Too Darn Hot Read online

  Lina grinned. “I don’t know how Gary could have accused you of being immature.”

  “Beats me.”

  The kitchen door swung open, and Lina found herself holding her breath. She let it out when the maitre d’, Cookie D’Angelo, emerged with two dessert-laden plates—respectable-looking bananas Foster—and delivered them to the next table.

  Lina wondered how an Amazon like this—six feet if she was an inch—had ended up with the name Cookie. Her hair was a short platinum cap, her clothes an eclectic blend of colors and styles that thumbed its nose at Madison Avenue but somehow worked admirably on Cookie D’Angelo.

  She stopped at their table. “Hi, Joy. How did you like the Middle Eastern class?”

  Joy attended so many of the biweekly cooking classes held at The Cookhouse that she’d become something of a regular.

  “I loved it. I’ve been practicing my falafel since Wednesday.”

  “I can attest to that,” Lina muttered. Three days of her roommate’s attempts at falafel made even this lousy restaurant look passable. When it came to the culinary arts, Joy had more enthusiasm than talent.

  “Why aren’t you eating your duck, Lina?” Cookie asked.

  Lina closed her eyes. Lord, give me strength.

  Cookie said, “The duck is one of the few things that’s good tonight.” She glanced furtively at the kitchen door and slid into a chair, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “This is hell night, pure and simple. Just when we think it can’t get worse—” from her mobile mouth came the sounds of a bomb whistling to earth and exploding “—another disaster.”

  Joy said, “We already know about the incinerated pork chops.”

  “Lamb chops, and you wouldn’t be smelling them if the range hood didn’t have PMS. On top of that, the dishwasher isn’t working.”

  “That would be Joe, right?” Lina said.

  “Well, that dishwasher isn’t working, either, but I meant the mechanical one. Chrissie’s a no-show, and Tommy and Deirdre had a fight and aren’t playing nice. They’re Eric’s assistants, a couple of local high school kids,” she explained to Lina. “Anyway, the bread is their responsibility.” As if to emphasize her point, Cookie plucked a roll from the linen-lined basket and thumped it soundly on the table. The thing was distressingly durable. “Great kids, but sometimes...” she growled, miming double strangulation.

  Joy shook her head in amazement. “What a night!”

  “It gets better.” Cookie’s body language signaled the coup de grace. “The storm yesterday knocked out our power for something like twenty hours, only we didn’t know it. The freezer... refrigerators...” She wrinkled her nose. “Everything spoiled. And our fish vendor—” she raised her palms in disbelief “—just plain doesn’t show.”

  “Maybe he eloped with Chrissie,” Lina ventured.

  “So we had to cancel all of the appetizers and most of the entrées on tonight’s menu. Then the new produce vendor brings us icky-poo veggies at the very last minute.” She grimaced at the sight of the two untouched salads. “Normally if that happened, Eric would just eighty-six the salads. But seeing as we didn’t have too much else to offer tonight...” She shrugged helplessly.

  Joy shot Lina a look that said, See? I told you there was a logical explanation, which Lina answered with a look that said, Any decent restaurant should be able to handle the occasional crisis without falling apart, though her heart wasn’t in it. She knew that a disasterfest of this magnitude would have brought even the best-run restaurant to its knees. She had to admire Eric for having the grit to roll up his sleeves and forge ahead. No wonder the man looked exhausted.

  She winced inwardly recalling her childish outburst.

  Cookie rose and collected the salad plates, her clunky bracelets jangling. “Adam’s supposed to be busing tables, but since Joe’s had tee many martoonis, the poor kid gets to play galley slave for a night. I better give Betsy a hand, too, now that it’s slowed down out front.” She shrugged. “They call me the maitre dee, but sometimes I feel more like the maitre do. See ya.” She elbowed her way through the kitchen door.

  Lina rose and, once again, flung her napkin on the table.

  Joy frowned. “What are you going to do?”

  “Attempt to pry my foot out of my mouth. Get the check.”

