by Mia Malone
Carol glanced over at the shiny counter between the kitchen and the waitresses’ station and wondered if the customers sitting on the other side of the wall had any idea what absolute chaos a restaurant kitchen could be.
They sat there, dressed up and sharing the latest news about their corporate careers or shopping sprees on Aruba, or whatever, listening to muted music and watching the room to see if anyone worth greeting had arrived. Plates were put in front of them, removed to be replaced with others, and wine was poured into glasses, all in that dance which was waitressing in a high-end restaurant. They had a pleasant time, with what Carol hoped was good food and fucking spectacular desserts, if she might say so herself, not knowing that behind the wall adorned with two huge paintings by the latest media darling, there was mayhem.
Bedlam and chaos.
“Where are my chocolate puddings?” one of the waitresses shrieked. “I need them now!”
“This is a triple chocolate mousse with layers of ganache on a mirror of raspberry-licorice confit,” Carol said and slammed the plates into the steel counter with unnecessary force.
The waitress picked the plates up with practiced ease, and walked away, tossing a snappy retort over her shoulder.
“Puddings, like my mama made them.”
“Fuck you!” Carol called out, knowing the front wouldn’t hear her and grinning because it was all part of the job.
“Ladies,” Brody muttered and tossed a piece of veal in a skillet. “Language.”
Carol grinned at him too, knowing that he understood that this was part of the dance. Brody had been their head chef for almost a year, and she liked him. She actually liked him a lot but had accepted that while he liked her right back, he wasn’t interested in taking it into boy-girl territory. Or man-woman, as it were because Carol was approaching forty with alarming speed and she guessed that Brody was at least ten years older.
He was hot, though, she mused as she plated pieces of her pretty amazing cheesecake and decorated it with painstakingly crafted chocolate leaves. Maybe she should try one more time to make him see her as less of a pastry chef – a damned talented pastry chef if she might say so herself – and more like a hottie that he wanted to sleep with. Repeatedly.
Brody looked like a man who would do it repeatedly.
“Yo, Brody,” she called out. “Off tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” he grunted.
“Drinks?”
“Sure.”
“Great. Let’s –”
The back door was thrown wide open with a loud thud, and two men barged through the short corridor and into the kitchen.
“Everybody stand still!” one of them shouted.
Carol turned her head slowly to look at them, wondering what in the hell they were thinking.
Were they robbing a… restaurant kitchen? For what? Zucchini?
“Boys,” Brody growled. “This is not a good idea.”
“Shut up, gramps,” the other young man shouted.
His voice was high pitched, and Carol saw how the gun he held out in front of him was shaking.
What if it went off? What if they weren’t robbing the kitchen, and only wanted to kill some people just for the fun of it. The drug-induced fun of it, she realized.
Brody started moving slowly, and Carol held her breath. He was walking over to a side of the kitchen that had been empty, and the men followed him both with their eyes and the guns they held.
When he reached the wall, he stretched a hand out toward a drawer and said calmly, “I have my wallet here. Let me pull it out and give you the cash.”
They kept various ladles in that drawer, but the young men didn’t know that, and Carol held her breath while they waited for the robbers’ okay. Brody glanced to the side, and their eyes met.
Carol felt every cell in her body start to tingle when she suddenly realized what he was doing. The fucking heroic moron was making them focus on him, which meant they weren’t focusing on anyone else in the now silent kitchen. She looked around and caught the frightened eyes of two waitresses, standing close to the entrance.
“Leave,” she mouthed. “Nine one one.”
God. Would they understand?
The younger of them was only twenty-something, and she had tears on her cheeks, but the older one was Carol’s chocolate pudding nemesis, and she was made of sterner stuff. She’d relocated from New York six months earlier, and it was likely not the first time she’d been robbed. She nodded once and started inching backward silently.
“Yeah, okay. Pull the cash out, slowly,” one of the men said and took a few steps toward Brody.
The other swung around and saw how the waitress by the door disappeared around the corner. He called out to his friend, and then there was suddenly mayhem in the kitchen again.
The man closest to Brody raised his gun and pulled the trigger. The shot went through the ceiling, dust and plaster sprayed over the tables, people were screaming, and then Brody roared, “Get down!”
Carol threw herself on the floor and watched in disbelief how their head chef punched the shooter in the face in a way that knocked him off his feet. The man stayed down. Then Brody took a few quick steps, snagging a butcher knife as he moved. Another shot was fired, and Carol heard sirens in the distance, but all she could focus on was how Brody effortlessly pushed the man up against the wall and pressed the sharp knife against the younger man’s throat.
“Told you this was a fucking bad idea,” Brody rumbled. “Now let go of your fucking gun, you moron.”
Their eyes met and whatever the man saw in Brody’s eyes made his face turn pale, and he suddenly made a soft, throaty sound that was almost a whimper.
Brody reared back, pulling the gun out of a limp hand, and snarled, “Well, fuck it all. You pissed yourself?”
