Gimme Some Sugar

by Kimberly Kincaid

  Shane nodded and took a few steps toward her to scoop up her phone, which lay belly-up in the grass in front of her flip flops. He regarded her for a minute that felt like it lasted for ten, as if there was something on the tip of his tongue he just couldn’t manage to set free.

  “I know better than to mess with a woman who’s got her mind made up. For what it’s worth, though, he really is a decent guy.”

  Yeah, right. And she was the queen of England. “We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one.”

  Shane’s eyes glinted with amusement beneath another burst of light, courtesy of the fireworks show overhead. “Oh, come on now. You could humor me. Seeing as how you owe me a favor.” A mixture of heartfelt honesty and gentle teasing wrapped around his words, and she stared at him through the settling shadows.

  “I owe you a favor?” Carly echoed.

  “Yup. For taking you back to your car.” Shane flipped his keys in his palm, his grin obvious in the next pop of rainbow-hued colors overhead.

  Carly let out a low oath. She’d almost forgotten about being stranded all the way out here in Serial Killer country. “That’s blackmail, you know.”

  “I prefer to call it externally motivated consideration,” he ventured with a crooked smile. “What do you say?”

  “I can get a ride,” Carly asserted, but it came out like a question that had no answer.

  “If that’s what you want.” But rather than leave her to it, he simply stood on the front lawn.

  The truth was, Shane was the quickest means to an end, and right now, she wanted that end so bad she could taste it. “Fine. Consider yourself humored. Are you parked close by?”

  Carly could’ve sworn he muttered something about a barracuda under his breath before he ushered her through the yard. As he led her toward his truck, she wondered if he’d spotted her concession for the lie it was.

  The cheeseburger sitting on the no-frills, white ceramic plate in front of Jackson was less dinner than work of art. Sesame seeds lay scattered across the golden-brown bakery roll, dotting it with just enough texture to balance out the soft bread beneath the toasted exterior. The thick, brown edges of the grilled-to-perfection patty escaped the confines of the roll, draped in a slice of bubbly cheese. The heady, charcoal smell of the burger mingled with the salty, warm scent of the hand-cut waffle fries piled gloriously high on the side of Jackson’s plate. A burger from the Double Shot was one of Jackson’s biggest pleasures in life, a thing of beauty unparalleled not just in Pine Mountain, but in all of King County.

  He couldn’t even manage to take one bite without wanting to be sick.

  Jackson raked a hand over his crew cut, silently stuffing down the lack of appetite he’d been wrestling with for the last four days. He had a sneaking suspicion the reason for his malady wasn’t so much a what as a who, but hell if he was going to go there now that all was said and done.

  Except part of him wanted to go there. And not a little bit.

  “Hey. Sorry I’m late. The tranny in that Camaro that came in last week is killing me.” Shane slid onto a bar stool and eyed Jackson’s burger with all the reverence it deserved. “Man, that looks good.”

  “Help yourself,” Jackson said, sliding the plate over.

  Shane promptly looked at Jackson as if he’d tried to give away his kid. “Okay, that’s just not right. What gives?” His laugh was a cross between nonchalant joking and what’s-on-your-mind, but Jackson wasn’t in the mood for either.

  “I ate a really late lunch.” Jackson signaled the redhead behind the bar and ordered a beer. When in doubt, a tall, cold one could always take the edge off.

  “Bullshit. I’ve seen you put away one of Lou’s burgers on a full stomach more times than I can count. What’s going on?” Shane pinned Jackson with a dark stare.

  So much for not going there. The bartender sashayed her way over, her bottle opener sounding off in a muffled clink against the lip of the amber glass as she liberated the cap from his bottle of Budweiser.

  “Nothing’s going on.” Maybe if he peppered the conversation with terse one-liners, Shane would lose interest or change the subject. It wasn’t like they tended to sit around and talk about their feelings much, anyway.

  “Have you talked to Carly since I took her back to her car on Saturday?”

  Or not.

  “No.” The word came out sounding harder than Jackson intended, causing Shane’s brow to lift.

