He’d thought it might be a cozy murder mystery, a poisoning, half the people in the house guilty, the other half wishing they’d thought to kill the victim themselves, no one knowing who to trust. Not just cliché; way overdone cliché.
Melanie had pointed that out and he’d thrown away almost five thousand words.
Hard-boiled had been another dead lead. The Sam Spade of the culinary world, still referring to women as “dames” and guns as “heaters” though he lived in the modern world. It simply hadn’t come together. That had only cost him a thousand words or so.
He’d tried to force it to be a police procedural: CSI does Pike Place Market. So not. Another thousand.
But this? He didn’t know where it had come from. It was as much political thriller as anything else.
It had Shelley his female soldier, a television celebrity chef with Hubert Keller’s graying ponytail, and the first female President. The cast reminded him of last night’s second dinner at Maria’s, just as diverse and off-the-wall fun as the first. Melanie’s triptych, now framed, had still hypnotized him and he still hadn’t found a way to talk about his revelation. In love, both of them, and neither daring to say it aloud.
That’s all his novel’s plot needed to make it a complete train wreck—a love story.
Josh stopped with another forkful of pasta halfway to his mouth and stared at his screen.
He’d built his world: a tableau of people rife with quirks and shortcomings. He had a cool opening murder, there were so many interesting ways to kill off a chef.
But what if it wasn’t a mystery? That’s how these people fit together! It wasn’t a foodie mystery, it was a foodie thriller.
And a love story.
He couldn’t think the words without thinking of Melanie. All week, they still hadn’t spoken a single word of the future. Telling her that he loved her could ruin that. With love went commitment. Not just committing to relationship, but the mere act of loving meant connection.
And that had worked out so spectacularly badly for each of them. With their track record they shouldn’t even start. There was a thought that hurt like hell.
Rather than speaking—rather than forcing a conversation neither of them had wanted to have—they lived the future one day at a time. They went for walks, made dinner plans, lunched with friends, and worked hard. Perrin’s business was consuming Melanie’s days and the novel his, but the nights were their own.
They bought little things for the Pioneer Square condo. Not for themselves but for the condo, because anything more might imply some form of permanence. A poster that would look good there. Bright pillows that cheered up the sofa. A couple of yoga exercise mats that Melanie was using to prove to Joshua just how inflexible he was. “I should teach a class called, ‘Yoga for men who don’t bend’!” She should, he for one would gladly pay to watch how she could move.
They were living a love story, one day at a time by continuing to pretend that tomorrow didn’t exist.
His novel needed a love story. Not only wasn’t his book a murder mystery, it wasn’t a foodie thriller either. No. It was a foodie romantic suspense. It was crazy; that same kind of craziness that somehow made sense. Like him being in love with a supermodel who loved him back—ridiculous from the outside, wonderful from the inside.
The woman would be the chef…no, too stereotypical. She’d be Shelley’s protégé. A shapely, ambitious senior airman with a cheery blond bob. Penny Baker, bright and shiny like the copper coin, with a cooking last name to intrigue the chef hero.
The man, the older chef’s protégé… No, too much the same as Penny. He needed another story…
Josh startled to realize that Melanie was sitting quietly on the other side of the table. They had brainstormed so much, that he didn’t think about it, he just leapt in.
“I need another character. Interesting guy. Cooks a lot. Professional chef or the potential to be one. Not sure yet. He needs to be someone for my heroine to fall in love with.”
“You.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it.
Melanie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then her smile shone to life. “Wow! That was a surprise.”
“I’m noticing that.”
“Well,” Melanie reached over to take a forkful of his pasta. “Oh that’s so délectable. Angelo is definitely a food criminal, because this is sinfully wonderful.”
Then she looked at him more seriously.
“Any woman with the least common sense would fall in love with you, Joshua Harper.”
He tried to catch his breath, but it was sticking somewhere in his chest. “You always struck me as a woman with immense common sense.” How lame was that? He was begging.
“Thank you,” she reached over to take another forkful. She made him wait while she ate another bite, her eyes remaining locked on his.
She took her time chewing, swallowing, reaching to take a sip of his ice tea.
He remained mute.
“Yes, I’m not sure that it is sensible, but I have fallen quite in love with you, Joshua. I find that it complicates things quite badly.”
“I’ve been noticing that myself for over a week.” There. He’d as good as said it. But it wasn’t enough and he knew it. “I don’t know if it was at our first meeting a couple months ago or the moment you threatened to Taser my ass, but I have discovered I am so very much in love with you. I’m sure this isn’t just rebound. It’s too big and too wonderful to… What?”
Melanie’s smile had grown huge.
“What?”
“You are a man of many words.”
He looked down at his computer screen, and then back up at her to make his point. He was.
“So, my man of words, what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I can write anywhere I have a laptop.” He said the next part because it was true. “And you. I need you like I need to breathe. You inspire me. You make me want to be better—” He clamped his jaw shut. He was doing it again. Too many words.
Melanie tipped her head, her long hair making a blond waterfall over her shoulder. “You are more romantic than I am, Joshua. But you are right. I have never looked as I did in those photos. I have spent the week since puzzling over that difference. I finally found it. During that entire photo shoot, I was thinking of you. I was thinking of the joy you bring me.”
