On Lavender Lane

by JoAnn Ross

  “I know you think I’m being an overly suspicious cop—”

  “No. Correction: I know that you take that protect-and-serve thing as seriously as a heart attack. And that you want to make sure you’re ready if she’s in more than the usual problematic abused-woman situation.”

  “You’ve always known me so well.”

  Sax laughed. “Chère, any man who’d claim to know a woman well is either a liar or a fool. I’m not the first and would prefer not to think of myself as the second. However, living with a cop has taught me that the job’s a lot like being a SEAL. And that a failure to plan is a plan for failure.”

  “That’s precisely what I plan to do.” She took a sip of tea. “Plan for the worst and hope for the best. I was also hoping you’d let me know if anyone new comes into Bon Temps looking for a woman.”

  “You bet I will.”

  “There’s something else.”

  “Hmmm?” He had begun nibbling on her neck. Sax figured they had a good two hours to themselves and had every intention of making the most of them.

  “This.”

  She dug into the pocket of her sweats and pulled out the white plastic strip and held it out to him. It took Sax a minute to recognize what it was. Another moment to focus on the blue plus sign.

  “We’re pregnant?” Hot damn. Could his life get any better?

  “I have an appointment tomorrow, but if you can believe a ninety-nine-point-nine-percent correct test rate, I’d say you’re going to be a father.”

  “I already am.” Trey, the child Kara had had with his old high school buddy, couldn’t be more his son if he’d carried Sax’s blood in his veins. “But wow.” He just stared at the strip. Then looked up at this woman he’d loved for far more years than she’d ever known. “I realize I’m going to risk sounding chauvinistic here—”

  “Well, there would be a first.” Her grin belied her teasing words.

  “But this is, hands down, the best present anyone’s ever given me.”

  Her eyes misted up. That was one of the things that Sax loved about her. From the lace she wore beneath her sweats and khakis to her love of sappy movies, and how easily emotional she was, despite her law-and-order mentality, his sexy sheriff was a constantly intriguing study in contrasts.

  “You’ve no idea how much I wanted to run to Bon Temps and tell you as soon as I found out.”

  “I would’ve closed the doors and come home to celebrate.” He frowned as a thought occurred to him. “I guess we probably better not—”

  “Stop right there.” She covered his mouth with her fingertip. “Do you have any idea how many hormones are running amok through my body right now? The only reason I didn’t come running into Bon Temps to announce it right away was that I’d probably have jumped you right on the spot and have forced poor Kyle to arrest us for public indecency.”

  Kyle was one of her deputies. He’d been green as spring grass when he’d started on the force, but had, she’d reported, been growing into a good cop.

  “Plus—” She leaned forward and touched her mouth to his. Teasing. Tempting. Tantalizing. “I blew an entire week’s pay at Oh So Fancy after lunch today. Do you have any idea what I’m wearing beneath this world’s unsexiest outfit?”

  “Not a clue.” But since he’d never yet been disappointed, Sax was hopeful. “I don’t suppose you’d give me a hint.”

  She laughed. Gave him a long deep kiss. “Nope.” Then picked up her tea glass. “It’s for me to know.” She was halfway to the porch door when she tossed him a sexy glance over her shoulder. “And you to find out.”

  “A treasure hunt,” he said, getting up and following her into the house. “My second-favorite thing.”

  “What’s your favorite thing?”

  He picked her up by the waist, lifting her off her feet to swing her around and plant a long, hot kiss on her. Then with a laugh, he carried her into the house.

  “You’re about to find out.”

  43

  Madeline was not surprised when Pepper wasn’t exactly thrilled with her opening gambit.

  “You want me to tell them what?”

  “That I want to drop Comfort Cooking.”

  “Do you have any idea what revenue that brings in?”

  “Not as much as Dinner at Home.”

  One thing she’d learned at the Culinary Institute was to keep track of the dollars. Actually, Sofia, who’d kept her immigrant frugality even as she and Madeline’s grandfather traveled the world, had taught her that if you watched the pennies, the dollars would take care of themselves. Something Maxime had definitely not learned. Yet, she admitted, why should he? When he can keep marrying his very own ATMs.

  “I’m also pretty much duplicating what I do on Comfort Cooking with the second show. I’m willing to keep Dinner at Home, because it’s a topic that’s really important to me. Not only are families spending too much time in the drive-through lane of some fast-food chain, they go home and eat out of boxes and bags while watching TV. Everyone’s so rushed these days, dinner is the one time of day that families can take a breather to get together and talk. And feel like real families, instead of just a group of individuals who happen to sleep beneath the same roof.”

  Hadn’t Birdy said much the same thing about dinner having become a bonding time for her daughter and grandchildren?

  “And I don’t want to tape it in the Cooking Network staged kitchen. I want to do it here.”

  “Here?” Madeline hoped her agent was in the actual office and not the one with the alcohol, or she’d have just spit out her martini. “Surely you don’t mean in Sunnybrook Harbor?”

  “Shelter Bay. And yes, that’s exactly what I mean. I’m not doing these shows for ego or fame,” she repeated what she’d told Pepper time and time again. Madeline disliked this new trajectory that had thrown so many chefs out of the kitchen into the klieg lights of television stardom.

