He kissed her gently, a whisper of a promise, a hint of tomorrows to come. She had trusted him with the scared, uncomfortable parts of herself and he’d held her heart carefully, seeing her whole where she thought she was broken, strong where she thought she was weak. He didn’t complete her any more than success or acclaim did, but he’d given her the gift of seeing herself as God did, as someone who was worthy of love.
She stepped back and swiped away the sudden swell of tears. “Do you want to join us for dinner?”
“Do you have to ask?”
Rachel laughed as she took his hand and pushed the door open, her heart suddenly light. She led him into the kitchen, and the conversation immediately stopped.
“Everyone, I’d like you to meet Alex.”
Ana and Melody looked at her as if to confirm it was okay to welcome him in. Rachel gave a quick nod, and the guests reshuffled themselves at the table to make room for an extra chair next to Rachel. She retrieved a plate and cutlery from the kitchen, set his place carefully, and then settled beside him.
Beneath the table, he reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze.
The group had already moved on to a heated discussion about what kind of restaurant Rachel should open, but she didn’t object, too filled with gratitude to spoil their fun. Besides, if she’d learned one thing, it was that their guess about the future was at least as accurate as hers.
For now, she had a man she adored, loyal friends, and a sense of contentment she hadn’t felt since those long-ago Sundays filled with love and powdered-sugar donuts. And that was enough.
A Note from the Author
IT WAS THIS food nerd/writer’s dream come true to set a book in the middle of Denver’s thriving food scene—Rachel’s restaurant and the supper club would feel right at home in the Mile High City. While Denver’s real neighborhoods and landmarks set the backdrop for this story, all the restaurants mentioned are works of fiction. However, with so many inspiring chefs and restaurants in the city, I couldn’t help but take my cue from real places.
Rachel’s restaurant, Paisley, has no exact correlation in the real world, but I did borrow its Larimer Square location from Jennifer Jasinski’s excellent Mediterranean restaurant, Rioja. If you’re curious about the interior design, I loosely based the description off another of my favorites, Lon Symensma’s ChoLon Bistro on Sixteenth and Blake.
Rhino Crash, the funky bar and food truck pod in the River North neighborhood, is a near-double for the quirky Finn’s Manor, home to some of the city’s best food trucks.
The girls’ breakfast joint in the Ballpark neighborhood is an unabashed reference to the original location of Snooze, a retro-styled breakfast-brunch-cocktail spot that has now expanded to multiple locations in Colorado, Arizona, California, and Texas.
Lastly, The English Department was an excuse to pay homage to my very favorite spot in the city: Alex Seidel’s Mercantile Dining & Provision at Union Station. If Rachel waxed a bit too eloquent when she visited, it’s only because of my own barely restrained foodie glee.
About the Author
CARLA LAUREANO is the RITA® Award–winning author of contemporary inspirational romance and Celtic fantasy (as C. E. Laureano). A graduate of Pepperdine University, she worked as a sales and marketing executive for nearly a decade before leaving corporate life behind to write fiction full-time. She currently lives in Denver with her husband and two sons, where she writes during the day and cooks things at night. Visit Carla online at www.carlalaureano.com.
Discussion Questions
Rachel’s memories, good and bad, tend to be associated with food. What are your best and worst memories that are tied to food? Do you think they endure longer because of the association?
Alex criticizes the fact that public figures are treated as if their lives exist for public consumption. Do you feel that the media oversteps its boundaries, or is it merely a hazard that creatives and celebrities should expect to shoulder as the price of success? How would you feel if you were attempting to live in a similar spotlight?
Rachel rejects the idea of being a spokesperson for women in the food service industry and resents having to put her personal life on display, citing the fact that men aren’t required to talk about anything but their cooking. Do you think women who reach the highest levels of their professions are obligated to speak out? Is that an unfair burden? Why or why not?
Alex struggles with freedom in his faith journey, wishing for a rule book. Do you relate to that feeling? Why or why not?
A single misrepresented comment of Rachel’s goes viral, leading to the shattering of her career. What do you think that says about social media in particular and society in general? What responsibility do we as Christians have to investigate the truth and temper our response to what we hear and read?
Because of her difficult family background and feelings of betrayal, Rachel looks for alternative families in both her kitchen staff and her best friends. What does that say about our innate need for belonging? Is our biological family different from our chosen one? Contrast the way her colleagues react to her crisis versus how her friends react.
Alex possesses a deep need to fix things and take responsibility for his actions. How is this a good thing? How might it also be problematic?
Both Alex and Rachel have experienced the weight of not living up to their families’ expectations. How are their reactions similar? How are they different, and why?
Rachel hides behind her title and the trappings of her profession. Why do you think this is? How does she change over the course of the book?
Alex tells Rachel that he’s learned “all the hustle in the world won’t get me anywhere if it’s not [God’s] will.” Later, Rachel has a similar realization about her work and striving over her career prospects. What does this say about the tension between hard work or diligence and faith? What have your personal experiences taught you about this balance?
Rachel misunderstands the meaning of the e-mail and notes she sees in Alex’s home and jumps to the worst conclusion. How is this similar to what happened to her on social media? What does this say about our natural tendencies as humans?