“So, what do we do?” Josh was sorry the second he asked, for the smile slid off Melanie’s face. She bowed her head and her hair shuttered part of her face from him.
“This I don’t know.”
So, it was up to him. “Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do.” His voice seemed confident, declaring that he had the answers, even if he didn’t. Yet.
She looked up at him in uncertain hope.
“First, we will continue as we have been.”
“Playing house as if we are a couple?” there was an edge to her voice.
“Making the most of each day because we choose to be together.”
She brightened at that interpretation and nodded.
“Second, we start talking about what tomorrow may be. Not what are we committing to. Let’s make it…ah!” There was the metaphor he wanted.
He hit Save, then closed his laptop, shoving it and the now empty pasta bowl aside.
He nudged his ice tea closer to the middle of the table in case she wanted some more. “So, what are we really good at together?”
“Making love.” She said it matter-of-factly but it sent the air whooshing out of his lungs. He continued when he got his breath back.
“Okay. I’d say better than ‘really good’ but I’ll accept that. No, I was thinking that we’re really exceptional at ideas. At coming up with ideas and making them happen. Do you know how rare that is? People have a thousand ideas, but never seem to get around to them. Those people make me crazy.”
“Me too. Okay, so we make up ideas and do them. I still do not understand where you are going, Joshua.” She ran a manicur
ed finger down the side of the sweating tea glass as she tried to see the path he was following. That would be a good trick, as he only saw only a little of it himself.
He tapped his laptop. “We need to make up our own story, our own novel. We’ve already got the first meeting.”
“Me trying to Taser you.”
“Right. Thanks again for not pulling the trigger.”
“It’s a button.”
“Whatever, thanks.”
“De rein.”
“And we’ve both just admitted that we’re quite completely gone on each other.”
“You can say ‘in love,’ Joshua,” her smile mocked him.
“I can. But I don’t want to scare you.”
“I’m already scared enough for it not to make much difference.”
“Okay. I don’t want to scare me, because being in love with a woman who is beyond perfect is definitely an unnerving experience. I keep waiting for you to snap out of it and look at me with utter disdain.”
She reached out to brush the moisture-cool finger along his cheek. He took the opportunity to capture her hand and leave a kiss in the center of her palm. He loved watching her response to him as her lids half lowered and a sigh rippled through her.
Graziella passed by their table, “Get a room, you two.” She dropped off a second ice tea and a spare napkin, leaving a smile in her wake. Gone too fast for Josh to even say thank you.
He turned back to Melanie, “My idea is, before you distract me any further. Let’s brainstorm it out. We can’t build a relationship any more easily than a runway show or a novel. We’ve got a great basis: we love each other, and we both want to find a way to make this work.”
“We’re supposed to write our own romance?”
“Yes. With its own happy ever after.” He shrugged, “You have any better ideas, I’m open to them.”
She studied him for a long moment in silence. He could see the brilliance that she hid so carefully from most others. It clicked away behind her eyes like a finely-tuned mechanism. The business woman analyzing the idea slowly gave way to the sensual lover who made his head spin.
“I think you are right.”
“I am?” Could have shocked him—about a Taser’s worth.
“Yes, we are both too smart to not find a way to make this work. But there is one thing that you must first do, Joshua.”
“Name it.”
“You must, without any extra words, tell me that you love me.”
He almost started with “You make such difficult requests,” but caught himself in time.
He still held her held her hand, so he rubbed a thumb over the kiss on her palm as if making sure it stuck there. He looked into the most amazing blue eyes he’d ever seen. He let the brightness—that shone on him from the most unlikely of women—wash over him.
“I love you.”
Her own response was equally simple and he knew his life had just been changed forever.
Graziella’s quiet “Hallelujah” in the background he simply ignored.
Chapter 16
Fashion Alive landed on the racks eight days later and the response was instantaneous and overwhelming.
At Melanie’s advice, that evening they all retreated to Bill and Perrin’s house in North Seattle, made a huge pot of decaf, and crowded around the dining table to confer.
“You’d think that my first ad spread in three years wouldn’t create so damn much noise,” Russell complained and Cassidy patted his shoulder in sympathy. “I should never have put my logo in the corner. I didn’t put my name, just the damned logo. Designers are coming out of the woodwork looking for me. I got so effing tired of repeating that I’m retired and only do the work I initiate. So, I shut off my blasted phone and put a ‘go away’ auto-reply on my e-mail.”
“My personal advice, Perrin,” Jo’s voice was definitely in her serious legal advice mode and they all stopped to listen. “Is duck and run. Don’t stop until you and your family hit Tahiti at the very least.” That got the laugh she was clearly aiming for. “How many hits did your website get again?”
“I stopped looking after the first five thousand,” Perrin shuddered. “That was in the six hours after it hit the first newsstand. Over a thousand of those were on the catalog request list. Russell, if I don’t move to Tahiti, I’ll need you to build me a catalog so that I can send it to them. Wait, Melanie, can I afford to print and mail that many catalogs?” She didn’t pause for an answer. “Two hundred on the quote request list. I’m so glad I never got an online store set up or I’d be so screwed.”
