by Olivia Miles
Her heart was beginning to pound with excitement, until her gaze came into focus again, and instantly that familiar weight returned.
“We’ll have a crew here in the morning,” Sharon was saying. “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to call me or stop by.”
“Thank you, Sharon. And Kara—” She shook her head as Sharon took her leave. “I know this situation has left you out of a job. I’ll be paying you all through the month as I promised but that’s the best I can do. I… I understand if you need to find something else.”
She winced at the thought of it. The staff at Fireside had become like a second family to her over the years, and she didn’t see them as her employees so much as a team. This job meant a lot to Kara. It had taken her a long time to figure out what she wanted to do, and when she’d come to Anna and told her she might want to do some of the baking, Anna had been thrilled. In time, she’d thought Kara might even become her pastry chef, while she oversaw the dinner course.
Even though the fire hadn’t been anyone’s fault, she couldn’t help feeling like she’d let Kara down.
Kara’s gaze dropped to the floor as she hesitated, and Anna’s stomach turned with dread. Here it came… “I did accept another job, actually. It’s just temporary,” she rushed to assure her.
Anna nodded, and a lump formed in her throat. “Of course,” she managed, forcing a smile she didn’t feel. “I’m happy for you. Where is it?”
Kara grimaced. “Hastings. Mark needed a new waitress. I guess the newest girl kept dropping things.”
Of course. Anna’s head was bobbing up and down, her eyes wide and unblinking. She willed herself to stop, but it was no use. Kara—ever faithful, loyal, and dependable Kara—was going to work for the enemy.
In fairness, she was a Hastings herself, and Mark was her cousin. Still.
“I hope you’re not upset,” Kara hedged.
“Of course not. And as you said, it’s temporary, so…” Her face had grown hot.
Kara nodded eagerly. “Exactly. Just to get me through. I really don’t want to help my mother in that dance studio ever again, and well, a girl’s gotta pay her bills.” She gave a tense laugh.
Tell me about it, Anna thought gloomily.
“We’ll still see each other!” Kara brightened. “I have the evening shift, since Mark covers the counter in the mornings. And you won’t have to worry about paying me for the month either, now that I have a new—” She stopped just shy of the word.
“I’m happy for you,” Anna forced herself to say. “And I’m relieved, honestly. You can’t imagine how worried I’ve been about everyone that works here. It’s one less thing to stress about.”
Kara tipped her head. “Feel like grabbing a coffee? It might cheer us up and get our mind off things for a bit.”
Anna gave an even smile. Her entire body had gone numb, but her mind was free and clear. “Mind if we take a rain check? I have some things to attend to.”
The girls left the building and waved each other off at the corner. In the clear light of day, Anna could see the relief in her friend’s eyes, wishing she could feel the same.
So Mark was poaching her staff, was he? Well, she’d just see about that.
Mark was in his office off the kitchen when she stormed in exactly six and a half minutes later. His startled expression quickly turned to a bemused grin as she hovered in the doorway, and Anna felt her temper stir.
“I hear you hired Kara.”
He gave a noncommittal shrug and leaned back in his chair, folding his hands behind his head. “She needed a job. I needed a waitress. Seemed perfect.”
“Perfect for you,” she accused. “You know she’s my assistant manager.”
“She’s also my cousin. Besides, she’ll go back to Fireside when it reopens,” Mark added mildly, but Anna was too angry to feel any reassurance in his words. “We both know the restaurant industry is extremely transitory. I feel like I’m replacing a waitress every six weeks.” He paused, noting her scowl, and met her frown. “What? You’re not mad, are you?”
“Damn straight I’m mad.”
His look was incredulous. “I would have thought you’d be pleased. I’m helping you out.”
No, he was helping Kara out. She knew she should be relieved that Kara had another source of income, and she was, but a part of her couldn’t help but feel betrayed. “I told you. I don’t need help,” she hissed.
