by Mindy Klasky
Jesus. Had she slipped that much? She was babbling nonsense. “Now, Angel—”
“I want to hold another newborn, Josh. I want to know the Cantor name will go on, even after I can’t remember it.” She startled him by cupping his chin with her hand. “I want you to be happy, boy. All women aren’t like that Harpy.”
Harper, he started to correct her, but there wasn’t any reason. Hadn’t been since the judge stamped his divorce decree. He’d had no reason to think about Harper since he’d turned over two sets of house keys, his car keys, and the lion’s share of his bank account. The last alimony check was due on December 31, and he couldn’t wait to sign his name.
The judge had declared her a corporate spouse, a good woman devoted to doing anything, everything, to making Josh’s baseball career a success. In the court’s eyes, Harper had sacrificed early and often, giving up her own possibilities for career advancement so she could help Josh move up the ladder of major league baseball.
Corporate spouse, my ass. Harper had been a supportive spouse about the same way he’d been a faithful, dedicated husband. But she’d been a hell of a lot smarter than he had. She’d hired an investigator and gotten pictures. Snapshots and a sympathetic judge, and Josh was poorer than he’d ever been in his life.
If he’d listened to everyone—Angel included—and signed an ironclad pre-nup before marrying Harper, he might not need a restaurant for investment income. He might have a decent retirement plan in place, a balance sheet that reflected his worth on the field and off. He might not be worried about how he was going to pay his own mortgage, plus the cost of Angel’s looming nursing home, along with her medical bills.
But Harper’d had him by the balls when he’d proposed to her. By his dick at least. He’d been stupid enough to think he was in love when they got married, and he’d refused to let any legal bullshit ruin that. He’d been an idiot.
Angel shook her head, as if he’d admitted his remorse out loud. “You’re scared, boy. And it’s my job to break you of it. That might be the last thing I do for you.”
He didn’t want to think about Angel being gone, so he growled, “I’m not some horse you can train to saddle.”
She snorted. “You’d be a lot easier to handle if you were. When you broke your arm sliding into second in Little League, I made sure you got out there the very next season. When that aluminum bat broke your nose in high school, I got you to the doctor, had you fitted for a face mask, and got you back in time for the college scouts to see what you had. I’m not letting you throw away the rest of your life, just because that creature hurt you.”
“So let me get this straight. I need to find a woman, marry her, and get her knocked up by March, or you’re giving your recipes to Beau Dumont.”
She frowned but didn’t call him on his language. “I can live with a wedding. The baby might take a little time to catch. I’m not unreasonable.”
Of course not. Angel was the goddamn voice of reason.
She went on. “For now, you can have the recipes, one at a time. For every week you’re dating the same girl, I’ll give you another recipe.”
“Right, Angel. And what am I supposed to do? Have that girl sign a goddamn affidavit?”
“Language!” she tutted. But then she said, “I’ll accept a photo as evidence that you’re courting.”
Maybe it was the disease, but she sounded perfectly reasonable. She was honestly talking about trading recipes for romance, and he was supposed to act like that was normal.
But what other option did he have? He needed Angel’s leather-bound recipe file. “I get to choose which recipes.”
She eyed him steadily. “Of course.”
“And you’ll be reasonable about proof, at least for the first few weeks. Any decent woman would be frightened off in half a minute, if she knew you were blackmailing me.”
Angel didn’t react to his accusation. “I always know when you’re lying to me, boy, so don’t even think about trying anything. But yes, I’ll be reasonable.”
Shit. What else was he going to do?
He took her glass as she held it out for a refill. He measured out sugar and bitters, added a teaspoon of water. The steel muddler was heavy in his palm as he took out his frustration on the ingredients.
He’d gotten through the first round of Who Wears the Apron on the power of his ideas. All right, his ideas, and maybe his name. The TV station probably liked the idea of bringing a local celebrity into the competition. But now he’d have to up his game. Now he’d have to prove he could cook.
He couldn’t lose Who Wears the Apron if he had Angel’s recipes. So he’d just have to see what he could do about finding a bride. Or at least a woman whose picture he could deliver into Angel’s eager hands. It was the least he could do for his grandmother. It might be the last thing she remembered.
~~~
Ashley walked into the green room at the television station, reminding herself to breathe. She’d gotten home from Mangia at midnight and immediately set to work on her entry for the cooking contest. After a shower at four in the morning, she’d gotten dressed, slapped on makeup to try to imitate a living, breathing human, collected her food, and headed down to the studio.
It only took her a moment to discover her major mistake: she hadn’t worn her chef’s whites.
She’d thought about it, of course. She had a clean uniform at home, the white pants, the long tunic with its buttons marching down her chest. She’d even considered donning a pleated toque.
In the end, though, she’d decided it was presumptuous to wear the costume. She’d settled for sleek black pants, a soft green blouse that picked up the color of her hazel eyes, conservative pumps that pinched her toes but would make her look a lot more attractive than the clunky, comfortable shoes she wore to work.
But everyone else had gone with the chef clothes. The room shimmered with white. In the heat of so many bodies, she could smell starch. The pleats on some of those hats looked sharp enough to slice open an unsuspecting palm.
