The Baby Truce

by Jeannie Watt

“We’ll work on it together.” That evening’s dinner was an Italian buffet, and Reggie had to make one more batch of sauce for the manicotti the host had asked for at the last minute. Sometimes she said no to such requests, but whenever possible she said yes. One of the beauties of running a small business was that she could be flexible and creative. If the host had heard great things about the manicotti and she had time to fix it, then she’d oblige.

  She had time now because she had an extra pair of hands.

  Patty disappeared into the cooler and Reggie opened the door to the pastry room. “I’m here,” she told Justin, who was draping fondant.

  “Good luck,” he murmured. “Give a yell if you need anything.”

  “Will do.” But she wouldn’t. She could handle Tom. She simply liked having Justin there for moral support.

  She found Tom reading a menu. He raised his eyes and then held up the brochure. “I have some suggestions.”

  As Justin had said, this was not a humbled man. The damp, desperate guy was gone. In his place was Tom Gerard. Chef.

  “I’m certain you do,” Reggie said, wondering how Patty could have failed to recognize him. Maybe she was too short to see the tabloids at the grocery store checkout stand.

  “And you don’t want to hear them,” he said with a half smile that cut through her nerves and reminded her how very much she’d once enjoyed being in his bed.

  Reggie took the menu from him and put it back in the display. “We have an Italian buffet tonight and a wedding anniversary party tomorrow, and we both need to get to work. Back-to-back events are rugged.”

  “Then why book them that way?”

  “Money.”

  Hard to argue with that, and Tom didn’t try. “What do you want me to do?”

  Reggie turned to face him, glad she was still in her heels so the height difference wasn’t so great. “I want you to listen to me for a few minutes.” He nodded. “When we agreed to try this you said you wanted to develop a working relationship. For the good of the baby.”

  “Yes.”

  “You agreed this was my kitchen.”

  “I remember,” he said patiently.

  “I hope so.” She had no idea if these helpful reminders of who was in charge were sinking into Tom’s head. They’d done well together in the past because she’d never let him push her around, but she’d always had the option of walking away without a backward glance. That option was now severely compromised. From this point on she was going to have to try to manage him.

  “So what do you want me to do?” he asked in a polite and professional way as he folded his arms over his chest. She was close enough that she caught his scent, warm and masculine, triggering memories best forgotten.

  She stood a little taller. This was something she had to deal with.

  “Start chopping veg for eighty chicken potpies.”

  Tom smiled as if he was humoring her. “You’re preparing an Italian meal, which I happen to be rather good at, and you want me to chop veg for potpies.”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “I understand.” And no doubt he did. Reggie was putting him in his place.

  She started to fold her own arms over her chest, caught herself and forced them back to her sides.

  “And I want you to be nice to Patty. For some reason her back is up.”

  “No problem.” This time there was a note of irony in his voice, but Reggie ignored it as she turned and led the way into the kitchen. She stopped next to the counter closest to the storage areas and pulled a list out of her apron pocket.

  “Here you go. Veggies are in the cooler and dry storage. I’m sure you can find them as you familiarize yourself with the kitchen. This is your station.” She indicated an area of the stainless steel counter with a sweep of her hand. “Let me know when you’re done.” She hesitated, then repeated, “And be nice to Patty. I mean it.”

  “Yes, Chef.”

  Reggie left him standing next to the counter, and went into the office to change into her kitchen clogs. Patty stepped out of the cooler and handed her the completed inventory on her way by.

  “My recommendations are on the bottom,” she said.

  “Thank you, Patty. Start chopping onions for the sauce. Three should do. It’s a small batch.” Reggie could have pulled out the frozen tomato sauce, but instinct told her to mollify the prep cook, let her take charge of a project—especially since Reggie wasn’t certain how things were going to play out today with Tom.

  “Certainly.”

  When she came back out of the office after taking a call from a prospective client, Tom glanced up, then focused on the veg.

