Ring of Truth

by Ciji Ware

  “Oh... that’s fantastic!” Kerry replied, clapping her hands.

  She followed him further into the living room where she noted the stacked logs awaiting a match to light a cozy fire. A small, round table for two took up one corner, and a hand-woven rug graced the hearth.

  “What a little jewel box of a place!” she exclaimed. “And that’s the perfect spot for my laptop computer,” she said excitedly, pointing to the little table. “I can crank out eight-hundred words at a shot within view of gorgeous olive groves climbing up the hill!”

  “So, it’s not too small?”

  “Oh, no...” she said on a long breath, turning in a circle. “It’s perfect! This is a dream cottage for someone like me.” She turned toward Ren and added gratefully, “I can’t quite believe I get to live here!” As she spoke, Ren’s steady gaze made her pulse speed up in dizzying fashion. “Thank you so much, Ren. I feel as if I’m in some dream...”

  For a long moment, they simply stared at each other. Kerry felt in that instant that there was a strange force field drawing them inexorably closer to one another.

  Finally Ren said, “I’d better go see how Jeremy is doing.” He turned away and strode toward the Dutch door whose top section was open, offering a glimpse of the greenhouse below. “He supervised José and Sara’s putting together a farm-to-table dinner tonight that we served to a small group of local restaurateurs and I want to hear how he thinks it went.”

  He paused at the door and although the distance between them had widened, Kerry continued to sense the same magnetic pull as before. Somehow, it seemed the most natural thing in the world when he asked, “Want to come with me?”

  Kerry nodded as a little ripple of happiness skittered down her spine.

  When Ren pushed open the screen door to the commercial kitchen, Jeremy was sprawled on the leather couch. José stood at the sink, rinsing the last of the dishes and putting them in the heat sterilizer, while Sara was sitting at the table with a large glass of cabernet at her side.

  “Hi, all. How’d it go tonight?” Ren asked.

  Jeremy looked up and greeted them wearily, “Hey there... and welcome, Kerry. We sure could have used you tonight. It’s going to be so great having you here.”

  Sara was staring sullenly into her glass.

  “Oh? What happened?” Ren inquired.

  Jeremy darted a glance at Sara and shrugged.

  “I’m obviously not operating on all cylinders right now, and it just felt as if our timing was off. José was great following my instructions on making most of the food, but...” He paused and addressed Kerry. “You probably know what I’m talking about. It was one of those nights when we just weren’t in the zone, you know what I mean?”

  Before Kerry could respond, Sara spoke up with an unpleasant edge to her voice.

  “You mean I wasn’t in the zone,” she mimicked. “Well, what do you expect, Jeremy? I had to do the desserts and make the salad and serve and clear—which is usually José’s job!” She shot a sharp look in Kerry’s direction. “Of course, you probably think that everything will magically be peachy keen, now that you’ve ridden to the rescue.”

  “Kerry’s work the day Jeremy got sick speaks for itself,” Ren said, his exasperation evident, “and you could probably learn something if you’d drop the attitude and just pay attention.”

  “Oh, really? I’m the problem? Just wait a while,” Sara predicted darkly. “I googled the words ‘Kerry Hannigan, chef.’” Her eyes narrowing, she pointed her index finger toward Kerry but addressed her employer. “The only paid cooking job this fraud’s ever had that came up in the search results was at a sleazy pub in New York that her parents owned prior to her getting her high-and-mighty degree from the CIA.” She affected an innocent shrug. “I don’t get it... why is she here, Ren, unless you’ve got something else going on you’d like me to break to my parents who still think you’re in mourning over their other daughter.”

  Ren’s expression was a study in neutrality, although there was no mistaking the anger in his tone.

  “Sara,” he said, “I hate to sound like one of your parents, but you’d better just say goodnight. Then, I’d like to see you in the office at nine o’clock, sharp, capisce?”

  Adding to the acute discomfort of everyone in the room, Sara stonily remained sitting where she was. Kerry wanted nothing more than to grab her suitcases out of the cottage on the hill and head straight back to San Francisco.

