The Cook's Secret Ingredient

by Meg Maxwell

  They passed the library and the coffee shop and the food truck, which had a nice line. Olivia scanned the parking lot by the town green. No yellow Beetle.

  “I know that my aunt never wanted to talk about fortune-telling or the family ‘gifts’ and that there was a secret. I’m not sure whose—my mother’s or my aunt’s. I once heard the tail end of an argument and my aunt saying, ‘Don’t you ever bring them up again,’ but that was the last I heard of that and when I asked my mother what ‘them’ referred to, she just waved her hand dismissively. Three weeks later, my aunt sold her house, which I discovered because of the sold sign on the lawn and she was gone. No goodbye. Nothing. That was five years ago. My mother wouldn’t talk about it or speculate. I finally stopped asking.”

  “The argument must have been about something important to drive your aunt away,” he said gently.

  “I know. I just have no idea what it involved. When my mother got sick, I started looking for my aunt but couldn’t find her. I was sure Sarah would want to know, to be there to make amends. And in the days before the funeral, I doubled my efforts to find her. Having that to focus on was the only thing that kept me from falling apart. But I didn’t find her. She doesn’t even know her sister is gone.” Olivia burst into tears, unable to help herself or stop herself. She covered her face in her hands and sobbed.

  Carson parked the car and drew her into his arms. She resisted at first, miserable, sad, tears falling down her cheeks, but then she gave in to the comfort and held on to him, gave in to depth of her sadness. The loss of her aunt, the loss of her mother, the loss of the father she never knew. Hell, she was even crying for Danny and the loss of his mother. For Carson’s young client, and the loss of his father.

  She felt him put his head down on top of hers, resting his cheek as he stroked her hair, one hand tight around her shoulders.

  “You’ve lost a lot, Olivia, but you’re about to find,” Carson said, tipping up her chin.

  She looked into his hazel-green eyes and felt better, stronger. “I’m mortified that I just started blubbering.”

  “Don’t be,” he said. “Best way to deal with strong emotions is to let ’em rip.”

  “Well, thanks for letting me literally cry on your shoulder.”

  He leaned forward, taking her face in his hand, and kissed her, wiping away the tears under her eyes. Then he dropped his hands to his lap and turned to face forward. “I’ve got to stop doing that.”

  “Or keep doing that,” she said.

  “Olivia, I’m not...”

  “Looking for romance. So you said. Yet you keep kissing me. Interesting.”

  He smiled, then laughed. “I just don’t want to mess up here, Olivia. You’re a good, kind person and I don’t want to hurt you.”

  He was guarded, but she was a grown-up and either she’d bust through those walls of his or she wouldn’t. Love would out, as they said. Or it wouldn’t.

  Feeling better and stronger, Olivia sat up straight. “Let’s drive past the hotel and B and B, and check for my aunt’s car,” she said, deftly changing the subject.

  The car wasn’t at the hotel in the center of Blue Gulch Street or at the B and B on a side street near Olivia’s house. Carson did another drive-by of the main road, but they didn’t see the yellow Beetle.

  “That she was here is a sign that she’s ready to come out of hiding,” Carson said. “Do you think she knows you’re looking for her? If she has the family gift or whatever.”

  She glanced at him. That was a sign that he didn’t find it as far-fetched as he had before. “It’s possible. She wouldn’t talk about her gift. I don’t know what it is or even if she has one. And my mother would never talk about it.”

  “Well, maybe she senses you’re looking for her and she came to town today to see if she’d run in to you.”

  Olivia shrugged. “She knows where I live.”

  “The two of you will reunite. That I do believe,” he said, giving her hand a squeeze. “I’ll take you home. It’s been quite a day.”

  It had been. She squeezed his hand back, missing the warmth and strength of it as he put it on the wheel.

  Olivia’s mother’s face came to mind. She wished Madam Miranda was here to tell her whether she was setting herself up for a broken heart.

  * * *

  An hour later, Carson was sitting in the Johnson living room, his nine-year-old client, Joey, sitting straight up on the sofa next to his mother, whom Carson had called earlier after dropping off Olivia at her house. He’d let Tara Johnson know he had located her ex-husband at the rodeo, where he worked as a ranch hand. They’d made arrangements for Carson to stop by at six o’clock.

