Hired: The Cinderella Chef

by Myrna Mackenzie

  “So, what do you think?” she asked him, holding out a tray of cookies shaped like cars and airplanes, unicorns and stars and various other shapes. Each cookie had a child’s name swirled on in a contrasting color.

  “I think you must be totally insane,” he told her. “Insane, but very cute with that frosting on your nose.” He gently wiped it off with an index finger, then licked his finger.

  Bad mistake. She blushed, and he felt heat swirl through him. He ignored it. “Two hundred fifty individualized cookies, Darcy?”

  “Well, all of them but the last fifty were made in advance. I had Eleanor give me a list of names. Olivia was there to help me with the first two hundred, and, as you know, she was here earlier until she had to leave.”

  He knew. He had positioned himself at the door to make sure that no one intruded, so she could have the privacy she needed, and be out of sight of the children whose presence clearly brought her pain. Now, the event was almost over except for the finale, those amazing cookies she’d whipped up and tirelessly decorated.

  Patrick signaled the last of the students he’d hired to go ahead and distribute the cookies. Then, he looked around at the kitchen. It was almost immaculate, even though he’d watched Darcy destroy the place during her preparations. The food and the kids, not the state of the hospital white kitchen had clearly been her priorities, but now she and her crew had worked a miracle cleanup worthy of a magician.

  “Almost done,” she told him as she took a few last swipes at a table with a damp cloth. “We can leave soon.” But, he saw her gaze shift toward the door where children’s voices suddenly rose higher. Obviously Eleanor had planned some sort of exciting grand finale.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go have a look?” he asked.

  She gave him a wary, tired and very tight smile. “No, I’m okay right here. Do you think they liked the food? Not that kids pay that much attention to food, I know, but…”

  “Darcy,” he said, cutting in. “You made every item so kid friendly that they would have had to be asleep not to have loved it. In fact, I saw two munchkins comparing those cream cheese faces you had put on their sandwiches. I think they were striking a deal, a trade, and both of them looked immensely pleased with themselves.” Which was, in fact, the truth.

  “Good. Eleanor told me that some of them end up eating the same thing every day because they can’t afford anything but the least expensive items. I remember what it was like not to have variety. Oh well, let me just finish putting away one or two more things.”

  He nodded, just as a voice sounded behind him. He turned to tell the person approaching that this room was a private area, but before he could do that, a woman with a camera came barreling past him. She flashed a badge dangling from her neck, some sort of press ID or something, but she kept moving, making a beeline for Darcy.

  “Suburban Gazette,” she said. “Just a few quick questions, Ms. Parrish. You are Ms. Parrish, aren’t you? The one who did the catering?”

  Without asking, she stuck her camera into Darcy’s face and clicked off several rapid shots.

  Patrick didn’t even hesitate. He stepped between Darcy and the woman. “She’s off-limits,” he said.

  Darcy’s groan was almost imperceptible, but he heard it and knew what she was thinking. She was right. He should have known better. His statement had just made Darcy much more interesting than she had been a moment before. A talented chef in a wheelchair was intriguing. One who had a bodyguard was doubly intriguing, and when that bodyguard was one of the wealthiest men in the city, well…

  “What Mr. Judson meant was that I’m off-limits because I’m in the midst of the creative process. We’re planning his sister’s surprise going-away-to-college party, but if word gets out…” Darcy blew out a frustrated sigh so big that her bangs lifted off her forehead. “We would just have to go back to square one and plan something else. There wouldn’t even be any party,” she said, pointedly staring at the reporter.

  “So…I would be writing about a nonexistent event?” the woman said.

  “Exactly.”

  “But you have to know that I don’t care about the party. I came here to interview you.”

  “Another time, perhaps,” Darcy said, pasting on an angelic smile that Patrick had never witnessed. “Ms.—I’m sorry, I don’t know your name, and the print on your name tag is pretty small and above my line of sight and—well, it’s hanging right over your…um, your chest.”

  “Ms. Compton,” the woman said.

  “Ms. Compton, you’re a writer and a photographer, clearly a creative individual. Were you ever in the middle of creating something and had the process interrupted? I just—it’s so—it’s difficult to explain to someone who doesn’t make their living using their imagination, but—”

  The woman smiled. “Okay, you win. Interrupt the process and the best ideas may be lost in the ether and never return. I understand and…all right, I’ll go.” And she turned to do just that. Just before she left, she turned back. “Is it all right if I use the picture?”

  Darcy’s angelic smile disappeared. It was replaced with a look of anguish. “I really need people to know me for my talents, not for…other things,” she said. “Would it be all right if you skipped the picture and just mentioned my name as the chef? I’m starting a catering business, and that would be a big help.”

  The woman considered the question. “The photo might bring in business.”

  “Not the kind I want. Let me put it this way…if this were an earlier era, would you want to be hired because you were a female reporter and, therefore, a curiosity or would you want to be courted for your talent?”

  The woman considered that. “Okay, you win again. Just a one or two sentence mention of you and those great smoothies. I had one,” she confessed. “I could live on those things.”

  And then she was gone.

