by Robyn Carr
“Your notes first, Kelly,” he urged. “Go on.”
“Hm. It takes a certain kind of person to make it in that life—a person with nerves of steel, confidence that’s immune to constant criticism, single-minded goals, a profound determination and belief that you will ultimately not only survive but win the war—and it is a war. On top of that you’d better have a very strong support team to watch your back. Of course at the same time it’s a jealous, competitive business and no one trusts anyone. Everyone is trying to rise to the top. I didn’t realize it was taking its toll until I crashed on the job—passed out and had to be taken to the hospital. Scared me to death.” She stopped walking through the beautiful big orange pumpkins and said, “I’m a great chef.”
“I know,” he said with a smile. “I’m a witness.”
“I’m so organized, it would scare you. I have good instincts about the use of food. And, I truly and honestly believe I could run a big kitchen without all that insanity. In fact, if I had the chance and could hire the manager, I could run the whole house without craziness!”
“I believe you.”
“But I bet I’m kidding myself if I think I’m going to get the chance. My biggest chance on the horizon was Luca. One of the first things I loved about him was that he was not insane. When he came to the kitchen, the whole place fell into order. No one dared raise a voice or argue with him. He was more than a mentor, he was a role model. He promised me a shot at leading one of his five-star restaurants. And you know what happened there.”
“That might not be the only route to your success, Kelly,” he said.
“Maybe not. But right now the economy is down, big fancy restaurants are struggling. When I find my next job, it’s not going to be as classy as La Touche.”
“I’ve actually eaten there, you know,” he told her.
“Not really!”
“Really. Might’ve been before your time.”
“Do you remember what you thought of it?”
“I thought it was arrogant and nouveau. Making people who have had reservations for weeks or months wait two hours for a table? Stupid arbitrary move—trying to make the establishment rather than the fare appear high-end. The waitstaff was good but the management should get people to their tables. A really good restaurant relies on their food. As I recall, the food was good, but I’d never go back.”
“That’s what I think, exactly. I bet you hardly remember the meal because you were pissed at the treatment!”
“So in a word, what would you say was the main issue?”
“No quality of life,” she said. “After over fourteen years of hard work, I wasn’t getting any closer to my goal, didn’t have friends, didn’t have a lover, didn’t get to create my best work in the kitchen. What did I have besides high blood pressure? Jillian at least has giant pumpkins. I walked out. I usually plan my life years in advance—but I just walked out.”
He smiled at her. “I think you’re very smart. Now,” he said, looking around, “what are we doing here?”
“I’m going to pick some acorn squash. I have a squash bisque that will kill you, it’s so good. I also have a tomato bisque that’s heaven on earth. I like to serve it with a gourmet grilled cheese—something with roasted red peppers.”
“Sounds perfect. Courtney has a homework date at Amber’s house on Thursday night,” he said, pulling her against him.
“Why do I feel like I’m cutting class to make out?”
He laughed at her. “Because you are! If I can just get my daughter on track, I’ll have more freedom to move around in. But I’ll take what I can get—and for now I’m so grateful for that homework date, I’m breaking out in a sweat.”
Their next unofficial date was to the river on a beautiful October afternoon. He had all his fishing gear with him, but instead he spread a blanket and they sat together near the river’s edge, talking. He kissed her and said, “I’m counting on you to tell me when this is no longer a rebound. It’s probably too soon for you to get involved with a man.”
“I don’t know that there is a rebound situation,” she explained. “If there is, it’s probably all in my head. I can see now that I nurtured a lot of fantasies about Luca—his importance in the food world is pretty sexy and overwhelming to someone like me. He’s a handsome, influential man. I think his power attracted me. And then there was his attempted seduction.”
Lief lifted a brow, tilted his head and asked, “Attempted seduction?”
“Oh, I was totally hooked. I adored him. But I must have been out of my mind. He’s not only one of the most successful and important chefs in the world, he has a huge family. If all my fantasies had come true and I’d ended up as his second wife, they would have tortured me. As it is, I couldn’t even get a message to him through his assistants. Can you imagine what it would have been like?”
He smiled and ran a finger over her shoulder, down her arm and laced his fingers into hers. “You were in love with him, Kelly. You don’t just rule it out.”
“I don’t know, Lief. I might’ve been in love with the idea of him. We have so much in common—starting with our professions. In my fantasies, I saw myself working with him, inspiring him even as he took me to the next level.”
Lief was quiet for a moment. “I have one question. How long did it last?”
“What part? The contact between chefs? The friendship? His mentoring? His attention and flirtation?”
“I was actually thinking of the sex…”
She looked at him in complete shock. Then she laughed. “There was no sex! I never slept with him!”
“Then why did his wife come to see you?”