  Chapter Two

  “Who brought the Glenfiddich?” Eric asked. He had one eye on the sizzling pear slices and cherries he was tossing in a skillet, and one eye on Cookie, who was occupied with pouring whiskey over ice in two old-fashioned glasses. The Cookhouse didn’t have a liquor license, which suited him just fine, but the staff readily provided setups and mixers for those diners who brought their own spirits.

  “Stu Cathcart,” Cookie answered. “I told him God will smite him for contaminating single-malt Scotch with ice, but would he listen?”

  The fragrant aroma of cooking fruit filled the kitchen, competing with the glazed duck and roasted potatoes and, yes, scorched lamb chops Provencal. At the central work island, Tommy and Deirdre chopped, measured, and mixed in surly silence. Eric had finally managed to get the two teenagers to suspend hostilities, but it was a fragile cease-fire.

  Thirteen-year-old Adam was scouring a pot at the big steel sink. After months of pleading by the boys, Eric had finally relented and permitted them to help out on Saturday nights, when The Cookhouse operated as a restaurant, and during the cooking classes and private parties that constituted the bulk of the business—provided the boys kept their grades up. Watching his son sweating and muttering over his work, Eric wondered if the kid was having second thoughts.

  “I’ll teach Stu how to take his whiskey neat,” he offered as he moved to the center work island to slice a puff pastry shell and arrange the two halves on a dessert plate. “Just stick a straw in that bottle and hand it over.” A muscle in his jaw twitched.

  The maitre d’ grinned and placed the glasses on a drinks tray. “Wait till quitting time. It’s embarrassing when the chef starts belting out bawdy drinking songs.”

  He returned to the stove, keeping a death grip on the towel-covered handle of his skillet as he snapped his wrist to toss its contents. He stared fixedly at the leaping fruit, but what he saw was the sanctimonious expression on the face of Joy’s friend.

  Lina.

  Just who did she think she was, to mouth off at him like that in front of a roomful of paying customers?

  He asked, “You really think anything could make this night worse?”

  “Probably not.” Cookie sailed out with the drinks.

  Hearing the door reopen immediately, Eric turned, expecting to see Betsy—

  And nearly lost the panful of fruit in midtoss.

  Perhaps the night could get worse after all.

  Lina stood just inside the doorway. Something about her air of self-assurance—the way she spared only a cursory glance for her surroundings before meeting Eric’s gaze—caught him up short. Most customers exhibited some degree of wide-eyed awe in his sanctum. Not Lina.

  Any other time he might have been intrigued, but at the moment he didn’t have the mental energy necessary to sustain a sense of curiosity.

  He had just enough mental energy to notice that Lina’s short, figure-hugging dress was the same striking color as her eyes.

  Sapphire blue.

  To the youngsters working with him, a customer visiting the kitchen was nothing new. Three pairs of eyes regarded Lina with polite indifference. Three young faces returned her tentative smile. Then the kids bent to their tasks once more.

  Squaring her shoulders, she delicately cleared her throat. “Eric—”

  Betsy barreled through the doorway, nearly colliding with her. “The pears?” She plucked up a dessert plate and started slicing a piece of bourbon pecan tart.

  “You got ‘em,” he said.

  He turned his back on Lina and sprinkled brandy over the pear slices and cherries, regulating the flow of liquor with his thumb. A tilt of the pan over the flame, a
nd the contents ignited. After a few moments the flame burned itself out and Eric deftly deposited the fruit on the plate between the puff pastry halves. He placed another piece of pastry on top and then Betsy scooped it up, along with the slice of pecan tart, and hurried out of the kitchen.

  Lina’s shoes clicked on the terra-cotta tiles as she approached him, and reflexively his gaze skimmed down the length of her shapely legs to her feet. Sexy bronze pumps with high heels and pointy, low-cut toes. Eric almost smiled. He’d always been a sucker for toe cleavage.

  He forced his eyes from the distracting sight and began slicing another red pear on a butcher block. “I’m afraid I can’t give you the two-cent tour, Lina. Perhaps another time.”

  He punctuated this statement with a look that was less accommodating: This is my domain. You’re not welcome here.