  Oh, yeah. This wasn’t nerve racking or anything, having him here in the kitchen.

  She made herself think of her baby’s heartbeat. Of why she was doing this.

  Tom was chopping as he’d been told to do, his hand moving so quickly it was a blur. Reggie knew instinctively he wasn’t showing off. He was making a point. Yes, he’d chop veg, but using him that way was a waste. He was probably thinking of how he could revolutionize her kitchen.

  He’d lost that chance seven years ago.

  Meanwhile Patty methodically chopped away at her onions, in slow motion compared to Tom, whom she was pointedly ignoring.

  “Are these all right?” Tom asked when Reggie passed by on the way to her work area.

  She inspected the identical cubes. “Perfect. When you get done, store them in the cooler and start deboning the roasted chickens.” At this rate, they’d be ahead of the game. Eden could take all the time she needed for setup and for once not have to race back to attend to last-minute details. Having Tom here was going to play hell with Reggie’s nerves, but it might not be bad for business.

  TOM WAS IN NO POSITION TO complain, and it was killing him.

  He was the one who’d asked for a chance to work in Reggie’s kitchen, and she’d graciously complied. Or, rather, she’d seen the potential for a mutually beneficial arrangement. However, not in the way Tom had anticipated. He wanted to get his feet under him concerning fatherhood and his and Reggie’s future parenting relationship, and he’d assumed that she’d actually make use of his cooking skills while they did that—skills that other people paid big money for. Or used to.

  But no.

  Instead she was making him pay for past crimes by asking him to cut up chickens and chop veg, while that dour little woman screwed up tomato sauce. It had been all he could do not to wrestle the knife from her hand and chop the onions and mince the garlic. And then when he’d told her not to add the garlic to the pan until the onions were translucent, she’d given that sniff and dumped the garlic in with the raw onion. The result?

  Overcooked, bitter garlic, no doubt. That was always a lovely note to any dish.

  Keep chopping.

  His stomach was in a knot from trying to control himself.

  He’d just finished with the chickens when Reggie started filling manicotti.

  “You prep cook is screwing up your sauce,” he said matter-of-factly. Patty’s shoulders snapped back a fraction of an inch.

  “Then I’ll use frozen,” Reggie said mildly.

  Tom set down his knife. “Frozen sauce?”

  She didn’t even look at him as she stirred ricotta filling, which he wanted to taste before she used it. “Yes. You must realize that we can’t cook everything from scratch in a catering business. I do as much as possible, but sometimes costs and circumstances are not conducive.”

  “Frozen?”

  She bit the inside of her cheek as she slowly nodded, then met his gaze dead-on, her eyes narrowed dangerously. Tom remembered that expression so well. She used it when she wasn’t going to back down.

  When she delivered ultimatums that eventually tore them apart.

  And that was when he realized he needed to back down. For now, anyway. He was not a patient man, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he did have goals, and one of them was to not get kicked out of this kitchen. Not until he
and Reggie had an understanding that didn’t threaten her and was acceptable to him.

  “I, um, have the chicken deboned,” he said, indicating the hotel pan next to him. Reggie’s gaze shifted from him to the meat and back again.

  “Then I’d appreciate a hand loading the van. I have a master list. Make sure everything is there before you load.”

  And so it was that Tom Gerard, James Beard Upcoming Chef nominee, spent the afternoon counting linens and rental glasses, packing coolers, loading a van, while Reggie put together manicotti. Since Patty had scorched the tomato sauce while multi-tasking, Reggie was topping it with frozen sauce—her own frozen sauce. Apparently, during slow spells, she and Eden put up tomato sauce. It couldn’t be as good as fresh, but it had to be better than storebought.

  That, at least, made him feel better about her manicotti.

  Patty apologized about a hundred times for the sauce not being up to par, and when Reggie told her not to worry, Tom wanted to mention that if she’d simply listened to him in the first place… But he didn’t. He would play along.

  At least until his head exploded.