“Oh no? Seems to me you need a lot of help. You’re just too stubborn to take it from me.” He arched a brow and tipped his chair back deeper. Anna tensed. She always hated when he did that, relying on the two back legs to hold him up, balancing precariously with his knee against the desk. She felt on edge, out of sorts, and this wasn’t helping. Her nails pressed into her palms.
“I’m not too stubborn—Oh, will you just… Put the chair down!” She lowered her tone, feeling a flush rush up her cheeks. “Please.”
He flashed her a wicked grin but did as he was told. “Better?”
She waited a beat. “Thank you.”
Mark stood, slowly uncurling himself to full height, and Anna watched warily as he arched his back and indulged in a long stretch, spreading his arms wide before dropping them at his sides. She bit on the inside of her lip, hating every inch of his perfectly sculpted body as he gave a sigh of content, and tossed her a lazy grin. He was good-looking—too good-looking—and worse was that he knew it. He had an effect on women, one he counted on, but God help her if she’d let him see it. She’d made a point of acting immune to him, even if her insides uncoiled at the mere glimpse of that smile and her heart beat a little faster when she sensed his proximity.
He came around the desk and took a step closer, and Anna cursed herself for having closed the door behind her. Now they were alone. In his space. On his turf.
If there was one thing she loathed more than Mark himself, it was not being in control. Of her life. Of her emotions. Of the way every nerve ending was tingling, aching to be touched, standing at attention as he inched closer. His effect on her was too powerful. It always had been, and she was beginning to wonder if it always would be.
“It’s nice to know you care so much about my well-being.” He was close, too close. Close enough for her to see his pupils, often lost in the depths of those dark chocolate eyes. She tried to look away, but something told her he wouldn’t let her. He was challenging her, damn it, testing her to see if she would break. And she wouldn’t. Not for Mark. She’d done that once, but not again.
“Get over yourself,” she said, taking a step back. Still, he didn’t move. She took another step, until her tailbone hit the door handle. She reached behind her and grabbed hold of it to steady herself.
“Now, you were saying?” His eyebrow cocked devilishly, and the corners of his lips twitched. She lingered on his mouth, so full and pink and perfectly manly, and hissed in a sharp breath.
“I was saying—” Was it just her, or had he leaned forward? His face was close, his voice low and husky when he spoke, and in the confines of the small room, which was really no more than a cramped and cluttered utility closet, she could feel the heat of his skin, smell the musk on his clothes.
It smelled like Mark.
She blinked heavily, finding escape for just a brief, simple moment behind the curtain of her lids, and then pulled herself up to full height. “Did you talk to Frank Piccolino?” she blurted, and instantly wished she had just kept her mouth shut. It was just idle curiosity, but the sudden kick in her chest as she waited for him to reply told her it was actually much more than that.
His eyes narrowed as he pulled back. He gave a noncommittal shrug. “Yeah. Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering,” she replied with what she hoped was a breezy tone. She pretended to look for something in the bag hooked to her shoulder. She’d never been good at hiding her emotions. She would have lost her shirt and then some playing poker. Yet, somehow, all these years, she had managed to carefully construct a cool f
açade around Mark. And then it all slipped. All that work, all that effort, for nothing. Look at her—blushing, having heat flashes, barely able to maintain eye contact.
They were too close to the kitchen, that was all. This room, if you could even call it that, was like a sweat locker. Anyone would be having a physiological meltdown in here. Especially if they were trapped with Mark and that mischievous grin.
Get a hold of yourself!
“Yesterday you seemed so intent on finding him,” she continued. She made a grand show of retrieving her sunglasses case and flipping it open. “I just wondered if it all worked out.”
“Nah,” Mark said, and Anna’s fingers stilled mid-task. She recovered by unfolding the small microfiber cloth and carefully rubbing each lens—an act, she freely admitted to herself, typically reserved for the hem of her shirt. “It’s not a fit.”
“Is he not entering then?” she inquired.