Near the story’s end, Rachel prays for direction, hoping for “a dramatic, unmistakable answer,” but receives only “a still, small conviction.” Was it enough for her? How do you discern God’s guidance—and what form does it usually take?
How does the evolution of the supper club format mirror Rachel’s own personal journey? How is this a significant change from the beginning of the book?
ONCE UPON A TIME, Melody Johansson had believed in fairy tales.
To be truthful, she still believed in them, but with her thirtieth birthday in the rearview mirror, the impossible dream had turned away from meeting a handsome prince to owning a little patisserie in Paris. Even if sometimes, toiling away in her own version of Cinderella’s attic, both fantasies seemed equally far-fetched.
Melody brushed past the ovens in the bakery’s kitchen, giving the loaves inside a cursory glance, then retrieved a rectangular tub of dough from the rack on the back wall. Customers no doubt had romantic ideals of what it meant to be a baker, picturing quaintly dressed European peasants kneading loaves by hand and shoving them into ovens on long-handled peels, but the American commercial bakery had far more in common with an assembly line than a romantic country boulangerie.
Still, there were worse places to spend the dark, still hours of the night than surrounded by loaves of bread, their deep-brown, crackling exteriors fragrant with wheat and caramel and yeast. But Melody was closing on the end of a twelve-hour shift alone, and the only drifts she wanted to be enveloped in were the fluffy plumes of the down duvet on her antique bed. Not the hard, icy snow that coated the bakery’s windows like a sprinkling of demerara sugar on a freshly baked pastry. It looked beautiful, but the peaceful surface concealed treacherous sheets of ice, courtesy of Denver’s schizophrenic warm-then-snowy March weather. Every time spring looked to be on the hori
zon, winter yanked it back for one last snowy hurrah.
Melody muscled the forty-pound tub of dough back to the benchtop and overturned it in one swift movement. She’d done this enough in her career to judge two-pound portions by eye, but she still put each piece on the scale after she cut it from the mass with her steel-bladed bench knife. Unconsciously, she matched the rhythm of her movements to the music softly pouring from the speakers. Cut, weigh, set aside. Cut, weight, set aside. Then came the more complex rhythm of shaping each loaf. A dusting of flour, push away, quarter turn. Each stroke of the scraper beneath the loaf rolled the dough inward on itself, creating the surface tension that transformed the loose, wet lump of dough into a taut, perfectly formed round. Then the loaf went into the cloth-lined proofing basket to rise before she went on to the next one. Twenty times per tub, multiplied by the number of tubs on the rack. She was going to be here for a while.
Baking wasn’t usually such solitary work. A second baker normally worked the weekend shifts to make up for the café’s increased traffic on Saturday and Sunday, but he lived south of the city, just past the point where they had closed the interstate. It shouldn’t have been a surprise—practically every storm closed Monument Pass. Had it been Melody, she would have driven up earlier on Friday morning to make sure she was able to make her shift on time. But then, she’d worked in restaurants and bakeries her entire adult life, where the first rule was “Always show up.”
That meant her usual eight-hour shift had morphed into twelve.
She muffled a yawn with the back of her arm. “Get it together, Melody. Only two more hours.” Assuming that the morning staff got here on time to put the proofed loaves into the oven.
Maybe it was time to cut this job loose. She’d been here for six months, which, with the exception of a single fine-dining gig, was the longest she’d been in one place in her life. She needed variety. There was only so long that she could churn out someone else’s mediocre recipes and not feel like somehow she’d sold out.
She’d been wanting to go back to Europe. She’d been away from Paris for eight years, and she had been so busy as a baking apprentice that she’d never had the chance to explore France beyond the city itself. A few months to travel sounded like heaven. Unfortunately, based on the current state of her savings account, she could barely fund a trip to the airport, let alone any points beyond.
Melody sighed. That was as much a fairy tale as the patisserie.
She was heading back for a fourth tub when she heard a tapping from the front of the store. She frowned, cocking her head in that direction. Probably just the snow or the wind rattling the plate-glass windows. This strip mall was old, and every storm seemed to shake something new loose.
No, there it was again. She wiped her hands on her apron and slowly poked her head out of the kitchen toward the front entrance.
A man stood at the door, hand raised to knock on the glass.
Melody hesitated. What on earth was anyone doing out in this storm at 4 a.m.? Even worse, what was she supposed to do? It didn’t bother her to be here alone, but she kept everything securely locked until the morning staff arrived to welcome customers.
“Hello?” His muffled voice sounded hopeful. Didn’t sound like someone who was planning on murdering her. But what did a murderer sound like anyway?
She approached the window cautiously. “Can I help you?”
He exhaled, his breath crystallizing around him in a cloud. “My car got stuck down the street. Can I use your phone? Mine’s dead and I forgot my charger in the hotel.” He pulled out a cell phone and pressed it against the wet window. Evidence, apparently.
Melody wavered. From what she could tell through the snow-crusted window, he was nicely dressed. Didn’t sound crazy. And sure enough, when she peered down the street, she could see a car cockeyed against the curb with its emergency flashers on.
