The Perfect Ingredient (Dare Valley)

by Ava Miles

  “Yes, I have cinnamon.”

  Funny how she’d always smelled like cinnamon to him—even though her Chanel perfume ran more exotic than that. He always thought of her when he used the spice, even now. For a long time, those thoughts had been wrapped up in longing—a feeling he pretty much hated.

  “Sauce pan? Cutting board?” he fired off, expecting her to produce them like a good sous chef.

  “What about a monkey to eat the banana?” she quipped, and this time he heard the fire in her voice and was glad for it. The vulnerability of that other voice, the one belonging to this new woman named Elizabeth, made him unsteady.

  “You know, I’ve eaten monkey brains before. They’re not bad.”

  She made a gagging sound. “That is so gross. I can’t believe you’d eat something like that,” she said, stacking the items he’d asked for on the counter.

  “You can blame a friend of mine for daring me. Your knives suck,” he commented as he drew one out of the block and ran his finger over the blade. “I can’t cut shi—”

  Okay, he’d caught that one. A minor victory.

  “How sweet of you to say,” she replied, vinegar in her voice this time, making him smile. “Anything else you want to insult around here?”

  When she leaned on the counter, gazing at him like that with her big baby blues, he was glad he was no longer holding the knife. He might have cut himself like a first-year at the Culinary Institute of America. “Nope.”

  With that, he busied himself with slicing the bananas, heating the pan, dropping in the butter, and then adding the bananas. At least her stove was gas. If it had been electric, he would have refused to cook on it. She handed him the cinnamon, which he knew was likely as old as a used car, but he dusted the bananas with it anyway, inhaling deeply. Even old cinnamon had an alluring scent, and when a vision of a naked Vixen sitting on his lap as she fed him cinnamon rolls popped into his head, he almost burned his finger on the side of the pan.

  “Where’s your sugar?” he asked finally, pleased with the way it was coming together. He wouldn’t even dare hope she had simple brown sugar, not after seeing the sparseness of her refrigerator.

  “I don’t have any,” she told him, and it was hard to miss the glee in her voice.

  “You don’t have sugar? What kind of human being are you, anyway? You mystify me,” he told her, and it wasn’t just because she didn’t buy sugar.

  Silence reigned for a minute as the bananas sizzled on the stove. Yeah, she knew there was a deeper meaning to his words. They might have pressed pause on their conversation, but this was a conversation—the things said and unsaid, the meaning behind their gestures and glances.

  “I have honey,” she finally said, opening the cabinet and setting a half-filled smiling bear—dear God—beside him.

  “Even the bees are embarrassed by this honey, but at least you have something sweet. Now I won’t have to report you to the Basic Ingredients Police.”

  Her mouth twitched, and he felt it sparking between them again.

  That explosive connection. The simple joy of being in her presence. Something he’d never felt with another woman.

  “Feel free. I’ve always loved a man in uniform.”

  It was an old joke between them, and he stilled at her casual use of it. She’d said his chef uniform was a turn-on, which he hadn’t heard too often. It wasn’t like an armed services uniform or anything, and it always smelled like an assortment of food.

  Was she feeling it between them too? Did she want them to act on their old passion? Hell, he wasn’t ready for that. Okay, his body was ready, but…

  “Bourbon?” he rasped out, drizzling the honey over the bananas and watching it bubble golden brown.

  “In the liquor cabinet. I’ll get it.”

  After she left the room, he kicked the stove and yelped since he’d forgotten he was barefoot.

  Elizabeth was as beautiful and intriguing as Vixen had been. More so. And the old feelings were as fresh as his dinner special had been tonight.

  He’d wanted closure, but he’d gotten anything but.

  Coming here had been a bad idea.

  Chapter 2

  As Elizabeth headed to the 1930s Art Deco bar cabinet, she rubbed her hands over her arms, trying to banish the goosebumps. She’d worried her late-night visitor was Ryan James, who hadn’t stopped pestering her about going out with him again after one bad date. But the muted porch light had illuminated Terrance’s handsome face instead, and her trembling had changed into something else.