“No, he’s entering with his sous chef.”
Anna nodded sagely. Of course. A guy like Frank Piccolino liked to be in charge, liked to work the pass and have a last say on every plate before it hit the table. Mark would never stand for that.
She narrowed her eyes as realization took hold. Of course he wouldn’t.
“You didn’t really ask him, did you?” She dropped the sunglasses and case into her bag and set her hands on her hips. “This was all some ploy to see if I’d bite.”
Oh, she could swat that victorious smirk right off that handsome face. Mark was back in his chair now, leaning back so far it set her teeth on edge. He set his head in his hands and tossed her a boyish grin. “So did it work?”
She nailed him with a hard look. “No.”
“Aw, come on, Anna!” Mark tipped the chair forward, the weight of it hitting the linoleum with a thud. “We used to be a good team once.”
“Once being the operative word,” she said hastily. “Then you decided to fly solo.” She fumbled in her bag for her glasses, again. She was leaving this time, really she was. She reached for the door handle, turning it quickly and yanking it open.
A blaring radio and hot steam greeted her. A cook was plating fries, and another was flipping burgers, sizzling in their own fat. She turned slowly, back to Mark, finding a frown where only a moment ago that smirk had rested. He looked weary somehow, and dare she say unhappy. It was a side of himself he rarely let show.
Her resolve softened. “Why do you want to enter?”
He looked up, his lids heavy. “Because I think I can win.”
The answer was satisfactory, but she knew there was more. There had to be. “That list. Those recipes I found the other day. Were those for the contest?”
He shook his head. “No. That was for something else. Just some ideas.”
She understood. He wanted more than this. Hell, he deserved more than this. He was capable. He was driven. So why was he still here, years later? Why was this diner, of all the things in the world, the one thing Mark had been capable of committing to?
“Well, I don’t have time,” she restated, turning to leave. “I’m sure you’ll find someone.”
She heard his chair grind against the floor. His voice was rough, firm. “I want you.”
She paused, her back to him, her chest heaving with each breath. He didn’t mean it—not like that—but still, she clung to his words, spoken from his lips, the very same that had kissed her, traced circles over her skin and lit a fire in her that had long since died.
Even as she turned to face him, she was screaming at herself to forget it, to turn and run, to never look back. “If we don’t win, I’m in a bigger mess than ever.”
His eyes flickered. “Who says we won’t win? You know how we connect in a kitchen.”
Her heart skipped a beat. Oh, she knew all right.
She gave him a long look over the bridge of her nose. “That was a long time ago. Besides, you saw how it went last week with me being here. We barely made it through one morning.”
“You mentioned wanting to pay me for the kitchen time. If you paid me, would you use the kitchen?”
She only needed to think about the way her home kitchen looked this morning to answer that question. If it was even turf, she could bear it for a few weeks. Even if she wasn’t sure her heart could survive it. “Maybe.”
“Enter the contest with me, then,” he challenged. “I need a teammate. You need a kitchen.”
Anna hesitated. He made a good argument. “We haven’t cooked together in a long time, Mark. I’m not sure our styles even match.”
“Let me cook you one meal. You be the judge. If it’s good, we team up. If not… then I know I tried.”
Her mind trailed to the potential expansion space for Fireside and circled back to the Annex. She could imagine no greater rush than walking into the bank with a check and walking out a free woman. “Okay.”
His brow shot up. “Okay? So yes?”
You’re going to regret this, Anna Madison. She gave a tight smile. “Yes.”
“Tonight at eight? My place?”
“Okay,” she heard herself say. It was just dinner. A meeting. Not a date. Definitely not a date.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Mark said as she turned to go.
Her heart somersaulted. She was looking forward to it, too. More than she should.
She nodded, just once, and left on shaking legs, doing her damndest to fight the smile in her heart and the bounce in her step that led her all the way to Main Street Books.
