The Queensbay Series: Books 1-4: The Queensbay Box Set

by Drea Stein

  Darby shrugged. “I can’t be sure, but you remember Will, the guy I almost got engaged to? I think perhaps he was jealous. You see, Sean came around tasting our work in progress and was actually really nice. Will saw and, well, he was the most jealous guy I’ve ever met. I think he might have sabotaged me.”

  She knew she couldn’t prove it, and she and Will were old history, but being told that she should rethink her career choice by Sean Callahan had smarted. More than smarted. She had almost been reduced to tears, but had fought it off, vowing to work harder and even smarter. And watch her back. It wasn’t the last time another chef had tried to ruin her food. Chefs were a passionate lot.

  “Why do you think that?” Caitlyn asked.

  “Because Will stepped forward with the most perfect spinach anyone had ever tasted.”

  Caitlyn narrowed her eyes. “And let me guess, it tasted just like yours?”

  “Just about,” Darby nodded.

  “So you think he stole your creamed spinach and passed it off as his own?”

  “I could never prove it, but yeah, I think. Too much salt is a rookie mistake.”

  “And you’re no rookie,” Caitlyn agreed. There was a pause, and Darby focused on the flour she was working into dough.

  “So, what happened with Sean today? What did he do? Remind you of your mistake?” Caitlyn asked, her gray eyes wide with sympathy.

  “Worse. He apparently remembered nothing about me or the incident. It was like it never happened,” Darby said and looked up from where she was kneading her dough. “Well,” she amended, “he did try every cheesy pickup line in the book on me, so I guess I made some sort of impression on him.”

  “What an ass,” Caitlyn said, dismissing Sean.

  Darby shook her head. “I think Sean Callahan probably yells at a hundred people every day. Several times a day. You should have seen what he said to the pastry students about their apple tartine. Now that was something fearsome to behold.” Darby tried to make her voice light, make it sound like she was over the whole ordeal.

  But it still hurts, she thought. She had wanted to impress Sean Callahan that day, to prove to herself and the world that quitting her nice, steady, secure job to open a restaurant wasn’t such a crazy idea. And he had shaken her faith in herself—or rather, Darby thought, she had let him shake her own faith.

  “Well, how are you going to show him?” Caitlyn asked.

  “Show him what?” Darby stopped mixing her dough and looked at her friend.

  “That you’re an amazing cook.”

  “Umm, why would I do that?”

  “You need to cook for him again.” Caitlyn said it matter-of-factly, as if it were an everyday occurrence to make a meal for a celebrity chef.

  Darby made a scoffing sound. “And how do you propose I do something like that?” She gestured with her knife to her cutting board. “Send him over dinner on a cart? Should I dress like a sexy French maid too?”

  Caitlyn shrugged one shoulder. “I’m more of a big picture thinker, so I’ll leave the details to you. Can I have my cookie, now that I’ve listened to all your problems? Please, being a good friend makes me hungry.”

  Darby laughed. Caitlyn had cheered her up, and maybe, just maybe, she was on to a way that Darby could restore her pride.

  Chapter 8

  Sean nursed his morning coffee. He’d stayed up late, going over menus and working on some recipes for the cookbook he was developing, and he was enjoying easing into the day. He was sitting at the empty barroom of the Osprey Arms waiting for the prep meeting, which was supposed to start in ten minutes.

  His phone buzzed, and he reached for it, reading the text before pushing it away. His publicist was working overtime on his big “comeback,” but seriously, a job hosting a cooking show in Japan? He texted back one word: No and received a predictable response: But you’re a huge hit there.

  He didn’t even bother to answer, just took another sip of his coffee and stared pensively out over the water. He’d thought after being asked to leave, well, fired really from the restaurant in New York that everything would blow over with enough time. But he was finding that perhaps it wasn’t the case. He’d sort of accepted the fact that he might not be able to live it down or get back to where he had been—which, strangely, didn’t bother him as much as it might have a few months ago.

  Things were going well here, the Osprey Arms’ new menu proving to be a success. People were all of a sudden showing up by land and sea to check it out. Sure, they might not be celebrities or models as they were in the city, but the customers here were more appreciative and even more genuine. And then there had been that review. Sure, it was just in the region’s local paper, but what had it said was: “Sean Callahan’s food finally lives up to all of its hype.” Coming to Queensbay meant that he was able to focus on what he loved doing—cooking.

  A waitress walked by, and an enticing aroma wafted up in the air.

  “What’s that?” He held up a hand to stop her. She froze, like a deer caught in the headlights.

  “What’s what? This?” She held up a brown paper bag. “I’m sorry. I was going to just finish it up and get started on my shift.” The waitress was babbling, clearly afraid he was going to yell.

  “Let me see,” Sean said. He knew the waitress was worried she’d done something wrong, but he didn’t care. Whatever was in that bag smelled too delicious to let her pass by without finding out what was in there.

  An egg sandwich appeared, and he took it from her. He put it on the bar, spread out on its white paper wrapping.

  “Homemade bun. Thick-cut bacon. Fresh eggs. Chives. Goat cheese,” he said, cataloging the ingredients.

  He looked at the waitress.

