The Chef's Choice: The Chef's Choice

And felt a flare of heat that had nothing to do with the food.

He was watching her again with that naked hunger in his eyes. She held the fork but he was the one who looked starved—and she was the main course. He stepped closer to her, his gaze never wavering.

“You think I can make your mouth happy now,” he murmured into her ear, “just wait."

She swallowed. “Dream on.”

“Remind me to tell you what’s been happening in my dreams lately,” he said softly. “I think you’ll find it very interesting."

There were glints of gold in those dark eyes, she realized as she stared back helplessly, like sparks at midnight. And his mouth had been so soft. Nearby, the rest of the staff were oblivious, but the feeding frenzy was beginning to die down. She moistened her lips. “This isn’t the place or the time."

“Give me another place and another time, then.”

“Later,” was the best she could do. “Right now, we need to worry about dinner service."

“And later we’ll worry about something else.”

The dining room, with its broad sweep of windows looking out over Grace Harbor, had always been one of her favorite places at the inn. Antique maps of the Maine Coast dotted the pale blue walls, rugs covered the wide-planked maple floors. Atop each snowy-white tablecloth sat a glass storm lantern with a flickering candle. Outside, the sailboats in the marina bobbed on water stained gold by the last rays of the setting sun.

It had been a while since she’d waited tables. She’d forgotten just how exhausting it could be. By the end of the first hour, she’d discovered that her new black shoes pinched; by the second, she’d managed to punch a hole in her finger with the corkscrew. By the third, her arms were leaden from carrying heavy plates.

It could’ve been worse—at least the servers didn’t have to haul the meals from kitchen to table. That honor fell to the runners, who carted the heavy trays of dishes out to a station in the dining room where Cady and the other waiters delivered them to waiting diners. Not that the arrangement had kept her from burning herself on a plate that had been broiled under the salamander a little too long. All things considered, though, she’d probably gotten off easy.

“Waitress, over here.”

Or maybe not.

She turned to see a disgruntled-looking man waving at her from a table in the corner. The flesh of his neck spilled over his collar; his comb-over didn’t hide the pink shine of his scalp. The hint of embarrassment in the face of his companion across the table warned Cady that it wasn’t his incipient baldness that had made him unhappy, though.

She gave him her best smile. “How are your meals?” she asked.

“Terrible.” The man’s face was dark with displeasure.

“What seems to be the problem?”

“I ordered fois gras glazed tenderloin, medium well. It’s not glazed, it’s all dried out, including the meat."

Cady glanced at the plate. “It looks right to me, sir. That’s the way the dish is made."

“Well, that’s not the way it sounds from the description. You can’t serve meat dry like this. It needs some kind of a sauce."

Perfect. Cady could just imagine walking into the kitchen and delivering that particular bit of news to Damon. She’d wind up with the plate launched at her head, if she weren’t careful. Or the customer tossed into the parking lot.

“I think it’s dry because you asked for medium well, sir. I did warn you that this cut of meat is very difficult to cook anywhere past medium. The chef recommends that if you want something more well-done, you order the rib eye.”

“If I’d wanted the rib eye, I would have ordered the rib eye,” he said peevishly. “Iordered the tenderloin."

“But, sir—”

“No buts. I want it sent back.”

“Walter.” His companion looked embarrassed.

“I want my dinner,” he returned, obstinacy in the very set of his shoulders.

Cady sighed. “I’ll take it back, sir. It’ll just be a few minutes.”

Now this, she thought, had all the makings of a disaster.

During one renovation or other, a McBain had installed a double set of sliding doors between the dining room and the kitchen, separated by a vestibule. The arrangement insulated the dining room from the racket of the kitchen. It also gave Cady brief refuge before facing Damon with the unwelcome news that a customer had had the temerity to suggest that not only had they overcooked the tenderloin but that the very concept of the dish was faulty.

She took a deep breath and walked through the second set of doors.

The unbroken hot surface of the stove was festooned with steaming kettles of soup and boiling pasta water and what looked like dozens of sauté pans of sizzling meat and fish. On a shelf above the stovetop, dozens more clean sauté pans sat waiting, flanked on either end by salamanders for warming finished plates or adding a final broil.

In the lane between the stove line and the counter stood the trio of white-aproned line chefs. At the far end, quick-handed Roman manned the grill and deep fryer; in the middle was Rosalie, on veg and pasta; and nearest Cady, on sauté, stood Damon.

During Nathan’s tenure, the scene had been one of more than a little chaos, with insults and ribald jokes flying thick and fast above the sound of speed metal from the radio. Now, the room was almost eerily quiet. Gone was the music, gone was the sense of untidy confusion. In its place was a focused calm. The only voices were those of the expediter, Andy, reading off the orders as they printed out on the machine in the corner, and Damon repeating them.