  What in the world had she gotten herself into?

  Uncomfortable silence continued to poison the air. At length, it was Kerry, herself, who ended it.

  “Well, on that happy note, I think I’ll leave you all.” She addressed the exhausted-looking chef. “I’ve been hired here to help on the business side, but call on me, Jeremy, whenever you need a hand. I am more than happy to offer it, including tomorrow night’s dinner for the UC Davis Olive Oil folks.” She turned to face Sara. “I can understand how my being hired has upset you, but I am not the enemy, and you’re only hurting yourself by behaving like this.”

  And before anyone in the kitchen could say another word, Kerry was out the door and sprinting toward her little bungalow, its two windows glowing a warm welcome in the absolute stillness of the surrounding hills.

  ***

  By the time Kerry reached her new front step, she heard the kitchen door down the hill open and slam shut and two angry, but indistinguishable voices floated on the evening air. She turned around in time to see Ren and Sara gesticulating at each other and walking swiftly along the lower path in the direction of the ranch office.

  Ren had probably reached his limit and Kerry wondered what he would—or could—do to resolve the situation any sooner than scheduled. She could only pray that eventually things would settle down and she could begin what she hoped was a completely new chapter in a wonderful lifestyle that had somehow fallen into her lap.

  She turned her back on the drama unfolding in Ren’s office and entered her new living quarters. Within minutes, she had unzipped her suitcase and hung her clothes in the bedroom closet. Her next task was to crank out two more blog assignments, which she did over the next hour and a half, despite her thoughts occasionally wandering down the hill. She’d brushed her teeth and was about to get ready for bed when she heard a knock on the door. Ren, himself, stood on the cement front step with a grim expression, his hands in his jeans pockets.

  “That was bad,” he said without preamble. “I told her after you left that she has two weeks to find herself another place to live. Then I called her parents in her presence and asked them to alert Sara’s shrink and make arrangements to house their daughter as soon as they can. I’ve had it.”

  “But what about poor Jeremy? José’s been great, but—”

  “Plan B,” Ren cut in. “Like you said, you’ll be Jeremy’s backup, if that’s okay with you, and the marketing side of things will definitely have to wait, because I fully understand that your first priority is pumping out those blogs and there won’t be time—”

  “As of today,” she interrupted him, “my first priority is all of it.” She was buoyed by the fact that Ren hadn’t hesitated to make such a tough decision. “And we wouldn’t be able to make progress with any of the things you want to do around here unless you ordered Sara Lang to go her merry way, as you just did.” She reached out and briefly touched his arm. “I realize that there are probably many layers to all of this that I can’t possibly know about, but I truly appreciate what you just did. Keep the faith, Ren,” she added, echoing the Claddagh’s earlier message. “We’ll figure all this out.”

  “Well, all I can say to that is, thank God I made that delivery to Amphora Nueva in Berkeley last Friday.” Without warning, he reached across the threshold and took her into his arms, pulling her close. “Otherwise,” he whispered against her ear, “I might never have met you, and then where would I be?”

  Kerry marveled at how natural it felt to be enveloped in Ren’s embrace and she leaned into
his torso, luxuriating in the mere feel of her cheek resting against his broad chest. At length, she pulled away and tilted her head to be able to look at him.

  “If we hadn’t met last week, you’d be in a lot less complicated situation than you’re in right now,” she chided. “But since we can’t turn back the clock, how about you step into my parlor and we close the door so that every ranch hand on the place doesn’t have such a grandstand view?”

  Ren didn’t break his hold of her, but simply moved the two of them a few feet past the front door and pushed it closed with his foot. His hands then framed her face, his fingers threading through her hair, sending cascading warmth up and down her neck.

  “I have wanted to kiss you from that first day I watched you close your eyes and run your tongue over that cube of French bread soaked in my olive oil.”

  “Good food is a sensual experience, don’t you think,” she whispered, “just like—”

  “Oh... yes...” he murmured, stopping their exchange as he settled his mouth on hers.