Bill sat close with his arm wrapped loosely around his wife’s narrow shoulders. Good man.
Melanie glanced at Joshua and knew he would react the same way if the crisis was landing on her shoulders.
“First,” Melanie decided it was time to take some control. “First we have to stop and say congratulations to Perrin. Yes, you’ve just traded up for the next set of problems, but they are great problems to have.”
“Why am I not feeling so lucky?”
“Because you’re a very smart woman,” Jo chimed in.
“You will,” Melanie corrected Jo who actually winked at her. “Wait until the shock is over.”
“Does that happen any time soon?” Perrin sounded very doubtful.
“No,” Melanie reassured her and got the laugh. “Second, if we ignore everything for a week or a month, it won’t matter. All it will do is make you more mysterious. Zoran has turned mysterious into an art form. One of America’s top fashion designers for the last three decades and he doesn’t show up in Wikipedia except on the French site. He doesn’t do runway shows or give interviews.”
“But she has to fix it sometime, right?” Jaspar spoke up from where he sat close beside his sister. “Tam still gets to make her new clothes? I don’t care about that girly stuff, but she does. Can she get a fashion spread like you, Mom?”
Calling her Mom clearly struck Perrin like a slap; a really good one that snapped her out of panic and back into thinking. She leaned over to hug both her kids. “Tamara still gets her new line whenever she’s ready. Even if we run away to Tahiti. I promise.”
Melanie kept an eye on Jaspar. Perrin had totally melted at being called “Mom.” Almost as if it was the first time. Just how smart was the boy, maybe sensing how much she needed encouragement at the moment? Or more likely, just feeling some connection and responding to it? His frank look back when he noticed Melanie’s attention told her that it was the former and he just might be that insightful about people.
Had she been that smart at ten? No. She’d still been a naïve little girl. She’d certainly been that smart by the time she was eleven though, living in a car with her dangerously unpredictable mother.
“We need to come up with a plan for you to expand sooner than expected, but still not outstrip your income or your sanity.”
“I’m glad to give you a loan, Perrin,” Russell offered. “You know that. Whatever you need.” The advantages of having a multi-millionaire in the room. Actually two of them. Melanie might not have Russell’s immense family wealth, but she too could lay down some serious money if necessary.
“No,” Perrin held up both hands. “No loans. I don’t want to be beholden to anyone. This is my business. If I fail, fine. But I don’t want something I might not be able to repay.”
“Shit, Perrin, you know I wouldn’t miss—”
“No,” Melanie cut him off. “She’s right. Different people make different decisions. Perrin needs to trust herself on this.”
Bill and Perrin both reacted to that one by holding each other tighter. Melanie didn’t know why what she’d said was important, but she could see the two of them becoming more solid, more supportive of each other in that moment.
What was it that Joshua had said? She inspired him. Well, he grounded her. Just as she could see what Bill and Perrin did for each other, Joshua grounded her more deeply in who she really was.
They all jumped when the doo
rbell rang and Perrin cried out in surprise.
Jo’s dry voice was barely louder than Bill’s crossing to the door with Joshua close behind in support. “Told you to run while you still had the chance.”
At the front door, Angelo was waiting with a large thermal bag and several cloth carrysacks.
“Candygram!” he called out as soon as he spotted Bill and Josh.
Josh snorted out a laugh. Bill looked at them like they were both nuts.
Josh exchanged a look with Angelo. Next time they had a boys’ night, it was definitely going to include a screening of Blazing Saddles.
They helped Angelo lug his care packages to the kitchen. As they passed through the dining room, Angelo repeated his call. Russell barked out a laugh; most of the women just rolled their eyes.
“What have you got here, Angelo?” Josh lifted the heavy carriers onto the kitchen counter.
“I figured you needed some sustenance. As soon as the dinner crowd was fed, I dropped the rest of the night on my new sous chef. Graziella is going to tell me how he does. Manuel has the other restaurant under control.”
While Angelo and Bill distributed plates and uncovered platters of food, Josh uncorked a red and a white and circled the table pouring glasses. He dropped a bottle of sparkling cider between the kids. Perrin opened that and served them.
Angelo and Bill delivered a lasagna and a pan of Chicken Marsala to the table.
When Josh asked Perrin which she wanted she said quietly, “No wine. I’m fine with cider.”
Something happened around the table. The guys didn’t react, but the women sure did. An itchy feeling between Josh’s shoulders had him grabbing Bill’s shoulder before he could return to the kitchen.
“What?” Bill asked him.
“Not sure. Give it a moment,” then he turned back to watch what was going on.
Jo and Cassidy had turned to Perrin, then Jo’s eyes had shot wide. Angelo continued around the table to Melanie. She was about to help him set down a plate in the center of the table, but it was as if she was moving in slow motion.
“I’ve got it,” she told Angelo. But Josh could see that was the outer poise of the supermodel speaking. Inside, he saw the woman was also looking at Perrin with intense interest.
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