Kelly flopped on her back and looked up at the sky. “That’s the part that had me confused for a while—but it became irrelevant. Five-star restaurants make up a small town, and in my world not only was Luciano Brazzi the king, his wife was the queen. Not only did she believe I was having an affair with him, within five minutes of her leaking it, everyone I worked with believed it. Everyone I might ever work with believed it within twenty-four hours.” She looked at Lief. “He told me he adored me, that he thought he was falling in love with me, that he wanted to end his sham of a marriage and pursue a serious thing with me. I told him to repeat all that when he was a single man. He talked a lot about it, I lapped up every word, but it didn’t happen.” She gave Lief a sheepish smile. “I did get kissed,” she said. “It was awesome.”
Lief was completely stunned. Based on what she had said, he had envisioned a long, steamy, satisfying affair. Something that would be hard to get over.
“A kiss?”
She nodded. “Like a couple of thunderheads coming together. It had me very excited about the potential.”
Lief thought about this for a moment. Then he leaned over her and put his lips against hers and asked, “Better than this?”
“Oh, far better,” she said with a smile.
He tried again, and this time he tongued open her lips. He loved the wet velvet of her mouth. And her special taste was a kind of earthy ambrosia that he was already addicted to. There hadn’t been that many kisses between them—it had been less than two weeks since that fateful night he’d had to drive her home. But God above, he wanted to live inside her mouth. “Better than that?” he asked.
“Slightly better,” she said.
“Forget him,” he said, covering her mouth in a demanding kiss that plunged into her. Ah! Her arms came around him, and her tongue joined the play, dueling with his. Their mouths were fused, open, hot and wet, and he slid his large body over her smaller, soft, sweet body. He loved the lushness of her, the fullness of her hips and breasts. She made him hard, that’s what.
He pushed against her. With a knee placed in a strategic position, he parted her legs a bit and pushed deeper. Her pleased moan was music to his ears, and, though it was early stages yet, he took a chance, slipping a hand under her sweater and over her breast. He could feel her nipple harden under the bra, beneath his hand, and he de
sperately wanted it in his mouth.
“Better than this?” he asked, his voice hoarse and a little breathless.
“Not so much,” she said, out of breath herself.
“We’re gonna have to move on this one of these days,” he announced. “I’ve been wanting you since the minute I met you.”
“I think there’s something you should know…”
“Hm? What’s that?” he asked, placing small kisses around her face and neck.
“I haven’t had many relationships,” she said.
“Hey, I’ve only had one in the last seven years and none in the last two,” he told her. “Not a handicap, trust me.”
“Thing is, I haven’t had much… I mean, I was real busy with food. There were a few short flings, that’s about it. And I haven’t had much…”
He became more alert. “I know eventually you’re going to finish that sentence,” he said.
“Sex,” she said. “Not much sex.”
“That’s okay, honey. In fact, that’s sweet.”
“And as far as really good sex? Rock-your-world sex? Satisfying sex? Basically…” She let that sentence drift off. But he waited. He lifted one brow. She took a breath. “Basically, none.”
He was quiet a moment. “As in… None?” he asked. When she nodded, he asked, “How about sweet or comfortable or compatible sex?”
“Not really. I had a few short things. With guys I met in the business, you know. They were over quickly. And each one left me wondering why I bothered.”
“Gotcha,” he said. He brushed the hair back from her temple. “Listen, if you ever decide to change career fields, maybe give seminars to women on how to really set up a challenge for a guy, I think you’re on to something here…”
“I wouldn’t blame you at all if you decided this really wasn’t worth your time,” she said.
He was still positioned over her. He smiled into her eyes. Then he went for that delicious mouth again, teased her, demanded of her, forced her lips open and then waited for her tongue to start the play before he went deeper, harder. He kissed her with his whole body, and she felt it, pushing back against him. When she was breathing hard, gasping a little, he pulled back a bit. “No such luck, honey. You’re not going to ask yourself why you bothered this time. Trust me.”
“Kiss me some more,” she demanded. “This is pretty good. At least when you apply yourself.”
Oh, this is going to be good, Courtney thought when she walked into the counselor’s waiting room. The button-down collar of the guy’s plaid, short-sleeved shirt couldn’t have been tighter on his long, skinny neck. He looked a little like a heron.
“Courtney, hello!” he said cheerily. “I’m Jerry.”
“Hi,” she said, deadpan.
“Come in the office.” He stepped aside and let her enter ahead of him. She took the chair facing the desk, and he went behind the desk. “Something in your manner tells me you’ve done this sort of thing before.”
“Ya think?” she asked, lifting a thin, black eyebrow.
“Assuming that’s the case, what do you think we should talk about?”
She leaned back in the chair. “I guess you probably want to talk about the fact that my mother is dead.”
He didn’t register even the slightest shock. He tilted his head and said, “I would’ve started with how you like it around here. Must be quite a change for you.”
“Quite,” she echoed. She knew she had several choices—she could make this a challenge, make it easy, make it interesting or make it horrible. “It’s a little more rural than I’m used to.” She decided on interesting.
“Are you getting to know people yet? Making friends?” he asked.
“I have one friend, but she’s sort of someone who needs me to help her with homework, so once she gets it she might not be my friend anymore.”
“There’s a troubling thought,” he said. “Don’t you suppose she could have found someone she liked to help her rather than someone she would just use?”
