“Let’s do one more flyover over Waterford and then head into Foothills Regional for the last landing today.” Aidan’s voice came through John’s headset, steady and calm.
John banked the plane into a slight turn east, leaving the mountains behind him and the foothills ahead. “There it is,” he said, his gaze scanning the rolling green and blues of prime North Carolina real estate. “Dogville, USA.”
He could hear Aidan’s laugh through the headset. “Trust me, it wasn’t a bad place to grow up.”
“I can imagine.” Tipping the wing slightly, he got a good look at the vast acres of green grass, woods, creeks, mud paths, and ravines. Off to one side of the property stood Liam and Andi’s house, then he flew over the winding stream and through deep-green woods, to see the yellow farmhouse and massive lawns, kennels, pens, and the lake that he knew so well by foot, but really appreciated only from up here. “We’ll be there in a few hours for dinner,” he mused. “But it won’t look anything like this.”
“You don’t really get the scope of the place from down there,” Aidan agreed. “From up here, you can spot a squirrel in the backwoods, man.”
John banked again, soaking up the view, then took his time and circled once more, loving every minute in the air.
“We better get back to the airfield, or we’ll miss Sunday Bloody Marys,” Aidan said, no doubt done with the two-hour lesson and ready to get back to his wife and extended family for the day at Waterford.
“Roger that.” John changed his course and headed toward Foothills Regional Airport, only fifteen minutes away at this speed.
“Just watch the center line, John,” Aidan instructed as they neared the runway, not quite as loud as air traffic control communicating with another plane headed in for a landing.
“Got it,” John assured him, then switched his comm to alert ATC of their landing. “November Bravo six-nine-zero to runway two-one.”
“Keep the nose steady and build the back pressure,” Aidan reminded him.
“November Bravo six-nine-zero cleared for runway two-one,” the controller acknowledged in John’s headset.
“Okay, man, you got this,” Aidan said. “Smooth as silk, just like last time.”
“November Bravo coming in for final approach.” John held his hands loose and steady on the throttle and yoke. He took his eye off the runway for one second, scanning the instrument panel, then back to the center line, gauging the wind, noting the speed.
“Flaps?” he asked Aidan.
“What do you think?”
“Not…quite…yet. Let me get to seventy-five knots,” John muttered, trying hard not to just think, but to feel, as Aidan constantly told him. Feel the wind. Feel the speed. Feel the rudder pedal under his foot and the gentle bounce in the air. Don’t calculate…feel.
“Now—”
“Flaps,” John finished for him, flipping the switch just as the runway rose up and filled his windshield.
Center line. Center line. He bobbed a little, corrected with ease, dropped back the speed, and…touched down like a freaking feather had dropped.
“Nice!” Aidan fist-pumped. “That’s three flawless landings today.”
John put a loving hand on the throttle, pushing his headset back with a contented sigh. “I can’t wait to log these hours and start soloing.”
“Brother, you are killing it,” Aidan said. “You were born to fly.”
No kidding. “Best feeling in the world,” he said as he turned off runway twenty-one and taxied toward the terminal.
“One of ’em,” Aidan said.
“Name anything better.”
Aidan gave him a goofy smile. “Uh, her name is Beck, and she’s my wife.”
John rolled his eyes, easing into the airfield, where a handful of private planes waited their turn to take a Sunday morning flight.
“No scoffing, Santorini,” Aidan joked. “Anyway, I saw the way you were looking at Sunshine in her hot pants yesterday when she moved in.”
“Summer. And I think they just call them cutoff shorts now, but who knows?”
“I know,” Aidan said, sliding off his headset, too. “And what the hell’s wrong with a little…summer fling?” He grinned. “Do you see what I did there?”
John laughed. “Nothing’s wrong with it. ’Cept, you know, she has a kid.”
“Kids sleep.”
“And then they wake up in the middle of the night.”
Aidan looked hard at him. “You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“The only thing you do wrong in this cockpit, and probably the only thing you do wrong in life. You know what I’m going to say.”