  Great. Just what Jackson needed was the Spanish-freaking-Inquisition over this. Nothing had even happened.

  That’s kind of the rub, though, isn’t it?

  After Carly had left the party—and who could blame her, really—every neuron in Jackson’s brain had screamed at him to find her and explain. He’d been knee-deep in formulating a fast excuse to follow her through the yard when it struck him like a steamroller on steroids.

  Letting Carly leave was the perfect way to cut ties with her before things went from seriously hot to seriously heavy. She was married, for God’s sake, and he sure as hell didn’t want to go down that road. Plus, it was pointless to start something he wasn’t going to finish. Better to just let it fade out now, even if the method left him looking like a jerk.

  Jackson shifted in his seat, the unforgiving wood of the bar stool making his back ache. There was something else, something dark and suggestive that lurked in the back of his mind and refused to let go. Carly was the only woman he’d ever wanted so much, that he’d lost control trying to have her.

  And so he couldn’t pursue her. Plain and simple.

  Despite his actions and all the nasty little neuroses that fueled them, the thought of not seeing her safely to her car on Saturday night had rankled big time, to the point that Jackson had pulled Shane aside not two minutes after she’d walked away to ask him to do it. God love him, Shane had driven Carly back to her car, no questions asked. It was the last they’d spoken of it. Until now.

  “Are you planning on seeing her again?” Shane propped his forearms on the bar and dug into the cheeseburger without fanfare.

  Even though he hadn’t come right out and admitted to Shane that anything had really gone on, clearly his buddy could read between the lines. And since those lines all pointed to the past tense, anyway, refuting the facts just seemed insulting.

  “I don’t think so.” Jackson took another draw from his beer, making a face at the bottle as he swallowed. American beer wasn’t supposed to go down like motor oil, but whatever. Everything he’d touched to his lips lately had tasted terrible.

  Shane chewed for a minute before continuing. “Look, if you want to drop the subject, just say so. But from where I sit, it looks like it might do you some good to air it out.”

  Jackson bit back the urge to compliment Shane on his skirt. Truth was, the whole thing was weighing him down like a truckload of wet cement. It might not be his usual style, but throwing the story out there for Shane was a far cry from getting all touchy-feely. Christ, at this point, he’d do anything to stop feeling like a jerk and get his freaking appetite back.

  “You remember that storm we had a couple of weeks ago, right?” Jackson started, taking a deep breath. Twenty minutes, two Cokes, and the full story later, Shane pushed back from the bar with a low whistle.

  “Gotta hand it to you. The word easy just isn’t in your vocabulary, is it?”

  Jackson scrubbed a hand down his face, realizing he felt strangely better having told all. Not that it mattered much. In the end, the result was still the same.

  “Nope. It’s probably for the best that she hates my guts,” he said.

  Shane slanted a hesitant glance his way. “Yeah. I tried to tell her the truth before I drove her home.”

  “You what?” Jackson couldn’t tell whether he should be pissed or relieved. On second thought, pissed was rarely worth it between friends. “What’d she say?”

  “Let’s just say hating your guts is in the right ballpark. She thought I was covering for you to smooth things ove
r, and she was pretty adamant, so I didn’t push it. Sorry if I overstepped my bounds, man.”

  “No big deal. Like I said, it’s probably for the best,” Jackson said slowly.

  “But you like her.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yeah.” The reply sent a shockwave of surprise through Jackson, although whether it was because he meant it or because he’d said it out loud, he couldn’t be sure.

  “So, what? You’re just going to avoid her, all because you acted like a total ass on Saturday?” Shane picked up the one remaining waffle fry from the long-since decimated plate and popped it into his mouth.

  “Thanks for the ego boost,” Jackson muttered, sliding his empty glass back over the bar.

  Shane ran a hand over his stomach in an appreciative gesture, pushing his plate next to Jackson’s glass. “Don’t mention it.”

  Jackson supposed he had the dig coming. He really had been a total ass. And the worst part was, the charade with Jenna had gone off without a hitch. His mother had beamed with happiness that could be seen from outer space every time she looked at him, a delighted kind of relief swimming over her features that he hadn’t seen in years. Never mind that Jackson had been eating the guilt over it ever since the first hint of a smile had crossed her lips.

