by Jeannie Watt
“Your choice. I’ve got to go.”
THE AMBULANCE WAS STILL PARKED in the Super Saver lot when Reggie arrived, and Eden was sitting on the pavement with a good-looking paramedic crouched next to her. He helped her to her feet and into the passenger side of Reggie’s car.
“Thank you.” Eden spoke stiffly, her face as white as Reggie had ever seen it.
“She’s in shock,” the paramedic said. “Take her to the hospital. Do not mess around with this.”
“I am familiar with the procedure,” Reggie said shortly, getting behind the wheel.
Reggie was no fan of emergency rooms and urgent care, having spent a great deal of time over the years waiting for Justin to get patched up. It had been particularly tricky the two times their father had been away and Reggie had had to call him to get verbal clearance for Justin to be treated. That had pissed her off. Her father should have been there with them, but he was always chasing the open road. Promising that this long haul was the last and then he’d go short route only. As far as she knew he was still on the road. None of them had heard from him in months. He’d eased out of his children’s lives after a bad blowup concerning Justin in high school.
She glanced sideways at Eden as she pulled into an urgent care parking spot. Her sister was overly pale and her ankle was huge and turning bluish-black. Fortunately, the paramedics had removed her shoe, so that trauma was over.
“I’ll get someone to help you in.”
Eden shook her head, but Reggie ignored her. A few minutes later a nurse followed her out with a wheelchair. Thankfully, it was a relatively slow day at the clinic.
Eden was treated and released within an hour. Reggie helped her back to the car, clutching concussion instructions in her free hand as Eden made the painful journey. They weren’t yet sure if the ankle was broken, but she’d hit the pavement hard and was feeling the effects.
“Oh damn, Reggie,” Eden said miserably once they were both in the car. “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.” As Reggie understood it, the teenage driver had rounded the corner too fast and hadn’t been able to stop in time to avoid bumping Eden, who’d stepped out from between two cars without looking. She’d been knocked sideways into another car. Technically, his insurance should have paid for the ambulance Eden was so worried about, but Reggie was glad they weren’t dealing with the emergency room.
“How am I going to get food to my families?” Today was Eden’s cooking day. Tomorrow morning was delivery.
“Patty will help. We’ll do fine.”
“The luncheon…the wedding…” Eden let out a growl of frustration.
“I can handle it, Eden.” Just let me drive. And think. And try to avoid the obvious solution.
The phone rang before they reached Eden’s street. She answered, nodding as she spoke. “Yes, I’m fine… Kind of… No plan yet…?. All right. I will. Here.”
Eden held out the phone and Reggie took it, keeping her eyes on the road. “Justin?” she guessed.
“Call Tom,” he said, almost before she got the phone to her ear.
“I—”
“Call him, Reg.”
She exhaled heavily as she turned the corner into Eden’s driveway. “I’d already planned on doing that. What if he tells me to go to hell?”
“Then maybe in some small way you deserve it. Do you think that’ll happen?”
“Yeah,” Reggie said with a sigh. “I think there’s a good possibility.”
SMOKE FROM THE BARBECUE NEXT door was rolling over Tom’s fence when he pulled into his driveway after an hour in Whole Foods. The rat dog was happily working over a stick near the fence and the old guys on the other side were arguing about something. The wonderful aroma of barbecue beef wafted over on the breeze, giving Tom a sudden hankering for ribs.
He was putting groceries away when he heard a strange noise on the back steps—a thumping, as if something was being dragged to the top. He opened the door to see the little rat dog standing proudly with one end of a giant raw beef rib in her mouth and the rest of it between her legs.
“Where did you get that?” Tom asked, reaching down to take the meat-and-fat-laden bone away from her. The rat dog reluctantly relinquished her find to the alpha male—Tom—and then sent him a reproachful look.
“Hey, I’m sorry, but I’m only thinking about you. It isn’t like I want to eat this.” They’d been together for only two weeks, but during that time Tom had learned that table scraps, or even changing food, had a detrimental effect on the dog’s digestive system. And the carpet.
Time to make a neighborly visit. He popped the dog into the house, took the bone and headed for the driveway, to walk around to his neighbor’s front gate.
Smoke nearly choked him when he approached the cedar fence and looked over. Frank and Bernie, the neighbors he’d met the first day he’d moved in, were staring at the cooker.
“Too much mesquite!” Bernie yelled at Frank.
“You’re the one that put it in there.”
Tom cleared his throat. Frank instantly turned, while Bernie continued to glare at the cooker. Frank, Tom could see, was wearing hearing aids. Bernie was not.
“Hi,” Frank said. “Need something?”
“Uh, yeah.” Tom held up the rib. “I think the dog got one of your ribs somehow.”
“I didn’t give your dog a rib. Bern? Did you give one of the ribs to the dog?”
Tom was still working on the “your dog” part of the comment. She wasn’t his dog.
“Well, you know…” the shorter man said.
Frank turned back to Tom. “I’ll try to control my brother’s bad habits.”
“I’d appreciate it.” He stood on tip-toe to get a better look at the barbecue setup. “Smells good,” he said.
“Smells like too much mesquite,” the man answered, directing the remark at his brother.
