Kristin Hardy - The Chef's Choice - The Chef's Choice

“Not one of you kids gives me any respect,” Ian complained.

“I know. You’re so maltreated,” she soothed, leaning in to kiss his forehead. “Now be quiet and rest. Better yet, go back to the house and lie down."

“I can’t do that. One of the waiters called in sick. I’ve got to fill in for him tonight and there’s way too much to get done before then."

“You’re not working anybody’s shift. I’ll take it.”

Ian snorted. “You hate waiting tables more than you hate working the front desk."

“What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” She flashed him a grin before turning for the stairs. “Besides, I can use the tips."

Damon was waiting for her when she reached the bottom. “He okay?"

Her smile faded. “Just a cold that’s coming back,” she said. “He tries to do too much sometimes. It happens when your job description includes everything."

Damon glanced over at the array of slatted wooden chairs and snack tables outside the storage shed. “Where are all those going?"

“On the decks of the guesthouses.”

“Lotta stairs,” he observed.

“You’ve noticed that?”

“I guess maybe you could use some help.”

“Speaking of jobs, shouldn’t you be in slinging hash?”

“I get time off for good behavior,” he told her.

“I’ll skip pointing out the obvious because we need to get these chairs out,” she said. “If you’re serious about the offer, we need two chairs on each deck, plus a snack table."

“You outsourcing my job?” Tucker demanded from behind her.

Cady rolled her eyes. “In case you two haven’t met, Damon, this is my cousin Tucker McBain, who runs the marina. Tucker, this is Damon Hurst, the new chef at the restaurant."

Tucker had sun-streaked brown hair and the easy grin of a man who spent his life on the water he loved. He also had the McBain height that only Cady had somehow missed inheriting. It gave him an appearance of lankiness that was deceptive; a person who looked carefully would see the muscle and power Tucker had developed over years of running the marina and working his lines of lobster pots. A person who underestimated him would be both foolish and sorry.

“Now she’s raiding the kitchen for conscript labor.” Tucker shook hands with Damon. “She’s out of control."

“Clearly.”

“So, you in on this gig?”

“Long as we finish it before dinner service starts,” Damon said.

“We’d better finish earlier than that,” Cady told them. “I have to go change."

Tucker raised a brow. “Jeans and a T-shirt not dressy enough for planting flowers?"

She wrinkled her nose at him. “I’ve got to fill in for one of the waiters during dinner tonight."

The two men stared. “You?” Damon asked.

“What about me?”

“Well, getting let loose on the unsuspecting general public, for one."

Her brows drew down. “Hey, it’s either me or Dad and he looks to me like he needs the night off."

“Uncle Ian knows about this?” Tucker shook his head. “He must be sick if he’s agreed."

“Can we just move the chairs, please?” Cady muttered.

Tucker grabbed a chair and hoisted it with a grunt. “What the hell are these things made of, iron?"

“Teak,” Cady supplied. “It’s heavy.”

“No kidding.”

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll take the chairs for guesthouse one, you guys can get guesthouse two."

Tucker eyed Damon. “She likes to run things.” “So I’ve noticed.”

Ignoring them, Cady carried a chair toward the stairs of a guesthouse. She stopped at the bottom step, eyeing the treads.

“Overambitious, too,” said Tucker, stepping around her with the chair he carried.

“Yep. And permanently cranky,” Damon added, neatly lifting the Adirondack out of Cady’s hands, ignoring her squawk of protest.

“You’re a good judge of character,” Tucker approved as they began climbing the stairs.

“It doesn’t take a genius and it doesn’t take long,” Damon said.

“You can talk about me like I’m actually here, you know.” Cady’s voice was testy as she carried up the little drinks table. “And I didn’t need you to carry that chair for me."

“You hear something?” Damon asked Tucker.

“Probably the wind in the trees.” Tucker reached the deck and set down his chair with a sigh of relief.

“Wind from somewhere,” Damon added.

“Funny, guys,” Cady said, scowling. “How’d you get to be so funny?"

“Just natural talent,” Tucker said modestly.

Hauling furniture wouldn’t have been his choice of a way to spend a couple of hours, Damon thought as he fired entrées for the staff meal, but all things considered, it hadn’t been bad. Not that he was happy to see Ian McBain sick, but schlepping chairs had been a good excuse to be outside. And to spend time with Cady.

He’d kept his distance after that afternoon in the greenhouse, in part to give her space, in part to give himself time to get his head together. He was supposed to be walking the straight and narrow now, not turning around to make the same mistakes with the same kinds of people. But Cady wasn’t quite like anybody he could think of, and he wasn’t at all sure that she was a mistake.

He finished up another plate and slid it across the steel counter under the overhead shelf to the pass where waiters picked up plates. The servers were beginning to crowd around

like cats at the sound of a can opener. Even as they were filling the butter dishes for the bread baskets and topping off salt, pepper and cream containers, they could smell the food. They knew the staff meal was near.

Staff meal or family meal was traditionally a haphazard exercise in turning leftovers and scraps not fit for diners into something vaguely edible to keep floor and kitchen staff going through service. Damon had never subscribed to that approach, though. In France, Descour had always served family meal at the table, with plates and napkins and real food. Treat the staff right and they’ll treat the customers right, was his theory. A good one. And Damon had carried it out ever since.

Of course, that didn’t mean that family meal couldn’t double as the waiters’ meeting and tasting. Especially now, when he was shifting the old menu over to the new one by a half-dozen dishes a night. The servers needed to taste the new entrées and appetizers, see how to place them on the table, know the ingredients and presentation so they could answer questions, if necessary.

With a quick flick of the wrist, he drizzled brilliant green chive oil around the last plate and pushed it over to the pass. “Okay, listen up, people. We’re still in the process of changing over the menu. Tonight, we’re launching the new seafood—“

And then Cady walked in and his train of thought didn’t just derail. It went right off the damned trestle.

He’d seen her already that day, watched her in her worn jeans and T-shirt as she’d planted flowers, moved furniture. Watched her and tried not to remember how she’d felt in his arms. But the woman who walked in wearing the uniform of white tuxedo jacket and narrow black skirt bore no resemblance to that Cady at all.

Slender, he’d no idea she was so slender. Perhaps it was the formal clothing, but she looked graceful, taller somehow. The skirt was far from short, almost demure, and yet it seemed almost indecent as it revealed a pair of startlingly lovely legs. She’d drawn her hair back with combs. There was a delicacy to her face, he saw now, one he’d never fully appreciated. Her mouth looked soft and tempting beyond all sense.

She’d kissed him with those lips, kissed him and gasped against him and spun his world right around. And though he could tell himself that he shouldn’t have done it, he wasn’t a damned bit sorry. And, he realized, he had every intention of doing it again.