  And he hadn’t been able to eat anything else since then.

  Shane cleared his throat in a quiet rumble. “Have you thought about a good, old-fashioned sincere apology?”

  All the air whooshed from Jackson’s lungs in a moment of clarity that made his skin prickle with sudden awareness. His gut perked to life, sending the first message of want in four days to his brain.

  Feed her.

  Clearly, Jackson’s lack of appetite was making him loopy. Still, the impulse filtered through him, shaping itself into an idea with each pass through his system, and it made him hungry. Apologizing to Carly was a far cry from diving headfirst into a relationship with her, after all. While he knew the latter would never happen, the former was starting to have merit, with both his conscience and his stomach. Plus, she’d said herself that she wasn’t looking to stay in Pine Mountain long term. How serious could it get if she wasn’t even going to stay?

  His brain tumbled in thought. Carly might introduce Jackson to her right hook for his troubles, but Shane was right. She deserved an apology, a really self-deprecating, sincere-right-down-to-my-toes admission of wrongdoing. And he only knew one way to pull that off.

  “Shane, I’m gonna need your help. Are you game for just one more little deception?”

  Chapter Twelve

  “That salmon’s going to be like the fucking Sahara if you don’t get it off the grill, and I do mean right now,” Carly snapped over her shoulder. “And where’s the lemon dill sauce? Come on, people. We’re not going to fill the house with cold food and slow service.”

  “Yes, Chef.” Bellamy plated the salmon in efficient movements, offering it to her for approval while Adrian finished the dish with the satiny, butter-yellow sauce. Carly’s hands flew over her work station as she added crisp-tender spears of steamed asparagus and roasted fingerling potatoes to the plate, wiping an errant dollop of sauce from the edge of the dish before sending it out the door with the server. She pulled the next ticket from the queue, barking out orders and plating the next round of dishes with speedy precision.

  “Chef di Matisse? There’s a, uh, problem with the dessert menu.” The look on Bellamy’s face suggested that she’d drawn the short straw in the news-delivering department.

  Carly’s shoulders knotted together like one big sweater of nasty tension, and she hissed a breath through her teeth. From the minute they’d sent out the first cover tonight, things had been going south. One of the dishwashers hadn’t shown up for his shift, which meant getting everything from clean flatware to proper serving pieces in a timely manner was like getting blood from a stone. Due to an ordering mix-up with the liquor distributor, the bar was nearly out of the restaurant’s most popular pinot noir, which went flawlessly with just about everything on the damned menu. And her pastry chef, while he could practically spin gold from mere butter, was unreliable as hell. Carly got the feeling she was about to find that out—again.

  “What?” Carly turned as Adrian sent a plate of Seafood Fra Diavolo her way for its out-the-door inspection, and she tucked a wedge of toasted garlic bread on the side of the deep-bellied dish, admiring the orange pop of tomatoes next to the shell-pink of the shrimp. A loud crash snapped Carly’s head up from the front of the line, just as Bellamy blurted something about the pastry chef not making enough peach cobbler before he snuck out early for the night.

  “Fix it!” Carly hollered, moving toward the more pressing issue. Thankfully, it turned out to be a jammed door on one of the dishwashers, all bark and no bite. She returned to the pass, snatching another order from the queue. Two more orders came in, one right on top of the other, and plates left the kitchen with their servers just as fast. Another five minutes of more pressing issues passed before Carly could address the peach cobbler—God, she could kill that pastry chef. She turned and nearly ran into Adrian.

  “Taste this.” He had the fork in her face so fast that she could either open her mouth or wear whatever was on it, and out of instinct, she took the bite. Dense, buttery crust burst against her tongue, followed by the sweet taste of nectarines in a light syrup that danced through the back of her mouth in a smooth, summery glide.

  “What is that?” Carly asked, the demand losing its punch as she shoved another bite in her mouth.