Of course he knew. “Don’t think, just feel? Or some variation of that lesson?”
Aidan shifted in his seat, unbuckling his belt. “Your brain is an amazing thing, John. No question you got a stupid-high IQ. But when it comes to women and flying, and maybe a whole lot of things, you got to let that dome take a breather once in a while and think with a different part of your anatomy.”
He was…and that was the part that had had him tossing and turning last night.
“I don’t know.” John shook his head with a hundred different thoughts, and not many of them were anything he’d discuss with Aidan. Or anyone.
“What don’t you know?” Aidan asked. “What part is confusing you? She’s gorgeous, she’s single, right?”
“Right.”
“She’s living above you, working for you, and looks at you with the same goo-goo eyes you make at her.”
John shot him a look. “You had me until goo-goo.”
“Well, I don’t know what they call it. Lusty. Hungry. Mama-wants-to-get-laid eyes.”
She did look a little like that last night. He had felt her whole body shiver when they kissed, and her frustration with Destiny’s interruption had been palpable. “But…”
“But what?” Aidan urged.
John stroked his beard, silent for a long moment. “Look, you’re different than I am, Aidan. Your whole family—and mine, for that matter—is different. I’m kind of a go-it-alone type.” It was one of the reasons he couldn’t wait to fly solo.
“You don’t date?”
“Oh yeah. I do.” Couldn’t quite remember the last time, though. “But relationships have a way of…blowing up in your face.”
Aidan studied him for a moment. “Who said anything about a relationship? She’ll be gone in what, two months?”
“Maybe less.”
“So she’s the perfect woman. No strings, no threat to your solitude.” He put enough disdain into the word to let John know what Aidan thought of that particular lifestyle. “You can be a freaking monk come September. If it feels right, and she’s into you?” He did that idiotic brow waggle again. “Summer fling.” He gave his leg a slap as he cracked up.
“Dumb joke.” But a really, really good idea.
“Seriously, think about it.” Aidan unlatched his door and held up his hand. “On second thought, don’t think about it. Go with your feelings on this one, John. For once in your damn life, don’t think, just feel.”
He wanted to, he really did. But how would he feel when it was over? Maybe he shouldn’t give a damn about that.
Don’t think, just feel.
And, good God, Summer would feel…amazing.
* * *
“Baptism by fire. Can you handle it?” Cassie Mahoney’s eyes gleamed playfully as she greeted Summer at Santorini’s on Monday morning. “No, wait. You survived a family barbecue at Waterford last Friday night, so you’re made of strong stuff.”
“Survived and remembered everyone’s names,” she replied, shaking the hand Cassie offered. “You’re Cassie, John’s sister.”
“Correct.”
“Married to his stepcousin, Braden.”
“Again, right on.”
“And you’re Yiayia’s favorite.”
She lifted a brow. “Which can be a blessing and a curse, as you might have figur
ed out by now.”
Summer laughed and took the menus that Cassie held out to her. “All I know is I don’t want to cross her.”
Cassie flipped back a lock of shiny black hair. “Then you know enough. Although, she’s really mellowed in her old age. Anyhoo, I’m here to train you because my maiden name is Santorini, and I know almost as much about this business as John and Alex.”
“Sounds good.” She glanced around, noticing that for eight thirty in the morning, the restaurant wasn’t that busy. “I wanted to come earlier, but had to drop Destiny off at camp.”
“It’s cool,” she said. “We’re kind of slow now, but brace yourself, that’s going to change at ten when the runners start coming in.”
“The runners?”
“There’s a Five K-9 race this morning as part of Dog Days. Otherwise, we’d be a lot more crowded, but the hordes are up and down Ambrose Avenue at the finish line, and I suspect they’ll pour in here when it’s over. So we have an hour or so to train you.”
Summer couldn’t help looking back toward the kitchen. “Is John here?”
“He has the Monday staff meetings at the Chestnut Hill locations, so he’s gone all day. Didn’t he mention that to you?”