  “I didn’t say anything to your father,” Carson said to Joey. “He doesn’t know that you hired me or that you’re looking for him. I wanted to locate him first and let you know where he is so that you can decide how you want to handle the next steps.”

  “My mom and I talked about it,” Joey said, brushing his long, sandy blond bangs away from his eyes. “If you’re willing, will you come with me to talk to him?”

  Carson hadn’t been expecting that.

  “It just seems more official if the private investigator I hired to find him is there, you know?” Joey explained. “I feel like he’d more willing to tell the truth. I don’t know.”

  “Well, I’m happy to take you to see him, if that’s okay with your mom.”

  “It’s fine with me,” Tara Johnson said. “And I appreciate what you’ve done for Joey. It’s a hard situation. My only concern is Joey’s feelings. You can tell his dad that I’m not looking for him to haul him into court or anything like that. I know he has problems. I know he has no money. I know he’s probably working for room and board. I only care that Joey has a relationship with his dad.”

  Tears glistened in Joey’s eyes and he leaned his head against his mother’s arm. Hell, now Carson felt a tear poking at his own eyes. “I did find out his work schedule for the week,” Carson said. “If you want to go after school or on the weekend, he works then. We can catch him just as his shift is ending so he’ll be free to talk.”

  They arranged to go in two days, when Joey’s school had a half day and he didn’t have baseball practice.

  “You’re a brave kid,” he said to Joey as the boy walked him to the door. “I had some issues with my dad but I was always too bottled up inside to confront him. I admire you.”

  The boy looked up at Carson with such open brown eyes that it took everything in him not to hug him tight. He put out his hand and Joey shook it. “See you in a couple days.”

  “Thanks for finding him,” Joey said. “If you want to know a secret,” he added on a whisper, “I’m just glad he’s alive. I wasn’t sure if you’d come back and say he wasn’t. My mom warned me about that.”

  “I know what you mean,” Carson said.

  Outside, on the doorstep, he couldn’t help wondering if Danny would be having a conversation like this some day. Wondering where his mother was, if she was still alive, why the big question. Heavyhearted, he got into his car. He couldn’t get home to hug his son soon enough.

  * * *

  The next morning, Dory was helping out in the food truck since there was a sidewalk sale on Blue Gulch Street and people would be out in droves. Olivia had done a lot of the prep work this morning, but even with Dory taking orders and dealing with the cash register and Olivia cooking, Olivia still only had two hands for cooking.

  While she was sautéing shrimp, she couldn’t help but notice that Amanda Buckman, harried mom of twin four-year-old boys and twin eight-year-old girls, had just bites left of her eggplant-parm po’boy and her expression and body language had changed. Where before she’d been slumped and tired-looking, she now sat up straight, her face tilted to the sun, and she smiled at her daughters doing cartwheels on the g
reen while the boys finished their kid-size chicken-finger po’boys and swung their legs. Miles Fincello, the pharmacist at the drugstore, who’d ordered a pulled-pork po’boy with extra barbecue sauce and a mini vanilla-cream cannoli with pistachios, had come to the window with worry etched on his face; now, he was chatting on his cell phone, smiling. And Molly Euling, whose house was on the corner of Blue Gulch Street and Golden Way, Olivia’s street, and was always snapping at dog walkers to keep their “mutts” off her grass, was now petting the loud pug she was always complaining about.

  A good day’s work—regarding both Olivia’s special ability and sales. The Hurleys would be very pleased with the day’s receipts, that was for sure.

  “Pardon me, excuse me, excuse me,” a loud voice said at the food truck window. “Dory, smile for me, will you?”

  “May I help you?” Dory said to the pushy man who Olivia didn’t recognize.

  “I’m Hal Herbert from the Blue Gulch County Gazette. I’d like to get a few shots of you for the paper and our website. Can you hold the order pad a bit higher so it can make the frame?”

  “Why on earth would you want to get pictures of me taking orders in the Hurley Homestyle Kitchen food truck?” Dory asked. “I’m just helping out a friend.”

