by Drea Stein
She forced herself to look at the worn, scratched, fake wood surface of the table, trying to get her breathing to return to normal. So what if she was sitting next to Sean Callahan? So what if he had been on national TV teaching America how to properly cook a coq au vin, chatting with the pretty blonde actresses and flirting away? He was an ass. They’d met just two times, and at both of them, she had been subjected to his bruising flak and he still had no clue who she was—probably hadn’t even bothered to find out her name.
Willfully, she focused again on what Mayor Peyton was saying, hoping that the minute details of village life would be an effective distraction from the way her body was reacting to the nearness of Sean. She sighed. It was no good. Her whole body was buzzing just from being close to him. Not knowing what else to do, she started to go over the articles of the Universal Commerce Code in head, a truly boring piece of law that required almost total concentration on her part.
Chapter 6
The meeting had taken almost two hours. Well, one hundred and thirteen minutes, to be precise. And when a minute meant the difference between limp pasta and the perfect al dente bite, he knew that these were one hundred and thirteen he would never get back
Sean had been daydreaming. Well, not daydreaming so much as lost in his thoughts. He’d been trying to work through why his latest recipe wasn’t working in an effort to distract himself from the palpable antagonism he felt rolling off of Darby Reese and directed toward him.
He had studied her when he thought she wasn’t looking, noticing the way her hands were small and delicate, yet with long fingers. Her nose was straight with just a slight turn at the end, and when her nostrils flared as his arm brushed against hers, he was hit with a jolt of attraction so sharp, he wondered just what it would be like to get her really angry.
One scowl was what she had given him, and he found himself not caring about the difference between a porterhouse and sirloin but instead thinking only about what it would be like to kiss those lips. He’d struck out big time with her before, but surely she’d be willing to give him a second chance? After all, they’d just met; he couldn’t have done anything wrong yet. Or could he have?
Somehow, between his not paying attention and being hyper aware of her next to him, the meeting concluded, and it was time to go. Like a shot, Darby was out of her seat and headed toward the door before he had a chance to react.
Sean got up in a panic and then tried to look cool. He knew where to find her. Still, he knew he needed to apologize. Sure, he’d said he was sorry this morning, but he needed to give her a real apology. No woman could resist that, right?
Pushing through the crowd of people, with an easy smile on his face, he ignored the looks of people who he knew wanted to talk to him. He was supposed to stop, say a few words. Chase had told him to be friendly, but now he was on a mission.
He moved quickly. “Wait!” he called. She was down the stairs now, onto the tiled floor of the lobby. He picked up the pace, thought wildly for a second about using the wood-carved banister for a faster lift, but instead took the wide, shallow steps two at a time.
He caught up with her on the walkway in front of the village hall. His arm reached out to catch her.
She spun around, her hair blowing about her face, her eyes narrowed slits. “Don’t touch me,” she snapped.
He took a step back, held up his hands. He’d just wanted to talk to her. What kind of crazy lady act was this? “Darby, right?” He put on his best, biggest smile, the one his publicist had told him to use when he was on TV and nervous as hell.
Her hands were on her hips. She wore some sort of pale pink halter top and a skirt that was striped like penny candy. Long, tan legs traveled down to a pair of strappy sandals. For a moment, he had a brief, hot vision of what they might look like wrapped around him, but then he willed it away.
There was a decidedly annoyed look on her face as she stood, waiting for him. He’d been right. Her eyes weren’t a bright green, but a dusky shade like dried sage. And her hair wasn’t brown, as there was too much red in it. Like chestnuts. He had to shake his head to stop the culinary comparisons. Thinking in food was both a benefit and a curse in his line of work.
“I’m Sean Callahan.” He stuck out his hand.
She looked at it, shrugged and said. “We met already, remember?”
He did his best to keep smiling, but her hostility was wearing him down. “Yeah, about that.”
“I assume your mushrooms worked out for you?” Her tone was frostily polite as she turned and began to walk.
Surprised, he had to move quickly to keep up with her. “You know, I have plenty more,” he said, “if you need some. I didn’t mean to send you back to the store.” Friendly. If you were friendly, then someone else was supposed to be friendly back, right? Apparently, this one wasn’t going to give him an inch.
She looked at him, and he noticed that she had a small smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. “I managed to improvise.” Her tone was clipped, and it didn’t take a genius to deduce that she was pissed at him.
He ran a hand through his hair. Usually he didn’t have to work this hard to get a girl to like him. Women seemed to find him charming, at least at first. Until they got pissed off when he decided it was time to move on. Unfortunately, Darby seemed to have moved straight on to the pissed stage, without even giving him a chance. Okay, so he’d not been on his best behavior that morning, at least until he’d gotten a good look at her.
He turned on his high-wattage smile, the one that always worked, and tried his best bad-boy-turned-sorry look. “Sorry, sugar, it was a bit of a crazy morning. I hadn’t had my coffee yet. You know how that goes, right?”
He waited. There was nothing, not a nod or the slowing of her step, so he had to lengthen his stride to keep up with her. He fell in beside her, enjoying the way her long, strong arms moved in time with her pace. This was no little mouse of a woman. He had the distinct vision of a lioness loping along the plains, as matched her determined pace.