  “Sunshine here took it upon herself to solve your dessert problem,” he said, grinning at a wide-eyed Bellamy, who held a saucepan in one hand.

  “You said . . . you said fix the peach cobbler thing, so I figured nectarines were close enough. I just made a quick reduction with simple syrup and some spices and put it over the shortbread in the pantry. It’s not cobbler, but . . .”

  “It’s brilliant. Plate it with some crème fraiche and send it out.” Carly called out the order in her hand before turning back to Bellamy, a wry smile on her lips for the first time all week. “It’s replacing the cobbler on the menu for the rest of the night, so get ready to make more of that sauce. Nice work.”

  Mercifully, the rest of the service went without a hitch, although it drained Carly’s energy down to fumes. Her arm was still sore from her weekend escapade, and although she hated to admit it, her ego hurt even worse. That tetanus shot had been nothing in the face of reality.

  She’d been conned like the world’s biggest sap. Yet again.

  Yeah, well, not anymore. Carly pulled the last ticket for the night out of the queue. Oh, thank God. Calamari was something she could do in her sleep.

  “You want me to take that?” Adrian’s hazel eyes darted to the ticket in her hand, but she moved down the line to one of the lowboys, pulling out the labeled containers of ingredients.

  “Nope. The kitchen’s pretty much broken down anyway.” She nodded to the other work stations, all of which were clean and empty, the last of her line cooks having checked out for the night a few minutes before. It was a rarity that Carly wasn’t the first one in and the last one out, a self-imposed high standard that all but married her to her job. She put the milky, opaque calamari in a bowl, tossing them evenly with batter before checking the temperature on the deep fryer. At least the kitchen was faithful.

  “So you want to tell me why you’re in such a foul mood?” Adrian replaced the containers in the lowboy, breaking down the last station with practiced ease.

  Carly blanked the frown from her face, but of course Adrian had seen it. An unexpected trickle of melancholy squeezed her stomach tight against her ribs, and she ladled the calamari into the basket of the deep fryer with a shaking hand. “Not really.” God, the whole thing was ridiculous. It had been a couple of kisses, nothing more. She really needed to get over herself. “Why, am I that bad?” Despite the knot in her belly, a tiny smile moved across her lips. It felt hollow, but at least it was
a start.

  “A loaded question if I ever heard one. I just know you.” Adrian pulled a pristine white plate from the stack at the pass and met her at the deep fryer. “You think too much and it’s going to wreck that hard head of yours.”

  Carly snorted and put the tawny rings of flawlessly fried calamari on the plate, piling it high and plating it with her secret-recipe dipping sauce before sending it out with the server. “You’re such a sweet-talker. Really.” But Adrian was right. Wallowing in what had happened with Jackson wasn’t going to make it any different. She needed to let it go, just like everything else. “Come on, gnoccone. Help me finish cleaning up, would you?”

  Adrian laughed in a hard burst. “Did you just call me a big dumpling?”

  The grin that found its way to Carly’s face was long overdue. “I believe I did.”

  “You’re the boss,” he grumbled, but the smile beneath his darkly stubbled jaw was obvious. They fell into step together, trading jibes and jawing about whether the Yankees had a shot at winning the pennant until the kitchen was well past clean.

  “Um, Chef di Matisse?” Bellamy poked her head into the kitchen from the pass-through to the dining room just as Carly took one last swipe at the stainless steel counter with her dish towel.

  “Hey, Bellamy, I thought you’d gone home. Excellent work tonight.” Carly popped the top button on her whites and ran a hand over the blue and white scarf keeping her braid at bay.

  A look of pleasure flashed over Bellamy’s features, but it was quickly replaced by hesitance. “Thank you. I, ah, just wanted to let you know that there’s a customer still in the dining room. He’s asking to see the chef.”

  Carly stiffened. Gavin, the restaurant manager, was supposed to handle all complaints. If anything came back to the kitchen, it went right from Gavin’s hands to hers, no exceptions.

  “Is there a problem?” she asked. Something about this didn’t feel right.

  “Oh, no, no. The server said he just wants to compliment you on the food.”