  Lina seemed to get the message loud and clear. She stopped uncertainly a few feet from him and nervously pushed her hair behind an ear with flawless manicured nails. Her hair was short, thick, and glossy. Stylishly cut. Dark brown, like sable. And probably just as soft.

  “I didn’t come in for a tour. I know you’re, um...busy tonight.”

  Busy. Yeah, you could say that. You could also say overwhelmed, demoralized, and, thanks to you, lady, downright humiliated.

  Tonight’s series of calamities couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Cookhouse was hanging on by a thread as it was. He’d struggled for nearly a year to turn a lifetime of dreams into something solid and tangible, something of which he could be proud.

  He’d promised himself he’d give it till the end of the summer before throwing in the towel. By hook or by crook, he’d scrape by this summer. And then...

  He didn’t want to think about what would happen then.

  The razor-sharp knife in Eric’s proficient hands reduced the pear to a pile of uniform wedges in a matter of seconds. He looked up to find Lina staring at the results.

  She quickly raised her eyes—then averted them. She pushed her hair behind her ear. A pink flush blossomed in her cheeks.

  That was when it hit him. She hadn’t been admiring his expertise, she’d been staring at his hands.

  And whatever she’d been thinking had her beautifully flustered. Interesting.

  He might have a few moments to spare, after all.

  Eric set the knife down and leaned back against the work island. He crossed his arms and calmly regarded his unwelcome visitor. “Okay, you didn’t come for in here for the grand tour. What’s on your mind, Lina?”

  She darted a quick glance at his assistants and cleared her throat. So. She didn’t want an audience. That hadn’t stopped her a few minutes earlier, out in the dining room. That muscle jumped in his jaw again.

  She took a deep breath and closed the distance between them. “Eric, I was unforgivably rude before. I’m sorry.”

  He was mesmerized by the stark sincerity in her eyes. The anger that had felt so good a few short seconds ago came to a skidding halt in the face of Lina’s blushing self-rebuke. He wished he could hold on to his hostility. It made him feel safe.

  He couldn’t say how long the silence stretched between them before faint whispers teased at the edges of his awareness. He turned toward his helpers. In perfect tandem, three heads whipped down and three pairs of hands became very busy.

  Daniel burst through the door with a tray full of dirty dishes, Betsy on his heels.

  “Pecan tart and chocolate wedges,” the waitress announced. “I can handle it.”

  Cookie appeared with a bottle of French cognac. “The Avalons always have to have their postprandial pick-me-up.” She located two snifters.

  Within five seconds, the place had become Disney World during Easter recess.

  “I’d better go,” Lina murmured, not meeting his eyes. She turned to leave.

  Before he realized what he was doing, Eric had caught her arm. He sighed, wondering why he couldn’t leave things as they were. The woman had apologized. As well she should have. Why couldn’t he just let her walk out? Then he’d never have to set eyes on her again.

  He turned to Cookie. “Can you hold the fort for a few minutes?”

  The maitre d’s inquisitive hazel eyes flicked to his visitor for an instant, but all she said was, “Sure thing, boss.”

  “Come on.” Eric took Lina’s soft hand in his and led her through the doorway to the storeroom, where two walls of shelves were crammed with boxes, bags, huge cans, and plastic tubs. He unlocked the outside door and held it open for her. She hesitated for a fraction of a second and then stepped outside with him, into the crisp May night.

  They were behind the restaurant, which was located in a residential area of Rocky Bay. A public park was directly across the street. Traffic was sparse this time of night on the back roads of this little seaside town. Even though they couldn’t see the rolling waves and pristine white sand of Long Island’s South Shore a few blocks away, they could smell the tang of salt in the bracing cool air.

  Eric inhaled deeply, cleansing his lungs. He’d been inside The Cookhouse for over eight hours straight, putting out fires, both literal and figurative. He’d almost forgotten there was a world outside the sultry confines of his kitchen.

  He took a few steps away from Lina and rubbed his eyes, irritated from greasy smoke and exhaustion. He undid the top two buttons of his shirt, then stretched his stiff arms back until his shoulders popped.

  He glanced at Lina. She was watching him in silence. In the dim glow of a streetlight he could just make out the half smile that curved her lush mouth.

