The Perfect Dish

by Kristen Painter

She sat back down.

  “Tell me about your husbands.” He took a spoonful of something, grimacing as soon as he tasted it.

  “Why?”

  “Take my mind off the food.”

  What could it hurt? “As long as you keep eating.”

  He nodded.

  “My first husband and the father of my son was Garrett Black. He was an investment banker. Worked for Celia’s dad actually, which is how I met her. Of course, she was only twelve then.” She exhaled, lost in happy memories. “Garrett and I married young but he knew school was important to me. Wanted me to finish.” She smiled. It was hard not to when she remembered Garrett. “He was the love of my life.”

  Something dark glinted in Kelly’s eyes at those words but it came and went so quickly she couldn’t read it.

  “How did he...”

  “Lymphoma.” She fiddled with her ring, staring at a seam in the flooring. “He fought long and hard but it was too far advanced.” The lump in her throat kept her from saying more.

  “I bet you’re not keen on hospitals.”

  She swallowed and found her voice. “I hate them. This one especially.”

  He raised a brow.

  Wrapping her arms around herself, she leaned back in the chair. “Both Garrett and Michael died here.” She glanced at him. His spoon hung in mid-air. She could tell by the look in his eyes he was searching for something to say. Something that would make it better, but there weren’t any words that could do that.

  She nodded at his plate. “Your food’s going to get cold.”

  The clatter of metal on melamine rang through the room when he dropped his spoon. “Both of them?”

  “Technically. I think Michael was gone before the ambulance got him here.”

  “But Garrett...”

  “Yes. I sat with him right up until the last moment.” She’d held his hand, trying to remember the vibrant man he’d been instead of the one whose veins showed through his tissue-paper skin like blue scars. She closed her eyes too late. A single tear burned a trail down her cheek. She rubbed it away with her palm.

  “You know what his last words to me were?”

  “I don’t think—”

  “He said ‘if love were enough, I’d be with you forever’.” She pursed her lips and blew out a hard breath.

  Kelly stared at his plate. “I don’t know what to say.”

  She cleared her throat. “I know. You don’t have to say anything. But if you don’t eat, that nurse is going to read me the riot act when she gets back.”

  While he ate a few more bites of potato, she stared at the floor, lost in thought until an odd scraping raised her head. He growled in disgust.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Trying to cut this rubber chicken.”

  She walked over, picked up his fork and knife and did the job for him. “You could ask, you know.”

  “I’m a grown man. I can cut my own food.”

  “With one hand and a spoon?” She laughed in hopes of lightening the mood. “You’re good but you’re not that good.”

  He took the fork from her when she offered it but made no move to eat anything else. He stared at the wall ahead of him, his jaw tight. “I screwed up. Big time. I’m more sorry than I can say.”

  “I told you I don’t want to talk about—”

  “I’m sorry. That’s all I wanted to say.”

  She nodded then stopped in case he thought she’d accepted his apology. “I think I’ll go down to the cafeteria and get something to eat myself. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  He didn’t respond as she grabbed her purse and headed for the door. She opened it and looked back. “You want a milkshake or something?”

  He shook his head without looking at her.

  Fine. Let him sulk. She wasn’t the bad guy here. So why did she feel like she ought to be apologizing too?

  Before her heart took command of her tongue, she slipped out the door.

  When she returned, the lights were off and he was dozing again. The food tray was gone. The nurse must have come back with more meds. Maybe it was just as well. She tiptoed to his bedside and was halfway to kissing his forehead when she realized what she was doing.

  Stop that. You’re mad at him. She brushed her fingers through the curls around his face and whispered, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Kelly smiled when Mery walked into his room the next morning. The gesture made his aching jaw throb but seeing her was worth it. After what she’d told him yesterday, he couldn’t believe she’d willingly step foot in a hospital ever again. “Hi, gorgeous.”

  “Hi. How are you feeling this morning?” She set a plastic bag down on his bedside table. Something smelled great.

  “Like ten miles of bad road. Which is how I look.” She shook her head and he held up his hand. “I’ve seen a mirror, don’t try to tell me otherwise. What’s in the bag?”