“Refrigerator needed?” asked a harried young woman.
“What?” Ashley forced herself to focus.
The intern, or whatever she was, checked a clipboard. “You’re Ashley Harris, right?”
“I—Yes. How did you know that?”
“You’re the last one to arrive. Do you need a refrigerator for your food?”
“No.” Ashley had planned her dish carefully, not certain there’d be a fridge, or a stovetop or oven, either. She didn’t want to take a chance that anything could go wrong—not when three bites of food stood between her and the career of her dreams.
“You can put your dish over there, then. We drew numbers at random before you got here. You’re last.”
That was good, wasn’t it? Leave the judges with her entry on their tastebuds?
Or maybe it was a disaster. They might have loved some of the earlier treats, might have ranked them so high there wasn’t any room left for Ashley’s work.
This was stupid. Ashley should have done something complex, something delicate and complicated, something that drew on every skill she’d ever mastered in any class at cooking school.
But what chance would that type of food have under studio lights? What chance would her work have to shine on a morning TV show, when any sane person was chugging down coffee and eating a bowl of cereal?
Well, there wasn’t any cereal in sight, but she could smell the coffee on the far side of the room. She deposited her covered plate on the table the intern had indicated, and she crossed the room for a dose of caffeine. She was just stirring in powdered creamer when a man reached in front of her for a cup.
“Looks like we’re the only two who didn’t get the memo.”
Ashley glanced up, prepared to paste on a smile and relinquish her spot by the coffee table to one of her competitors. Instead, she nearly dropped her cup of coffee. “Josh Cantor!”
The man next to her grinned and offered his free hand. She shook automatical
ly, her lips moving by reflex to introduce herself. “I’m Ashley Harris.”
By a conservative estimate, she’d shaken about a million hands in her lifetime. The first had been her father’s, when he’d told her she needed to learn how to conduct herself like an adult. He’d taught her how to offer a firm grasp—not too hard, not dead-fish limp. He’d taught her to offer her hand first when the other person was male, to wait for an older woman to make the initial gesture. He’d taught her to look in the eyes of the person who stood in front of her.
But he never told her what to do if she started to drown there.
Josh Cantor had the most gorgeous eyes she’d ever seen. They were blue, but that was like saying that a ghost pepper was hot. They had gold flecks in them, glints that made it seem like he was laughing. At the same time, his gaze was attentive, direct, as if the famous ballplayer had focused every ounce of his concentration on her.
Or maybe that message was flowing with the heat that radiated from his palm to hers. She could feel the strength in his fingers, the taut wires that caught a baseball on the fly, that sent the red-stitched sphere flying across the infield with deadly accuracy. His wrist flexed, just the slightest tightening of his muscles, and she felt herself pulled closer to him, just a heartbeat, just a breath.
The corners of his lips curled into a smile, like he knew precisely what he’d just done, how he’d just captured her. The amusement was reflected in those amazing eyes, and she was trapped all over again. He practically purred, “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”
And she snorted. Just a little breath of amusement, an acknowledgment that the line was cornier than the ground meal in her pantry. She pulled her hand from his. “Really?” she asked. “You can’t come up with anything better than that?”
He shrugged and sipped his coffee. “I was going to try ‘What’s your sign,’ but I thought that was a little dated.”
“Taurus,” she said, and she refused to admit to herself how handsome he was when he laughed.
She’d studied Josh Cantor’s face, not six weeks earlier. Her best friend, Jamie Martin, had taken on a job with the Raleigh Rockets, photographing the baseball players for a promotional calendar. Ashley had looked over Jamie’s shoulder, helping to select the best shots. Now she felt a hot blush melt over her cheeks as she thought about those photos of Josh on a construction site, his biceps popping as he leaned on a baseball bat, the tight muscles of his thighs perfectly clear against his tight white uniform pants.
White… Like the clothes preferred by all the chefs around them. What had he said when he approached her here at the coffee table? They were the only two who hadn’t gotten the memo?
She nodded toward his jeans and the plaid shirt he wore open over a plain white tee, managing to take in her own Dress for Success outfit with the same gesture. “We’re flat out of luck if they ask us to cook something out there.”
“But we sure manage to make a strong first impression.”
She sipped her coffee. Despite the creamer she’d added, it was bitter, nearly burned. “Not as strong as this coffee,” she said, twisting around for the sugar.
“So what do you think of the competition?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Those dates stuffed with bleu cheese were a huge hit on Monday. And all the judges raved about the cajun quiche.”
“You actually watched the other days’ contestants?” He sounded shocked.
“Sure. Didn’t you? Don’t you want to see what you’re up against?”
He could barely be bothered to shrug one shoulder. “Not really. I’m going to cook what I’m going to cook. Seeing other people’s food isn’t going to change what I can do.”
He grinned as he said it. She recognized that devil-may-care look, complete with the hair he hadn’t bothered to run a brush through that morning, with the slight crookedness of a nose that had been broken at some point and imperfectly set. Josh Cantor was a rebel. And she was willing to bet he was one hundred and eighty degrees away from her, at least where cooking was concerned.
