by T. Neilson
He envied those people. He had never been able to divide his loyalty between his work and his love life. For the first few years in management, he tried to have it all, but those relationships had fizzled out, or like the one with Rebecca Bradford, blown up like pouring water on a grease fire. He consoled himself with the old adages—that people in food service were really married to their jobs, that those who weren’t were few and far between, and that he simply hadn’t found the woman who would tolerate his passion for his work.
Down the table, Hiro poured out some wine for Alejandro. Sam, the new dishwasher who had appeared at the back door like a stray cat and somehow wound up on staff, lifted his glass to get some too. The kid had gumption. He’d do well in the kitchen. But kid was the operative word. Simon sat forward. “Sam, how old are you?”
Sam ducked his head so all anyone could see was his curling brown hair. He put his glass down, and Ginger elbowed him in the ribs. “Hey, don’t jerk around about that,” she said. “You’ll get us all in trouble. Marcus? Pass the cranberry and soda.” Marcus, the roundsman, handed down the pitcher, and Ginger poured for Sam.
“How old are you?” Hiro asked.
“Twenty till December,” Sam admitted.
Hiro scowled. “How come everyone under thirty looks the same age?”
“Because you’re getting old,” Jenny teased, and Hiro groaned.
“Somebody mark it on the calendar,” Mark said, “so we can celebrate when Sam hits drinking age. Until then, everybody watch what he’s got in his glass.”
“Yes, Chef!” the table yelled good-naturedly.
Sam looked like he was trying to sink under the table. Simon grinned at him and then turned his attention to Mark. “Ready to eat?” he asked.
“Absolutely.”
Mark had overseen the first run of all the items on the menu and pronounced it good. Around them, the last of the staff took their seats, and Simon looked on. Here were his work family, his friends, his colleagues. Here was everything in his life that he didn’t have an immediate blood tie to. Here was the labor of his life, and even if it precluded a family of his own, it was his, and it was good. He smiled at them.
“New menu tonight,” he told the table. “Looks amazing, Mark,” he added. “Everybody tuck in.”
There were hand-milled sourdough rye buns from Tristan and salads of nasturtium flowers and fresh, sliced figs. There were joints of tender lamb and slices of cold artichoke, wild duck studded with gems of brilliant apricot, pizzas with Osman’s spiced sausage, and smoked grapes stuffed with fresh white cheese. There were perfect raspberries served just as they had grown, still on the cane, and candied black walnuts from the trees that cast the shade above them. They ate their fill and talked about the day’s news and the upcoming service and Luminara, and the air was filled with a buzz of conversation and of laughter.
Simon couldn’t help thinking of his father, so long dead now, who had set out to build a restaurant and wanted a big family. He had managed to have both those things, and Simon couldn’t help feeling that, in spite of all his efforts, he was still only half the man his father had been.
Chapter Seven
LUKE left his phone at the bed-and-breakfast and was glad to close the door on the damn thing.
Even though the emails and the texts from his mom were beginning to diminish, they weren’t thin on the ground, not yet, anyway. When he changed the name of his restaurant, his mother had scented something in the air. And when he sold the place, she came after him like a wolf falling on a wounded animal. “You’re destroying yourself! After everything your father and I did to support you, you’re going to throw it all away? That sous chef will trash your good name.”
He tried very hard not to rise in anger, only to explain and give her space. He couldn’t blame her for being upset—he’d given up so much in pursuit of his restaurant and those stars. He’d missed weddings and birthdays and Christmas dinners and… and he hadn’t gone to his brother’s funeral—all because of the restaurant.
At least, that was his excuse.
The fact was, he’d never gotten along with most of his family. They weren’t exactly thrilled when he went into the service industry. His mother in particular considered it beneath the family name, though she was happy to take the praise when it started to roll in.
And because his mother lived for his success and delighted in it, as long as he was excelling, that was fine. But when he’d had enough? When he decided it was time to sell the business? No way. He phoned to tell her, and that conversation had been profoundly unpleasant and wound up with her hanging up on him. After that, there were texts at all hours, and, when he avoided those, tearful voicemails. Now her emails came fairly regularly, usually copied to members of the family who would back her up—his sister Olivia and his uncle Alfons. And Luke wasn’t sure what to do or say, except feel a little embarrassed that other members of the family were dragged into what should never have been such a big deal in the first place.
So he was glad to have a reason to leave his phone behind in the safe in his room. Closing the heavy little door felt like locking a bad thing away and left him feeling weirdly buoyant and strangely nervous, as though he were up to something.
He wound his way down the pebbled driveway to the stables and stepped into the fragrant shade to enjoy a lungful of cool air scented with horse and hay and leather. Adrianna, the ranch owner, had told him to take a look at the horses and select one to ride. He slowly walked the length of the stable and paused to offer his hand for the horses to sniff.