  “You look exhausted,” she said quietly.

  “I’ve had better nights.”

  As she stared at him, Eric found himself wondering what she was thinking.

  He asked, “Are you usually so outspoken when you go out to dinner?”

  She seemed to find that amusing. “Always.”

  “Well, don’t hold back on my account. If there’s something more you’d like to add...”

  Her teasing smirk made his breath catch. How could a woman be so obnoxious one moment and so disarmingly enchanting the next? The female of the species surely was a mystery to him.

  She took a few steps toward him, those sexy toe-cleavage shoes click, clicking on the sidewalk. “Cookie explained about your disasters tonight. Under the circumstances, I must say, I have to admire...” She hesitated, rubbing her bare arms.

  “My persistence? You’re cold.” Without thinking, he met her halfway and chafed her goose-bumped arms with his palms. He sometimes did this for the boys during Little League games in early spring when it was still so cold, you could see your breath.

  He looked down. Lina’s eyes were nearly black in the murky half-light, her full, sensual lips slightly parted. Her scent teased his nostrils—something expensive, he had no doubt, with some silly name like Possession or Ecstasy or some such nonsense, but warm and stirring nevertheless. He thought he detected a hint of jasmine....

  Abruptly he dropped his hands. Little League, huh? Month after month of abstinence must’ve finally taken its toll on his mind. This was no frosty morning on a ball field, and this vision in sapphire silk and designer perfume was anything but a pubescent boy in a batter’s helmet and his first cup.

  His hand slowly came up. He lifted a strand of her hair and drew it between his fingers, watching it catch the meager light from the streetlamp.

  Her voice was a shivery whisper. “What are you doing?”

  “I wanted to see if your hair is as soft as sable.”

  She swallowed, her eyes wide. “Is it?”

  “Yes.” He finger-combed the strands back into place.

  “Oh.”

  He could swear she was blushing again, but in this gloom, it was frustratingly hard to tell.

  She grinned crookedly. “Sable, huh?”

  “Trust me. I know my pelts.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  He ran a hand over her chilled arm. “If I had a jacket, I’d offer it, but u
nder the circumstances...”

  “I’m sure you have to get back to work anyway.” She started toward the door.

  “Lina.”

  She turned back.

  A voice inside asked him what he thought he was doing. This wasn’t in the game plan. He wasn’t even sure he knew how to do this anymore....

  “Why don’t you, uh, stay and have dessert? On the house. It’s the least I can do.”

  She hesitated, but he saw the beginnings of a smile. She was about to accept.

  “And if you’d like,” he rushed on before his rational side could interfere, “I could—we could—” Damn, was it this hard when he was courting Ruth all those years ago? “There’s this great little place in Island Park where we could get a drink. And a snack.” He grinned—disarmingly, he hoped. “They don’t serve duck.”

  In the blink of an eye, her features iced up. A moment before, she’d been smiling warmly, even laughing with him. Now her eyes narrowed and her shoulders squared in haughty disapproval. She seemed to gain two inches in height as he watched.

  What had he done wrong? Maybe they changed the way this is done, and no one had bothered to tell him.

  She glanced away, as if the sight of him were somehow offensive. “That won’t be possible. I came with Joy.”

  “No problem. I’d be happy to drive you home later—”

  “No.” Lina spun on her heel and click, clicked back to the door, but not before impaling him with a look designed to wither whatever was left of his masculine ego.

  He stared at the door long after it slammed.

  Damn. Someone had changed the rules.

  Chapter Three

  “You know what you need.” Joy pulled a clean but wrinkled T-shirt of Lina’s—featuring Mr. Spock with his hand raised in a Vulcan greeting—out of a half-full laundry basket. She folded the shirt and added it to one of the growing piles on the dining table.

  Lina groaned. She didn’t have to look up from the towel she was folding to see her roommate’s leer. “Give it up, Joy.”

  “I don’t get it. All through your awful divorce, you kept saying, `Once I’m a free woman, watch out, fellas!’” She shoved a pile of panties aside to make room for dish towels. “Big talk. What happened to Miss Sexual Revolution?”