“Is there such a thing?” Tom asked.
The old guy’s eyes cut back to him. “Do you know anything about cooking?”
“A little,” Tom allowed.
“Here,” he said, shoving a sauce stained paper plate with a few individual ribs on it over the fence toward Tom. “Tell me what you think.”
Tom obediently picked up a rib, held it up to inspect the glaze.
“They’re storebought ribs—not as good as the ones we get from the packing plant.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Tom bit in. The texture was perfect, the glaze almost there. The flavor… “A little heavy on the chipotle, but the smoke is perfect. I don’t think you have too much mesquite.”
“I told you,” Bernie said.
“This is the first year we’ve tried the chipotle.”
“All in all, not bad.”
“We’re aiming for perfect. We compete in the rib cook-off every year and we want to win while we’re still vertical.”
“Good start.”
Frank nodded, his cheeks reddening. “I thought they were pretty good.”
“Oh, they are. Just not perfect.” Tom shrugged. “But what is?”
Frank frowned at him. “I know you.”
He waited, wondering if his neighbor would make the connection. Finally Frank shook his head. “Maybe not. You just remind me of somebody.”
“I get that every now and then. One of those faces. I look like a bartender.” Reggie was right—he’d have to cut his hair. He’d gotten rid of the beard a few days ago and figured that would be enough. Apparently not.
Frank laughed. “Actually, that was what I was thinking, but since I only go to one bar anymore and you don’t work there, I don’t think that’s it.”
“Excuse me.”
All three of them turned at the unexpected sound of a woman’s voice. Reggie stood at the side gate, looking as if she was about to walk the long green mile.
“I have company,” Tom said, although judging from her expression, this was not a social call. “I’ll see you guys later.”
“What does he know about
sauce?” he heard Frank mutter to Bernie as he walked away.
REGGIE’S FIRST THOUGHT, ridiculous under the circumstances, was that Tom had shaved and she wasn’t sure she liked it—because he looked so much more like the man she’d once fallen for. He crossed the distance between them in a matter of seconds, his expression one that had probably struck fear in more than a few sous-chefs.
“Eden’s been hurt,” she said abruptly.
Tom’s hand stilled on top of the gate latch and his eyes shot up to hers. “Hurt? How?”
“Hit by a car in a parking lot.” And then she ran out of words. Couldn’t bring herself to say, “Can you help me?”
“Let’s talk inside,” he said as he unlatched the gate and walked through, shooting a quick glance back at his neighbors, who were watching them closely. She followed him to the back door of his house, having no clue how she was going to ask him to help…or if she was.
The little dog turned a circle when Reggie and Tom entered the kitchen.
“You kept her,” Reggie said. There were matching ceramic dog bowls next to the fridge and a bed filled with dog toys under the kitchen table.
Tom shrugged as the dog sat on his shoe and leaned against his leg. “Until I find her a home. Tell me what happened,” he said. “Is Eden all right?”
“She stepped out in front of a teenager driving through a parking lot. You know how she is—going a hundred miles an hour, her mind on the next thing she has to do.” Reggie had witnessed a couple near misses while shopping with Eden. “She has a concussion and a broken ankle.”
“And the kid who hit her?”
“Scared to death,” Reggie said, surprised he’d asked. “They were treating him for shock when I got there.” He’d been getting almost as much attention as Eden. “Thankfully, he wasn’t going fast, but a bump by a car going ten miles per hour still does some damage.” She tugged briefly at her ring, then said, “I need help from someone I trust in the kitchen. We can’t handle the workload without Eden, and the temps we’re familiar with are all booked.”
“So I rate after the temps?”
“Of course not. But I didn’t know if you’d come back after…” she made a frustrated gesture “…you know…so I checked in with the temp agency.”
She fell silent then. She’d said her piece. Asked for help. Now all she needed was a quick answer. Hopefully not “Go to hell.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“Eden cooks as a private chef for three families. The food needs to remain up to par and we can’t trust it to just anyone.”
“What if it gets a whole lot better?”
CHAPTER TEN
RELIEF FLOODED THROUGH REGGIE. Maybe this week wouldn’t be a wreck—for the kitchen anyway.
“Then Eden’s going to have to work harder when she gets back on her feet.”
“I’ll help you out,” Tom said. “On one condition.”
“What?” Reggie asked, at that moment ready to agree to almost anything.
“I get some say in what goes on…and some answers about the baby.”
“What kind of answers?” Reggie worked to keep the defensive edge out of her voice. They had to have this discussion. It wasn’t exactly the perfect time, but she could understand Tom’s position—which she’d been trying hard to ignore.
“I know nothing about the baby,” he said.
Which was wrong. She could admit that. Reggie drew in a deep breath. “It’s too early to tell if it’s a boy or girl.”
“There’s one answer,” he said.
“It’s due in mid-November.”
“I guessed at that one. Do we have a day?”
“The fifteenth.”
“Do you want to find out if it’s a boy or girl?” he asked.
Reggie smoothed her hair from the sides of her face with both hands. “It’d help me get ready. The doctor said he should be able to tell in about four weeks.”