  “Lobster bisque and beef barley. I wasn’t sure what you’d like so I got a pint of each.”

  His mouth watered. “They both sound good. Even mixed together. I’m starving.”

  “You seem a lot better today.” She pulled the containers out, opened them up and put a spoon in each one.

  “After my MRI this morning, I told them to cut the painkillers back. I’d rather hurt than be a zombie.” He wondered if asking for a kiss would do any good. She looked like a million bucks. For the hundredth time, he cursed himself for screwing things up. “You look great. Thanks for coming and for the soup. I don’t deserve it.”

  She sighed. “Remember what I said yesterday about not wanting to talk about that?”

  “Yeah, I know.” He shrugged and immediately winced as fresh pain shot down his side.

  “Maybe ditching your meds wasn’t such a hot idea.” She sat back in the chair, her gaze drifting over him.

  “I’m fine.” He ate some of the beef barley. “This is the best soup I’ve ever had.”

  “I’m glad you like it,” she said.

  He spooned up some of the lobster bisque. “I changed my mind. This is the best soup I’ve ever had.” If he thought he could have managed it, he would have picked up the container and drank out of it.

  While he ate, she added water to the vase of flowers by the window. Blue bonnets and yellow roses. Reminded him of Texas. He smiled. “Those are from Viv and Celia, right? I was pretty out of it when they were here yesterday.”

  “Yep. Mick was here too.”

  “I remember.”

  She fussed with the flowers. “What kind of guy is Mick? I know he’s your friend but be honest.”

  Her words grated. He almost said “have I ever not been?” but thought better of it. Using the cookbook wasn’t exactly dishonest but it wasn’t exactly straight shooting, either. “Mick’s all right. Ex-Navy Seal. Self-made man. Real stand up guy.” He finished the lobster bisque. “Why?”

  She took the empty soup container, threw it in the bathroom trash then sat back down. “He and Celia went out to lunch yesterday.”

  “Good for Mick.” Kelly started back on the beef barley.

  Her mouth opened, snapped shut, then opened again. “Good for Mick? What about Celia? She’s lived a fairly sheltered life. Mick better not hurt her.”

  The idea of Mick hurting a woman was so laughable, Kelly’s ribs ached. “Mick would never hurt her. He needs a good woman in his life. Somebody to share his success with. Someone who will love him, flaws and all.”

  Mery frowned and looked away. He knew she understood he wasn’t just talking about Mick. Kelly wanted to talk about what had happened, to explain, but he didn’t want to push her. If she couldn’t love him for who he was, all the talking in the world wouldn’t change that. “Promise when I get out of here, we’ll talk?”

  “That’s all I can promise.” She sighed. “I’m not big on second chances, Kelly. You need to know that.”

  He nodded. “So noted.”

  A moment of uncomfortable silence pas
sed until she spoke again. “Celia said there were more pictures in the paper. I haven’t seen them but apparently they’ve taken to calling me ‘The Black Widow.’ Nice, huh?”

  This time his grimace was out of disgust, not pain. “Bunch of lowlifes.” He thought about it some more. “They blaming you for this?”

  He caught the glimmer of unshed tears in her eyes before she dipped her head. “That’s ridiculous!” He slammed his fist on the bedside table. Pain radiated up his arm and he clenched his jaw.

  She jumped up. “Don’t do that, you’re going to hurt yourself worse than you already are.” She came to his side and applied gentle pressure to his good shoulder until he lay back down.

  “I can handle it.” A weak smile curved her lush mouth. “Besides, my agent says sales on my backlist have skyrocketed.” She sighed, staring at the blanket. “My editor’s talking to me again, too.”

  He wasn’t aware her editor had stopped talking to her. “I still don’t like it.”

  Soft fingers smoothed his brow. “Relax, okay? Stress won’t help you heal. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  Huffing out a breath, he forced himself to calm down. “I just hate when people take advantage of a situation for their own gain, regardless of who gets hurt.”