  “I’m doing them because I believe in them. You know my concept, which is not a gimmick, has always been family dining. So what would be more appropriate than filming the show here, in the farmhouse kitchen where I first decided to become a chef?”

  “Hmm. I can see the marketing potential in that,” Pepper allowed. “But you already have a huge audience for Dinner at Home. Do you honestly believe that changing the venue will make up enough to pay for increased production costs?”

  “I made a few calls. There’s an award-winning guy who escaped the L.A. movie rat race by moving to Astoria. Now he’s semiretired, only taking on work that interests him. He’s also a major foodie.”

  When she named him, she heard Pepper’s intake of breath. “Oh, I saw his documentary tour of Napa’s wine country restaurants,” she said. “And nearly wept at that tiny bit of capellini nestled in a clamshell, with a single clam on top.”

  “It was genius,” Madeline allowed, although the chef’s ingenious take on linguini with clam sauce wasn’t the type of robust food she preferred to prepare. “I swear I could smell the cloves, peppercorns, and star anise he’d somehow infused into the hot rock salt that shell was sitting on.”

  “That documentary had a concept,” Pepper said carefully. “And a built-in foodie audience. Dinner at Home, as good a show as it is, isn’t exactly groundbreaking fare.”

  “I know. The film guy already pointed that out.” Madeline had allowed herself a moment of ego when she learned he actually occasionally watched it. “He’s willing to come in way under what New York production costs are if he gets the contract for the new show.”

  “What new show?”

  Madeline went on to explain her idea about showing the school and restaurant being built. Then filming the classes.

  “I see a few problems.” Which was Pepper’s job. To temper Madeline’s enthusiasm with the cold, hard reality of pragmatism. “The actual building of the place may draw in viewers who are already fans and interested in your new venture. Along with all those people who tune in to watch remodeling disasters, the way
others go to car races to see the crashes. If it caught on, it could also build anticipation for the teaching segment.…

  “But you said the students will be from some women’s shelter? Aren’t some running away from abusive spouses?”

  “We’ll either blur their faces—”

  “I always find that so distracting.”

  “Okay. We won’t use them in the filmed segments. Because we’ll have other students.”

  “And how, exactly, will you get enough students to film thirteen episodes? Even if the network would sign on to the project?”

  “We get a lot of tourists who come for the scenery, and this part of the coast is starting to get some great chefs that draw foodies in. But we’ll also go trolling for students and viewers in a much larger pool by having celebrity chefs as guest instructors.”

  She rattled off a list of well-known fellow sustainable-food advocates who’d already agreed to appear if she managed to get approval.

  “Okay.” She could hear Pepper’s huge rush of relieved breath. “Now you have me excited.”

  “There’s one thing more.”

  “Will I like it?”

  “Trust me—you’ll love it. We’ll take a certain number of the shows, and this is something for you and the network execs to work out, on the road. And teach an episode at these other chef’s restaurants. Many of which already include dinners at their own farms.”

  “Don’t go counting organic chicks before they’re hatched,” Pepper warned. “But I think you’ve got yourself a winner.”

  “Thanks. Meanwhile, whatever happens with your talks, I’ll be staying here. For at least the next six months.”

  “I can understand you needing a break,” Pepper said. “After all, you’ve had a horrible week. But are you sure this return to pastoral living isn’t just an overreaction to your marriage breaking up?”

  “I considered that.” Madeline never lied. Not even to herself. Especially not to herself. That was one of the things she loved about cooking. There was only black and white in the kitchen—food either tasted good or it didn’t.

  “And I’ve decided that this may well be where I belong. I realize a lot of chefs dismiss the CMC accreditation as being out of touch with today’s reality, but to me, becoming a Certified Master Chef was more of a goal reached. Like climbing Everest or sailing around the world.”

  “So, although I didn’t succeed at my original plan to open my own restaurant in Manhattan, I don’t need that validation any longer. What I do need is to try to finally get some balance in my life.”

  She’d already begun to realize that, like too many chefs, she’d gotten caught up in the addiction of marathon hours and feeling the need to exhibit superhuman endurance. She’d become so focused on building a brand to support her husband’s businesses and keep her shows on the air that she’d allowed her career to consume her, working eighty to ninety hours a week.

  No wonder she didn’t have any friends other than her agent. Or decent clothes that weren’t bought by a stylist specifically for the show. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a movie, and if she did take time, say, on a plane, to read a book, it was always research about kitchen equipment, techniques, recipes. That short stroll through the town when she’d first arrived had been the first time she’d taken a walk in probably a year.

  “You do sound a bit burned-out,” Pepper agreed, revealing that some of the stress Madeline was feeling, all the way to the bone, had come through in her tone.

  “I need balance,” Madeline repeated. “I don’t want to be lying all alone on my deathbed at ninety and have my last thought be that I wished I could make just one more bowl of risotto for a customer.”

  “You’ve more than sixty years before you have to worry about being ninety,” Pepper soothed. “But I get your point. Which now has me worried whether you’re taking on too much again with this construction and a new program and breaking in a new production team, even if the network agrees.”

