Chef Sugarlips_A Ponderosa Resort Romantic Comedy

by Tawna Fenske

  SEAN

  For the record, I didn’t faint.

  Okay, I got rattled when I saw this angelic silhouette in the doorway, feathered wingtips arching toward opposite windows and dark hair shimmering like a sunlit halo.

  Blame it on the fact that my sister made me binge-watch Touched by An Angel last week on the anniversary of our dad’s death. Or hell, blame the fact that I’ve been sleeping like shit the last couple nights.

  The point is, I know damn well there’s not an actual angel in my foyer. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m lying here on the floor beside the bar wondering what the hell just happened.

  “Oh my God, are you okay?”

  The angel sprints through the dining room and falls to her knees beside me, dropping a large turkey next to my head. I blink to clear my vision, pretty sure I’m seeing things.

  When I spot the crossbow in her hands, I’m sure of it. “It’s not a harp.”

  She stares down at me and bites her lip. “I think maybe you have a head injury.” She sets down the crossbow and pulls an iPhone from the back pocket of her jeans, and I order myself not to notice the way the faded denim hugs her backside. “Hang on, let me call—”

  “No.” I struggle to sit up and catch her wrist before she hits the final 1 in 911. “Really, I just lost my balance. I’m fine.”

  Her head tips to one side as she studies me. “Actually, you do look fine.” Her cheeks pinken the tiniest bit. “I mean—your pupils aren’t dilated or anything, and you’re not bleeding. Are you sure you don’t have any internal injuries?”

  “I promise, I’m okay.” More than okay, since I’m still holding her wrist, which is warm and soft and fluttering with the fastest little hummingbird pulse. I should probably let go. “You’re Amber.”

  The angel blinks at me. “How did you know that?”

  I release her wrist and scrub a hand over the back of my head, confirming there’s no blood. I’ll have one helluva goose egg tomorrow, but that’s the least of my concerns. “I remember you from a long time ago,” I tell her. “I was eight, I think.”

  “Eight?”

  “Yeah. So—nineteen years ago?”

  “And you remember me?”

  “I was visiting my dad here at the ranch that summer.” I lean back against the wall, recalling the details of that meeting more acutely than I probably should. “You came over with your mom, looking for a pig that escaped.”

  The look on her face suggests she’s back to questioning how hard I hit my head. “You remember that?”

  What can I say? The smiling, brown-eyed girl with the sweet smile and dark waterfall pigtails made an impression.

  “We met one other time,” I tell her. “Well, met isn’t the right word. You got caught skinny dipping in my dad’s pond? It was your eighteenth birthday party, I think.”

  And the highlight of my summer as a twenty-year-old college kid standing on the back porch of my dad’s ranch house wondering if there was some way to extend my week-long annual visits to—well, an eternity.

  Which is sort of what I’ve gone and done.

  The memory of Amber with water streaming from her hair and moonbeams spotlighting her bare shoulders leaves me dizzy, and I consider lying down on the floor again.

  She must see something alarming in my expression, because she clutches my arm and stares into my eyes. “Can you tell me your name? Or wait—how many fingers am I holding up?”

  I smile, touched by her concern. “Sean. Sean Bracelyn. I’m one of the owners here.”

  “Oh. You’re the chef?”

  “That’s me.” I try not get too excited that she knows who I am.

  Her forehead is still creased with a frown. “Are you sure I don’t need to call anyone? An ambulance or maybe Bree?”

  The thought of my sister storming in to tell me what a dumbass I am has me clambering to my feet in a hurry. I pull Amber up with me, not wanting to leave her sitting on the floor next to a dead turkey.

  “What’s with the bird?” I ask.

  “My sister asked me to bring it.”

  “Because showing up with a plate of cookies is cliché?”

  She laughs and shakes her head. “Your sister wanted it for some photo shoot. Don’t worry, it’s stuffed. I didn’t just drop a freshly-killed animal on your floor.”

  “Too bad. I’ve got a killer recipe for spatchcocked turkey with anise and orange.”

  “Spatch—what?”