CHAPTER
12
Scout lifted his head from the polished wood floorboards and sniffed the air, rich with scents of butter and garlic. His big brown eyes blinked sadly, his nose twitching one last time, before he finally rolled over and rested on his paw.
Well, wasn’t he a sight. Mark set the knife on the cutting board and pulled the lid on the dog treat jar, grinning as Scout leapt to his feet. He knew he should instruct Scout to sit or stay to earn the biscuit, just like he should really train him not to jump on people, sniff at them, or sit on laps, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Scout was easy to love, and unlike humans, his devotion was unconditional.
The smells and sounds of the kitchen were coming alive, and Mark glanced at the clock on the far wall. He was used to running on a tight schedule, but even for himself, this was pushing it. He wanted to impress her—why, he didn’t know. Maybe to make up for lost time. Maybe to show her he wasn’t as bad as she thought he was. Maybe to prove that he could still cook.
Mark pushed through the last block of bittersweet chocolate with the serrated knife and slid the chunks into a stainless steel bowl, feeling the expectation of a guest’s impending arrival.
He ate just about every meal when he wasn’t at the diner, Luke’s, or his mother’s in front of the television, usually with a pizza box resting open on the coffee table. The voices gave him company, at least until Scout had come along—and whether Anna believed it or not, he preferred to spend his nights like that than with Nicole Johnson or one of the other girls in town he’d taken out a few times here and there.
Nicole. He knew she was upset—she’d left a tearful message for him that night after the bar letting him know in no uncertain terms that they were through. He hadn’t really thought there was anything to officially call to an end—they’d only gone on a few dinner dates, nothing more than that—but if it made her feel better to tell him off, he supposed it came with the territory. He’d told her, and everyone before her, exactly what he was and was not looking for, just so things didn’t get messy. But they always did, anyway.
There was only one person he’d dared to take seriously, and that was Anna. Before her, he’d told himself he’d never get close. After… well, sometimes it was easier to forget what he was missing when he wasn’t alone, even if only for a night.
Scout jumped to his feet, tail wagging at the sound of a car door closing. Mark added the mussels to the pot, slid the scallops into the oven, and set a timer just as the doorbel
l rang at eight sharp.
“You’re here,” he said, as he opened the door. Loose blond tendrils slipped over her forehead, cascading to her shoulders. Her white, peasant-style blouse was loose and simple, and as it caught the evening breeze, it rippled against her curves invitingly, giving him a glimpse of what he’d once had, and lost.
“Shouldn’t I be?” she quipped with the faintest trace of a smile. As she brushed past him into the house, he caught a whiff of her scent—she still used that coconut shampoo. “Aw, there you are, sweet boy,” she said, bending over to give Scout a proper greeting.
Mark’s groin stirred as his gaze roamed over the curves of her rear, to the taut firmness of her thighs in those jeans. He startled as she suddenly stood and whirled to face him, her eyebrow cocking as her electric blue eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“It smells good in here,” she commented. She looked past the living room, where a sliver of the kitchen could be seen through the arched doorway.
“Can I get you a glass of wine?”
She hesitated, but only briefly. “What does Chef recommend? White or red?”
Chef. It had been a long time since anyone had called him that, and the impact of the word hit him hard, reminding him of a time lived and lost, of a dream yet to be had. He swallowed hard, ignoring the twisting of his stomach, and forced a casual grin. “White it is then.”
“What’s on the menu?”
“Uh-uh.” He wagged his finger, his grin widening as he led her into the kitchen, where the smells of sautéed onions and spices kicked up a notch. “It’s a surprise.”
He crouched to inspect the wine cooler through its glass door, selecting the best of his collection. He filled two glasses and handed her one. “A toast,” he said, clinking her glass. “To the Sugar Maple Culinary Competition. And to one hundred thousand dollars.”
“Don’t you think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself?” Anna brought the glass to her lips and took a sip. “What can I do to help?”
“Your part comes in for dessert. I thought we might see how well we still work together.”