She skirted the counter and headed toward the kitchen. The brothers’ boots echoed as they followed her through the door to the kitchen.
Jack laughed when she knelt in front of the pantry and fitted the screwdriver into the head of a screw. He walked over and grasped the door, holding it still while she removed the hardware that held the knob in place.
She glanced at him, triumphant tears distorting her vision, as she pulled both sides of the offending handle off.
He took the screwdriver as she walked to the trash bin. Dropping the pieces in, she dusted off her hands and turned back to the Kerrigans, and wiped the last tears from her eyes.
“Aunt Caro is laughing in heaven right now. I think she’d be proud of me for making the first renovation.” She wiped the trace of tears off her cheeks.
Jack clapped his hands together, applauding her action while Sam chortled.
“So,” Jack said. “Does this mean you want to move forward with the rest of the renovations?”
“My life is in New York. As tempting as it is to have a go at running the café, I can’t see it working.” The disappointment on his face as she made it clear she wasn’t going to stay bothered her, but she couldn’t let it matter. “For the time being, let’s start with the simple things that have to be done to put the place on the market. Can you get me some estimates to refurbish the floors and paint the whole space? Oh, yeah. Can you include the cost for replacing the door handle on the pantry? One without a lock, please.”
Chapter 4
Declining their invitation for a home-cooked meal, Jem said goodbye to Jack and Sam and climbed the stairs to the spacious apartment Caro had lived in for most of her adult life. Walking through the door at the top of the staircase, nostalgia and loss hit hard, a sharp, pulling pain between her shoulder blades. Fond memories of time spent with Caro wound their way around her heart, squeezing a gentle welcome.
After rising early each morning to operate the café, handing out coffee, pastries and smiles to their customers, Caro had locked the door and climbed the stairs to fix lunch. She’d planned a different activity for them each afternoon. Sightseeing in Boston, spending a day on the beach or watching tall ships float by the harbor in Granite Pointe. Some days it was just a walk to the pier to fish. Whatever they’d done, Caro made sure every day was an adventure.
In the evening, they’d sit together under the antique chandelier in Caro’s dining room, playing Scrabble, Monopoly, Boggle or some other game, which always led to laughter over made-up words or creative financing. Time passed rapidly as they poured over recipe books to find new treats for the menu at Caro’s Taste. Many nights they’d make a mess in the kitchen and have baking wars to see who finished their delicacy first. The delicious smells coming from the antique Wedgewood oven always made her mouth water.
Today, the only smell she detected was stale, neglected air. The same stove, considered vintage when she was younger, sat forlornly against a wall in the kitchen. The coating of dust was thick enough it appeared Caro must not have turned it on for months. The familiar hiss of gas feeding the burner was absent when she twisted the knobs to test its working condition.
“Huh? I wonder when it quit working. Surely Caro would have called a repairman,” she mused out loud, then laughed self-consciously, knowing no one would answer.
She wandered toward the front of the apartment, where windows faced the ocean. She’d napped on the comfy sofa many times in the past. Pulling the soft, colorful afghan she and Caro had crocheted one summer off the back of the couch, she pressed it to her cheek, inhaling the faint, familiar Caro scent. Using skeins of yarn left over from other projects, they’d each created one half of the blanket. Their laughter, when they finally wove the two garish sides together, rumbled through her mind.
Memories of summers past brought a ghost of a smile to her face, reflected off the window she stood in front of. Her older brother, Peter had lived with Caro while he attended college in Boston. Halfway through his freshman year, he joined an environmental group Caro introduced him to in Granite Pointe. When his affiliation led to his shocking, unexpected death, her parents argued bitterly with Caro. They blamed her for their son’s involvement with the radical ecoterrorism group responsible for his death. As a result, Jem’s summer visits had ended without discussion. Her parents ordered her to never speak to Caro. She’d lost a brother, aunt and all trust in her parents in one tragic instant.
