn of his key, the metal door in the front of the building unlatched and he pushed it open.
The cavernous space was set up as one enormous kitchen, equipped with many work stations in stainless steel. The walls were redbrick and unfussy lighting hung from the ceiling.
“What is this?” Audrey asked.
“We teach kids to cook here,” Shane said as he pointed to the plastic banner that hung from a wall-to-wall shelf. It read Welcome to Feed U.
“Feed U,” Audrey repeated. “Is this what you do in your spare time?”
“I set this one up a few months ago,” Shane explained, “My family is overseeing about a dozen of these kitchens. You know, a lot of kids are at risk of malnutrition. Maybe they don’t have a parent around during the day to supervise their eating. Or parents are passing on bad habits to their kids. We try to help as many as we can learn about healthy eating.”
At the far end of the space, sun-weathered Lois sat working at her desk. “Hey, Shane,” she called.
“Hi, Lois,” he returned, and then told Audrey, “she’s our kitchen manager. Don’t mess with Miss Lois.”
“I heard that,” Lois yelled over.
“My man,” teenage Santiago called as he came through the side door with a half dozen six-year-olds in tow. Each kid held a herb or vegetable in their hand.
“Ah, you’ve been out to the garden,” Shane said to them.
No matter what was going on in his life, as soon as Shane was with the kids he started to relax. The pressure was off. He didn’t have to be a big, fancy chef. In a way, Feed U had nothing at all to do with his distinguished career or running the restaurants. But because his family lent their famous name to it, the Feed U Project was growing. Plans for even more locations worldwide were in the works.
Santiago and Shane did their four-part handshake. Shane high-fived each of the kids.
“I want you all to meet my friend Audrey,” Shane said. “Santiago here is our teen supervisor.”
Audrey fumbled trying to follow Santiago’s handshake. She raised her palm toward the kids in a tentative hello.
“What’s everybody cooking today?” Shane asked.
“Salad with matos,” one of the kids answered.
“Tomatoes,” Shane corrected. “Cool.”
“And kooky-umbers,” another kid added.
“Yeah, cucumbers.” Shane nodded. “What else are you making?”
“We’re baking bread,” piped up a living doll with curly blond hair.
Although he was sure he’d never have kids, couldn’t be trusted with that kind of responsibility, he loved working with them. There was never anything fake with children. Everything was alive. Nothing else existed except the honesty of the moment. That little cutie who’d just announced they were baking bread was receptive and radiant with pure optimism.
Shane could vaguely remember how that felt. A happy, if impatient, kid himself, his parents and Grandma Lolly had paid attention to him. They were able to see that his intuition in the kitchen as a child was something unique. It was their belief in him that had propelled Shane’s rise to such a high level at such a young age.
And he’d rewarded their faith and nurturance by becoming a burned-out grouch. Who’d made a rash marriage that had led to a horrifying conclusion. All of which brought him to almost burying himself alive.
Had he succeeded, or could he find his way home from almost?
What had made him just smile wistfully at Audrey?
“Okay.” He summoned his attention back to the kids. “What are the three rules we always have to remember in the kitchen?”
“Learn the safe way,” the kids all chanted. Which was followed by “Always cook with an adult.”
“That’s right,” Shane affirmed. “And what’s the third important thing to remember?”
The kids shouted, “Rock ’n’ roll!”
Audrey giggled.
With that, Shane flicked a switch on the wall and music played from several speakers scattered around the room. He wiggled his hips and the kids followed suit.
“You work with Santiago and help the kids knead the bread dough,” Shane said to Audrey. “I’m going to cut the vegetables and then they can compose their salads.”
“Oh, no. I’ll just watch.” Audrey seemed uncomfortable. In fact, she looked at the kids like the precious and fragile miracles they were.
“Why?” Shane probed.
“I’m, uh, I’m not used to being around children,” she whispered.
“Here’s your opportunity. They won’t break.”
“I wouldn’t want to take any chances,” she said with her chin pointed downward.
“Chances of what?”
“That I couldn’t protect them.”
Not a day went by that Shane didn’t have a thought like that. He wondered where Audrey’s fear of herself originated.
“I don’t think there’s much danger in kneading bread dough,” he tried to reassure her. She was acting very out of character. Not the spunky and confident go-getter she was at the hotel. “Did your mom have you help in the kitchen when you were growing up?”
“No,” she said quickly, “my mother wouldn’t let me come in the kitchen. She said that it wasn’t a place for children.”
