Finding Home (St. John Sibling Series Book 2)

by Barbara Raffin

  "I didn't do anything any one of your brothers couldn't have done and a whole lot better than me. I cringe to think of Roman checking out my jobs."

  "He's a contractor. He's looks at all jobs with a critical eye."

  Sam's brow puckered. "Does he know about me…that I'm staying here?"

  "Of course," she said. "I've told all my brothers about you."

  He winced and looked away.

  "Why do my brothers intimidate you?" she asked.

  He snorted. "They are very capable men."

  "Each in their own way," she conceded.

  He met her gaze. "They're rock stars at what they do."

  "And you aren't?"

  "I needed self-help books, simple ones with lots of diagrams to do jobs most men learn in the course of growing up. My training in handy work fell more in the realm of notifying the estate maintenance man of the problem."

  She couldn't help but chuckle. "It's actually a good thing to know who to call to get something done. As for self-help books, if every man or woman knew how to repair everything there wouldn't be so many of them being published."

  He grunted.

  "Sam, no man is a rock star at everything."

  "I'm no rock star at anything," he said.

  "You're an excellent chef."

  "I'm a pretty good cook."

  "If any one of my brothers tried to dice and slice anything with the speed and precision you do, they'd end up one finger short."

  He shrugged. "Practice. Repetition. That's all that is."

  "You won't find even one of them whistling a happy tune over a flattop."

  "So I like cooking."

  "You cook from the heart, Sam."

  "I do love cooking," he conceded.

  "What got you cooking from your heart?" she asked, pushing him—willing him to see how that passion gave him worth.

  His smile turned sad. "I hid out a lot in the kitchen."

  Ah, the heart of his issue.

  "From what, or should I say from whom?" she asked.

  "Uncle Stu." Sam flexed a sardonic smile in her direction. "He pretty much steered clear of the helps' domain."

  "So you got to know the kitchen staff pretty good."

  He bobbed his head, memories flashing across his eyes, contentedness smoothing his lips. "Real good."

  "So they took the master's nephew under their collective wing and taught him the love of…food."

  "Pretty much," he said.

  His gaze slid off into the distance. There was so much more to the story. She knew. Michael had talked endlessly about Sam, love-starved Sam. Sam who'd found refuge in a mansion kitchen.

  Sam who never recognized his own value.

  "They were good people," he finally said. "Fun to be around. And they taught me how to be good at something. They taught me what flavors blended, what the different spices did to foods, and how technique elevated a dish. They taught me the beauty of presentation—how we eat first with our eyes."

  She watched his face transform as he talked—saw how him grow more animated. And she heard the passion in his voice as he spoke about what he'd been taught and the people who taught him—heard it as well as in the silence when he paused.

  "So that's why you became a chef?" she asked, when his pause stretched.

  He waved her off. "I'm no chef. I played at learning the techniques. I cooked when the mood struck me. Mostly, I just wanted to be anything but a suit, much to Uncle Stuart's dismay."

  Her heart ached for the little boy who sought solace in a sterile prep-kitchen.

  No, that was wrong. The kitchen where he got his earliest schooling in food prep was anything but sterile.

  "Whatever drove you into that mansion kitchen, Sam, you emerged with a passion—a love."

  He grunted. "And just enough skill to be a cook."

  "That skill pushed you toward culinary school."

  He frowned and looked away. "Which I never completed."

  "Yet you said food is love."

  "So I did," he conceded.

  "No culinary degree can put love in food the way you do, Sam."

  He stared at the ground, his brow puckered.

  "Do you love cooking?" she asked.

  "Yes," he answered without raising his eyes.

  "Sam, do you know how many people work at jobs they hate?"

  He shrugged.

  "Don't you see what an accomplishment it is, not only to be good at what you do, but to be able to do what you love to do?"

  His chin came up and his gaze met hers. "I never thought about it that way before. In the Carrington family, success is measured by money."

  "There's more to life—to happiness than money, Sam."