Blinking away annoying tears, she heaved a discouraged, bone-weary sigh and pulled off her high-heeled boots. Wrapping the afghan around her shoulders, she laid down on the well-worn sofa. After an emotionally draining day that ended with claustrophobic terror and the surprising comfort of a pair of strong arms, she gave in to her body’s demand for regenerating sleep. The last thing she saw behind her closed eyelids was a pair of sexy dimples surrounding firm, sensuous lips.
The rumbling of her stomach woke her from her too-short nap. She pushed up on her elbows, disoriented in the darkened room. Looking around the familiar, yet unfamiliar surroundings, the trauma of the funeral and subsequent entrapment in the pantry flooded over her. Memories of powerful arms, elegant hands and a drop-dead gorgeous man rode in on the next wave, replacing the bad thoughts with tingly, pleasant ones.
Weak light from the half-moon shining through the window wasn’t bright enough to read the hands on her watch, so she grabbed her phone off the coffee table to check the time.
“Crap!” It was eight thirty. She’d slept longer than she thought. Her stomach grumbled again, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since she had washed down a PowerBar with caustic fast-food coffee on her way to Granite Pointe this morning.
Rising, she clutched the afghan against the chill in the room and flipped on the light by the sofa. She tiptoed across the cold floor to the thermostat and pushed the temperature up to a more comfortable level. The furnace groaned to life.
She walked through the door to the homey kitchen and found she was talking to herself again. “With any luck, the refrigerator works and is stocked as well. Otherwise, I’m going to regret declining the Kerrigans’ dinner invitation. Oh, hallelujah.” The light in the refrigerator illuminated when she pulled the door open.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in the way of edible food. According to Jack, Caro hadn’t felt well for three weeks before her death, so trips to the supermarket wouldn’t have been high priority.
“Well, beggars can’t be choosers.” She grabbed a yogurt container and checked the date. It wasn’t expired, so she pulled the top off and fished a spoon out of a nearby drawer. The sweet tang of raspberries exploded on her tongue with the first bite. She sat at the scarred butcher-block kitchen table and glanced around at the cheery wallpaper and curtains on the window over the sink as she ate.
“I loved that wallpaper. But you weren’t sure about the stripe until we put it up. Darling Caro, my side hurt from laughing so hard when we picked out the curtains. You called them ‘hippy dippy,’ then called me Skippy.” Tears pricked her eyes as she recalled the mess they’d made with the project. “Oh God. We had so much fun experimenting to line up the repeating pattern.”
Tossing the empty yogurt container into the wastebasket, she opened the beech wood cupboards in search of something else edible. She found instant oatmeal and a bottle of decent pinot noir. She uncorked the wine to let it breathe while she microwaved a bowl of the cereal.
Pouring herself a glass, she opened the cabinet under the sink and groped for a trash bag. She pulled her hand back at a stabbing pain as she connected with a jagged piece of metal. Sucking on her fingertip, she squatted to get a better look and pulled out a medium-sized metal box.
The lock on it puzzled her. Caro never hid anything. The box didn’t feel heavy, but as she pried at the lock, she realized it was sturdier than it looked. Frowning, she set the mysterious box aside, reached inside the cabinet again, and withdrew a black plastic bag. She snapped it open and crossed to the cabinet near the refrigerator.
Checking dates on the canned goods, she put any item past its best-by date in the big sack.
When she opened the door of the chiffonier in the corner, she discovered a treasure trove of cookbooks. As she scanned the titles, she spied a familiar small album. Tugging on the worn spine, she pulled it out and opened it. “Oh my God, Caro. I remember this. We marked the ones included on the café menu with a gold star.” A bittersweet tremor flitted across her shoulders as she fingered one of the sticky stars.
There were new recipes and notations, too. Leafing through, she realized many of her aunt’s handwritten notes revolved around the Kerrigans. Sam thought one needed more cinnamon. Someone named Noah never wanted to see this particular recipe on the menu board downstairs. She smiled as she traced her finger over another entry noting how Jack ate every bite without a word, and then requested another helping.
