by Mindy Klasky
She smiled automatically, aware that the judges were watching, that they were already making a mental tally of their points. She knew they’d heard all the stories. They’d read all the gossip. They knew that she’d failed out of cooking school, that she’d been thrown out for everything she’d done with Martin. And every single one of them had to be remembering the last time she’d stood on this stage, the scene she’d made with Josh.
At least he wasn’t out here yet. Since she was behind by four points, the judges had shown her some mercy, saying she could go first. She couldn’t be distracted by the man who’d embarrassed her, who’d dragged her back to the worst moment of her professional life, who’d broken her heart forever.
The producer called out, “And we’re back, in five, four, three…”
Ashley took a deep breath, steeling herself as she waited for Mr. Morton to finish his introduction. “Thank you,” she said, when the camera swung toward her. She forced herself to ignore its red eye, to concentrate on reaching out to the judges, on getting them to understand what she’d done with her dessert, on why it deserved a high enough score to get her into the restaurant at Rockets Field.
“First of all,” she said, as the judges stared with rapt attention, “I’d like to thank all of you for the opportunity you’ve given me with Who Wears the Apron. When this show started, I was a line chef at a restaurant. Over the past several weeks, I’ve learned how to think like a head chef, like a woman who can truly call a restaurant her own.”
She’d practiced the speech a hundred times, worked hard so the words sounded natural. The judges didn’t seem interested in her thanks, though. They kept looking at the covered plates in front of them. Ashley forced her lips to curl up at the edges, and she gestured to the desserts. “Please. I call this Tropical Stack Pie.”
Each of the judges lifted the silver cover. Ashley caught her breath as they studied what she’d made. She’d plated each one herself—perfect slices of the most traditional dessert she could find in all her research into tidewater traditions. Women baked stack pie to carry to family gatherings, securing entire pies—crust and all—between thick layers of caramel.
Of course, Ashley had added her own modern touch to the historic sweet. Instead of the common chess pies of the past, Ashley had crafted berry tarts—blueberry, blackberry, and golden raspberry. She’d added a layer of coconut cream for good measure, and she’d sealed each pie with a complementary flavor of caramel—guava or mango or papaya. The result was a shimmering tower that caught the studio lights and glistened with promise.
Mr. Morton picked up his fork first. He used the edge to cut into the pie, piecing together a bite from the coconut cream layer. He raised his eyebrows as he tasted the filling, and then he went back for a full bite, balancing all the flavors.
By then, the other judges had tasted theirs. Even before anyone said a word, Ashley could see the pleasure on their faces. Judith Burroughs edged her fork beneath the golden raspberries, shifting the layer aside to scrape up more of the mango caramel. Another judge fished out blackberries, dragging them through the coconut cream and papaya caramel. The studio was silent, except for the scrape of forks against plates.
Finally, Mr. Morton seemed to remember himself, and he gave a little laugh, even as he gathered up the very last drop of guava caramel. “Thank you, Ashley. This is amazing! Judges? Do any of you have any comments?”
The judges looked at each other, each one gesturing as if to invite someone else to fill the empty air time, so they could eat more pie. Ms. Burroughs finally cleared her throat and said, “I’m curious, Chef. What made you decide to use tropical fruits?”
Ashley could never give an honest answer. She could never tell about that night in Josh’s kitchen; she could never explain everything she’d felt as she gave herself over to the madness of that exotic perfume.
But she had to say something. She forbad herself from thinking of the green room, from picturing Josh watching her on the monitor, and she said, “We’ve all eaten berry pie. We’ve all had coconut cream. With the papaya and guava and, um, mango, I thought I’d give us a chance to try something out of our comfort zones.”
“Well, an excellent experiment this has turned out to be,” Bill Morton said. He looked like he was ready to ask for another slice when he turned to the cameras. “Stay tuned folks. “We’ll enjoy our last dish for Who Wears the Apron after this commercial break.”