  Patrick sat down on a chair across from Darcy. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I nearly messed things up for you there.”

  Darcy shrugged. “I would have weathered the gossip.”

  As she had weathered the taunts of her old classmates and the desertion of her idiot of a fiancé and the loss of her baby.

  “I’m supposed to be helping you engineer your success, not rocketing you into the tabloids.”

  Her mouth tipped up slightly. “The tabloids? Good thing Ms. Compton didn’t hear you refer to her newspaper that way.”

  He grinned. “I wanted to say worse.”

  Darcy studied him, tilting her head. “Do you really end up in the tabloids?”

  “Not usually. My life is too dull.”

  Her laugh was delicious. “How can it be dull when you have three sisters all trying to marry you off? I’ve seen the photos of all those gorgeous women Lane’s been leaving on the breakfast table for you to chance upon, and I’ve heard about all those luscious women drooling over you.”

  But he didn’t want just any woman drooling over him.

  “Drooling isn’t high on my list of admirable qualities in a wife.”

  She laughed. “What is?”

  He stared at her. She blushed, then licked her lips nervously, making him want to groan, to snatch her up, to touch her, taste her, know all of her.

  “Because,” she rushed on, “maybe I could guide your sisters, point them in the right direction.”

  Anger rushed over Patrick. Darcy so clearly wasn’t interested in him, not for the long-term, anyway.

  “Do not start matchmaking with my sisters,” he said, his voice rough and uneven. “I would hate that. You know I’m attracted to you.” He got up and began to pace the room, shoving a hand through his hair. On his fourth trip back across the room, he noticed that she was holding a paper napkin that she was shredding, the pieces falling on her lap and to the floor.

  Immediately he stopped pacing. “I’m being a total jerk. I’m sorry.”

  She looked up at him with those
big, beautiful eyes. “Do you think I’m not attracted to you, too? You know I am, but I can’t—this—this thing that keeps happening between us—it’s just one of those benefactor, beneficiary situations. We’re attracted because we’re thrown together so much, it’s…circumstantial, and it’s not real. It’s not—I don’t want it.”

  “Shh, I’m sorry.” He took the remains of the napkin from her and kissed her fingertips. “I’m sorry. What do you want?”

  “I want to go home now, please.”

  “Absolutely. It’s as good as done.”

  “And Patrick?”

  He looked down into her eyes.

  “I told that reporter I was planning a surprise party for Lane.”

  “I’m not putting more work on you. You’re already swamped with business. I saw Eleanor bringing you all those business cards and she told me that you were booking up fast. There will be a discreet notice placed in the newspaper that the Judsons dined privately for Lane’s last day at home. The reporter will simply think that we’ve changed our plans.”

  As the last word fell from his lips, he realized that he had veered from his own plans. He’d been thinking about Darcy more than his trip lately, but she was right. This was circumstantial. She had things she wanted and needed, and he had dreams he’d wanted to pursue all his life. It was time to turn those dreams, hers and his, into reality.

  In two weeks time, he intended to be in France, with Darcy a distant memory. But before that happened, he was going to take care of a few things for her.

  He was going to create some opportunities. The fact that those opportunities would only create more of a chasm between them…well, that was a good thing, wasn’t it?

  Well, she had officially turned into a liar, Darcy thought, later that evening. She had said that she didn’t want whatever it was that she felt pulsing between her and Patrick, and that was a flat-out lie. She wanted all of it. Every second.

  And if she grabbled for it, then when he left…

  A garbled moan escaped her lips.

  “Something wrong?” Olivia asked.

  “Nothing.” Everything. Except…even though she’d been talking off the top of her head when she’d mentioned that benefactor, beneficiary concept, maybe, hopefully that was a big part of the attraction. Patrick was attracted to her because she was a novelty, and she was attracted to him because she owed him so much. He was a man who had been kind to her in ways she wasn’t accustomed to.

  Instantly an image of Jared came to mind. Jared had been kind. He was a friend.

  She shook her head. This was different somehow.

  “Darcy, what is going on with you? You’re muttering and shaking your head,” Olivia said.

  “I’ve got lots of work. Just look at all these events Eleanor has snagged for me.”

  “You love work,” Olivia pointed out.

  Darcy gave her friend a deadpan look. “You’re far too smart and intuitive for someone just out of high school.”

  “It doesn’t take intuition to know that work makes you happy when you practically shriek every time you come up with a new way to serve artichokes or when you spend hours practicing your plating skills and go home with a grin on your face. Or the way you practically float on a cloud when Mr. Judson follows his nose to your coffee.”

  Okay, that was getting just too personal. But…

  “I want to do something for Patrick before he leaves,” she said.

  “Kiss him?”

  Darcy gave Olivia an evil glare. “That was not funny.”

  “But you know you want to. Everyone does.”

  “Not you.”

  “He’s too old for me, and anyway, I have a boyfriend, but you…”

  “I have Jared.”

  Olivia studied her friend. “Do you really feel that way about Jared?”

  “What way?”

  “Oh…like you daydream about kissing him, like you wonder what he looks like naked.”