Those words stung Shane. The kitchen was for everyone. It was a place where love could be passed from generation to generation. Food could mean care. Or rejuvenation. Or bonding. He wished there had been someone to teach Audrey those lessons when she was a kid. No wonder she liked sweets. She found the pleasure of food that way. He’d have to work on her.
A life in restaurants had shown him a lot of crazy eating habits that had nothing to do with food. Women so thin he could see their bones right through their skin who dined with powerful men yet never ate a morsel themselves.
He’d learned that sometimes they didn’t eat as a way of exercising control over food when they didn’t have control in other areas of their lives.
Or those rich and important men who’d stuff so much food in their faces they’d become red and sweaty. Maybe they’d been criticized by their parents and now they were showing the world they deserved opulence because they had made something of their lives.
Shane had dozens of stories about the role of food in people’s lives. That’s why Feed U’s mission was to help young people foster healthy relationships with eating.
“Come here, munchkin, what’s your name?” He called the girl with the ringlets over.
“Mia.”
“Mia, my friend Audrey here doesn’t know anything about making bread. Can you help her?”
“It’s easy,” the little girl said. Then she lifted up her hand to take Audrey’s and guided her to the work station. Audrey swallowed hard. Shane almost thought he saw her biting back tears. He fought an urge to go hold her, to wrap her in his arms and tell her everything was going to be okay no matter what it was she was carrying around in her soul. He wanted to right her wrongs. Release her from them.
But that wasn’t his place. Nothing about their association with each other entitled him to really get to know her.
He couldn’t help but visualize Audrey looking like little Mia when she was that age. The blond hair, the brown eyes, the determined set of their shoulders. Seeing them together pulled at Shane’s heart. There was something unspeakably beautiful about how the young girl gave Audrey a ball of dough and showed her how to press it with the heels of her teeny hands.
Audrey glanced up and her eyes met Shane’s. “I can see why this means a lot to you,” she said to him. “It would have to me when I was a kid.”
“Yeah, Shane’s cool,” Mia said.
“Yes. He is.”
Shane scratched his beard stubble, humbled.
Tonight he and Audrey were attending their first strategic event. To show him off. She wanted him seen in public, to become a glittering fixture on the Strip. Something he’d completed avoided, hovering in his kitchen day and night.
They were going to a new nightclub at Caesars Palace. As his publicist, she’d escort him. Soon they’d head back to the hotel to get ready. It’d be an evening of limos, nice clothes, razzle-dazzle.
Fine, Shane thought. He’d play the game, after all, they were betting high to win. One thing he knew was that, secretly, he was looking forward to spending the evening with Audrey.
Just to keep her company, of course.
And it made good sense to at least get out of the kitchen and be seen around Vegas. He’d cut himself off from almost everyone except his family. He had chef friends here. His old-kitchen mates Tino and Loke were cooking on the Strip, yet he hadn’t seen them in all the months he’d been coming into town to supervise the construction of the restaurant. Worse still, he hadn’t gone out to see Josefina, the grandmotherly friend that he considered a mentor. He’d talked to her on the phone but hadn’t been able to face the look she’d give him, knowing in an instant how much of himself he’d let slip away.
He watched Santiago move around from kid to kid to be sure they were able to do the kneading. Shane liked the sixteen-year-old aspiring chef, who was earning high school service credits for helping the little ones. Santiago made his way over to Shane at the salad station.
“Shane, man, like, how do you create a recipe? Like, how do you know what ingredients to put together?”
A good question. One Shane had, apparently, forgotten how to answer. “I think one recipe kind of leads to the next,” he managed. “You taste some dish you like. You figure out what’s in it. That this tastes good with that. And then it occurs to you how you could make it better.”
“Yeah but, like, how does that actually happen?”
Oh, if he only knew. Here he was opening up a high-profile restaurant in one of the top food destinations in the world, yet he couldn’t find his way back to the imagination and originality that had brought him his initial acclaim. Where was the magic that his family had seen in him even as a young boy? Who had he become?
“Patience. Focus. Concentration.” Shane tried to answer Santiago’s question with what came to mind. His stomach wrenched into a knot, his fists balled involuntarily until his fingernails were digging into his flesh.
Why on earth couldn’t he follow his own advice?
* * *
Audrey modeled in front of the mirror in her bungalow. She didn’t like the fifth dress, either. Why she objected tonight to all of these dresses that she usually enjoyed wearing, she didn’t know. The perfect one just wasn’t jumping out.
Nix on the black fitted dress with the cap sleeves. Too somber.