  “Just doing my job, miss,” the man said. “There’s going to be a feature on Beaufort Harrington.” He consulted his own little notebook. “Your fiancé. Apparently he’s throwing his hat into the Blue Gulch mayoral race.” The guy took a couple more pictures, then scribbled something in the notebook.

  “Yes, I know that,” Dory said. “But why are the newspapers so interested in me and my life?” she asked, looking at Olivia in confusion. “This morning, when I was up early at the bakery to get the breads done, another reporter stopped by to take pictures of me sliding the loaves in the oven. I didn’t even have time to get the flour off my face.”

  “I guess that’s the world of politics,” Olivia said. “Maybe candidates’ brides-to-be sell papers?”

  Dory shrugged. “How did you know I’d be here, anyway?” she asked the reporter.

  The man consulted his notebook. “Looks like a Mrs. Harrington has been calling in your schedule.”

  “Annalee?” Dory said after the man had taken more pictures and gone. “Olivia, why is Annalee Harrington so interested in having photos of me working here and at the bakery in the paper? And did you see the captions of the photos from the engagement toast gathering? My mother’s ‘dime-store’ earrings? I was so angry about that jab.”

  “Maybe you should talk to Beaufort about what’s going on,” Olivia said.

  “I absolutely will.” She glanced out the window. “Oh, the gals from the library are heading our way. And a bunch of teachers from the middle school, too.”

  “I’m ready!” Olivia said.

  Olivia got back to work, but she couldn’t help peering out the window of the food truck, looking for two people in particular.

  Carson, who was a no-show, and whose handsome face she missed.

  And her aunt. She supposed it was silly to think Sarah would just walk up to the food truck and say, “Oh, hi, Olivia, it’s your aunt” after five years of radio silence. But if she’d been around yesterday, maybe she would do just that. Maybe Sarah was ready to talk again. If so, where was she? Olivia had stayed up past midnight expecting the doorbell to ring, her aunt to be on the other side. But the doorbell hadn’t rung once.

  Olivia turned her attention back to the stove and sauté pans. She had five orders of the special po’boy of the day, a scrumptious meat loaf, if she did say so herself, and seven other kinds to make, plus a bunch of cannoli.

  She had wrapped up the final tuna-melt po’boy when she heard a sharp voice say, “Dory, you don’t need to work here.”

  Olivia glanced past Dory’s shoulder to see her fiancé, Beaufort Harrington, standing there with some of his coworkers from Texas Trust. Edmund Ford was not among them.

  “Dory, you’re my fiancé. You don’t have to work at all. You know that. You don’t even have to work in the bakery—you can hire someone to manage the place for you and all the extra employees you need. You’re going to be a Harrington, for God’s sake.”

  “I’m helping out my friend Olivia,” Dory said. “I told you about Olivia Mack. I’ve been her assistant with her catering business in the past.”

  “Sweetheart, there’s no need to assist anyone,” Beaufort said.

  “Let’s talk about this later,” Dory told him. “There’s quite a line, as you can see.”

  Beaufort ordered a shrimp po’boy. He didn’t look happy.

  Olivia wondered what would happen to Beaufort’s mood after he ate the po’boy she was making for him. She spread on the remoulade, layered the shrimp and wrapped it up.

  As the line died down now that it was past two, she kept an eye on Beaufort Harrington. He finished the po’boy, stood up and came back over to the truck.

  “Dory, I just meant that you’re going to be my wife. You don’t need to work. You’re going to have a lot of social engagements, especially once my candidacy is officially announced.”

  If her po’boy had any effect on Beaufort it was to make him more emphatic about Dory not working.

  “Beau, why would your mother send reporters to take pictures of me working at the bakery and here, then?”

  Beaufort’s cheeks turned pink. “Oh, you know my mother.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “Gotta run, sweetheart. See you later. Great po’boy, Olivia,” he called out. Then he hurried away.

  “What do you think is going on with Annalee Harrington?” Dory asked.

  “I don’t know. But it looks like you and Beaufort have a lot to iron out before you get married. You’ve made it pretty clear you intend to run the bakery yourself, not hire someone to keep it going.”

  Dory nodded. “I have made that clear. Maybe Beaufort thinks I’m more interested in the money than the shop. But he’s wrong.”