  She had never even thought of Jared naked.

  “How do you know I haven’t seen him naked?”

  “Have you?”

  Darcy wrinkled her nose.

  “I thought not,” Olivia said. “You don’t have ‘the look’ when he’s around. When he came to pick you up to go dancing the other day, it was as if he was just the mailman delivering your mail.”

  “We have a nice mailman.”

  “Exactly. Your Jared is nice. But if I asked you about Mr. Judson, you wouldn’t say that he was nice. Not in that way, anyway.”

  “What way would I say it?”

  “Your voice would get all soft and kind of choked up, as if you were weak or something.”

  “I’m not weak.”

  “Weak? My Darcy? Never.”

  Darcy squealed and turned around. “Patrick!” she said, and her voice did, indeed, come out in a rather weak whisper. She cleared her throat and tried again. “You have got to stop doing that.”

  “Doing what?”

  Being you, she wanted to say. Proving Olivia right.

  “Sneaking up on me. At least stomp around a bit before you enter the kitchen. Or growl or shriek or something. Maybe a trumpet.”

  His laugh was warm and delicious and just the way a man’s laugh should be.

  “Sorry,” he said with a wink. “I just…I needed to ask you something.” He looked up at Olivia and Darcy knew he was going to ask Olivia to leave. Then she would be totally alone with him, and given the way she was feeling right now she didn’t trust herself one bit. If she wasn’t careful, she might do something terrible like think of him the way Olivia had suggested that she might. To Darcy’s consternation, she noticed that Patrick’s shirt was open at the neck, the sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up. He had the most wonderful arms, the most amazing hands. Her breathing kicked up.

  “Olivia stays,” she said.

  He raised a brow.

  “Please,” she added.

  “Olivia stays if you like. I just wanted to ask you if you would have any objections to Jared moving into Able House. There’s an opening and the directors asked for my input. But your input is much more valuable and valid than mine. I know you like him. Would you want…”

  He glanced at Olivia again.

  “I’m out of here,” she said, ignoring Darcy’s panicked look.

  “I wasn’t sure what the situation is,” he told Darcy. “I don’t like interfering in your more personal affairs and this feels very much like interference.”

  What should she say? If she said yes…people already thought that Jared was romantically interested in her, and if she recommended him for this slot even Jared might begin to wonder if she was interested in him. Still, he was a friend, no matter what. Able House was an opportunity. Could she deny her friend this chance just because there might be complications she didn’t want?

  “Give the spot to Jared,” she said.

  He gave a tight nod. “It’s done,” he said, and he was gone just as quickly as he had arrived.

  Darcy felt an urge to scream, to punch something. Patrick was putting up another barrier. That was a good thing. He was trying to do one more favor for her when he’d already done so many.

  “This being a beneficiary all the time is making me insane,” she said out loud.

  So…turn the tables. Do something for Patrick. Then you’ll be the one doing the giving and you might be free of this hero-worship stuff, because you’ll be the heroine, the benefactor.

  The idea she’d been toying with solidified. That was it. Flip their positions and she would lose that warm, heartbreaking gratitude tinged with desire that she always felt for Patrick. She would be the warrior-giver; the strong, stolid one.

  Nice thought, too, except…what could she possibly do that would benefit Patrick? What did he care about? What did he need most?

  The answer wasn’t long in coming. It was a decent idea, a sound way to end things and to free both of them, too.

  By rights she should have been dancing around the
kitchen. Happy that she had found a solution for her aching heart and lips.

  As it was…well, life didn’t offer too many perfect skies, and this solution wasn’t a totally guaranteed winner.

  But at least it was something to sink her teeth into and at least if she was thinking of some way to help Patrick she wouldn’t be thinking of kissing him.

  At least when she was awake. Dreaming at night didn’t count, did it?

  CHAPTER TEN

  PATRICK was nearing Able House. This was the day Jared was moving in, and he wanted to be there to—

  “To what?” he said out loud. To meet with the man who might be the one to make Darcy happy, the man she might fall in love with?

  No, I want to make sure he isn’t going to hurt her, he told himself. He couldn’t really even claim that he was here to make sure that Jared was a good fit for Able House, since he already knew he was. The guy taught self-defense to the disabled, a tremendously important task since opportunistic thieves sometimes targeted them.

  Jared was also, Patrick had been told, outgoing, energetic and engaging, perfect for Able House. Maybe perfect for Darcy, too.

  The thought left him grumpy and distracted, so he was caught off guard when he heard a commotion just ahead of him.

  “What are you doing?” That was Darcy, but she wasn’t speaking to him. One of the two troublesome neighbors, the one who had apparently shot his sprinklers over the sidewalk to discourage Able House residents from rolling past his house, was facing her. The man, Cal Barrow, was on the sidewalk while two men were shoveling dirt, making a terraced area on either side of the walkway. Cal’s purpose was obvious. When he’d been running the sprinklers that day, Karen, the woman who’d been passing by and had been dressed for her job at a downtown office, had been forced off the sidewalk onto the grass. But the terraces and rocks the two men had piled up would prevent that.