  “You can have it,” she said, and he could hear the quiver in her voice.

  He didn’t need to be invited twice. He picked it up, took a bite. The bread was delicious, fresh and tasty, the bacon thick and juicy, and the egg was fried crisp. The goat cheese gave the right amount of saltiness to the whole thing.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “The Dory,” the girl managed to stammer. She was the one who had brought the cookies in yesterday. Apparently, she was a big fan of the place.

  “Here.” Sean reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of bills. “Go get yourself another—and some for the rest of the crew. On me.”

  The girl hesitated for only an instant before she grabbed the money and was gone.

  Sean took another bite of the sandwich. It was just an egg sandwich, but everything was perfection. He knew he’d been right about Darby the first time. Whatever else she was, which was certainly mad as hell at him, she was still an excellent cook. He’d had one of The Dory’s egg sandwiches a couple of weeks ago, when her dad had been cooking. It had been fine, adequate even, but this . . . this was, he thought as he took another bite, amazing.

  One of the things that had attracted him about the opportunity with Chase and the Osprey was the fact that there wasn’t a lot of competition in Queensbay for really good food. However, if Darby Reese kept cooking like this, then he might be in for a run for his money.

  He’d been thinking about her every moment since she had told him to leave her alone. Now that she had reminded him about it, the incident played over and over in his head.

  He remembered her now. How he had been intrigued by her those eyes and the quiet, intent concentration she put into everything she was doing. She was different than a lot of the other students. A bit older, more put together, and focused.

  He’d been asked to be a guest instructor at the Culinary Academy to a group of hopeful chefs. These days, it seemed like everyone dreamed of becoming a chef, running a fancy restaurant, getting a job on TV. None of them really considered all the hard work, the intensity of working in an overheated environment trying to serve a hundred dinners at once. No one had wanted to hear his story about the years spent at a no name rib and fried chicken joint in a small town. Or how it was important to
know and respect your ingredients, to know your basic techniques. Everyone just wanted to be famous.

  The head instructor had told him to be real so that the kids would get a taste of what it would be like in a busy kitchen: all heat and passion and little tolerance for mistakes. He had gone hard on the soup round and felt like an ass. Then he’d been more helpful with the spinach, checking in on the students, tasting as they went, hoping to find someone’s he could say something nice about. And he had with Darby’s, or so he had thought. It had been good, delicious even . . . and, well, she’d been easy on the eyes. He even remembered that now. So he had planned on picking hers to show that he could be a good guy as well.

  And then when she had brought it up to him, it had been, what—ruined? Like drinking saltwater, he remembered. The instinct to criticize was almost habitual, but perhaps he had gone too far out of surprise. Darby had withstood his abuse reasonably well, he recalled now, her face immovable under her chef’s hat.

  And then he had moved on to the steak and onions and then to the dessert. Had he even noticed that she had disappeared? Anyway, the top student had been Will Green, who had done everything well, including the creamed spinach that now, as he swallowed another bite of Darby’s truly wonderful egg sandwich, reminded him of someone else’s.

  “Son of a bitch,” he said, everything falling into place.

  Chapter 9

  “You need how many sandwiches?” Darby looked at Chloe like she had three heads.

  “Twelve,” Chloe repeated firmly.

  “It’s a bit late and I have to switch over to the lunch menu,” Darby said, trying to talk her out of it. The goat cheese breakfast sandwich had been a special and had just about sold out, pleasing Darby since she had adjusted the price upwards to give her a better profit margin and hadn’t gotten one complaint about it.

  Her first few days at The Dory were going well. She had managed to spruce up the dining area a bit with some potted flowers and a good cleaning, but there was still more that could be done.

  Chloe shifted from one foot to the other. She was a local girl, a few years younger than Darby. “Please, Darby, please? I’ll buy you a beer at Quentin’s.”

  “Are you even old enough to drink?” Darby asked, checking the water level in the coffee maker.

  “I’m going to be a senior at UConn,” Chloe answered, with a huff in her voice.

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” Darby said sternly.

  “Look, Sean Callahan really liked them. I showed up for work, and he took mine and told me to get another one and sandwiches for the whole crew.”

  Darby almost let the water overflow the coffee pot she was refilling. “Sean Callahan wants them?”

  “Yes. Please don’t make me say you ran out.” The look on Chloe’s heavily freckled face was scrunched up in pure terror.

  Darby let herself have a smile. “Okay, done—but you have to promise to run back to the Osprey with them. I don’t want them to get cold.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Chloe was practically on her knees in gratitude. “The beer is on me.”

  “You can save the beer. Don’t worry; I’ll find some other way you can pay me back.”

  Darby went back to the grill herself. So, Sean Callahan had a craving for her breakfast special. She was getting the chance to cook for him and she hadn’t even needed to don any kind of costume.

  Chapter 10

  “Can we talk?” Sean came up to her as she was locking The Dory’s door. It was almost five, and The Dory usually stopped serving lunch around two. Darby knew her dad did it so he could head down to the docks, take his boat out, and get a little fishing in before the sun set.