“So,” he said, but Darby didn’t stop, “you’re the owner of The Dory?”
“My father is. He’s on vacation. I’m running it for the rest of the summer.” She kept her answers short, staccato bursts of information.
“Do you work with your dad a lot?” He tried again.
“No,” she answered. They passed the fish market, a half-open building, and the gray-haired woman behind the counter yelled out a hello to her. Darby lifted a hand in greeting but didn’t slow down.
“So, are you between jobs then? I mean, I feel like maybe I’ve seen you before.”
“You ask a lot of questions,” she said and shot him a look that he was sure was meant to intimidate. Instead he just became more determined.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be nosy, but it just seems . . . I don’t know . . . that you’re familiar. Sugar, you’re so sweet; I’m sure we’ve met before.”
Darby gave him a withering look. “Does that line really work with girls?”
He took a deep breath and decided to start over. He would find out where they had met before; he just needed to finesse her a bit. “So, you’re not a chef, but your cookies taste like they were baked by a professional. Made me wonder where you were trained.”
He was hoping the compliment would disarm some of the hostility, but instead it only seemed to enrage her.
“Are telling me you have no idea who I am?” Darby stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, her arms folded, glaring at him. He thought that anger made her look even more desirable, the way her cheeks flushed and her eyes danced.
“Should I?” He kept his voice light, while his mind raced. Okay, so he was right. They had met before. But where? Seriously, looking at her, the long legs, tan, shaped arms, the angry eyes and blowing hair, he wasn’t sure he, or anyone, for that matter, could have forgotten meeting her.
Had he already tried to ask her out and been shot down? Or worse yet, maybe she had tried to hit on
him and he had—what would he have been thinking?—turned her down? There had been a lot of late nights in his past, and he couldn’t be sure he could remember every single one of them in perfect detail.
He looked at her, taking in the red-gold hair, the splay of freckles across her cheeks, the sage-green eyes with the slight catlike twist to them and the pert nose that turned up just a bit at the end.
“No idea?”
Baffled, he shook his head and held up his hands in defeat.
With a huff, she turned on her heel and started away from him.
“Hey there,” he reached out and grabbed her arm lightly, but she shook it off.
“Get your hands off of me,” she hissed, barely turning around.
“Nope,” he said, and moved so that he was in front of her, blocking her way. “You’re not going to get away with that.”
“Get away with what?” Her voice rose.
“Teasing me like that,” he said, keeping his voice light. Two could play this little game. He was aware that they were in the middle of the sidewalk and that a few people, like the young girl who worked in the used bookstore, had stopped whatever they were doing and were watching them.
“Teasing you?” Her voice dipped down to a snarl.
If he’d been a smart man, he later thought, he would have backed down then and there, but curiosity and desire—desire to know more about her, to see what other reactions he could provoke from her—kept him marching forward.
“You have some nerve,” Darby said.
“Some nerve to what? You won’t tell me what you’re talking about.” Now he was the one who was pissed, and he knew his tone showed it.
“Nice to know I’m so forgettable,” Darby said, her arms folded over her chest, her stance protective.
“Forgettable.” He took a step, closing the space between the two of them. He could smell her. Cinnamon and sugar, like the baker she was. “There is nothing forgettable about you.”
“Apparently, that’s where you’re mistaken.”
“So you admit it, we have met before.” He moved closer, mesmerized by those eyes. The fire had quieted in them, replaced by a hint of ice, but as he moved closer, they opened in alarm.
His hand touched her arm, and it was like an electric shock through them both, he could tell. She nearly took a step back, but recovered and stood her ground. Her lips were cherry red, drawn back in a slight O of surprise.
“Please, enlighten me. Put me out of my misery because . . . ,” he dropped his head down, close to her ear so that he was sure no one else could hear them, “I can’t stop thinking about you.” As he said it, he realized that, while it sounded like just another cheap pickup line, it wasn’t—at least to him. She had been in his thoughts all day.
“We have met. About a year ago.” Her voice was breathy, and he moved even closer into her, meeting no resistance. Her pulse fluttered at the base of her neck, and he desperately wanted to know what it would be like to touch his lips against it, to have his hands in her mass of red-gold waves, to feel her lips warm and soft beneath his.
“A year ago.” One part of his mind raced to remember twelve months ago. As it was, he was having trouble remembering ninety seconds ago. The other part of his brain couldn’t think but for her.
“The Culinary Academy, New York.”
Something was coming back to him, and he maneuvered even closer to her. She didn’t rear back this time, and he could smell her breath, sweet like peppermint and oranges, as it fanned around him.
“You were a guest instructor. The class was making a classic steakhouse dinner.”
“Rib eye, onion rings, and creamed spinach.” His heart lurched as memories started to come back. So far, she hadn’t moved away from him, and he was so close that they were almost touching. But he knew where this ship was going, heading straight for the rocks, not a lighthouse in sight.
“Exactly. Apparently, my spinach wasn’t up to snuff, which you made abundantly clear, in front of everyone.”