With the many dressy occasions at the hotels, Audrey owned a substantial wardrobe. It was what the job demanded. Her dad, and her grandfather back when he was still alive, only had to choose from tuxedos and tailored suits when they represented the company at events. Men had it easy. Audrey owned clothes for black-tie affairs, celebrations, civic functions and sportswear, along with the conservative business dresses and skirts she wore most of the time.
No to the red dress with the ruffles down the front. Too froufrou.
When packing up in Philadelphia for her stay out here, she figured ball gowns were not going to be required and left those behind. Vegas nights would call for party frocks and cocktail dresses. She’d need to straddle the line between tasteful, the Girard brand promise, and current, so as to present herself as on top of trends. She’d packed a few suitcases full, along with shoes and accessories, knowing that someone at headquarters could send more of her things if she needed them.
The emerald green with the ruching at the waist? Better for a wedding guest.
It wasn’t lack of selection that was prohibiting her from deciding on a dress for tonight. The truth was that she wanted to look good for Shane. Although she told herself that shouldn’t matter one iota, it did. She was going out to a nightclub on the Las Vegas Strip with a devastatingly handsome and charismatic man. She hadn’t done anything like that in...she couldn’t even remember the last time. If an event she attended called for her to bring a plus one, it was always her dad. That duty was to have switched to Reg. Tonight it was Shane who needed the date.
Veto on the geometric pattern wrap dress. Too casual.
So while Audrey traveled the globe and certainly lived a life of culture and even luxury, for the moment she was a nervous teenager going out on a first date with her crush. “Whoosh,” she said aloud. Better push those feelings out of the picture right now. They had no place in her world. This was not that kind of date.
Even though she had thought of Shane almost every day since she’d first laid eyes on him in St. Thomas ten years ago. How he skidded up to the entrance of the hotel on his motorcycle, yanked off his helmet and shook his hair out in the sea breeze. He’d spotted her, little Audrey Girard, that day in tennis whites holding her racquet as she crossed the valet station. He’d winked at her and she’d been mortified with embarrassment at his attention. Yet she’d never forgot it. Nor the chaos in the kitchen and especially not the late-night encounter in the sea.
That was then. This was business. It couldn’t be anything more. She simply needed to put on clothes for the evening. The first dress she had tried on was the best. Copper-colored and satiny, it had a halter neck with a deep V in front and a slim bodice that gave way to a full skirt. The style was a bit retro 1950s, which suited her hourglass figure. The dress also had a modern edge with its length, which ended well above the knee, making her legs look longer than they really were. She paired it with metallic high-heeled sandals and an evening purse. Earlier, she’d begged Natasha at the salon to blow out her hair and do evening makeup on her face.
With her ensemble complete, she headed for the door. Giddiness and appreh
ension about seeing Shane competed within her despite her attempts to shut them down. Cardboard cutout Shane gave her an appreciated boost of confidence when he complimented her with “You look hot.”
She blushed as she thanked him.
“You look hot,” real Shane seconded with his seal of approval as he ushered her into the limo. He spiked her temperature, as well, in his slim-fitting black suit with a dress shirt and no tie. How did it happen that he chose a brown shirt that perfectly complemented the copper of her dress? Kismet. He slid in next to her, much closer than was necessary, before the chauffeur shut the car door.
Shane settled back against the leather seat. Whether he meant to or not, his trouser-clad leg brushed against her bare thigh. Acting on the urge to shift away would have been too obvious, so Audrey froze in place. Her skin tickled at the fresh smell of his wild hair, which brushed incongruously against the jacket of the fine suit he had on.
“Champagne?” Shane asked although he didn’t wait for an answer as he expertly and cleanly popped the bottle’s cork. He poured the bubbly into the two crystal flutes that had been set up for them. Caesars Palace wasn’t far away from the Hotel Girard. Drinks weren’t even in order, and Audrey never took more than a bit, but it was a fun touch. And traffic moved notoriously slow on Las Vegas Boulevard.
“To our new venture.” Audrey proposed a toast. They clinked glasses and sipped.
Shane gave her a small smile. It wasn’t one of his sexy smirks. This one was intimate and knowing, as if he saw right through to her soul. Its focus tormented her.
“Why are you examining me like that?” she asked after the silence stretched too long yet his fix on her didn’t waver.
“Wondering who you are,” he rejoined quickly. “We’ve been acquainted for a long time but I don’t really know a thing about you.”
“I like movies and long walks on the beach,” she kidded in a monotone about the typical get-to-know-you answers.
“Me, too!” Shane played along.
“And cuddling with puppies.”
Her Las Vegas Wedding Page 7