  Didn't he know it? For years, he'd made light of his failure-filled life with countless people. For most of his life he'd hidden his pain of failure behind false laughter. But there'd be no joking his way around Dixie. Dixie listened more carefully than other people—saw beyond the words. She fixed broken animals and wounded souls.

  He closed his eyes. He didn't want to see the pity in her eyes, not from this woman for whom he longed.

  "And so goes the story of my life," he said, forcing a lightness into his voice, opening his eyes but not meeting her gaze as he asked, "Getting any responses from your local ads for a chef?"

  She shook her head. "I've placed more ads in broader-reaching newspapers and on-line. Maybe one of those will pay off. How about you, Sam? You know anyone you could recommend? I know it's a lot to ask of anyone, to relocate to the land of the frozen tundra."

  He gave her a sad smile. "I've been living in France for the past several years. I doubt anyone I cooked with there even knows where northeastern Wisconsin is."

  Her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and eyed the readout. "Business," she said with a resigned sigh and answered the phone. "Hi, Jim. What's up?"

  After listening a moment, she replied, "No. I've got no problems with your meats."

  "Your prices are fine," she said after another short pause. "You've always been fair with me. What's this all about?"

  Confusion pulled her eyebrows together above the bridge of her nose. "That didn't come from me. Of course the order stands. Thanks for calling and checking."

  She closed the phone. "That's strange."

  "What happened?" Sam asked.

  "My meat supplier received a cancellation of my order from my FAX number. But I didn't cancel my meat order."

  "Is your FAX machine somewhere easily accessible by anyone?"

  "Not really. It's in my bedroom with my computer."

  "Does your FAX keep a history of what's been sent from it?"

  "Only one way to find out," she said, popping to her feet.

  Sam followed Dixie into the house. Her bedroom door was open and Gran was plucking at the keys of her computer.

  "Gran, I thought you were napping," Dixie said.

  "I'm chatting with the most charming gentleman."

  Dixie leaned over her grandmother's shoulder, examining the screen. "You're in a chat room."

  "Mr. Dick has been trying to send me his picture."

  "When did you learn to log onto the Internet?"

  "Ben showed me."

  "How did he learn to use the Internet?"

  "From watching you," Nana said.

  "I set him up with an on-line game now and then," Dixie said.

  "Never underestimate the observational skills of kids," Sam said.

  "Don't I know it," Dixie murmured, turning her attention to the combination printer-scanner-FAX machine. "So Gran, did you touch the printer this morning?"

  "No. No." She tapped away at the keyboard. "Except when I tried to print out Mr. Dick's picture."

  "What buttons did you hit on the printer?"

  "Just about all of them. Nothing I hit would make it print Mr. Dick's picture."

  Dixie groaned, her gaze locking on Sam's.

  "She'd still need to have entered your supplier's phone number,"
Sam said, "not to mention inserted a paper instructing him to cancel the order."

  Dixie shrugged, the look in her eyes one of sad resignation. A flash from the computer screen caught Sam's eye. He moved into the room, stopped behind Dixie's Gran and read Mr. Dick's latest entry.

  "Geeze," he muttered after reading the subject line of the image being transported to Dixie's computer. My Sausage.

  He squatted beside the office chair and gently addressed Nana. "Do you know what kind of chat room you're in?"

  "One where I've met a most charming gentleman."

  Sam caught Dixie's eye and nodded toward the screen. Dixie leaned in and started reading.

  Eyes rolling, she straightened. "You didn't give this guy any information about The Farmhouse, did you? You didn't give him our address or names, did you Nana?"

  Gran's confidence melted. "I-I don't think so. Did I do something wrong?"

  Sighing, Dixie shook her head. "Come with me. Ben's alone in the yard with Miss Weston."

  Gran rose and tottered toward the door. Dixie hesitated, glanced between printer and computer.

  "I'll take care of this," Sam said.

  "Thanks," Dixie said and followed her grandmother out.