“I didn’t see him at all yesterday,” she said, trying to keep the little bit of disappointment out of her voice.
“He went flying with Aidan all morning,” Cassie said, pulling some menus and a seating chart from the top shelf of the hostess stand. “Then we had Sunday dinner at Waterford, and that went into the night because everyone chipped in to get ready for Tails and Trails.” She lifted a dark brow and leaned in to whisper, “Your absence was noted by the Dogmothers.”
“My…” She shook her head. “I didn’t know anything about it.” She sucked in a horrified breath. “Was I supposed to be there? For camp or something?”
“Something.” She winked. “Sunday dinner is all day every Sunday at Waterford, all family.”
“Oh. Well, I’m not…”
“But they thought you’d show. There was much disappointment with the over-eighty set, and Pru, who is eighty at heart. Didn’t he invite you?”
“No,” she said. “But I…” Asked for space and time. “But I’m here now and ready for work.”
“Thank God.” She put the seating chart on top of the stand. “Fair warning, Summer. Being the hostess of a restaurant like this is a deceptively difficult job. For one thing, we don’t even call you a hostess. You’re running the front of the house, as we say, and that’s a key role in any well-managed restaurant.”
“I take it you’ve worked the job before?”
“In my sleep, but I’ve backed away from this business to run my own. John asked me to come in for a few hours to get you acclimated. You can thank me by naming your next child Cassie, because I had to stand on my head and do tricks to convince Yiayia not to come in and train you.”
“Oh, that would have been—”
“A nightmare. She holds the dubious honor of running the front of Santorini’s Deli for more years than any other person on earth. Actually, she invented the front of Santorini’s, way back when it also had an actual deli counter. Her strict guidelines of front management would be the reason my mother, Katie, never worked much in the restaurant when we were growing up. Yiayia was there to find fault with every move. If she’s in the restaurant, you want to be on your game.”
“Duly noted.” Summer replied with a smile. “So glad you’re training me, then. Not sure about the name of my next child, though.”
She waved a hand. “Just kidding. Kinda. Okay, any food service experience?”
“Giving out lunches to third-graders? Feeding a picky child? Um…eating?”
She laughed. “Actually, all helpful for this job. It really is more than just tossing menus at people and putting them in their seats, which is what most people think being a hostess is and why so many restaurants have problems.”
She nodded. “I never really considered that before, but I can see why.”
She waved Summer past the entry area and into the restaurant. “You run the show from up here. Stand in the place where you can see the door, the line, the counter, almost every table, and the entrance to the kitchen. The first thing you learn is how many tables each server can handle. Not how many they want or not, but you have to watch their faces, their body language, and those of their customers, to know whether they can handle another table.”
The server she’d met the other day came whizzing by with two plates. “I can always handle another one,” Karyn said with a bright smile. “Until two o’clock in the afternoon. Then I get nasty.”
“Good to know,” Summer said.
“We are primarily a breakfast and lunch place,” Cassie told her. “Though we serve dinner a few nights a week. It’s slower, and our regular server those nights usually handles the front, too, so you’ll only have day shifts.” She nudged her toward the kitchen. “Come on into the kitchen and meet the crew. And eat. You have to taste everything, you know. You’re expected to chat up the specials on the way to the tables, which helps us move the right inventory. Big part of the job.”
Cassie guided her into a kitchen that was smaller than Summer expected, with several servers taking orders, refilling condiments on a long bar, and joking around with the line cooks.
One, in particular, seemed to be the center of attention.
“Hey, Bash, quit flirting and get over here and meet our newest hire, Summer Jackson. Summer, this is Luther Sebastian, our very own Aussie just to make sure we stay international.”
“Summer? Welcome aboard.” A man ducked to get his face between a stainless-steel counter and the warming lights above it, beaming a wide smile from a sharp-featured, handsome face. “Lovely to meet you.”
He had just enough of a lilting accent and a twinkle in his green eyes that she instantly knew why two of the younger servers were flocking around him.