  Still, a quick look through the books and her observations led her to believe that they were missing out on a lot of revenue by closing early. There were plenty of people who needed a mid-afternoon pick-me-up, like a cookie and iced coffee. She had stayed open later and already pulled up profits for the day. It was something else she meant to point out to her dad when he came back.

  “Why?” she said, straightening up. Her back ached, and her feet were sore. Though she was used to putting in longer days than this, there was something about being on her feet all day that was a lot more demanding than sitting behind a desk.

  “I think I owe you an apology,” Sean said, running his fingers through his hair, making the blonde tips stand on end.

  He needs a haircut, she thought, fighting back the strong desire to rearrange it for him. He wasn’t some cute little boy that needed to be taken care of. He was cruel; she had to remember that, despite the completely different signals her body was sending her brain.

  She dropped the key in her bag and started to move up the street. She knew that she needed to stay away from him, try to circumvent the little jolts of attraction that started to shoot off whenever he was around.

  “What for? Yelling at me when I served bad food? Or not remembering me after the fact?”

  He took her arm again, this time gently spinning her around. “Both,” he said, his voice contrite, his eyes the color of dark ginger beer.

  Bewitched by those eyes, she managed to nod and then, without another word, turned on her heel and headed up High Street. Sean fell into step beside her.

  “You’re still here,” she said.

  “You never said ‘apology accepted’,” he pointed out.

  “What are we? Four years old?” She swallowed. She hadn’t said anything because she didn’t trust herself. She worried that her voice might quiver. For months, she had dwelled on the incident, wondering if she could have done something different. More than anything, she was mad at herself for being too trusting, for not really understanding the stakes of the game. What had she thought? That Sean Callahan would be so entranced by her food that he would immediately offer her a job, her dreams thereby achieved in one easy step. But nope, it never worked that way.

  “Fine, apology accepted,” she said, praying that he would leave her alone—and knowing she would be sorely disappointed if he did.

  It had been another perfect day in Queensbay, with a blue sky and strong breeze, but now there was a different feel to the air. A bank of gray clouds was building out to the east, and the breeze had quickened. Still, over the town, sun reigned.

  She sniffed.

  “What are you doing?” Sean asked.

  She hazarded a glance up and explained, “The air. It’s changed. Rain’s coming.”

  “Still looks sunny to me.” Sean pointed toward the blue sky out to the west.

  “Look out to the east, out over the water, toward the ocean. Looks like a squall is coming through.”

  “Guess I’ll have to trust you on that,” Sean said, his voice light.

  She stared into those liquid brown eyes and tried to control the reaction in her body, the way her stomach did a flip flop before sending out a call for the rest of her to do a happy dance. Seriously, she knew that Sean Callahan was not a good person. Why, then, did she feel that familiar tightening, the clutch of desire just south of her churning stomach?

  Something almost like a giggle escaped from her. She told herself not to be so nervous. She had nothing to worry about. Sean Callahan had sought her out. If she had been one of her clients and this had been a negotiation or some sort of a deal, she would have told her client to act cool, collected, let Sean do all the talking, see what he wanted. See where this was going to go.

  “Nice little town,” Sean said, in the tone of voice that meant he was trying desperately to find something to say that wouldn’t get him in trouble.

  “It is,” she answered in the same tone.

  He gave a little laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Are you a typical New Englander, only saying one word when two will do? I mean, I’ve heard of people like you, but I didn’t think they actually existed.”

  He flashed a smile at her, and she caught a glimpse of his dimples. Her breath almost caught again, and she shook
her head.

  “I talk. It’s just . . . I have a lot on my mind.”

  “Really?” He looked over at her speculatively and waited a moment, before he said, “You can’t leave a guy hanging like that, you know. You can’t say you have a lot on your mind and just let it go. It’s the kind of statement that’s begging for a followup.”

  “It’s just stuff. You know, did I remember to order enough eggs for the morning rush? Do I need to get a new coffee supplier? Those types of things. It’s nothing.”

  He shrugged. “Sounds like the stuff I worry about all the time. Perils of running a restaurant.”

  They stopped, and Sean looked expectantly at her.

  “This is my place.” She opened an ornately scrolled iron gate that sat in front of a small lawn bisected by a gravel and stone path. The house it led to was a tidy little Queen Anne Victorian, painted a dark cream, its trim in a contrasting shade of white. It was one of many homes that lined the streets of the village as it worked its way back from the water. The lots closer to downtown were a little smaller, and the house was diminutive, rather than expansive, but as she had inherited it from her grandmother a few years back, she had no reason to complain.

  In the first few years that she had owned it, she had rented it out, but last month, when the last lease had been up, she’d decided not to rent it, telling her parents she needed a place to escape from the city on the weekends.

  “It’s cute,” Sean said, leaning back to take it in.

  Like many Victorians, the house had more height than width, with a fanciful little square tower on one side, which was accessed through a panel in the ceiling in Darby’s bedroom.

  “Thanks,” she said, pushing the off-kilter gate that led to a flagstone walkway. She’d spent most of her free time this summer painting, pruning, planting, and cleaning the place up. It was finally starting to look the way it had when her grandmother had been in her prime. Sean was still following her, and she didn’t know how to say anything to shake him. Worse yet, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.