People were running around, a couple of the chefs moved the two disarmed robbers to a corner, and the maître d was suddenly there.
“Everyone okay?” he asked, looking around the room, and then at Brody, who calmly walked over to the stove.
“Ah, for fuck’s sake,” the chef grunted. “Ruined.”
Ruined, Carol thought. What the hell was ruined?
Then she realized that Brody hadn’t even raised a brow as he took two criminal assholes down, but he looked ready to commit murder when he realized that his piece of meat was indeed inedible. At least according to Chef Baker’s standards.
Carol’s laughter startled the others, and it was slightly hysterical but impossible to hold back, and while she got up from the floor, she pressed out, “Bloody morons, destroying Chef Baker’s veal and everything.”
There were soft chuckles around the room, and everyone moved to check their stations. The calm way their head chef walked over to throw the veal in the wastebasket and put the skillet in front of a young dishwasher soothed everyone. It was as if the minutes of danger had never happened, or perhaps as if it wasn’t that big a deal.
“Wash this up, will you?” Brody asked calmly, and the young man nodded.
“Will do, Chef Baker,” he mumbled, and Carol could see how his Adam’s apple bobbed a few times. “That was...”
The young man was clearly in awe about the swift way Brody had handled a situation which could have escalated into something that got them all killed, but he got cut off immediately.
“My brother was a Navy SEAL, our bud in the Secret Service, and I dealt with them my whole life. These two morons are just kids,” Brody said with a dismissive shrug.
Then a couple of police officers burst through the door, and Carol’s eyes met Brody’s again. His face was expressionless in a way that sent a shiver down her spine, and she suddenly wondered if pursuing a relationship with Brody Baker was a smart thing to do.
***
Carol looked around the bar and hoped she managed to hold back a smug smirk.
Or, yeah. No. She didn’t hope that at all because she was smug goddamnit.
The reason for Carol's grin was the badly concealed g
lances from just about every female in the room when they saw the three ridiculously gorgeous men who had joined her at a table by the wall.
“Hey,” Brody rumbled, and she smiled.
How a chef could look like such a badass, she did not know and did also not question. His hair had been a dark blonde when he was younger – yes, she had looked at images on the internet – but it was streaked with gray now, and it looked good on him. He’d look good with a beard, or a goatee, which he didn’t have, and he was tall. Carol had always liked tall men.
Brody smiled at her when they walked in, and she was happy to see him, but her gut also clenched. The smile had a tightness to it which she hadn’t noticed in the year they worked together. Not until that night when he took two punkass kids down without blinking. In the weeks that passed since then, she’d watched him work, and realized that something was off.
Chef Baker didn’t smile for real. It was as if he made the muscles move into something which would look like a smile, but it never reached his eyes. He seemed... resigned? Or perhaps as if each second hit just him harder than everyone else.
She’d wanted to start something up with him but had decided that she wouldn’t, even though he was hot, and there was no doubt in her mind that Brody knew precisely how to make her a very satisfied woman. She still wouldn’t because all she could see in his eyes was an endless depth of nothing, and Carol wasn’t sure she could handle that.
He was handsome and interesting, though, and also her boss, so she wouldn’t sleep with him but didn’t mind at all when he asked if they could join her for a drink while they waited for their friends. She shared that she was waiting for someone too and moved her hand to indicate that they were welcome to sit down.
He introduced the other two men as Patrick and Raz.
“Brother,” Patrick clarified with an easy grin, and Carol couldn’t hide her surprise, but he chuckled. “I know,” he said. “Amazing but true. I look like Mom. Bro looks like our uncle.”
“Fuck you,” Brody muttered but gave his brother that smile which wasn’t a smile.
Patrick frowned but Carol decided to prevent a brotherly dispute and turned to the third man who was watching the brothers with narrowed eyes.
“Raz?” she asked.
He turned toward her, and she suddenly had to fight to keep a polite smile firmly on her lips. His lean face was hard, and so were his dark brown eyes. Brody had said that his brother had been a navy seal, and Patrick looked fit enough for that. He’d also said that their bud had been in the secret service, and that might be the man in front of her, although she doubted it. Raz didn’t look at all like the Secret Service men she’d seen in the movies. His curly, brown hair reached his shoulders, and a tattoo showed under his short-sleeved tee. He looked like a warrior.
“Last name’s Razinsky,” he clarified but didn’t elaborate.
“Okay,” Carol murmured and decided that follow-up questions might not be entirely appreciated, so she clamped her mouth shut.
Patrick cut in to ask her about the restaurant and what it was like to work with Brody, and then he started telling jokes about how Brody had peeled potatoes in their uncle’s small restaurant while they grew up.
“Did you grow up in a small town?” Carol asked.
“Yeah,” Raz confirmed. “Bakersville, with its local dive, the local watering hole, the mandatory town drunk and the captain of the cheerleader squad still running the show.”