  CHAPTER SIX

  TOM WAS AT TREMONT EARLY AGAIN the next day, prowling around the kitchen when Reggie arrived. She put him to work, and he complied without complaint, taking the prep list and propping it up at his station. All went well, right up until he made Patty cry.

  Reggie was in the office, taking a call, when she heard the bathroom door next to the office slam shut, followed by the sound of muffled sobs. As soon as she hung up, Reggie headed out of the office and straight to Tom’s station, where he was putting together the potpies, exactly the way she had asked. No twists, no flairs. Just standard Tremont chicken potpies. It had to be killing him.

  Reggie pushed up her sleeves as she walked toward him. “What did you do to Patty?”

  He glanced up after filling a shell, his expression innocent. Reggie wasn’t fooled. “I made an observation.”

  “What observation did you make, Tom?”

  “Look, all I said was that she needed to move faster.”

  “How did you say it? Were those your exact words?”

  His dark expression was all the answer she needed.

  “She is not one of your orangutan kitchen workers,” Reggie said tautly. “She is not used to being yelled at or ordered about tactlessly, or…or…”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “It doesn’t matter what you meant. You did some damage to morale in my kitchen and now I have to fix it.” She placed her palms on the counter, one on either side of a potpie, and leaned closer to him, so that they were practically nose to nose. “In six months time, you will be gone, if you haven’t left sooner, and Patty, I hope, will still be here. If you make her cry one more time, then our deal is off.”

  “It’s not my fault she’s emotional. She wouldn’t last a day in a professional kitchen.”

  “This is a professional kitchen and she’s doing fine at the job I hired her to do.”

  “Yeah? Then what happened with the sauce yesterday?”

  “Would you stop fixating on sauce?”

  “I specialize in Italian food. Tomato sauce is important.”

  “I let her make it because you were working so fast I would have run out of things for her to do.” Not the entire truth. She’d let Patty make it to mollify her. That had backfired. “Then maybe she could have counted linens,” Tom said through gritted teeth.

  “Oh. You didn’t like counting linens?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think that for a guy who begged for a chance, you’re pushing me.” Reggie straightened up, shoving her sleeves even higher. Pretty soon they’d be over her elbows. “When Patty comes out of that bathroom, apologize.”

  “I—”

  “I don’t care if you were right or wrong or just trying to help. Apologize. And do not upset her again.”

  Tom’s mouth had flattened into a very thin line. For a moment Reggie thought he was going to blow. Or walk out the door. He pulled in a sharp breath, then exhaled, the muscles in his jaw held so tightly that the cords in his neck popped.

  “I’m not trying to screw things up, Reggie.”

  “Then leave Patty alone.”

  “Fine. But you shouldn’t.”

  “What?”

  “Leave her alone. She needs more training.”

  He was probably right. Patty was good at following orders and she was a quick study, but her kitchen experience wasn’t as extensive as it could have been.

  “I’ll try to remember that,” Reggie said stiffly. “Now if Patty ever comes out of the bathroom again—”

  “I’ll apologize.” He pulled another pastry-lined ramekin toward him and started filling it. Reggie stared at the top of his dark head for a moment, realizing she’d been dismissed. Then she turned and went into Justin’s pastry room.

  Once her adrenaline approached normal levels and her hands stopped shaking, she would put together the puff pastry desserts Justin hadn’t had time to finish before going on shift at the lake.

  Having Tom around was exhausting.

  WHEN PATTY FINALLY EMERGED from the bathroom, her face flushed, her nose red, she walked straight back to her station, ignoring Tom for all she was worth.

  “I’m sorry,” he called.

  She didn’t even look at him.

  He shrugged and went back to work. A few minutes later, Reggie came out of the pastry room with a phone to her ear.

  “Can you make a piecrust?” she asked Tom.

  “I think I can handle it,” he said drily.

  “I need five ten-inch double crusts for apple pies. Pronto.”