She spent an hour sipping her glass of wine and looking through books and recipes, allowing herself to imagine the possibilities of staying in Granite Pointe, running the café. She considered the changes she’d make to the menu with the recipes she found.
Caro wasn’t the only accomplished chef in the family. Working for Margo Tremont, who claimed to have a very discriminating palate, had forced Jem to develop her cooking skills beyond what she’d learned in culinary school. Truthfully, Margo couldn’t tell the difference between foie gras and liverwurst.
Draining the last of her wine, she contemplated a second glass before pushing the cork back into the neck of the bottle. After an emotionally traumatic day, she expected nightmares and interrupted sleep. Funerals and phobias never combined well and she was twitchy and nervous. With luck, the one glass of wine would be enough to relax her, keeping the bad dreams at bay.
After carrying the accumulated trash bags to the back door, she turned off the kitchen light, picked up the locked box and made her way to the second bedroom in the apartment. Sleeping in the narrow single bed was going to be bad, but she couldn’t bring herself to enter Caro’s bedroom, let alone lay in the dead woman’s bed.
Crawling between the sheets, she grabbed her phone for a quick check of email and messages. Yawning broadly, she took care of a few urgent messages, disappointed, but not surprised that Phil hadn’t checked in since early afternoon. She snapped the light off and lay on her side, the phone clutched in one hand and tucked under her pillow, to fall asleep.
Jem dreamed, but not about tiny, inescapable spaces, her normal nightmare on emotionally charged days. No, tonight she dreamed of burning blue eyes, strong, gentle arms, sexy demanding lips and a curious, seeking tongue. The dream was so real her heart quivered and ripples of delight coursed through her body.
Jolting awake, she realized the vibrating sensation came from her cell phone. She squinted at the bedside clock, and groaning, hit the Connect button before she read the display.
“Since it’s one thirty, this better be an emergency,” she growled.
Music pounded in the background, but no one spoke. Pulling the phone away, she squinted at the display.
Perfect, a call from one of her least favorite people. It dawned on her that Stacey’s phone had butt dialed her again. These calls had happened weekly since Margo had begun filming this season. More than once, Jem had suggested that Stacey lock her phone before engaging in sex with random guys at nightclubs. Judging by the sounds she heard coming through the phone, Stacey had ignored her request.
She pushed herself up to a seated position and started to disconnect when she heard a familiar voice that wasn’t Stacey’s.
“Oh, baby. Give it to me, give it all to me. God, you’re so hot I’ll be seeing double until Sunday.”
Accompanied by Stacey’s theatrical moans, the words Phil groaned in her ear nearly every time they’d made love weren’t half as endearing.
“Oh, Phil, baby, you’re sooo good.” Stacey’s nasal, little girly voice floated through the phone. “Oh, yeah, oh God, touch me there again.”
The phone dropped from her suddenly numb fingers. The amazing Phil Centers, her boyfriend, was a no-good, lying, cheating, scum-sucking hound-dog. This was his late client meeting?
With Stacey? Really?
Horrified, she stared at the phone, fighting the urge to gag while the sound of moaning echoed in the darkened bedroom. She picked up the phone and pressed it against her ear, hating the voyeur in her that wouldn’t allow her to hang up. And praying she was only dreaming.
She absently noted the deep thudding bass sounds of a dance club. And a rhythmic slapping noise over the sounds of their heavy breathing and the occasional “oofs” and grunts. There was another sort of pounding in the background, as if someone was knocking hard against a door.
“Hurry, baby, hurry,” she heard Stacey pant. “People are waiting to get in.”
“Oh, baby, we’re almost there,” Phil’s voice grunted back at her.
They were having sex in the bathroom of a dance club. How sleazy and—pitiful. Phil sucked at upright sex. The random thought that it was very rarely a position she was eager to attempt with him flitted through her mind. In spite of the hours he put in at the gym, he lacked the leg muscles and upper body strength to carry it off properly.