“Listen,” he called, “I don’t blame you for being cautious. I’m a pilot, see?” He opened his overcoat to show a navy-blue uniform and then pulled out a badge clip holding two unreadable cards. “These are my airport credentials. Homeland Security and my employer all trust me with a thirteen-million-dollar plane. I promise, I just need a phone.”
A gust of wind hit him full force, the smattering of snow crackling against the window. He turned up his collar and hugged his arms to himself, waiting for her response.
Melody sighed and pulled a key ring from her belt loop. She couldn’t leave the poor guy outside to freeze, and she knew there wasn’t likely to be another place open for miles. She just prayed that her compassion wasn’t going to backfire on her. The lock clicked open and she pulled the door inward.
He rushed in, rubbing his hands together. “Thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciate this.”
“Sure. The phone’s over there by the register.” Melody pointed him in the direction of the counter.
He nodded, turned toward the phone, then hesitated and stuck out his hand. “I’m Justin Keller.”
As his cold fingers closed on her warm hand, she looked up and found herself frozen in the wake of brilliant blue eyes. “Melody Johansson.”
He smiled, giving her heart a little hiccup, and released her before moving toward the phone. She watched as he dug a roadside assistance card from his wallet and dialed.
The stranger she’d rescued was handsome. Almost unfairly so. Medium-brown hair, cut short and a little spiky. Those arresting blue eyes. And a crooked half smile that must routinely melt women into puddles at his feet. No, not leading man . . . fairy-tale prince. Why was it that pilots seemed to dominate the good-looking end of the gene pool? Was it a prerequisite for the job?
Justin was talking in a low voice—a nice voice, she had to admit, just deep and sexy enough to balance the boyish charm—and she realized she should probably get back to work before he caught her staring. But he turned to her and cradled the handset against his shoulder. “They said it’s going to take them a while. Is it okay if I wait here?”
“Sure.” She might have been reluctant to let him in, but her answer now was just a little too enthusiastic. From the slight glimmer of a smile he threw back to her, he probably heard it too.
Well, a guy like that had to be aware of the effect he had on women. She had just never thought of herself as predictable.
He hung up the phone and turned to her. “They say two hours, but they also said that there are people stranded all over Denver right now. I have no idea how long it will be. Are you sure it’s okay? I don’t want you to get in trouble for letting me in.”
“It’s no trouble.” Especially since the opening manager was a single woman. She’d take one look at him and understand Melody’s weakness. “I’ve got to get back to work, though. Do you want some coffee?”
“I’d kill for some coffee.”
“I’m not sure I like the choice of words, but I understand the sentiment.” Melody smiled at the flash of embarrassment that crossed his face. “Have a seat and I’ll get you a cup. One of the perks of the night shift—unlimited caffeine.”
“I’d say that’s more a requirement than a perk.”
“Sometimes.” She found a ceramic mug under the counter and then went to the vacuum carafe that held the coffee she’d made a few hours earlier. She pushed the plunger to dispense a cup and set it on the counter. “Cream and sugar are over there.”
“I take mine black.” He retrieved the cup and warmed his hand around it for a moment before he took a sip. “It’s good. Thank you.”
“Sure.” She’d said she needed to get back to work, but now she found herself hovering awkwardly behind the counter. It seemed weird to leave a stranger out here by himself—even weirder that she was reluctant to walk away.
He was looking around the bakery. “So, you’re the only one here?”
Melody took an involuntary step back, red flags waving wildly in the back of her mind.
He picked up on her tension and held up one hand. “Forget I said that. That sounde
d less creepy in my head. I just meant, are you the one responsible for all this bread? It seems like a lot of work for one person.” He gestured to the metal bins behind the counter, still awaiting their bounty for the day’s customers.
“Usually I have an assistant on the weekend, but yeah. It’s mostly me.”
“Impressive,” he said, with a nod that made her think he meant it.
“Not really. This isn’t really baking.”
“What is it, then?”
Melody shrugged. “Assembling, maybe? But it’s a job, and working with bread all day beats sitting at a desk in an office.”
He saluted her with a coffee cup. “I hear that. Exactly why I went into aviation.”
Despite herself, a little smile formed on her lips. She’d expected a guy that good-looking to be a bit full of himself, but his relaxed, comfortable attitude seemed to be the opposite. “I’m not supposed to let anyone back here, but if you want to keep me company . . .”
He straightened from his perch by the counter. “If I wouldn’t be bothering you. Normally I’d stream a video or put on a podcast, but . . .”
“Dead phone. Right.” Melody moved back to the kitchen, aware of him following. She nodded toward a stool by the door. “You can sit there if you like.”
He shrugged off his wet overcoat and hung it on the hook by the door, then perched on the chair. From the corner of her eye, she had to admit he did look rather attractive in his nicely tailored uniform. She shook herself before she could become another pilot-groupie casualty. Focus, Melody.
Starting on the next tub of dough gave her something to think about other than the man sitting a mere five feet away from her. She started cutting and weighing the dough. “So what kind of planes do you fly? 747s or something like that?”
“No. Not anymore. Light business jets.”
The Saturday Night Supper Club Page 32