  She was still afraid of what he would say to her, of what he would ask, but there was also the white-hot anticipation of being in his presence again. The sight of his lean, rock-hard body in that black leather jacket and those faded designer jeans that hugged his muscular legs made her mouth water. Add in his military-cut black hair, bottle green eyes, and the wicked scar on the right side of his mouth, and it was all she could do not to jump him.

  It didn’t help that she was on a Man Fast, her first since she’d left him.

  And he was cooking for her. Right here in her kitchen.

  Her heart squeezed.

  And this no swearing thing? She must have lived in Dare Valley too long because she thought it was as cute as a greeting card.

  Selecting Rhett’s most expensive bourbon, she smoothed her hair down with her free hand and walked back into the kitchen, deciding not to fuss about the flannel pajamas—so sexy—and her lack of makeup.

  “At least someone has taste,” Terrance commented when she handed the bottle to him.

  “Rhett can drink the good stuff or rotgut,” she told him like he didn’t know. He’d been friends with Rhett and Mac Maven, the owner of The Grand Mountain Hotel where he was working as head chef, going on ten years now, three years longer than her friendship with the two men.

  “Well, I don’t let him drink the rotgut around me,” he said, stepping away from the stove and trickling some bourbon over the concoction.

  It caught fire, the wall of orange licking at the bottom of her microwave right above the stove, making her worry about the plastic melting, but since he didn’t seem concerned, she kept her mouth shut. He set the bottle aside and shook the pan, making the fire blaze to life again. When it died out, he searched in her cabinets for a spoon, and upon finding one, tasted the sauce.

  “How is it?” she asked.

  “Your cinnamon isn’t as intense as my special blend from Ceylon, but it does the job.”

  “I’m so glad you can suck it up down here in food purgatory,” she said dryly, producing the ice cream without him asking for it and reached into a cabinet for two blue bowls.

  “Salted caramel gelato,” he murmured. “I remember you liking ice cream.”

  “It’s one of my favorite indulgences.”

  “How can you eat this and nonfat yogurt?”

  She laughed at his playful shudder. “Eating nonfat yogurt gives me more leeway to eat fully loaded ice cream. It’s all about balancing out the calories.”

  “That diet logic is a load of bull— Aha, I caught myself again.”

  And when he smiled, the expression full of pride, her heart simply flew out of her chest and fell onto the floor in front of him. Like, here I am again. Remember me?

  Her heart had always gotten her into trouble.

  He spooned the ice cream out, making sure it resembled the most perfect sphere ever fashioned. Then he deftly slid the bananas onto the side and trickled the sauce over it. Even she could smell the cinnamon now, and her mouth watered.

  Dammit. Terrance had always known how to get to her.

  She took the bowl he handed her and led him to the small table in her dining nook, not wanting the formality of the dining room. He sat across from her, and as if on cue, they both took their first bite together. Caramel soaked into her tongue, followed by the coolness of cream, the punch of cinnamon, and the warm banana.

  “Yum,” she managed.

  Another one of Chef T’s fam
ous mega-watt smiles, which she’d seen on TV more times than she cared to admit. Yes, she watched his show…she couldn’t help herself.

  He’d left the Peacock a scant month after their breakup. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d returned to New York City because of her. Soon after, he’d landed his own cable show, The Tattooed Chef, on her favorite food channel, and she’d been glued to the screen ever since.

  As a viewer, she could feed her addiction to his smile, his badass attitude, and lust over his rock-hard body. Even laugh as he made innuendos about food—something he was famous for. Along with the swearing.

  “So tell me what really made you so afraid earlier?” he asked, something she hadn’t been expecting.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, shoving another bite in her mouth. No way she was talking about it with him. First, it was personal, and second, he was alpha enough to handle it for her, which she didn’t want or need. As she’d told Rhett, she was dealing with it.