  “Spatchcocked,” I say, putting a regrettable emphasis on the last syllable. “It’s where you lay it out flat with its legs spread wide and the breast—you know what? Never mind.”

  Christ, I need a do-over. It’s not every day a guy comes face to face with the girl he’s had a crush on since he wore Batman Underoos. I rake my fingers through my hair and try again.

  “Let me start over,” I say. “I promise to give the creepy dead turkey to my sister on your behalf.”

  “And the crossbow.”

  “Of course.”

  “I think it has something to do with a turkey hunting promotion.”

  “Or my sister’s just weird,” I say. “I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  Amber laughs, and I get my first close-up look at the most adorable dimples I’ve ever seen. They’re perfectly symmetrical, and the way she tosses her head back when she laughs makes me wonder what it would feel like to have all that hair spilling across my bare chest as she leans over me and—

  For the love of Christ, knock it off.

  I clear my throat. “Can I offer you a drink? The soda machine isn’t hooked up yet, but we’ve got Perrier, Pinot Noir, an unoaked Chardonnay, a couple kinds of craft beer, a full bar…”

  I stop there and cross my fingers she doesn’t think I’m trying to get her drunk. She’s smiling, so I don’t think she’s feeling threatened, but how would I know? I’ve fantasized about Amber King for years, but she’s basically a stranger.

  “Sure,” she says. “I actually wanted to talk to you about something, so maybe we can sit down?”

  “Hang on, let me grab us some snacks.”

  I hustle around the bar and shove through the doors to the kitchen. I’ve been doing my own dry-cured meats, so I slice up a little capicola, a few thin sheets of prosciutto, a bit of hard salami.

  My phone buzzes from the cubby next to the fire extinguisher, and I steal a glance at the screen.

  Mother.

  Not mom, not mommy. Mother. That’s how she’s logged in my phone, which tells you everything you need to know about our relationship.

  I spot the word “emergency” in the first few lines of her text message, but since her last so-called emergency was an urgent need to know how to spell the word “unencumbered,” I ignore it and focus on assembling the best damn charcuterie tray ever.

  I add a dab of pâté and grab a handful of pistachios, plus some of those Castelvetrano green olives I just got from Italy. I fill a small ramekin with whole-grain mustard and another with fig preserves before grabbing some baby dills for a little tart crunch.

  I arrange the whole thing on one of the olivewood cheese boards my brother and I have spent the last week carving, then grab a bottle of Willamette Valley Pinot Noir and two glasses. Abandoning my phone in the kitchen, I start toward the door, then curse under my breath. I turn and grab the damn thing and shove it in my pocket, feeling it buzz with an incoming message as I head toward the dining room.

  Amber’s still standing right where I left her, one hand resting lightly on our hammered copper bar. She looks up as I push through the doors, and her eyes go wide as nickels.

  “Holy crap,” she says. “When I say I’m throwing together a snack, it means I’m dumping chips in a bowl. Maybe salsa if I feel fancy.”

  “I’m a chef,” I tell her. “I can put together a charcuterie tray in my sleep.”

  “I’m a marketing geek and a reindeer rancher,” she says. “So if you need crap shoveled one way or another, I’m your girl.”

  I
hate how my heart stutters with those three words. I’m your girl. She didn’t mean it that way, and we’ve only just met. But I can’t stop thinking about what that would feel like.

  “Come on,” I tell her. “Let’s have a seat in the dining area.”

  I lead her to one of the live-edge juniper tables near the window overlooking the mountains. As I set the tray down in the center, Amber stops to stroke one bark-edged curve.

  “This is incredible,” she says. “Did you get these at that Amish shop in town?”

  I take a seat on one of the leather-backed chairs. “Nah, my brothers and I harvested timber off the east side of the property. Brandon helped, too. We’ve been slowly building one table at a time for about eight months.”

  “You made this?” she shakes her head and takes a seat beside me. “A chef, a woodworker, and a resort owner.”

  “Sounds like the setup for a bad joke.” I grab the wine bottle and hold it up. “I hope you don’t mind, I went with the Pinot.”