Phil’s familiar groaning jolted her back to her senses.
“You son of a bitch!” she screeched into the phone and punched the Disconnect button. Hurling the phone onto the quilt, she stared at it with revulsion, feeling vile and contaminated.
Funny, I’d have thought this would hurt more. We’ve been together for two years. I imagined spending the rest of my life with Phil. A shudder tripped down her spine.
How could she not know? Analyzing her feelings, she was shocked to find more anger than hurt. Knees clutched against her chest, her back pressed tight against the headboard, she thought about the obvious signs she’d missed.
More broken dates over the past four months than he’d kept. Frequently excusing himself to take phone calls in private. Crap! The guilty expression when he returned should have been a clue. She exhaled harshly, hugging her knees tightly. “Damn, I am naive.”
It wasn’t just his actions, either. Stacey’s recent behavior had been furtive, her smile smug and condescending, as if she was keeping a doozy of a secret.
Oh, yeah. That was some secret. She grunted in disgust. Stacey’s unnatural interest in Jem’s sex life in the past few months should have been a dead giveaway. The other woman’s—oh God, the other woman’s—pout when Jem casually turned her questions aside without answering. Stacey’s insecure behavior when Phil and Jem were together in her presence.
God, I’ve been such a fool. One plus one is always going to equal two. In this case, two damn cheaters.
One she loved, or thought she loved. One she barely tolerated.
She couldn’t remember a worse day in her life. Her wonderful aunt died much too young and under suspicious circumstances. Her claustrophobia reared its ugly head, but a complete stranger she couldn’t stop thinking about easily tamed it. And he kissed her like he knew her. She rubbed her fingers absently over her lips, remembering. Phil had never kissed her with that kind of confidence. The corners of her mouth went south when her thoughts circled back around to the discovery that the man she’d been prepared to spend the rest of her life with was two-timing her with a despised coworker.
She surrendered to the urge to turn into a pile of emotional muck. The bed shook convulsively as heaving sobs wracked her body. Tears of sadness for Caro mingled with angry tears directed at Phil and Stacey. Mournful sounds from the squeaky bedframe echoed her harsh, ragged breathing. She slid down in the bed and turned her face against the pillow, unable to bear the sorrowful sound of her own weeping.
Eventually the storm of her grief passed. Leaving behind only anger. Head aching and eyes swollen from the emotional tempest, she rolled to her back, staring at the ceiling. She pulled the pillow from under her head to lay it alongside her body and pounded a fist into the soft down. Since it felt so good the first time,
she hit it a few more times before sitting up and clutching it as if it could keep her thudding heart from bursting out of her chest.
Caro had always said when she was angry enough to hit something, she knew it was time to clean house or bake bread. Jem was mad enough tonight to do both.
She hit the pillow one last time, got off the bed, pulled on a sweatshirt and sneakers and got busy.
Chapter 5
Jack stood in the doorway of the café’s kitchen with his Weimaraner, mesmerized by the sight of Jem furiously beating a mass of yeasty dough. A water glass, filled with red liquid that jiggled with each thump of Jem’s fist, sat on the counter with her discarded sweatshirt, a nearly empty wine bottle and her phone. He heard the harsh, angry words of Alanis Morissette’s You Oughta Know through the ear buds of her iPod.
She didn’t seem aware of the annoying buzz of the alarm, or his presence. The security company had called him a short while ago because he was Caroline’s alternate contact in case the system activated. The shrill ring of his phone had interrupted a vivid dream he was having about the very woman in front of him. He tamped down the sharp, sexual pull he felt toward her and pushed through the door, his approach to the counter slow and cautious.
Jem jumped when he neared. She stopped abusing the mixture of flour, water and yeast long enough to jerk out her earphones, escalating the volume tenfold. Regardless of how good the music was, the volume was punishing. Her lush, full lips thinned to a tight seam and pain and anger shadowed her eyes. Tears had left tracks through the flour on her cheeks.
Cooking Up Love Page 4