  After her violent past, she needed to be strong enough to handle it on her own.

  “I might not have known your real name until a few weeks ago, but I know you don’t scare easy. At least not so much that you’d keep a Louisville Slugger by the door.”

  Well, she didn’t keep it by the door. She kept it by the bed, and she’d run for it the minute she heard the car in the driveway. Terrance was wrong. She might put up a brave front, but she scared way too easily after being stalked by an ex-boyfriend while in her M.B.A. program at Harvard.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” she fired back. “And it’s not why you came over anyway. Aren’t you going to ask me what you came here to ask?”

  He set his spoon aside, and she watched his ice cream continue to melt under the heat of the bananas. “Why did you leave like you did? Was it because I punched that guy who put his hands on you and called you a slut? You told me you weren’t upset about it.”

  “I don’t have a very good reason.” At least not one she could share. His violence hadn’t been directed at her, but it had horrified her nonetheless.

  “I deserved better than that note, dammit.”

  When he drew another hundred out of his wallet, she had to stop from reaching for his hand to comfort him.

  “We both knew our time together would end.” Except she hadn’t wanted that, which had only scared her more, giving her another reason to flee.

  His mouth quirked up. “Did we? It might have started out that way, but I thought…”

  Her heart thudded in her chest, and she set her spoon aside too, her appetite gone. He’d thought they had a future? Mr. No Commitment Chef T himself?

  “I’m sorry.”

  His eyes flicked up to hers, and inside their green depths she saw the hurt and vulnerability he never showed to the world. “Me too. Why didn’t you tell me about Elizabeth? I would have kept your real name secret. Rhett’s my friend too. I mean, I understand why you wanted to keep it quiet that you and your friend, Raven…ah, Jane, were his poker scouts and not just hot babes. The whole masquerade was pretty genius if you ask me. But I deserved to know.”

  Their disguise had been genius. The three of them had concocted the plan together after Rhett offered them jobs as his scouts. Elizabeth and Jane, both Harvard M.B.A. graduates, had been eager to escape their lives—Elizabeth, because of Vince, the man who’d stalked her and told her he would kill her if she went out with another man and Jane, because of her controlling parents, who wanted her to work on her father’s political campaign. The arrangement had served them all well.

  “Until last month, no one knew but our small circle. I couldn’t tell you because it would have endangered the people I love most in the world.”

  He picked his spoon back up and made circles in the melting ice cream. “I suppose we didn’t talk much about the past when we were together.”

  No, but she’d wanted to, and it had been a first. Relationships didn’t work, at least not in her experience. Certainly her parents hadn’t been happy. She’d sworn never to make herself vulnerable to another man after the disaster with Vince.

  Yet Terrance had threatened to peel back all her barriers.

  Which was, of course, part of the reason she’d left.

  “Why are you here, Terrance?” she finally asked.

  “At your house or in Dare Valley?”

  “Dare Valley.”

  He clicked the spoon against the side of the bowl and then let it fall. “Only Mac and a few other people I work with know, so I’m trusting you.”

  Okay, that scared her. “Maybe you shouldn’t—”

  “I’m on probation of sorts. I’ve been given a primetime cooking show that’s a mix of cooking and reality TV. The deal was set in place before the new president took over, and he’s trying to undo it, saying I’m a loud-mouthed, no-good SOB, who… Well it doesn’t matter. I fired back, living up to my reputation, and now he’s delaying my show. I have two months to prove I can clean up my act for primetime. No swearing. No innuendos. No fun. It sucks, Vix.”

  That nickname, the one he’d always used for her, made her throat squeeze.

  “Sorry, it’s going to take some time for me to remember to call you Elizabeth.” His smile came and left his face, like he was just as awash in old memories as she was.

