Macy Beckett - Make You Mine

Confused, Allie pinched off a corner of the turnover and popped it into her mouth. At first, the pastry seemed fine—light and flaky. But when the apple filling crossed her tongue, it tasted like a mouthful of ocean water, bitter and briny. Allie nearly gagged. She grabbed a napkin of her own and disposed of her bite. “Oh, God. That’s awful!”

“It’s so . . .” Ella began.

“Salty,” Allie finished.

What had she done wrong? In her sleep-deprived state, had she incorrectly measured her ingredients? No, that couldn’t be right. She’d made this recipe so many times she could do it in a coma. She lifted the steel bowl from its industrial-sized mixer and peered at the remnants of apple filling smeared on the inside. After running her finger along the rim, she brought it to her mouth and sucked it clean.

It was horrible.

Allie returned to her workstation to inspect the ingredients she’d used. One by one, she sampled the flour, cornstarch, and apples, finding them satisfactory. When she dipped the tip of a clean spoon into the sugar bin and brought it to her mouth, she found the problem. It was salt. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed.

She rotated the plastic container until she found its label: Granulated Sugar . Allie knew for a fact there was real sugar in this cylinder yesterday when she’d made berry cobbler and chocolate-chunk cookies, because she’d sampled the finished products. That meant someone had sabotaged her workstation last night after she’d left—and ruined every single one of the turnovers she’d spent the last four hours preparing.

Who would do something so malicious?

“Look alive, people,” Chef yelled, loudly clapping his hands as he strode into the room. When his gaze fell on Allie, a slow grin curled across his lips, telling her exactly who would do something so malicious. Looking right at her, he shouted, “Someone tell the captain’s pretty little squeeze to get her breakfast pastries on the serving line. We’ve got early birds out there.”

The staff shared uneasy glances, unwilling to pass along the message. Finally, a teenage boy asked Allie, “You want me to take them out?”

That’s just what Chef wanted—for her to serve the guests contaminated food and ruin her reputation, and thus her career. What a coldhearted cochon . Allie’s whole body scorched with fever, sending heat rushing into her face. She tried to steady her pulse, but her heart pounded so fiercely she felt it in her fingertips. The tingly burn of tears pressed her eyelids, but she forced them back.

She would bathe in acid before she’d let Chef see her cry.

“No,” she said, glaring at Regale to let him know he hadn’t won. Her own voice sounded foreign to her ears, eerie in its smoothness. “I changed my mind. I’m making coffee cake instead.”

“Uh . . . Allie,” Ella-Claire stammered, tossing aside her clipboard with a loud clang . “Let me help you.”

“That’s not your job.” Allie had a small staff to assist her with the baking, and by God, they were going to back her up. “The pastry team will—”

“Be helping me,” Regale finished. “I need all hands to run the omelet and Belgian waffle stations. Why don’t you serve your pastries, sweetheart?” he asked with a sneer. “Something wrong?”

That did it.

Allie’s tenuous hold on her temper snapped in half like a brittle lace cookie. Her vision went black for a moment, and when it returned, all she could see was Regale’s smug smile and the hulking, bearlike set of his folded arms. She went deaf to everything but the rush of blood in her ears while an electric charge buzzed over her skin. Someone must have turned on the kitchen fan, because her hair blew behind her in waves that tickled the back of her neck. She felt her body trembling.

To calm herself, Allie closed her eyes and recited the Creole serenity prayer her mama had taught her. She chanted the words of peace, feeling her blood pressure drift down a few notches, and by the second verse she felt composed enough to open her eyes.

That’s when she noticed the whole staff was staring at her in openmouthed horror.

Allie flashed a tight smile to defuse the tension in the room. “I’d better get to work on that coffee cake.”

Ella’s typically tanned cheeks had turned pale. She pointed at the teenage boy who’d offered to haul the turnovers into the dining room. “What’s your name?”

The boy couldn’t seem to tear his gaze from Allie’s face. “Uh, Bobby, ma’am.”

“Okay,” Ella said in a voice a few decibels too loud. “Bobby, you assist Miss Mauvais with breakfast.” When Chef geared up to complain, Ella cut him off with a lifted palm. “If you can’t manage without him, I’ll pitch in.” Then she cocked an eyebrow, daring him to admit that he needed the head purser to assist him in making waffles.

Regale’s mouth tightened, but he recovered quickly. “Thanks for the offer. I’ll make do. Now, if you don’t mind . . .” He swept one hand toward the door, basically telling Ella to get out.

Ella-Claire grabbed her clipboard and stalked from the galley with her head held high. She really was good people.

“Let’s get to it,” Allie said. She started by dumping over one hundred beautiful, flawlessly baked apple turnovers into the garbage.

That really hurt.

During the next hour, she and Bobby worked in a frenzy to mix, assemble, and bake three shallow pans of crumb cake. All the while Chef barked orders to her staff and resumed bullying her with comments like, “Tell the captain’s voodoo squeeze that magic won’t turn off her goddamned oven timer!”

Allie punched the END button, silencing the timer as she pulled her last pan of cake from the oven. She had to finish up and get out of here. A steady pressure had been building inside her head all morning, and she knew she couldn’t hold it together much longer.

Once the pans cooled, she helped Bobby carry them out to the breakfast buffet, then thanked him for his hard work and dismissed him for a break. She didn’t make eye contact with anyone inside the dining room. In strides a bit too quick, she made for the stairwell and took the steps two at a time to her room on the third floor.

After unlocking her door with trembling fingers, she stripped down naked, right there in the entryway, and stepped over her pile of clothes into the bathroom to run a hot shower. Safely behind the barriers of two locked doors and a plastic curtain, Allie hung her head beneath the steaming jets and finally let herself cry.

“You need to find her, Marc.” Ella-Claire’s big blue eyes grew impossibly wider as she slapped the purser’s desk and leaned forward. “This is a full-on SOS.”

“Now, calm down,” Marc told her. “Chef’s fine. I saw him ten minutes ago. And I’m sure Allie’s fine, too. She probably needed some space.”

Ella shook her head, setting her ponytail in motion. “You don’t get it—you weren’t there. Regale kept pushing and pushing, and then it was like someone flipped a switch. The lights flickered and wind came out of nowhere. Allie kind of blanked out and she started chanting a spell or—”

“Wait,” Marc interrupted, his stomach dropping an inch. “What kind of spell?”

Ella bit her lip and admitted, “Well, I don’t know. She wasn’t speaking English.”

Marc released the breath he’d been holding. Allie could have been reciting her grocery list for all they knew. He’d had his doubts before, but lately he’d glimpsed a brand-new side of Allie—compassionate and kind. He refused to believe she’d cause anyone harm. Even to Chef, who clearly deserved it.

“Look, I never believed in all that ,” Ella argued, “and I know Allie wouldn’t hurt a soul, but the whole thing gave me chills.” Ella lifted her forearm, where a dusting of translucent hairs stood on end. “I’m getting chills now just thinking about it.”