  Sam sat down at the keyboard and typed, "You've been chatting with a fifteen year old girl, you perv. If you ever contact this email address again, I'll put the cops in touch with you."

  Instantly, Mr. Dick signed off. Sam deleted Mr. Dick's anatomical image and read through the history of the correspondence. Once he was satisfied Gran hadn't revealed anything personally detrimental, he deleted the chat conversation, any coinciding cookies, and any history of the chat. There was history of a FAX to Dixie's meat supplier. The time stamp seemed to coincide with when he and Dixie were feeding the animals. But he could be remembering wrong and there was nothing to indicate who had sent the FAX. He was about to shut down the computer when an icon caught his attention.

  Farmhouse Business.

  He had no business snooping, but rules never being his strong point, Sam clicked on the icon. Slowly, the old computer opened to the financial statements of The Farmhouse and home.

  Being more familiar with restaurant expenses, he studied those costs first. Receipts showed she bought locally as much as possible. Pulling up her menus alongside her food expenses, he saw she built her menus around seasonal vegetables and fruits, and did a pretty good job of cross utilization of ingredients. Saturday night's roast beef dinner became Sunday brunch's hot beef sandwich and Tuesday's stew. On the average, she'd kept her food costs respectably below twenty percent. Her staffs's wages were slightly above par for the area. But the restaurant was financially healthy. Still, it shamed him to realize the rent on his Paris apartment could pay her monthly bills three times over.

  Even utility and insurance expenses weren't out of line, given the age of the building and that it doubled as a restaurant and home. Maintenance costs were surprisingly low. No doubt due to having a brother in the construction business. He found receipts for only the materials needed to construct the restaurant kitchen, secure the living quarters from the restaurant areas, convert a parlor into a small dining room, and freshen up the entry hall and old dining room. Having no labor expenses had been a huge cost saver for her. Yet, her grandmother had taken out a second mortgage on the farm to pay for the additional kitchen. What was wrong with this picture?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sam lie on his back in Ben's little bed, staring at the patterns the moonlight cast across the ceiling. A little infusion of money into The Farmhouse would help Dixie. He had the money to do it…as long as Stuart didn't catch on to what he was doing with his trust fund allowance. Money was the answer to his taking care of Mickey's family and his escaping being tied down by responsibility—escaping the attraction of Dixie. But something still didn't sit right about his reasoning.

  Sam rolled onto his hip and faced the open window over the bed as if the night air coming through the screen held the answer. But one word kept circling behind his eyes.

  Money.

  When he'd snooped through Dixie's accounts, he'd found far more than restaurant and household expenses. Given the hefty amount of Mickey's life insurance, a policy he'd seen himself thanks to one of Uncle Stuart detectives, there should have been more than a few hundred dollars in Dixie's saving's account. Add to the insurance pay out the sale of the Chicago restaurant and she should have had a small fortune…providing the Chicago restaurant had sold for a profit. Even if the restaurant sale had broken even, there should have been enough by far to save her grandmother from having to re-mortgage her farm to turn the place into a restaurant for Dixie. Nor did the facts match the Dixie he'd come to know.

  But then, how much did he really know about her? She cooked a mean beef roast, had three devoted brothers spread around the country, another a continent away, and two loving parents half a world away. Her customers liked her. She collected damaged strays. Being among that last category made him wince. Damn, but he wanted to be more to Dixie than a project to fix.

  Then again, she was aces at charming the socks off him. Maybe the questions, all the prodding to face things had nothing to do with fixing him. What if she charmed him because he was a potential source of money?

  Suddenly there wasn't enough air in the little room. Sam sat up and shoved the window open wider. The screen insert fell out, clattering onto the porch roof outside his window while a shrill whine sounded simultaneously through the wall from the adjoining room. Almost instantly, the whine halted and the door to the small balcony off the neighboring room opened. Dixie stuck her head out, whispering loudly, "Sorry about that. I should have disconnected the motion detector from Ben's window when you moved into the room."