She considered shifting to horrible. Except that he seemed to speak her language, oddly enough. “I think she probably likes me. In her way.”
“And do you like her?” he asked. “In your way?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“Let’s start there. What do you like about her?”
Courtney narrowed her eyes. “Her lameness does not totally offend me.”
Jerry smiled indulgently. “What else?”
She decided to take pity on him since he was truly an inferior nerd. “I kind of like hanging around her house, her farm. Her family is kind of nice. Her dad is funny. Old and pretty broken down, but silly. When I stay for dinner I get good, fatty, greasy stuff instead of all that health-food shit my dad makes.”
“Right there is a massive recommendation,” Jerry said. “I’m afraid I’m falling down in the health-food-shit department.”
“No kidding? And she has a little nephew in a wheelchair. Her older brother’s kid.”
“Oh?”
“Muscular dystrophy. He’s eight. He might have some times he’s less sick than others, but he’s not going to get better. He’s going to get worse until he dies. Not very many people make it to adulthood if they get it as a kid.”
“Did your friend explain all this to you?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I looked it up on the internet. Because of what she said, I pinned him down to DMD—Duchenne muscular dystrophy. She said there was no cure and he wasn’t getting better and he’s already in a wheelchair. He’s really kind of cute with his glasses sliding off his nose—looks like that little kid in Jerry Maguire. And he’s scary smart—he’s eight and doing seventh grade spelling and math. And he’s funny. His parents let him zone out on video games to keep his reflexes exercised, but there’s nothing they can do about the muscles in his back or legs.”
“You like him. You like the whole family,” Jerry observed.
She gave something like a nod. But then she said, “Makes you wonder if there’s any God, seeing a kid like that get something like that.”
Jerry leaned forward. “Courtney, you joined the geniuses of the centuries in wondering that very thing. Unfairness and injustice are two things that really threaten blind faith.”
“Why are you talking to me like I’m an adult?” She made a face.
He looked surprised. “Did I say something you didn’t understand?”
“No,” she relented. “Yeah, I like the family. I like the animals, even if there aren’t that many. My dad grew up on a potato farm and we used to go there. We haven’t been there in a while.”
“What animals?” Jerry asked.
“There’s a golden retriever mix who’s about to have puppies and you can feel them move around inside her—I bet there’s gonna be nine. I mean, it’s a real bet—I even put a dollar in the jar. There are chickens, goats, one cow and two horses. A million cats, like at my dad’s Idaho farm. They keep the mice down.”
Jerry smiled at her. “If you like hanging out at farms, you’re going to make plenty of friends around here. Lots of farm kids around here.”
“Yeah, well. I have exactly one friend so far.”
“But do you trust her? Like her? Is she a good person?” Jerry asked.
“She is good. Kind of lame and dorky, but she wouldn’t know how to be a bad person.”
“I’m going to tell you something that might be a little hard for you to buy into right now, but a couple of good, trustworthy, loyal friends—it’s a lot. In junior high and high school, kids collect friends in such big numbers it sometimes seems ridiculous to think you could get by on just a couple of good ones. But really, one good friend rather than a dozen you’re not too sure of—no contest.”
She was quiet for a minute. “I had a lot of friends before my mom died.”
Jerry was respectfully quiet for a minute also. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Courtney. The death of a close loved one can often change the landscape of
everything else in your life.”
“Is this where we segue into talking about my dead mother?”
He smiled at her, but it was a comforting smile. “Segue. Movie talk. You’ll probably have to explain that term around here. I thought we’d keep this short today, our first day together, and sneak up on the more difficult subjects over time. You okay with that?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I think I’m already tired. I don’t know why—it’s not like I had to walk here.”
“It’s okay. I think we’re off to a decent start. You didn’t even make fun of my wardrobe or haircut. I don’t always get off that easy.”
“I decided not to hurt your feelings, in case you’re—you know—sensitive.”
“Thank you. Very sporting of you. Want to come back after school on Monday?”
She straightened. “How long do I have to do this?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I assume we’ll both know when we’ve had enough.”
She scooted to the edge of her chair. “Do we have to do this until my hair is all one color, my fingernails painted pink and my clothes pastel?”
He grinned hugely. “Courtney, look at me. What are the odds I’m going to take pokes at anyone’s style?”
“Do you have any good friends?”
“Yes. A few quality friends, actually.”
She snorted. “That’s promising! I’ll come Monday, but let’s not go overboard.”
“Deal. Now, I want to give you some ground rules. Mine, not yours. I’m also talking to your dad now and then, but I’m not talking to him about you. Oh—he can talk about you if he wants to, but I’m not going to be asking him about you. And you can talk about him, but I’m not going to ask you about him—not unless there’s some compelling reason to ask something. Like if you tell me he beat you up, I’d probably ask about that. But—and here’s the most important thing—I’m never going to tell you what he said or tell him what you said. We have a confidentiality agreement. You don’t have to worry. You can safely air all your complaints or concerns here.”
“So you expect me to believe that if I call him a low-life, blood-sucking, parasite son of a bitch, you won’t rat me out?”