  She raised her brows and opened her mouth to respond when Shelby burst into the room.

  “Kelly, oh Kel...are you all right?” She scrubbed tears off her cheeks. “I got the first flight back I could. What happened? You look awful.”

  “Thanks,” he smirked. “You sure know how to make a guy feel good.”

  Someone else followed behind Shelby. The nurse, he thought at first but then got a better look. The muscle along his jaw twitched. He could barely unclench his teeth. “What’s she doing here?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The woman walked to his bedside. Her platinum blonde ponytail hung limp over the shoulder of her faded jean jacket. Lines scoured the corners of her mouth and eyes, a roadmap of all the bad places her life had gone. “That’s a nice way to greet your mother.”

  He scowled. “You haven’t been a mother to me in years.” At the edge of his vision, Mery tensed. This was not a meeting that should have ever taken place.

  Shelby offered a half-smile as though that would smooth things over. “She was at Gram’s. She wanted to come see you when she heard what happened.”

  “Why? What’s she want?” The only times he’d seen her, she’d been looking for something. A something that had never been him.

  Dee pushed a limp strand of loose hair behind one multi-studded ear. The inside of her wrist bore a small tattoo of a four-leaf clover. “Why you always assume I want something? Can’t I just come see you? That ain’t a crime.”

  Kelly turned away before he commented on that. He looked at Mery. Her eyes glittered with a coldness he’d never seen before. “Mery, this is Dee.”

  “Hello.” Her voice held an icy protectiveness that shot through him. Damn, he loved this woman. He glanced at Dee to see her reaction.

  She stared blankly but he knew she had probably done a quick assessment of Mery’s expensive jewelry and well-cut clothes and was now wondering how this new person could benefit her. “Nice to meet you. You a friend of my son’s?”

  “You could say that.” Mery twisted the diamond ring on her finger absentmindedly, a gesture that drew Dee’s gaze like flies to garbage.

  Dee lifted her eyes from Mery’s hardware to her face. “So are you or not?”

  Shelby answered before Mery could. “Mery is Dr. Black. The doctor I’ve been telling you about.” She rested her hand on Dee’s arm, as if to reassure her Mery was good people.

  Kelly held his tongue. Shelby had always been afraid of upsetting Dee. Always too willing to want to please her. He’d never felt that way.

  “I see,” Dee said and in those two words, Kelly heard the mocking tone that had been directed at him more times in his life than he cared to count. “So you’re the headshrinker that’s gonna help my kids get over what a bad mother I was?”

  Mery rose from the chair, buttoned the single button on her suit jacket and walked to the side of Kelly’s bed so she stood eye to eye with Dee. She looked like a warrior about to do battle.

  “I’m the doctor of psychology who is assisting Shelby in working through her grief over her husband’s death,” Mery smiled like she was full of sugar and spice, “but I’m seeing Kelly in an entirely different capacity.”

  Dee’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean, ‘an entirely different capacity’?”

  Sly as a fox, Mery grinned at him and winked. His blood pressure shot up. “I think you can safely assume it’s not a professional relationship.”

  Kelly laughed. His whole body hurt but he didn’t care. Regardless of what had happened, Mery was still on his side. She had to love him just a little, didn’t she? He looked over at Dee.

  Her face broiled red as soon as she made sense of Mery’s words. “You two...you and him...” she sputtered and pointed back and forth between them. “Are you...”

  “Are we what?” Kelly asked. “Are we sleeping together?” He returned Mery’s smile. “I don’t think we do enough sleeping to call it that right and proper.”

  Shelby blushed a rosy hue. “Kel,” she hissed. “Stop that.”

  Dee’s eyes bugged out. She thrust her finger in Mery’s face. “You have no right sleeping with my boy, you cradle-robbin’ hussy. I don’t care what kind of fancy degree you have.”

  Unphased by the accusation, Mery laughed softly. “He is so not a boy.”

  “And certainly not your boy,” Kelly snapped. “I am a grown man and I’ll do what I want, with whoever I want and you can’t say a damn thing about it.” He took a breath. “Don’t ever speak to Mery like that again.”