  “I think you two just need to talk. If this is primarily a business arrangement, the business has to be ironed out.”

  Dory brightened. “You’re right.” She glanced at Olivia. “Hey, I know you just made a thousand po’boys, but before you put away the ham, can you make me a good old-fashioned ham-and-cheese with your amazing honey mustard? No one makes a po’boy like you.”

  “Of course,” Olivia said.

  As Olivia made one last sandwich and Dory helped her clean up and get the truck ready for the dinner shift that Dylan would be taking over, Olivia had a bad feeling that things with Beaufort might not go as Dory had thought.

  She watched Dory eat the po’boy, her friend’s shoulders rising, her chin lifting. Dory’s eyes narrowed. She took the final bite of the sandwich and nodded to herself as if making some kind of decision.

  “Olivia, I’ve got to run. I have someone to see before closing time.”

  Hmm. Just what had she infused Dory’s sandwich with?

  Chapter Nine

  After making dinner for himself and Danny, Carson settled the toddler in his car seat and hit the road to Blue Gulch to look for Sarah Mack’s car. No sign of it. He did see his dad walking and window-shopping, a bag from Blue Gulch Toys on his arm. He pulled over and surprised Edmund Ford. The look on his father’s face at the sight of Danny never failed to stop Carson in his tracks. Pure love, thrill, delight. The way a parent’s face should light up. Danny was overjoyed by the stuffed panda Grandpa had picked up for him.

  Carson’s phone rang—Beaufort Harrington. The man could barely speak.

  “I wanted you to hear it from me instead of the local press or gossips,” Beaufort spluttered, his voice broken. “Dory called off the engagement. One minute we’re engaged and the next we’re not. I saw her just a couple hours ago at the Hurl
ey’s food truck—she was helping out the woman who runs it. And suddenly an hour later, she hands me back my ring.”

  He froze. The food truck. Olivia. Had her “ability” somehow interfered?

  Come on. That would be crazy. She made po’boys and cannoli. She didn’t have special abilities to “lift hearts” or break them with her food. She was just a good cook and people liked to eat. Add those together and you got smiles. End of story. Whatever had happened between Dory and Beaufort had nothing to do with Olivia or the food truck. “Oh, man,” Carson said. “I’m really sorry.”

  “Me, too. My parents are here now—I’d better go. Talk to you soon.”

  What the heck happened?

  He let his dad know what was going on and took Edmund up on his offer to bring Danny home and put him to bed so that he could talk to Olivia. Beaufort was an old friend, and to hear him so torn up was heartbreaking. And something told him there was more to the story than anyone knew.

  * * *

  Olivia had spent a long morning and afternoon at the food truck. After her shift she made Mr. Crenshaw chicken Milanese with a side of fettuccine in light cream sauce and delivered it, sitting awhile with him to catch up on his romance with widow Eleanor Parkerton who lived one floor up. Then she’d made another client’s Weight Watchers–friendly meal of exactly eight points, delivered that and finally was curled up with Sweetie on the divan in her mother’s fortune-telling parlor, looking through family photos.

  Aunt Sarah on a bicycle, her auburn hair blowing back in the wind, a joyful smile on her face. Her mother with the enigmatic expression in her eyes as she sat on the porch of their house, Sweetie in her lap. Their grandmother, also a fortune-teller, a woman Olivia hadn’t had the chance to know, with her two daughters as teenagers. And one of Olivia’s father, the only photo there was of him in the album. She stared at it, always surprised to see a bit of herself in the man’s face, as though she should look nothing like the stranger he was. She used to think about seeking him out, but decided against it long ago. He’d left before she was born, and Olivia didn’t even know his last name. Her mother had told her that the man had been utterly irresistible to her. Even though she knew he’d break her heart and she’d never see him again, she thought she could use her strong will to conquer what would happen. Miranda had told Olivia she wouldn’t have willingly gotten pregnant knowing the father of her baby wouldn’t stick around; she would have resisted him and not have had their short-lived few weeks together. But all Miranda’s attempts to keep him in her life had failed, and Madam Miranda had further accepted that she couldn’t rewrite the truth, no matter how badly she wanted to.