“That was you. Under the chef’s hat.” It all came flooding back to him. He’d been under a lot of stress then and had taken it out on the students. In particular, her. He’d made an example of her. Her creamed spinach had not been bad; it had been awful. Too salty, as if it had been cooked in a bath of seawater. And what was even worse is that he was sure he’d been flirting with her just before that. No wonder she was mad at him.
“But how could that be? I’ve tasted your food.” He was genuinely puzzled. There was no way that this Darby, the one who made cookies so exquisite they were chocolate heaven, could be the same chef as that Darby who had ruined spinach. “What happened?”
“Does it matter? The fact is you were an ass then and, judging by your behavior this morning, you’re still an ass, so you can just get out of my way.” She took a step back, their whispery, electric connection broken. Her eyes were like ice now, hard and angry, and she pushed around him, walking past him.
All around him, there were people enjoying the fine weather, eating ice cream cones, window shopping, but he ignored them all as they surged around him, watching the retreating figure of Darby Reese, feeling anger and shame at the person he had been.
Chapter 7
“So, you actually met him?” Caitlyn was looking at her as Darby banged into the kitchen of The Dory.
“Who?”
“Sean Callahan. The new chef who’s working with Chase? You’re muttering his name, plus a few other interesting words. I take it you met him? Word on the street is that he’s more delish than a hot fudge sundae.”
Darby thought about the broad shoulders, the disheveled blonde hair, and the caramel-colored eyes. And the grin, the one he kept flashing that displayed deceptively boyish dimples.
“Yes,” she answered because there was no use denying it. She felt something buzzing through her—anger, resentment . . . god, even that tight little curl of attraction again. She needed to do something with her hands. She grabbed an apron, then found the flour and a bowl and banged them down on the counter.
“I knew it,” Caitlyn said, clasping her hands together. “There’s something about his hands.”
“His hands?” Darby spoke loudly over the water rushing from the faucet as she washed her own hands in the large stainless steel sink.
“Don’t you ever watch those chefs on TV? They all have the most amazing hands. Strong, long boned. You know, the kind of hands—”
Darby cut her off. “Don’t even go there. He’s a jerk.”
“How do you know? What did he do?” Caitlyn had reared up, and Darby felt a wave of relief flow through her. She could always count on Caitlyn to have her back. She shrugged, busying herself getting her ingredients together.
“Oh no you don’t.” Caitlyn wagged a finger at her. “I know you. You aren’t saying something. I can tell.”
Darby rolled her eyes but then figured she might as well tell. Caitlyn could be relentless. “I met him once before.”
“You met him, and you never told me?”
Darby shook her head. “Let’s just say it wasn’t my finest moment.”
Caitlyn jumped down from the counter she was sitting on. “Oh, do tell,” she said, her eyes alight with interest.
“Don’t you have a job?” Darby decided to make some bread. It was a soothing process, and that was exactly what she needed.
“It’s time for my late afternoon break and I need another cookie and an iced coffee.”
“We’re closed,” Darby pointed out.
“So? Kelly let me in, said I just had to wait for you to get back. And now you’re avoiding the topic at hand. Just how do you know Chef Sexy?”
Darby sighed. “It was at one of my cooking classes. I was still working as a lawyer, you know, but taking classes on the side, testing the waters. And Sean Callahan was one of our guest instructors—you know, this hot new chef there to give us encouragement about our future.”
“Hot chef,” Caitlyn said, laughing, “You made a funn
y.”
“Do you want to hear the story or not?” Darby asked, not in the mood for Caitlyn’s jokes.
Caitlyn waved a hand. “Oh please, keep going.”
“We were supposed to make a traditional steakhouse meal. Rib eye, onion rings, creamed spinach.”
“I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.” Caitlyn closed her eyes.
“Well, don’t,” Darby told her.
“What happened?” Caitlyn’s eyes flew open.
“I don’t know.” Darby shook her head. She actually had an idea, but it was hard to prove. “My creamed spinach tasted like it had been dipped in seawater and left out in the sun to bake off.”
“Ugh,” Caitlyn held up her hands. “Not so hungry anymore.”
“And, of course, somehow the heat on my cooktop was turned up too high, and my steak was a rubbery gray lump. And I won’t even tell you what happened to the onion rings.”
“So, you had a bad meal. Happens to all of us.” Caitlyn tried to sound encouraging.
Darby shook her head. “But I was top of my class, and I make amazing creamed spinach.”
“True. So then what happened?”
“Sean Callahan did. And, well, let’s just say I learned exactly why he had a reputation for being not such a nice guy.”
Darby had to suppress a shudder at the memory. She had been yelled at before. Try being a first year associate at a law firm. One of the partners there had been both a screamer and a book thrower. Luckily, her aim had been terrible. Still, she hadn’t really cared about her job there. But cooking . . . she had poured everything she had into that meal, hoping that a big name chef like Sean Callahan would love it and validate her dream of wanting to quit being a lawyer and run a restaurant, even a small deli in a small town.
“So what happened? I mean, to your spinach?”