  “Anyway, I want this show. Badly. So when Mac called me to ask me for some recommendations for a new head chef, I asked him how he’d feel about me taking the job for a while since I wasn’t working. Then Mac threw back some ideas about me not only heading up the kitchen here, but having final say over all the menus for his four other hotels and the new one he’s building in Vegas…not to mention the top catering jobs. Of course, he also promised me the flexibility to do the show once it starts up and travel back and forth. It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “That’s Mac. He might be a World Series of Poker winner, but his business acumen is second to none.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. To sweeten the deal, we made an agreement for his hotel chain to become an exclusive vendor of my new gourmet food products, which are just launching. We’re also planning to launch niche gourmet products with my picture on them and the name of Mac’s hotel chain, but we need to work out the details before securing financing.”

  “Congratulations, Terrance.”

  “Not bad for a New York City street rat,” he mused and shoved back his chair to stretch his long legs out.

  His rough upbringing had always been a touchy subject with him.

  “And the whole hundred-dollars-a-word thing?”

  “I was having a hard time controlling my language, so I decided only one thing would incentivize me. Money. Something I never had growing up and something I don’t ever want to be without again.”

  That she understood, having grown up in a trailer park.

  “Now let’s talk about you. Are you still happy with your job?”

  She took another bite of melting ice cream and nodded. “Jane…uh, Raven…decided she wanted to play poker professionally after winning the big tournament last month, so now I’m Rhett’s main scout. We have to recast my proximity to him at tournaments since the ruse is up, and everyone on the circuit knows what I do, but I think we’ll find a balance. Jane still plans to help out here and there when there’s no conflict because she loves the work as much as I do, but now that she’s engaged to Matt Hale, she has a lot going on.”

  “I’ve met him through his cousin Jill at the hotel. He seems like a nice guy. I’m happy for her, but I have to admit it’s an adjustment to see her as she is now. You…have more of a resemblance to Vixen than she does to Raven.”

  Well, that was diplomatic. Her curves were natural, but Jane was reed thin and had been padded into a new shape to become Raven.

  “Matt’s great. All of the Hales are.” And she was happy her best friend had found the happily ever after she’d always wanted and believed in. Not so with Elizabeth.

  Something inside her had frozen after Vince.

/>   “I’ve had a chance to meet Mac’s wife,” he continued. “She’s a pistol, but I have to say I didn’t see Mac marrying a cop.”

  “None of us did, but she suits him perfectly, just like Abbie does Rhett.”

  “Yeah. I’m glad it worked out between them. Rhett was devastated when she broke things off before.”

  The two had dated in secret for a while—a fact not many people knew. Well, well. Rhett must have told him. She’d file that away for later.

  “It’s weird to see Mac and Rhett settled down after all the fun we used to have together.”

  Boy fun, he meant. “I imagine it is.” Yes, it was different for her too, and her best friend’s engagement was another big change. But she was finding her way, making new friends. Keeping active.

  “How has it been for you, coming here?” he asked, crossing his arms across the chest she knew to be muscular and mouth-watering.

  Part of her couldn’t believe he was sitting across from her at her kitchen table, talking casually as the clock ticked toward midnight. There was so much left unsaid between them, but she was surprised to realize he was one of those old friends with whom the passage of time held no meaning.

  Becoming friends with him had been a surprise before, and in some ways, it had scared her as much as their passionate sexual connection. She preferred to keep things simple and unemotional with men. Easy. Maybe she and Terrance could be friends now, setting aside their emotional baggage.

  Except she also wanted him to sweep the plates off the table and lift her onto him so he could kiss her senseless and rock her world. Not exactly friend-like.

  “Dare Valley is different than Vegas, there’s no denying it. But it’s growing on me. I love being here with Jane and Rhett, and there are more wonderful people they’re bringing into my life. I…have a family here,” she finished and looked down at her lap.

  She’d never had a real family growing up, so Jane and Rhett had become one. Even the town’s famous family, the Hales, was making room for her, and all because she was the best friend of Matt Hale’s fiancée.

  “I’m glad you found people you could belong to,” Terrance murmured, and his voice was so gentle, she couldn’t help but meet his eyes.