  She leans in to peer at the label, and it takes everything in my power not to steal a glimpse down the v-neck of her sweater.

  “Ooh, that’s one of my favorite vineyards,” she says. “Dundee Hills, right?”

  “Right.” Be still my heart, she knows wine. Did I mention I’m pretty sure she’s my dream girl?

  I uncork the bottle and tip a couple tablespoons into one of the glasses. Then I shove the cork back in the bottle and shake the crap out of it for about thirty seconds. “Old vintner’s trick,” I tell her. “It’s a good way to aerate a wine fast when you don’t have time to decant.”

  I hope I don’t sound like a pretentious snob. I hope the fact that I can wield a chainsaw as well as a carving knife helps rub off some of my prep-school varnish.

  The smile she gives me looks genuine as she plucks an olive out of the small dish on the edge of the tray. “Your wife or girlfriend or whatever—she must love this,” she says. “Having a personal gourmet chef twenty-four seven?”

  Hello. Was that a probe at my marital status, or just an entrée to conversation? Or maybe she’s wondering if I’m gay.

  “I’m not,” I say, probably a little too quickly. “Married or in a relationship or anything. I was engaged once—to a woman—but I’ve actually never been married, so—”

  Fuck. What the hell is wrong with me?

  I clear my throat. “I cook for my family all the time, so I guess they’re the ones reaping the benefits.”

  “Lucky them.” She smiles and takes a small sip of the wine I’ve just poured into her glass. Then she plucks a thin slice of baguette from the tray and sets to work loading it up with capicola and salami with a little mustard. I watch, admiring her enthusiasm as she tops the whole thing with a little nugget of cave-aged gouda and takes a bite.

  “God, this is amazing,” she says around a mouthful. “I missed lunch, so you just saved my life.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “How did you end up out here, Sean?” she asks when she’s done chewing. “You’re from the East Coast, right?”

  “Connecticut,” I answer, wondering how much she’s heard through the grapevine. Amber’s sister is hot and heavy with my cousin, Brandon. I know how news travels in normal families, so I figure she’s heard at least parts of the story.

  “My dad was, uh—” I hunt around for an adjective that’s not “bastard” or “cheating asshole.”

  “From considerable means?” Amber supplies.

  “There you go.” I grab a hunk of salami off the tray, not bothering with the bread. “He was this billionaire investor who had fantasies of being a good ol’ boy. Came out to Oregon and started buying up land like he was collecting baseball cards. That’s how he met my mother, actually.”

  “Your mom’s from Central Oregon?”

  “No, but her grandparents had a place here. Their original homestead is part of this acreage.”

  “No kidding? So you have roots here.”

  “More or less,” I say, not wanting to go too far down the rabbit hole of discussing my mother. “Anyway, my dad had a house built and bought a bunch of horses and hired a buttload of ranch hands to run the place. He’d come out a few times a year to do his rhinestone cowboy thing. Sometimes he’d bring one of us.”

  “You and your siblings?”

  I nod and wonder if she’s picturing us as one big happy family unit. “We—uh—all had different mothers,” I say. “My sister and my brothers and me.”

  “Oh.” Amber nibbles the end of a tiny pickle and looks thoughtful. “You and Bree look so much alike.”

  “We all do,” I tell her. “Me, Bree, Mark, James, Jonathon—”

  “Wait, how many siblings do you have?”

  I shrug and stab a spreader into the pâté. “A lot.”

  “And you all grew up together?”

  “God, no. It wasn’t like some sort of weird cult thing with all the sister wives together. My dad just liked to get married.”

  “And divorced?”

  I snort and reach for a slice of baguette. “He probably didn’t enjoy that part as much. His exes tended to be—displeased.”

  Including my mother, but there’s no point bringing that up. There’s probably no point bringing up any of this, so I have no idea why I’m yammering on like a kindergartener giving his life story on the first day of school. I’m not usually such an open book with women or—well, anyone.

  Amber doesn’t say anything right away, but she looks thoughtful. Or maybe she’s just hungry. She isn’t shy about diving right into the food, and I love that she’s not picking at it like a perpetually-starved supermodel.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she says. “Your dad, I mean.”