Tom nodded slowly, as if thinking of new questions now that he had this free pass. “Okay. So…you see the doctor, what? Once a week?”
She smiled slightly. “Once a month for now. Visits get more frequent later.”
“And you take vitamins. Eat right. All that.”
“All that,” she agreed.
He seemed to have run out of questions. He studied the floor for a moment, then looked up at her. “What do you see as my role in this, Reggie?”
That’s it. Smack her with a question like that when she needed his help.
“I, uh, think time will tell on that.”
“What do you want it to be?”
“Supportive,” she said. As in let her take the lead in this. Let her decide what was best for her and the kid. Let her be the primary caretaker.
“Do you think we should try to, you know? Raise the kid together?”
Reggie’s eyes widened. “No.”
“Just asking, Reggie. I wasn’t offering.”
“And I’m not trying to be insulting, Tom. It’s just that with your career and mine, and the way things are…”
“I get it, Reg.” He let out a breath. “Enough baby questions for now.”
“You didn’t get many answers,” Reggie pointed out.
“I’ll ask the occasional question while we’re working together. That was, after all, the plan when I came to work out here in the first place. Right?”
“Yes. But I never thought it would work.”
“And it didn’t.” His lips curved. “Maybe it’ll work better this time.”
“Damn, I hope so,” Reggie said.
“SO TOM IS REALLY GOING TO take my place,” Eden said groggily. The pain meds were doing their job, but she was fighting to remain conscious.
Reggie exchanged glances with Justin, who’d gotten off shift at the hotel early. “Yes. And he’s going to follow your recipes.”
“You won’t let him get all fancy?”
“For the twelfth time, no.”
“All right.” Her eyelids started to close. Reggie had made up a bed on the sofa, where it was easier to elevate Eden’s ankle so the swelling would go down and it could be cast.
“I need something to do if I’m stuck here,” she murmured.
“You can work on invoices and billing.” A job that could be done on a laptop in a horizontal position. “Plan the Reno Cuisine.”
“Make prank phone calls to Candy’s Catering Classique,” Justin added helpfully.
Eden started to answer, but the words came out as a slurred whisper and then her jaw went slack.
“Finally,” Justin said. “Where does she keep the liquor?”
Reggie closed her tired eyes. She wouldn’t have minded a belt if circumstances had been different. “Cabinet next to the fridge.”
Justin went into the kitchen and came back a few minutes later with a whiskey for him and a glass of cranberry juice for Reggie. He sat in the easy chair next to Reggie and the two of them sipped as they watched their sister sleep.
“You know,” Justin mused, “I’ve done a lot of things, but I never got hit by a car.”
“Not for lack of trying.”
He lifted his glass in a salute and she smiled back at him, letting her head rest against the cushion behind her. “You never got pregnant, either.”
“No…funny thing that.” He looked at his glass instead of at her, and Reggie had a feeling he was going to say more, but he only took a healthy gulp of whiskey. “Are you and Tom any closer to working out an equitable arrangement?”
“I, uh, answered some questions.”
“That’s a start.”
“It’s hard to make decisions and choices when I have no idea what he’s going to do in the future. Where he’s going to be.”
“Maybe the baby will affect that decision.”
Reggie frowned over her glass. “Oh, I don’t think so.”
Justin raised his eyebrows.
“I believe he wants to do the right thing. But if he ever gets past this roadblock in his career…
I don’t know, Justin.”
“So you trust him in your kitchen, but not in your life.”
“He wasn’t very dependable in my life.”
She got the feeling Justin had more to say on the matter. “What?” she asked.
Her brother swirled his drink, but made no response.
Reggie decided to follow suit. She didn’t want to talk about this. Not when she had a sister lying out on the sofa drugged out of her mind on pain meds, and a back-breaking week ahead of her.
“I’ll stay here with Ed,” Justin said. “You need to get a decent night’s sleep.”
“But—”
“Which of us is more adept at getting by on next to no sleep, and which of us is sleeping for two?”
Reggie couldn’t argue with that. She finished the juice and set the glass on the table. “I will need my strength tomorrow.” In more ways than one. “Thanks, Justin.”
TOM AROSE EARLY THE NEXT morning, showered, fed the rat dog and put her in the fenced backyard with a raw-hide chew for entertainment. The dog had taken to sleeping with him, curled up in a ball on the end of the bed until he fell asleep, at which point she would burrow under the covers, more like a gopher than a rat. Scared the hell out of Tom the first time he’d woken up with something warm and furry pressed against his ankles. Last night, though, he hadn’t minded the companionship as he tried to make sense of his life, which had once been so focused, so freaking on track.
His cell phone rang as he headed out the door.
“Hi, Tom,” said a familiar female voice. Eden. “Reggie gave me your number so we could coordinate.”
“How’re you feeling?” Tom asked, opening the car door. There was a hesitation at the other end. Was he such a bastard that being polite threw people into confusion?
“Sore. I appreciate you helping out.”
“No problem. Do you want to wait to talk until I get to the kitchen to discuss the meals?” He’d have access to her recipes there.
“I didn’t call about the meals. I called about Reggie.”
“What about Reggie?” he asked, his pulse bumping up.