  His lips were soft, then insistent, then demanding, and Kerry suddenly wondered if she’d crossed some desert landscape in the past week to find a cool, comforting oasis where she could drink her fill. His arousal pressed against her midsection, signaling that the magnetic pull she was certain they’d both been sensing since the day they met had finally culminated in electrifying sensations coursing through every cell in her body.

  When, at length, they allowed an inch of space between them, Kerry inhaled a shaky breath.

  “This is pretty insane, don’t you think? I haven’t even slept one night on your ranch and look at us!”

  “It’s crazy good,” he said, his voice ragged. “I’ve never felt this... this need to be so close... wanting another person to be part of my life... being with someone who makes me feel as if I have a life...”

  “I feel it too,” she replied, barely above a whisper, “but really, Ren, it hasn’t even been a week since I found out about Charlie and—”

  “Who cares about them?” He seized her by her two shoulders and looked as if he was almost angry.

  “I don’t care about them, either,” she insisted, “but I care about what’s happening to us. How can we know this is real? Talk about crazy!” she added with a rueful smile. “We need to slow down. We’re supposed to be boss and employee, remember—”

  “We’re partners! I felt it that first day when Jeremy got sick and you—”

  It was Kerry’s turn to cup Ren’s face between her hands.

  “I felt it that day, too,” she acknowledged, and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him briefly on the lips. “But we’ve only worked together one day. Let’s take this partner business... and everything, really... in steps, or you’ll scare me to death.”

  “Well, we can’t have that...” he mumbled, pulling her toward him again and nibbling her ear. “Okay then... so... since I’m still the boss, I say—let’s go in there,” he declared, nodding his head in the direction of the bedroom.

  “Ren! I’m serious! I want to savor what seems to be happening here...”

  “You mean this?” he said, gently cupping one breast and strafing her stiffened nipple with his thumb through her clothing. “Or, do you mean plain old falling in love? Because I think that’s definitely what’s going on here.”

  “You do?” she whispered, wondering if she could keep her balance should he touch her other breast.

  “It’s happened,” he stated flatly. “At least to me, it has, and if I don’t get out of here in the next five seconds, I might just drag you into Nona Concetta’s spare bedroom and have my way with you on top of that quilt in there she stitched... which would feel pretty insane.”

  He leaned forward and kissed her again with a ferocity that left Kerry feeling as if she were a marked woman. Then he abruptly turned and left the cottage.

  She stood at the open door, watching him stride down the hill toward the low-slung farmhouse where he worked and slept. The instant his tall figure disappeared into the gloom, she felt her ring finger pulse with warmth.

  Know thy heart, indeed, Kerry m’girl...

  Chapter Eight

  The following morning, Kerry awoke at six with birds chattering outside her window, as if scolding the universe for the low-lying fog that enveloped the rows of olive trees outside her window. She forced herself to fire up her laptop and wrote another two blogs, one about the work of the UC Davis Olive Oil panel of experts whose mission it was to determine which oils they deemed of highest quality. The second post was about preparing a dinner for the same distinguished group later that night with ingredients that would come within a ten-mile radius.

  By eight-thirty, a damp chill continued to linger in the air when she walked down the hill, her mind focused on sipping a strong cup of coffee that she hoped José had made by the time she arrived at the building housing the ranch’s commercial kitchen.

  She pushed open the door to an empty room and flipped the light switch to search the well-organized pantry for the coffeemaker, filters, and grinder, happy to discover a bag of San Francisco Fog coffee beans in the big walk-in freezer.

  She’d scrambled a dozen eggs for whoever would eat them and perused Tuesday night’s menu that Jeremy had posted on the cork bulletin board. José soon appeared, followed five minutes later by Chef Jeremy, himself. After a congenial consultation, all three got busy doing the prep for the UC Davis dinner. When Sara hadn’t made an appearance by eleven o’clock, Kerry called Tony, “the Salad Associate at LifeStyleXer,” she explained with a grin to Jeremy. Tony instantly said he was delighted to lend a hand as soon as he got off work at the company cafeteria.