They were a motley crew, all uneven sizes, their coats dappled and splotched. Luke had grown up with animals—from the cattle on the ranch to his uncle’s precious polo ponies. These animals were nothing like his uncle’s horses. Those creatures were the epitome of their kind—compact and muscled and fast and aggressive. These were… well, he couldn’t speak to their character but they were a mingled mix of Appaloosa and paints and who knew what else. The one Luke chose looked as though she had been dipped in chocolate up to her withers, but she had a white neck and face and absolutely enormous hooves, which hinted at Percheron or some other draft horse in her lineage. Her muzzle was small, her eyes wide-set, and her little ears twitched and flicked as he murmured to her. He thought he detected something Arabian a generation or two back, maybe as far back as the Percheron. According to the sign affixed to her stall door, she was called Kit Kat, and ranked as a beginner-friendly horse. That was good because it had been a hell of a long time since Luke had been in the saddle.
“You like Kit Kat?” Adrianna asked as she appeared from one of the stalls a little farther down. Adrianna, middle-aged and comfortably plump, with a bright blue shirt tucked into her jeans and mud-crusted cowboy boots, nodded at the horse. “She’s a sweetie. Aren’t you, girl?”
Luke nodded and sized Kit Kat up as though she were a dining room full of critics. “Do you think she’ll put up with me?” he asked.
Adrianna chuckled. “Kit Kat will put up with anyone. Let’s get you saddled up.”
IN twenty minutes Luke found himself out in the paddock with Kit Kat fully saddled and bridled and waiting with one hoof cocked at rest while Luke looked apprehensively at the stirrup.
“All right?” Adrianna asked as he hesitated. Seated on her own horse, which looked rather like a Jackson Pollock painting, with splotches of white and black and gray and brown and even a little of that roan-pink showing on her coat, she watched him closely. He had told her it was a skill-building session, not that he hadn’t been on a horse for more than twenty years. And yes, maybe he daydreamed of going back to the ranch and riding horses all day long, but those were daydreams, and this was a living, breathing animal with opinions and personality and ideas of her own. She could very well get it into her head that she didn’t like him and wanted him off her back. He didn’t much care for that thought.
“It’s just that it’s been so long, and… I don’t want to get thrown.”
�
��Kit Kat’s not that type,” Adrianna answered, “unless you really piss her off.”
He looked appraisingly at the Arabian face. He knew about Arabians, having gotten on one as a small boy and having been summarily removed by the horse in under ten seconds.
“I wouldn’t put you on anything hot-blooded,” Adrianna said, “especially not if you’re the one who’s easily spooked.”
“Thanks,” he murmured, trying not to sound ungrateful. Horses had once been a staple of his summers—vast, rolling pastureland, blue mountains rising up on his left, the long, low house on his right, the summer sun above. But he hardly got outside anymore.
He got a foot in the stirrup and pulled himself up. At least it was a Western saddle. When he was a younger man he could just vault up into place on an English saddle, but, he thought as he huffed his way up into place, those days were behind him.
“Good,” Adrianna said as she brought her own horse around. “Sitting comfortably? Feel those seat bones?”
He certainly did. Tomorrow, his ass was going to be sore, and not in a good way. There was a stretch and burn in his thighs that he didn’t remember from childhood. He must have been a great deal more supple then. When had he stiffened up so much? He felt like an old man.
He shifted around until he felt a little more comfortable and didn’t feel exactly as though he were going to fall out of the saddle. Then he checked his heels. They were way up. He pushed them down, and his Achilles tendons complained. There was another thing that hadn’t been stretched in over a decade. As he shifted around, Kit Kat turned her head and looked at him as though she wanted to see the antics that were going on in her saddle. “Sorry, girl,” he murmured and patted her. “It’s been a while.”
“I see you remember how to hold the reins,” Adrianna said, nodding her approval. He glanced down and found to his surprise that she was right, he had gathered them up and was holding them naturally in the correct position.
“I’m as surprised as you,” he said.
“You must have ridden a lot when you were younger.”
“I did.” He smiled faintly. At least his body knew what to do, even if he wasn’t in the physical condition to do it quite the same way.
“Good. Let’s go around the paddock, and I’ll assess your seat. Then we can work on making you comfortable on the back of a horse again.”
“Is it that obvious?” he asked.
She laughed. “You’re squeezing her so hard I’m surprised she’s not wheezing. Relax. I swear Kit Kat isn’t going to throw you.”
“I am relaxed,” he protested. Adrianna looked at him with one eyebrow considerably higher than the other.
“I am.” He gestured to himself. “Look at me.” In fact, he was the most relaxed he’d been in years, notwithstanding that he was on a horse for the first time in over a decade.
“If that’s you relaxed, I’d hate to see you at work.”
“There’s a reason I quit,” Luke said wryly.
She made a face. “Are all chefs this tense?”
He laughed. “If they’re any good? Absolutely,” he answered as he settled into place with all his bones stacked on top of his seat bones so his carriage was upright but loose. “Okay. I’m ready. How bad is it?”
“Pretty bad,” Adrianna admitted with a grin. “But not as bad as your friend Cole. Don’t tell him, but his might be the worst seat I’ve ever seen.”
Luke grinned. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“Good. Now, let’s do some exercises.”
THEY rode in rings around the little paddock. Adrianna called encouragement, and Luke was suddenly six years old again and getting instruction from his uncle on how to stay astride his little pony. At last he felt himself sink into the saddle, and Kit Kat’s gait settled out as she sensed her rider wasn’t about to slip at any minute. At last Adrianna opened the gate to the field, and they rode out together.