It did not sound as if Raz liked his hometown very much.
“Yeah, yeah,” Patrick cut in. “Shell does not run anything except that company of theirs.” He paused and turned to Carol with a grin, “Raz is still pissed about not getting the attention he felt he deserved from that crowd.”
“I got enough attention from everyone else,” Raz said with a raised brow which communicated clearly that he indeed had gotten whatever he wanted and as much as he wanted it back in the day. Then he shrugged indifferently and added with a sigh, “Whatever, and yeah; Bakersville is pretty much the definition of a small town.”
“It’s a nice place,” Patrick informed Carol, ignoring his friend’s opinion with practiced ease. “I moved back ten years ago. Run the local watering hole.”
“Oh, that’s –”
Nice was the word on her lips, but Brody put his bottle down with a thud.
“I’m moving back too,” he said calmly.
Patrick straightened and was about to say something but raised the bottle to his mouth instead. Carol saw his lips twitch and realized he was close to laughing suddenly.
“Huh,” Raz said. “The Café?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re leaving the restaurant?” Carol squeaked.
“Worked my final shift last night. We’re closing for renovations anyway, so the owner let me off the hook.”
“And you’re moving to...”
Carol trailed off and tried to get her mind to catch up. No one had said anything about Chef Baker leaving, and she knew they would close for renovations, of course, but the crew would be in the kitchen, working on a new menu for the opening.
“I’m taking over my uncle’s place,” Brody said, and added, “The Waterfront Café.”
“But –”
“Hey,” a deep voice cut in and Carol tilted her head to the side.
Then she tilted it further and further back until her eyes met those of a giant.
Or, not a giant precisely, but a huge man with blonde hair in a stubby ponytail and a lazy grin on his face.
Holy fucking cow, she thought and had to bite her bottom lip to stop herself from blurting out. Did the hot guys at her table only know other hot guys?
“Joke, hey,” Raz said, suddenly grinning in a way that changed his face completely as he got up to shake the blonde man’s hand. “Sissy here?”
“Nope. She decided to stay behind and handle Oak, and the dog and Mimi. I’m just here for a few days to sort out some shit.”
Of course, Carol thought. Looking like that he would have a wife and children. And a dog.
“Thanks for keeping us company, Carol,” Patrick said and got up. “It was nice meeting you.”
Raz nodded and muttered something unintelligible which sounded like a goodbye, but Brody remained seated.
“There he is,” Joke said and raised a hand to wave at a man who had walked through the doors and was looking around the bar. “Let’s go.”
Raz barked out laughter suddenly.
“We’re having drinks with your woman’s ex-husband?” he snorted.
Joke flashed him a grin, and said, “Since that ex-husband isn’t a goddamned moron, then yeah, we are.”
They walked off, and Patrick looked at Brody with his brows raised.
“Give me a sec,” Brody murmured and turned to Carol. “I asked them to not tell anyone that I’m leaving. Didn’t want to make a big thing out of it. And it isn’t official yet, so I can’t tell you who your new boss is, but it’ll be good, Carol. It’ll be someone you’ll like.”
“Okay. It has been good working with you Brody,” Carol murmured. “I’ll miss you.” She snorted out a short laugh, and added, “Although I hope the new guy will yell less.”
“Gal,” Brody said. “And I’m pretty sure she won’t.” He was about to get up but leaned forward suddenly, and murmured, “I know you saw it, Carol.”
“What?”
She knew what he meant but hadn’t expected him to bring it up.
Brody sighed, pulled a hand through his hair, and said, “I could easily have killed that boy, and I don’t want to be the kind of man who kills someone. I just don’t care about shit anymore. There have been too many long nights. Too many cities. So, I’m going home.”
“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” Carol said quietly.
His face softened suddenly, and she caught a glimpse of what he could be like when he cared about something. He looked younger, and there was something about his eyes that cut through her.
; “I wanted to do you,” she heard herself say.
“I know,” he said, and the skin around his eyes crinkled slightly.
“Decided not to.”
“I know that too,” Brody said calmly. “Probably a wise move.”
“I’m not so sure,” Carol murmured and added with a grin. “It would have been good, Brody.”
“Yeah.”
Their eyes held for a beat, but then Brody got up.
“See you around,” Carol said with a smile.
“Yeah,” Brody repeated and leaned down a little. “I hope you find what you’re looking for too.”
Then he walked over to the bar and Carol turned her attention to a tall man who had walked through the door. He wasn’t as hot as Brody Baker, but he was good looking and had a sweet smile. And he made her laugh.
“Maybe I will,” Carol said to herself and smiled as the man approached. “Yeah,” she mumbled. “Maybe I will.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
...... the story about who Brody eventually met is called Waterfront Café and it’s available where you buy books – Patrick’s story will be Waterfront Bar, and Raz’ Waterfront Inn, both planned for release in 2020.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Dear Reader
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
A reminder
Order up – a Waterfront prequel
Table of Contents