  “If we can’t depend on her,” Jeremy agreed, “a cook’s gotta do what a cook’s gotta do.”

  Around one o’clock Sara flounced into the kitchen with Ren—who’d been informed of her tardiness by Jeremy—following close behind. She announced pointedly to the chef that she would make the dessert and salad dressing.

  Jeremy and his second-in-command exchanged looks, but Kerry kept to the task she was currently assigned without comment. Ren assumed the job of peeling a pile of root vegetables José had pulled from the garden that morning.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Kerry noticed that Sara had quickly proceeded to measure out oil for the cake batter she was making. While the round pans were baking in the oven, the young woman silently poured oil from the same bottle into a bowl containing the ingredients for mustard vinaigrette.

  Fifteen minutes later, Kerry smelled something burning.

  “Your cakes!” she cried, and raced over to the large stainless steel commercial oven on the far side of the room. She glanced at the temperature gauge. “You set it at five hundred degrees, Sara!” she shouted. “What the—”

  Sara merely smiled and said, “Oh. Really? Gee. Sorry. My mistake,” and continued to whisk the oil into the salad dressing.

  Jeremy pulled himself off the couch and moved with obvious discomfort to Kerry’s side, glancing worriedly at the clock.

  “Shit, Sara!”

  Kerry opened the oven just as one of the cakes burst into flame. The others were already blackened and useless. She flicked off the oven, grabbed a quilted mitt, and tossed the cake and its pan into the stainless steel sink where José turned the water on to put out the flames. Alarming hissing sounds and smoke filled the kitchen while Sara remained where she was, calmly whisking the salad dressing.

  “You did this on purpose,” Kerry accused her, racing to open the door and windows to prevent the smoke alarm from sounding. “You’re either just a jealous idiot or a very sick puppy. You could have burned down the place!”

  By this time, Jeremy and Ren had joined the two women who were less than a foot apart, glaring at each other through the smoky interior.

  “I don’t actually care which it is,” Jeremy shouted at his erstwhile sous chef. “Just get out of here, Sara. Go sit in your room until your two weeks are up!” Kerry could tell that Jeremy alrea
dy appeared to regret he’d jumped off the couch so quickly when the cakes caught fire.

  Sara whirled to face the chef. “So Ren told you I have to leave in two weeks, instead of a month?” She was red-faced and Kerry wondered if she would, indeed, seize a butcher knife and go after anyone within reach.

  “Yes,” Ren confirmed. “I told him this morning.”

  Ignoring her employer, she shouted at the chef, “And did he tell you he’s already shacking up with Ms. Perfect here?”

  “It’s none of my business who he’s shacking up with!” Jeremy replied, his complexion drained of color. Kerry thought she saw him wince with pain.

  Kerry banged her fist on the counter near the bowl of vinaigrette.

  “I am not sleeping with the boss, though I imagine I will one of these days, Sara, so I think you have a choice: make an utter mess of everything in the time you have left here on the ranch where your brother-in-law offered you shelter and amazing kindness—or pull yourself together and grow up! But one thing is certain... you can’t have your late sister, Sandra’s life, and you sure as hell can’t have mine!”

  The look that passed over Sara’s features was a blend of shock and pure hatred. Meanwhile, Kerry detected a highly unpleasant odor wafting from the bowl of salad dressing Sara had been making. On impulse, she grabbed a spoon and stuck it into the emulsified liquid to sample it.

  “Good God!” she exploded, squeezing her eyes shut. “This salad dressing is rancid!” She opened her eyes to stare at Sara, the full extent of the woman’s efforts to sabotage them becoming all too clear. “You deliberately used discarded oil from that back shelf in the mill that would ruin the Montisi Ranch’s reputation with the UC Davis olive oil experts tonight when we served them a salad that would taste absolutely disgusting!”

  Sara ignored Kerry’s accusations and turned on Ren, instead.

  “You haven’t even known this woman a week and she swans in here and practically takes over the place.”