“Where are you from?” Summer asked.
“Melbourne, originally. But I’ve spent the past five years cooking on cruise ships in the Med, until my buddy Alex Santorini convinced me to move to small-town America and make Greek food. Grab a fork and sidle up. I was just about to share my dolmades and courgette balls.” He paused and slid into a dirty grin. “You like balls?”
“Shut it, Bash.” Cassie put an arm around Summer and guided her away, pretending to show her the condiment and garnish bar. “He’s going to want to get in your pants,” she whispered. “And obviously is wasting no time. Consider yourself warned…off. He will next tell you that he makes love as well as he cooks. No one has confirmed that, but I don’t want you to be the first.”
Summer chuckled. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“I mean, do what you want,” she added. “But remember, he’s merely following family recipes, and he’s a player, if you like that type.”
“Not particularly.”
“Good. Because I promised John I’d steer you away from him.”
She blinked at the statement, and Cassie’s candor. “He’s…worried?”
“I wouldn’t say he’s worried. I’d say he’s…” She smiled slowly and lifted a shoulder. “Smitten? Maybe just doing that ‘claiming thing’ Greek men do. I don’t know. I married a big Irish firefighter.”
Summer searched Cassie’s pretty face, processing this new information about John, which shouldn’t really surprise her, not after the kisses on Saturday night.
“Obviously, he knows you’re short term,” Cassie added quickly, as if she felt compelled to answer unasked questions. “But he’s definitely interested. Are you?”
“I’m…” Short term. “Yeah,” she said softly. “He’s a great guy.”
“The best,” Cassie said. “I mean, I have four amazing brothers, and they’re all different and wonderful. But there’s something about John that…” She blew out a breath. “Just, be straight with him. Don’t hurt him, okay?”
“I don’t plan on it.”
&n
bsp; “Good, ’cause if that man’s heart gets broken again, I’ll be next in line to kill you. After Yiayia, of course.”
“Let’s go, ladies.” The Australian accent floated through the kitchen. “Prepare to have your mouths—and everything else—melted by today’s menu.”
Cassie rolled her eyes. “Come on, taste. The rush’ll be here soon.”
After a very double-entendre-laden tasting and a quick tour of the kitchen and pantry storage, they took a slow pass through the two large dining areas with Cassie’s dry-erase seating chart to help Summer learn the table numbers.
“Just remember,” Cassie said when they returned to the hostess stand. “You are the first impression and the most lasting one. If customers have to wait, anything you can say and do to distract them makes the experience more enjoyable. Your job is to keep the flow, keep them happy, and be the face of Santorini’s.” She tipped her head and openly assessed Summer. “Obviously not Greek, but even Yiayia’s relaxed on that one.”
“Not Greek, but ready to go,” she promised Cassie.
“When we have a wait, take names, keep the list, be tough but kind if people push for special treatment,” Cassie continued, opening a drawer and pulling out a cell phone. “The more you can talk about the family, the history, and Greece, the better. Oh! Because of the race and the crush we’re going to get, I’ll be outside, because there’ll be a lot of dogs. Normally, we let people seat themselves out there, but today will be a little crazy. On regular days, weather permitting, we encourage customers with large dogs to eat outside on the patio. I’ll handle those tables with Gretchen.”
“All right. Am I supposed to call you?” she asked, glancing at the phone.
“Oh, no, this is going to ring. We frequently get to-go orders and some large reservations on this line. And John sometimes forwards his phone to this number if he’s in a meeting. You need to answer it. Just say, ‘Santorini’s Deli, may I help you?’ Don’t say, ‘Can I help you?’ Because if Yiayia’s on the other end, she’ll bark back with, ‘I don’t know, can you?’” She did a dead-on impression of the older Greek woman, making Summer laugh.
“Oh! One more thing,” Cassie said. “If people ask you why we don’t have a deli counter at a place called Santorini’s Deli, tell them it’s left over from the original—”
Hush, Puppy Page 11