Ashley continued to accept the judges’ compliments after the cameras cut off. She only stepped aside when an assistant darted in to clear away the plates. Another helper brought out four new covered dishes.
Josh’s dessert. Some delectable treat he must have whipped up from his grandmother’s recipes.
Ashley let Marta take her arm, let herself be guided to the couch at the center of the set. She forced herself to smile as Josh walked out in his jeans and a Rockets T-shirt. He flashed an easy grin at Mr. Morton, at all the judges. He stepped back in surprise as a cameraman dashed forward, handing him a baseball and a pen, but he scrawled his name with casual grace, handing back the ball with a smile and a shaken hand.
It was the bravest thing Ashley had ever done, staying on that couch. It was almost impossible not to curl her fingers into a fist inside her sleeve, in remembrance of how they’d stung after she’d slapped Josh’s face. Instead, she pushed her knees together and held her chin high, as stiff as a prisoner awaiting execution.
“And we’re back in five…” the producer said for the last time, counting down until the cameras whirred back to life.
~~~
It took every ounce of Josh’s self-restraint not to stop things, then and there. All he’d have to do was flip off one of the cameras, and they’d cut to an emergency commercial break. He could walk off the set, be done with the suspense, never need to feel like he was about to die in front of the entire Wake County morning TV audience.
Tropical stack pie. He knew where Ashley had gotten the idea for using tropical fruit. He remembered exactly what she’d done with mango. Try something out of our comfort zones.
She’d done that with him. She trusted him. She’d relied on him. And he’d thrown her under the bus.
He wanted to leave, to forget about the rest of this ridiculous game. But he had to wait, like a runner ready to break for home. The ball had to be put into play at the plate.
Morton went through his “we’re all friends here” introduction, recapping the competition, reminding viewers that only four points separated Josh and Ashley before this round. He recounted the fiasco of the last show, telling anyone who hadn’t been watching that Angel had made a guest appearance, that Ashley had become a “little emotional” with the excitement of the competition. At least Morton showed a little mercy—he didn’t go through the vicious Internet gossip that had filled the past two weeks. Instead, he finally turned to Josh and said, “So, Chef Cantor. Tell us what you’ve made for us.”
And everyone looked at him.
Not just Morton and the judges. Not just the people in the studio audience. Not just the guys behind the camera, the intern whose name he could never remember, the army of assistants and handlers and everyone else who made Wake Up happen every goddamn morning.
Ashley was looking at him too.
She seemed distant, reserved. And no wonder—she’d just staked her entire career on a single dish, the result of two weeks of hell. She must have felt as dazed as he had when he’d stared at Angel’s recipe book. She must have gone over the options as many times, trying to think of some way to be creative, to be original, to do whatever it took to win Who Wins the Apron.
Or maybe not. Maybe she’d just sunk into the sick fear that she was going to be alone for the rest of her life. Maybe she’d mooned around her house like a lovesick kid, thinking about the last time she’d shared a cup of coffee with someone, the last time she’d used a paring knife and joked while she cooked. Maybe she’d been as sad and lonely and desperate as he had.
No
t that he’d ever wish that on her. Not that he’d ever wish that on anyone.
Dammit, he couldn’t stand this any more. He couldn’t see her looking at him that way, couldn’t see her chewing on her bottom lip, wearing that stiff, starched fabric, that goddamn white jacket that hid her entire body like a brick wall separating them forever.
Josh turned back to the judges and forced himself to shrug, to spread his hands in the easy sort of gesture that went over well at after-game press conferences. “Sorry,” he said. “I just got wrapped up in thinking about everything that’s happened on this show.”
Morton laughed, like they were two guys who shared a secret joke. Well, the joke was on him.
“Please,” Josh said, and he looked earnestly at each of the judges, inviting them to sample his dessert.
He knew he should watch the judges. At the very least, he should keep an eye on Morton. But he couldn’t stop staring at Ashley. The silver covers clanked against the plates beneath.
“Excuse me,” he heard Morton say. “Josh? Is this some sort of joke?”