  “I’ve thought about that, too. And no, because I’m going to have help. I have my grandmother and friends and…”

  She’d started to say Lucas. Then realized that would open up an entirely different conversation she was not yet prepared to have with anyone. It was difficult enough having it with herself.

  “And?” Pepper had not become the premier agent for celebrity chefs and cookbook authors without being very good at picking up on nuances and hearing what wasn’t being said.

  “I have friends here,” Maddy said. “Who go back to when we were kids together. And my contractor just happens to be an old friend, too. The son of an architect who used to summer in Shelter Bay. Fortunately, he totally gets what I want to do.”

  “How nice for you.” Her agent had sprinkled a heavy dose of wryness into that comment. “Let me make some calls. I’ll get back to you. Hopefully tomorrow. And keep that cell charged and on.”

  “I will. And Pepper…thanks.”

  “It’s my job,” the agent pointed out. “But I also like to think we’re friends. I’ll do what I can to help you achieve that balance, so when the time comes and you reach ninety, we can be toasting how perfectly our lives turned out with martinis or whatever trendy drink a new generation of mixologists has come up with. Ciao, darling.”

  “Ciao,” Madeline repeated to a line that had already turned to dead air.

  She might not have located that perfect balance yet, but, something told her, as she drove down the lavender-lined lane, if it did exist, like Dorothy when she clicked the heels of her shiny red shoes together, she might possibly find it right here in Shelter Bay.

  44

  She’d gotten not just beneath his skin, but into Lucas’ mind, he realized as he walked through the deserted cannery building with Flynn McGrath. Although the guy was supposedly worth gazillions, not only had he brought along his own hard hat, he’d also come dressed appropriately in well-worn jeans, a plaid shirt open over a black T-shirt, and work boots that had not just come out of the box, but were broken in.

  Which, Lucas figured, made sense, considering that the guy might now be an artist, but also dealt in reclaimed wood. As they walked through the building together, he learned that McGrath did that job firsthand.

  “Gotta see the wood to know what’s inside it,” he said as they climbed a rickety set of stairs that would definitely have to be replaced. “Sometimes I spot it right away. Other times, I’ve got to live with it a while before it speaks to me.”

  “My father always said the same thing about a piece of land. He never began drawing until he walked every inch of it. At different times of the day.”

  “Duncan Chaffee was an artist,” McGrath said, as he snapped some photos of the second-floor interior brickwork.

  The place still smelled vaguely of shellfish. Soon that lingering odor would be replaced by the scents of sawdust, wood, and paint, which, having spent so much time on construction sites with his dad, always reminded Lucas of home.

  “We clicked the first time we met when we were both SOS board members. I wanted him to design a house for me, but he was tied up in that project he was working on in Vietnam.”

  Like everything else he’d done, Duncan Chaffee’s work had always been personal. In that case, he’d been building a school in the highlands, where he’d served during the war. After years of Agent Orange defoliation, the area was gradually returning to normal. Duncan had hoped that his school—another of his pro bono projects—would be one more building block in the restoration of relations between the two countries.

  The Save Our Salmon coalition, normally known as SOS, had been another of his father’s great passions. Not just for himself as a fisherman, but because he’d believed that restoring the Pacific Northwest’s wild salmon and free-flowing rivers could be a vital economic engine for local communities hit hard by the loss of timber jobs and the recession.

  “The Vietnam school was the last project he did,” Lucas said.

  “Yeah, I know. Which
is a damn shame, because, like I said, he was a freaking artistic genius. He’d already recommended someone else in his firm, Dylan Delaney, to do the work, but I decided just to wait.”

  “Dylan’s a great architect,” Lucas said.

  “I’m sure he is. But, like I said, I was willing to wait for Duncan. Which I’m glad I did, because if I were living up in Seattle in a Duncan Chaffee house, I’d probably never be able to give it up and move down here to start this project.”

  “I appreciate you giving me a shot to bid it.”

  “Hell, from what your dad said about you, I figure that while you might not have the fancy degree—which, by the way, I recently read that neither did Frank Lloyd Wright—you two shared a vision about architecture, along with a work ethic I require in anyone who works with me.”

  “I’m used to hard work.”

  “You wouldn’t have made it as a SEAL if you weren’t. And another thing you’ve got going in your favor is that we vets have to stick together.” He glanced through the jagged, broken pane of glass that had once been a window. “We’ve got company.”

  As Lucas looked down at Maddy getting out of the driver’s seat of that rental car, he was hit by a slap of lust. And something even stronger. An emotion so strong he wasn’t sure it might not cause his heart to burst.

  He was, as Sax would say, so toast.

  And he so didn’t care.

  In fact, it felt damn good being back here in this special place. With the woman that the gods, good fortune, or just fickle fate were giving him a second chance with.

  And this time he was not going to let her get away.

  “Hey!” He called down to her. “Stay put. I’ll be right down.”

  Those wild black curls tumbled down her back as she tilted her head and looked up to find the source of his voice. She spotted him, waved, and sent him a smile bright enough to light up the entire coast for a month of Sundays.