Ashley couldn’t help but glance at the sheaf of papers she’d slipped into her purse as she hurried out of her apartment that morning. Over the past week, she’d taken careful notes of each competitor’s dish. She’d studied their ingredients, charted their food by cuisine. Her goal was to take the judges’ tastebuds by surprise—she’d wow them with her cooking, but also by her creativity, her sheer imagination.
Josh followed her gaze. “What have you got there?”
“Nothing,” she said too quickly. She snatched the papers out of her bag and folded them in half, the better to hide her analyses.
“Doesn’t look like nothing,” he said, reaching for them.
“Hey!” she exclaimed, tucking them behind her back.
He twitched his fingers against her side, the quick snap of a devilish older brother. She flinched and leaned forward, and he plucked the pages from her hand. He nodded as he studied them, his eyebrows coming together in fierce perusal. “Very thorough, Miss Harris. Very thorough indeed.”
“Those are private!”
“Really?” He grinned. “I think of something other than spreadsheets when I hear that word.”
That devilish smile took her breath away. She should be furious with him, taking her notes like that. She should be outraged that he’d touched her, that he’d darted those fingers against the silk of her blouse.
Then why was she trying to figure out how to get into a wrestling match with him, just to get her papers back? Why was she picturing him closing his fingers around her wrists to stop her? Why was she imagining him pulling her close to that bright white T-shirt, folding those plaid-covered arms around her and kissing her hard enough to—
“Josh Cantor!” That was the intern calling him.
He handed Ashley’s papers back with a lopsided grin. “Good luck,” he said, and then he stepped close—close enough for her to catch the scent of him, lemon covering a base of spicy pepper. Her belly swooped to her toes, and she realized he was going to kiss her. She turned her head to the side, offering him her cheek, and she felt the velvet heat of his lips near her ear.
“Your blouse is undone,” he whispered.
She threw her arms across her chest as he turned away with soft laughter deep in his throat. He didn’t look back as he collected a cardboard box from the table and headed after the girl with the clipboard. Ashley whirled toward the coffee maker, only looking down when her back was squarely to the room.
What the hell? Sure enough, the middle button on her blouse had slipped free. Humiliated, she could only see the soft folds of fabric, the green silk draping to cover her chest. But she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d glimpsed her bra. She’d purposely worn her most practical underwear—stiff underwire, boring taupe—and for just a heartbeat, she couldn’t decide if she regretted her practicality.
What a jerk! He could have said something to her earlier. He never should have teased her into a wriggling struggle over those papers. She wanted to melt into the floor, collapse into a puddle, and never look another human being in the face again.
~~~
Josh shook hands with Bill Morton before turning and nodding to the trio of judges sitting up there on that platform like they owned the world. At least Josh had listened to the girl with a clipboard; he was ready when Morton asked for his philosophy of cooking.
He looked straight at the camera with the red light on. “I’m all for food that tastes good, that makes you feel good when you eat it. I don’t know about recipes and spreadsheets and tracking who’s making what. I pretty much believe if it feels good, it is good.”
And damn if he wasn’t thinking about Ashley Harris as he said every word. She’d be listening back in the green room, if she hadn’t completely melted down after he walked out.
Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. The girl with the clipboard would have told her about the button; no one would have let Ashley come out here on stage
with that smooth beige bra showing through. His mind flashed to what he’d wanted to do—reach out and fasten the button himself. Maybe forget the job, halfway through. Maybe make a whole lot of those little pearl buttons go flying across the room…
Concentrate.
“So, what do you have for us today, Josh?” asked Bill, obviously not suspecting where Josh’s mind had wandered.
“I figured I’d share one of my grandmother’s old North Carolina recipes with y’all. I started with shrimp and grits, and I added a few things to make it special enough for company.”
Sure, he made it sound like he’d been creative and everything, but he’d only followed Angel’s hard-won recipe word for word. Exactly the right amount of hot pepper sauce. The crumbly sausage just cooked through, the only brand Angel allowed in her kitchen, not allowed to dry out at all. A chunk of butter as long as his thumb.
The judges loved it, as he’d known they would. They asked a couple of questions—how long he’d cooked the shrimp, whether he’d added any tomatoes. He’d explained about the smoked paprika, told them that was the flavor they were tasting, and they all nodded.
He knew he’d made the cut when he caught that uptight woman, what was her name? Judith Burroughs. He’d caught Judith Burroughs dipping her bright red talons into her bowl, scooping up the last bit of grits that wouldn’t go easily on her spoon.
The rest of the show was like standing in the dugout, waiting for his turn to come back to the plate. He stood offstage and watched the other contestants present their food. He listened to the judges’ questions. He smelled the dishes, one after another, spicy clashing with sweet.
Ashley Harris brushed past him, holding a basket in two hands. He couldn’t help but smile at her, slow and lazy, a grin that just got wider when she nudged her forearms closer together in front of her chest.
Call it his competitive spirit. He could have chosen just about any woman in Raleigh, to meet Angel’s ridiculous demands. But somewhere between the green room and the stage, he’d decided that Ashley Harris was the woman for him. She’d be the one he’d court, as Angel so delicately phrased it. Ashley would be his ticket to winning all his grandmother’s recipes.