Josh watched Ashley look at the dessert plates. He saw a frown crease the space between her eyebrows. He saw her teeth dig deeper into her lower lip, saw the confusion that made her lean forward.
“Josh?” asked Morton again, and now there was a snap of command in his voice. The guy was good at his job. He didn’t deserve to be made a fool of. Not on his own TV show. Not with his own audience watching.
Josh didn’t look away from Ashley as he said, “No. It’s not a joke.”
“A mistake, then?” He could hear Morton prompting him. They could still salvage this. Take a commercial break. Bring out the real dishes, the right ones.
But everything was going according to plan—to Josh’s one, desperate, last-ditch, emergency plan. “No mistake,” he said, and this time he said it directly to Ashley, because she was staring at him with absolute incomprehension.
Morton pushed on. “Josh, these plates are empty. There isn’t any dessert.”
Josh finally allowed himself to move. The set was only twenty, twenty-five feet across. A quarter the length of a base-path. But it took him forever to cross. It took him a lifetime.
He reached inside his right pocket and pulled out a velvet box, the one he’d picked up at the jeweler’s just the night before. The hinge snapped back like a line drive heading for right field, and he automatically tilted the ring to catch the glaring studio lights.
~~~
Ashley’s breath caught in her throat.
She’d thought she was under the microscope when she presented her dessert. But that was nothing compared to the scrutiny now. She felt the audience’s attention like a physical thing, a wall of heat from an oven set higher than she could bear. The judges, too, and Mr. Morton, they were all staring at her, shocked, rapt.
But none of that mattered. Not with Josh kneeling in front of her. Not with Josh taking her right hand in his, pulling her fingers to rest on his heart, above the candy-bright rocketship logo of his team.
“Ashley Harris,” he said, and his words were pitched for her ears alone, even if they were picked up by the tiny black mike clipped to the neckband of his shirt. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Morton scrambling around the end of the couch, gesturing to one of the cameramen to get a better angle.
But none of that mattered when Josh went on. “I know I don’t have any right to ask this. I know I broke your trust. All the explanations in the world can’t turn back time, can’t make me undo the things I did.”
She heard every one of his words, crystal clear, like they were standing in the privacy of his kitchen. She saw the way his eyes snared hers, the way he was pleading with her to believe what he was saying, to accept his truth. But she couldn’t find her own words. She couldn’t figure out a way to formulate a response.
“Ashley, when I’m with you, I’m a better man. I know who I am, and who I want to be. I see every mistake I ever made in my life, about love, about living, and not one of them matters, because you let me know there’s a different world out there, the only world that matters.”
Her throat ached with the things she couldn’t say. Her eyes filled with tears, and she told herself not to blink, not to ruin her makeup, not to upset things for the cameras.
“I only hope and pray, Ashley, that you understand I want to be the best man for you, the only man for you. I only hope and pray you’ll marry me, Ashley Harris.”
Josh’s fingers tightened around hers. Only when she felt him tremble did she realize he was every bit as nervous as she was.
But that didn’t surprise her. He’d understood her emotions from the first time he’d teased her in the green room. He’d known the way her mind worked the moment he escorted her out of Mangia. He’d gotten through to the real Ashley, the core Ashley, the Ashley she’d always wanted to be—when he seduced her over the phone, when he showed her the same hot attraction in person. She and Josh had bonded over guava and mango and papaya, over shared conversations about their dreams, over making perfect biscuits. Their bodies had known the truth before their hearts had understood—they were meant to be together, today and tomorrow and forever.
Josh was staring at her, his eyes pleading. The studio was silent; she could have heard water boiling in a pot all the way out in the green room. Her lips tingled as she pulled in a breath. Her heart pounded so hard, she thought she might lose a button on her whites. But somehow she managed to say the words: “Yes, Josh. Yes. I’ll marry you.”