“It’s coming back fast. I can see you remembering the longer we ride.” She smiled as they started out into the field.
“It feels better now than it did this morning,” he agreed. “You’re a good teacher.”
Adrianna shrugged. “You had good teachers when you were a kid. They gave you good habits. You just have to remember them.”
He nodded. He had had good teachers. His uncle was a polo champion and a magnificent rider. Once Luke had wanted to be just like him, but that was quickly eclipsed by a love of food and cooking. Still, he could feel the old passion rising up in him again. Even with the thick, heavy leather of the Western saddle between him and Kit Kat, he could feel her strong movements and the connection between the two of them as he transferred his instructions to her through his body, and she responded by going first that way and then this way, until Adrianna laughed at them both and her own horse watched with ears pricked forward as though she had never seen Kit Kat’s antics before.
“Good, good!” she said. “Look at you two dancing.”
Luke laughed too. For the first time in many months—no, years—Luke felt good. It was nothing short of pleasure to be in symbiosis with another being, rather than driving and demanding of them. “Now that’s more like it,” he said.
“Well, since you’re doing so well, how about we go off-trail and have a dip in the lake?”
“If you don’t mind the wet saddlery,” Luke agreed. Back on the ranch, he had taken the ponies swimming many times, and the horses too. The little pond was reedy and shallow, always warm, and the animals loved to plunge in.
“Wet saddles don’t bother me at all,” Adrianna told him. “My little brother does all the leather care.” She winked. Luke laughed again, and they started toward the shimmering blue that lay like a smear of wet paint to his left. They rode in companionable silence until Adrianna asked, “Why on earth did you ever stop riding?”
He shrugged. “I became a chef.”
“I know, but you have to have days off. You could still ride.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, I am all or nothing. I never do things halfway.” He looked over at her and wished he could convey to her, completely and perfectly, what it was to be in the kitchen, with the world nothing but a pinpoint. “You can’t get a Michelin star if you’re half-assing it. I have two.”
She gave him a faint, wry smile. “Be the best in the world or don’t do it at all, huh?” she asked.
He nodded.
She frowned as she looked out at the grassland sliding almost imperceptibly toward the water—all yellows and greens under a pale blue sky.
“You don’t agree,” he said at last.
She shrugged. “I’m a big believer in moderation,” she answered. “Like horses.”
“Horses?” he asked, laughing. “Have you ever met a polo pony?”
She shook her head. “No. Do they play nonstop day in and day out?”
He opened his mouth and shut it, and she grinned at him and nudged her horse toward the water. “Last one in cleans the tack,” she shouted.
Swept up in it, Luke leaned forward on Kit Kat, and she understood. She went from a walk right to a gallop, and they raced down the slope and overtook Adrianna just an instant before he crashed into the lake. The water broke in a huge wave before them and sprayed up, ice-cold and stinging. It struck Luke like a slap in the face, and he yelped. Kit Kat came to a dead stop in a pace and a half, and Luke had to grab the saddlebow to keep from flipping ass over teakettle into the drink. From the bank, he could hear Adrianna laughing.
“Sucks to be in it to win it sometimes,” she hollered.
Luke turned around in the saddle and gave her the finger.
BY the time they got back to the stable, the hot August air had wicked the moisture from him, and both he and Kit Kat were mostly dry again. He rode to the stables and then slid down from the saddle in the shade. Then he gave Kit Kat a thank-you pat and passed her reins to Fletcher, Adrianna’s little brother. “Tack’s wet,” he warned the kid. Fletcher nodded, and Luke turned to Adrianna. �
�Can I come ride again tomorrow?” he asked.
She laughed. “So you enjoyed yourself?”
He nodded. Kit Kat was no tight-wound polo pony and no precious thoroughbred. She was not particularly beautiful, either. She had short couples, a barrel-belly, and short legs, but she had character, and she’d been every bit as excited to get into the lake as he had. There was something about that enthusiasm that made him fond of the dumpy little horse. “She’s wonderful.”
“You’re welcome to ride her anytime. She’s just here for greenhorns who need a steady seat, but aside from Cole, there’s nobody who needs her till September. And I can put Cole on King. He likes her, and she puts up with him.”
“All right.” He gave Kit Kat a little rub on her velveteen nose. “See you tomorrow, then.” Kit Kat flicked her ears at him and then nudged Fletcher hard enough to nearly knock him over. Luke laughed, waved farewell to all of them, and headed back up to the bed-and-breakfast.
BACK in his room, Luke retrieved his phone from the bedside table and flicked it on. At last the sense of dread he’d grown to associate with turning on his phone had started to fade. After so many years of phone as work leash, it had transformed into a lifeline back to his industry friends, and now turning it on had become like opening an unexpected letter rather than stepping into an office. He took a look at his texts and felt a rush of pleasure and warmth. Simon.
Hey! We’re going to run a tasting of the Luminara menu for staff tonight at 7 under the walnut trees at the hotel. Drop in if you’re interested.