  He gave the window frame a quick scan and found the apparatus. At least she cared enough for her child to protect him from falling out a window…or be taken away through one. He flinched at what his last thought implied of Stuart.

  "Hope I didn't wake the household," he said.

  She glanced over her shoulder presumably toward her bed. "Ben barely stirred."

  "Is it going to go off if I move the window again?"

  She shook her head, her loose hair shimmering in the moonlight. Not for your eyes.

  He reached for the errant screen.

  "Don't," cried Dixie. But it all happened so fast she couldn't get her full warning out before the window dropped on his back.

  A curse escaped his lips.

  "Are you okay?" She'd stepped out onto the balcony, poised at the nearest railing should she need to come to his aid.

  In spite of his current doubts about Dixie, all he saw was her in baby-doll pajamas. They weren't the sheer, lacey type with panty bottoms. Hers were boy-cut shorts with a cap-sleeved top made of a far less filmy fabric. But cotton or lace, all he could think about was unwrapping her from those baby-dolls and seeing if the rest of her was as flawless as her long, naked legs.

  Naked.

  He groaned and blurted, "I'm fine."

  He lifted the window off himself.

  "There's a dowel on the sill that you can use to prop the window open," she said.

  He nodded, withdrew and secured the window. With all the movement, the sheet slipped down his hips. He pulled on his jeans before going after the runaway screen again. Good thing he did because Dixie now perched on the balcony's nearest railing, hugging her knees to her chest.

  She'd donned a thin robe. She still looked too damned fetching.

  He turned his attention to the wayward screen.

  "I like to sit out here on clear nights and watch the stars." Her soft voice carried to him as he hauled the screen off the porch roof. "I like to believe one of them is Michael."

  Sam paused, half inside, half still outside his window. It was agony to be this close to her when mere feet and a few too many layers of clothes separated them. But, if he wanted to know where Mickey's insurance money had gone…

  Hell, maybe Mickey even had a hand
in setting off the motion detector and dropping the damn window on him. Maybe there was something here Mickey wanted him to expose and what better time to raise the question than when his widow was in a pensive mood.

  Sam tossed the screen inside onto his bed, raised the window further and settled it on his shoulder as he sat straddling the sill. "Nice, to believe he's up there watching over you and Ben."

  "Yeah," she murmured, eyes lifted to the heavens. "It's comforting."

  Damn but the seductress had an angelic profile. He knew which he wanted her to be. But the fiscal facts of The Farmhouse Restaurant and that her grandmother had mortgaged the farm for the improvements when Dixie had been the beneficiary of Mickey's ample life insurance wasn't adding up.

  "Must have been hard to give up the Chicago home the three of you shared…and the restaurant."

  He watched her closely for her reaction. The sad smile that shaped her lips had to be a trick of shadows, right?

  "Actually," she said, "I think he bought the restaurant more for you."

  "Me?" He all but choked on the word. This wasn't the direction he'd expected the conversation to take.

  She looked at him. "He asked you to be his Head Chef, didn't he?"

  "You knew about that?"

  "Of course."

  "I was still in culinary school. I hadn't the kind of experience required to be a Head Chef." Sam snorted. "Making an unproven like me head of any kitchen at that time would have guaranteed failure."

  "The restaurant failed anyway," she said.

  That was a fact Uncle Stu had failed to mention. But, would Mickey really have let her run the business into the ground?

  "Mickey the Golden Boy never failed at anything," he said.

  "You've got to know what the odds are of a new restaurant succeeding, Sam," she said.

  "Yeah. But Mickey had an MBA and you had the restaurant management degree."

  "And, like you, little experience," she said. "Michael and I also disagreed on what kind of restaurant we wanted. I wanted low-key and homey. He wanted high-end gourmet."

  So the perfect pair had their differences.

  "Then came Ben and Michael took over managing all aspects of the restaurant while I immersed myself in motherhood."