  “Thank you. We weren’t close.” I clear my throat. “Anyway, after he died and we inherited this place, my sister and brothers and I decided to do something different with it.”

  I’m annoyed with myself for droning on about my life and not asking a damn thing about her. I reach for a hunk of salami, but she has the same idea. Our hands collide, and we end up doing this awkward fist-bump.

  “Whoops, sorry,” I say over the audible crack of knuckles.

  “No, I’m sorry. Did I get you with my ring?”

  She turns her hand over, showing a stunning golden gem in a silver setting. The stone is big and rounded, and a glint of sunlight catches it just right to show a tiny insect trapped inside.

  “That’s beautiful,” I tell her.

  “Thanks. My grandpa gave it to me. Amber for Amber, I guess.” She smiles, but there’s something wistful in it. A sadness that tells me grandpa might be playing poker with my old man on the other side of the pearly gates.

  That’s assuming my dad qualified for entry. I have my doubts.

  “So did you always want to run a reindeer ranch?”

  She laughs and shakes her head. “No, my sister is the animal nut. I’m crazy about them, too, but she’s the one who went to vet school and runs that side of the business.”

  “And you do the marketing?”

  “That’s right,” she says. “Finding ways to make us profitable year-round instead of just when people want to show up and get their picture taken with Rudolph. Which leads me to why I’m here, actually.”

  “Reindeer photography?”

  She smiles and takes a small sip of her wine. “Nope, I’m talking about what we do the rest of the year—weddings.”

  “Right, the country wedding thing? My sister mentioned it.” I swirl the wine in my glass, wondering if I’m the only one feeling like this is a date.

  “We’re doing more of a rustic wedding thing,” she says. “Catering to the local crowd.”

  “And we get the rich assholes who fly in for an exotic, old-West destination wedding?”

  “Your words, not mine.” Amber grabs another piece of bread. “I wanted to find out if you had any interest in catering a couple weddings between now and then. It could be a good promotional opportunity if you—”
<
br />   “I’m in.”

  She blinks. “What?”

  I suppose I should have played hard to get? Too late for that.

  “I’m in,” I repeat, grabbing a hunk of smoked cheddar. “I’ve done tons of weddings. Piece of cake. Well, I don’t do cakes, but I’m game for the rest.”

  Jesus, Sean, shut up. Take the eagerness down about twelve notches.

  But Amber just looks bemused. “You didn’t give me a chance to give you my hard sell,” she says. “I had all this persuasive evidence lined up to present to you.”

  “Oh, by all means.” I lift my wineglass and gesture for her to continue.

  “Okay, um—well, there’s visibility,” she says. “Everyone’s buzzing about the new luxury ranch in town, but no one knows much about you. This is a good way to get your business name out there.”

  “Our business plan is aimed at vacationers from out-of-town,” I point out. “I’m not sure how much local marketing we need.”

  “Ah, but locals might come out for the dining, right?”

  “Definitely,” I say. “Though we won’t be doing offsite catering, so we don’t really want to advertise that.”

  Amber frowns and drums her fingertips on the table. “Okay, well it’s a good chance for you to interact with community members.”

  “I’m not really much of a people person,” I admit. “The human interaction stuff is more my sister’s scene.”

  “Um, okay.” She presses her lips together. “I’d tell you it’s a good chance to make a little extra money before you open, but something tells me money’s not an issue.”

  I clear my throat. “It’s not a real motivator.”

  Amber stares at me. “You’ve just shot down every persuasive argument I made,” she says. “Do you take back your offer to do it?”

  “Nope.” I sip my wine and steal a look at the mountains. The sun is starting to drop behind them, casting a pinkish alpenglow on the landscape. I look back at Amber and my heart twists. “I’m still in.”

  “So—why?”

  I hesitate, wondering if I should be honest or bullshit her.

  Honesty. Bullshit was your dad’s game.

  “I’m a sucker for brown eyes,” I admit. “And I like your smile.”