  Mery’s hand curved gently over his.

  “So that’s what you’ve come to,” Dee said, her chest still heaving. “I heard you were some big famous chef and come to find out you’re just some rich woman’s play thing.” She shook her head. “Makes me glad I didn’t raise you.”

  Kelly’s jaw tightened. He struggled to remain calm. “Makes two of us.” His head throbbed. His bones ached. “Go away, Dee. I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t want to see you. I like my life the way it is, without you in it.”

  “I got to talk to you first. Alone.” She gave Mery the evil eye.

  “No. Anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of her.” Enough games. He was sick and tired of all his mother’s foolishness.

  “It’s family business,” she said. “Your girlfriend don’t need to hear it.”

  A look of understanding crossed Shelby’s face. “Maybe Mery and I could go for a walk.”

  “No.” Kelly refused to back down. Whatever Dee wanted—and he had a pretty good idea what that was—she could just spit it out.

  “Family business, Kel,” Shelby said.

  Kelly caught his sister’s gaze. “Mery knows about the book.”

  “Oh.” Her eyes widened. She glanced at Mery then released a long slow breath.

  Dee’s mouth screwed up in scowl. “Can’t keep your blame mouth shut, can you, boy?”

  He ignored her comment. “What do you want?”

  She scowled at Mery then looked at him. “I want the book back.”

  “Your claim to it has been gone since I was eighteen.”

  “If I could just have it for a little while, I could make things right, I know I could.” She was pleading now, her voice soft and cajoling.

  “You mean you’d find a way to make our childhoods Leave It To Beaver perfect?” He knew better. She was so stinking full of it.

  Chewing her bottom lip, she stared silently at the rails on his bed.

  He answered for her. “That’s not what you meant, is it? The only life you want to fix is your own. You’ve tried that. Only got yourself in deeper.”

  “It would work this time.”

  “No, it wouldn’t.”

/>   “I’m not using anymore. I’m clean and straight, and I deserve another chance.”

  Sadness welled up in him. He’d heard this all before. He lowered his voice to keep it from catching on the lump in his throat. “You’ve had lots of chances. This time, there aren’t any more.”

  Dee backed away from the bed. “Tell him, Shelby. Tell him I’m different this time. Tell him I’ve changed.”

  “You are trying,” Shelby said without conviction.

  Poor Shelby. Always stuck in the middle. “Shel, you know what she’s like. Her changes never last more than a month, tops.”

  “But I think she really is trying this time,” his sister’s voice wavered. “She seems different.”

  He sighed. “Has she asked you for money?”

  Shelby swallowed and looked at Dee.

  “Who paid for her ticket up here?” he asked.

  “I did,” Shelby whispered.

  Kelly shook his head. “I hope it was round trip.”

  Dee stormed out of the room. Shelby went after her.

  Mery took a step toward the door. “Maybe I should go talk to Shelby.”

  “As long as Dee is here, nothing you say will make much difference.”

  “I shouldn’t have said anything to her about us. That wasn’t very adult of me.”

  “Screw adult. I’m glad you did.”

  She shook her head and came back to his side. “Are you okay?”

  Closing his eyes, he dropped his head back on his pillow with a heavy sigh. “As long as you’re here, I am.”

  * * *

  Kelly hobbled into Mery’s building, a bouquet of yellow roses tucked under one arm. He nodded at the doorman as he passed. “I’m here to see Mery Black.”

  The doorman nodded back and went ahead of him. “She’s in, Chef Spicer. Heard about your accident. Glad to see you up and around. My wife and I had our anniversary dinner at Sedona last month. Great meal.”

  “Always happy to hear that.” He leaned on his crutches as the doorman hit the button for her floor. The man slipped away as Kelly slipped into thought. He couldn’t believe how much had happened since he’d been here a week and a half ago.

  She’d found out about the book, he’d totaled his bike, nearly killing himself in the process, and his mother had shown up. At least his agent hadn’t given him any bad news. That was one thing that seemed to be going all right.