  “Aye, aye, Chef,” he said as she walked back to the office without looking at him.

  Piecrusts. Right. That was a task he passed off to his sous-chef. He stood for a minute, debating which flour to use, pastry or cake, and which fat.

  “Recipes are in the drawer to your right,” Patty said frigidly. “The shortening is in the freezer.”

  That answered the question about butter versus shortening or lard. “Thanks,” Tom replied, holding back the sarcasm so she wouldn’t cry again. He ignored the drawer and went to the dry storage area for the flour and salt. When he came back out, carrying the containers, Patty gave her pan one final stir and turned off the burner. She was ultra careful about heat since scorching the tomato sauce on his first day.

  After removing the pan from the burner, she pulled a card out of her pocket and checked her next task. The card went back into the pocket and off she headed for the cooler, moving briskly, a woman with a mission.

  He had to concede that she was a real workhorse, but she wouldn’t have lasted two days in his kitchen. She was methodical but moved at a snail’s pace. He liked to have people around that hopped to, moved when spoken to.

  People who didn’t cry when someone told them they were too slow to cut it in the real world. Honestly. It was just an observation, made when he’d been trying to show her how to cut an onion a little faster, so that maybe they could get that day’s prep done before they both grew old. Instantly, her back had gone up. Tom was not used to people fighting him when he gave direction. They either did it or they left the kitchen.

  But not here. This kitchen was like the school cafeteria that Pete had suggested he work in. And Patty was a lunch lady. There was a push to get the food done, but not like in a nightly service. There was no adrenaline rush. No edge. Tom lived for the edge.

  If there wasn’t one he created it.

  One of his habits that hadn’t worked out too well for him lately.

  REGGIE PUT THE TRAY OF desserts in the cooler and came out with apples for the pie filling. If this hadn’t been a last-minute deal, she would have had Patty peel and cut, but she needed to get this done for one of Justin’s steady customers.

  When Tom made the piecrusts, he attacked the matter with the single-minded focus with which he always approached cooking. And sex. The guy wa
s a hedonist.

  She was having a very hard time keeping her eyes off him.

  Patty was sautéing onions, her back as straight as always, and every time she glanced over at Tom, it tightened even more. He didn’t appear to know she existed.

  This was the kind of single-minded concentration that had ended up driving them apart. He’d been hyper-focused on his career, and even though he’d played with the idea of the catering company, he ultimately hadn’t been able to commit. To it or to her.

  As she peeled and sliced, she kept glancing up to see what he was doing. The man moved like a panther, smoothly, dangerously. Anyone looking at him would know instinctively not to get in his way. Everyone except Reggie, it seemed.

  She had invited the panther into her kitchen.

  TOM PUT UP WITH THREE MORE days of chopping, boning, butchering and mindlessly mixing—while doing his best not to make Patty cry—before he took Reggie aside just prior to leaving the kitchen for the afternoon. She was winning on the stubborn front because he had no way to fight back without screwing up his position. Three days and they hadn’t once mentioned the baby. His gut told him it wasn’t time yet—neither of them was ready. Hell, they were still jockeying for position.

  “Are you ever going to use me?” he asked. Because what he’d been doing was a colossal waste of his time.

  “I am using you, Tom. You chop better than any prep cook we’ve ever had.”

  Tom smirked as he unbuttoned his coat. Interestingly, her eyes followed his fingers for a moment. “You’re having fun with this, aren’t you?”

  She looked up at him, her expression no longer mockinnocent. “No. I’m running my business as I’ve always run my business. My way. If I go to work for you, then you can tell me what to do. Right now it’s the other way around.”

  “And if I don’t like it?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “You know where the door is.”

  “That attitude isn’t going to lay a great foundation for co-parenting.”

  There. He’d brought up The Subject. The one they needed to talk about and weren’t. “This is business, not our personal lives, and on the contrary, Tom, I believe it defines our roles perfectly. I’ll be the steady one and you’ll be heading out the door.”