Josh barely took a moment to slip that diamond ring onto her finger, and then he was rising from his knees and sitting beside her on the studio couch. His lips were hot on hers, fierce and proud beneath the blazing lights. His hand cupped the back of her head and he brought her closer to his body, closer to his heart, which was thumping hard enough for her to feel.
The set erupted in chaos.
The audience was clapping. The cameras were angling for the best view. Mr. Morton was clearing his throat, moving around the couch, setting one hand on her arm, the other on Josh’s. Ashley pulled away from Josh long enough to see Judith Burroughs purse her lips in distaste, although it wasn’t clear whether she was out of sorts about the lack of a second dessert, or whether she was appalled by the public display of affection.
Mr. Morton finally managed to gain some control over the situation. He laughed heartily as he clapped a commanding hand on Josh’s shoulder. “You’ve gone and done it now,” the host said. “With no entry in the dessert round, all your points are forfeit.”
Josh grinned at her. “I can live with that.”
Mr. Morton did his best to continue the recovery. “Ashley, that means that you’re going to have free rein over the restaurant at Rockets Field. Tell us a little about what you have in store.”
Ashley laced her fingers between Josh’s, glancing down at the ring that blazed beneath the studio lights. “It’s too early to say for sure, Mr. Morton. But I’m pretty sure we’ll offer up Mrs. Boudreaux’s Chicken Dreams. And I’d be a fool not to have North Carolina barbecue on the menu. That just leaves the desserts for us to work on.”
Josh squeezed her hand, his eyes flashing bright before he turned to Mr. Morton. “Ashley and I will figure that out together. I’m pretty sure the specialty of the house will always include tropical fruit.”
Ashley’s cheeks flushed at Josh’s secret message. But she had to admit—they could work wonders together. And they’d have a hell of a good time testing the recipes.
BATTER UP!
Read on, for a sneak peek at the next Diamond Brides romance, Stopping Short!
~~~
It’s just like riding a bicycle, Jessica told herself, conveniently ignoring the number of times she’d skinned her knees falling off her old banana-seat Schwinn. This Monday Status Meeting wasn’t going to draw any actual blood. It probably wouldn’t even hurt.
She stretched a smile across her tight lips and pushed her way into the familiar boardroom. A year
had gone by, but they still kept the coffee service in the same place. A stack of yellow legal pads still teetered in the center of the table. Black pens still bristled from their holder, each embossed in white: Image Masters LLC.
Jessica skipped the coffee, figuring her hands were already shaking enough. She collected paper and pen, though, and she took her usual seat, three chairs down from the head of the table.
She could do this. She was good at her job, had been for the four years she’d worked at Image Masters after graduating college. She took a deep breath and stared out the window at Central Park. She’d rather be out there, bundled up and walking down a snowy path on this sunny February day. She’d rather be just about anywhere.
But she wasn’t going to earn a paycheck walking through the Park. She wasn’t going to convince herself and the rest of the world that she was finally over Kevin’s death, that she was ready to resume her life, that she was a strong and independent working woman instead of just The Young Widow.
Image Masters was safe. It was comfortable. And even if she had to work like a dog now that she was back in the office, her job was a refuge until she could figure out what she was going to do with the rest of her life, however many decades that might be.
She glanced at the oversize watch wrapped around her wrist. Five minutes to nine. No one was ever late to an Image Masters meeting. The staff should be arriving just about now.
Jessica reapplied her smile as the door opened and half a dozen of her colleagues poured into the room. Caden: They were all thrilled to see her. Marnie: They were all so happy she was back in the office, couldn’t wait to catch up over coffee. Rebecca: Maybe lunch or wouldn’t drinks be great?
The chatter only died down when Chip Patterson took his seat at the head of the table. He plugged his tablet into the appropriate jack and reached down to loosen the hinge on his thousand-dollar ergonomic chair. Leaning back to his customary 120-degree angle, he gestured down the table, taking in the entire team with his perfectly-manicured hands. “Welcome back, everyone. I trust you enjoyed Presidents Day weekend?”