The printer chattered. “One tenderloin, one salmon, two lobster,” Andy called out.

“One tenderloin, one salmon, two lobster,” Damon echoed.

Watching the group at work was a bit like watching a ballet because for all the quiet, the line was the scene of rapid, purposeful activity so synchronized it could have been choreographed. The cooks pivoted between stove and counter, passing plates to one another, saucing and garnishing, each of them working on three and four dishes simultaneously.

And as in a ballet, there was always one who was impossible to stop watching. Damon worked the end of the line in constant motion, bending, reaching, flipping, stirring, shaking a sauté pan with one hand while seasoning an entrée with the other. And, she swore, plating up with a third. There was a precision to his movements and more than a little grace, as though he were indeed going through the moves of a dance. He seemed totally absorbed in the process, bending over every plate as he worked with a swift, silent, almost ferocious concentration.

“Two scallop, veal medium rare, rib eye well,” Andy called out.

“Two scallop, veal medium rare, rib eye dead.” Damon reached to the shelf above the stove line for a trio of sauté pans, setting them on the stove to heat.

“One rib eye dead,” echoed Roman with a grin, slapping the cut on the grill.

Grabbing a cylindrical bain-marie from its simmering water bath, Damon ladled a sauce into a fourth pan and put it on a back burner to reduce. “Where are we at on table ten?” he asked, moving a sizzling pan of what looked like tenderloin from stovetop to oven.

“Ready on the rib eye, one salmon in the salamander, one on the grill,” Roman responded.

“Risotto’s done. One minute on the lobsters,” put in Rosalie, winding pasta around a meat fork to provide a bed for one of her lobster tails.

By the time she’d finished speaking, Damon had the veal seasoned and into the pan with the shallots to sear off. “Okay, stop where you are on the last order. Let’s focus on getting this eight-top out.” Reaching into one of the ovens, he pulled out two sauté pans, each with a piece of meat that was finished cooking. Lamb loin, Cady recognized.

He flipped the meat onto the cutting board and deftly sliced each loin into medallions, leaving them together like a sideways stack of poker chips. Even as he reached out, Rosalie passed him a pair of plates with mashed potatoes piled in one corner. He pulled a bubbling sauté pan of what looked like wine sauce from the stove and drizzled a circle onto each plate, then used his knife to lay the stack of medallions in the middle, pressing them gently over so that the perfect rounds of lamb lay against one another in the ring of red.

“Veg, Rosalie,” he said, sliding over the two plates so she could add the tiniest zucchini and yellow squash Cady had ever seen. Meanwhile, Rosalie had traded him her two lobster plates. With a squeeze bottle, he added a few precise dots of lemon butter sauce around the edges of each, adhering to some vision that only he could see.

Meanwhile, Andy the expediter was madly sprinkling sliver-thin parsley chiffonade over the lamb and risotto and sticking what looked suspiciously like fancy potato chips into the top of the mashed potatoes. He and Damon slid the plates across the counter to the pass.

Less than a minute had elapsed.

“All right, table ten up,” Damon called. “Let’s go, people. Hands on hot food.” He clapped his hands. The runners swarmed in.

Cady cleared her throat. “Chef?” she said.

Damon turned from adding knobs of butter to two of his sauté pans. He started to flash a smile. Until he saw the plate in her hands. “What’s that?"

“Fois gras glazed tenderloin from table four.”

“I can see that.” He flipped the veal. “The question is what is it doing back in the kitchen?"

This was the delicate part, she thought. Little was more irritating to a chef than having to interrupt the complicated dance of getting orders out the door to redo a plate he’d thought was safely gone. And when that chef was Damon Hurst, almost anything could happen.

“The customer isn’t happy. He says it’s too dry. He wants a sauce."

Damon’s eyes narrowed. “Table four, that was medium well, right?”

Cady nodded.

“Well, yeah, it’s dry. It’s been cooked to death.”

“I tried to suggest the rib eye, but he didn’t want to hear it.”

“Roman, toss this one in the Frialator,” Damon directed, slapping a new piece of tenderloin onto a sizzle platter and sliding it down the counter as if he were playing kitchen shuffleboard. “Set phasers for medium well."

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Roman grinned.

Damon turned back to the stove to get the veal in the oven and add scallops to the other two sauté pans. “Now what’s his sauce issue?"

“He says when he saw glazed, he wasn’t expecting a crust,” Cady said.

“Did you tell him that’s how the dish is made?”

“He didn’t want to listen to me.” “Maybe he’ll listen to me,” Damon said with an edge to his voice.

The printer chattered. “Three lobster, one scallop, two tenderloin medium, one lamb rare,” Andy read. “I don’t really think—”

“I’ve got to get some entrées plated,” Damon interrupted.

“But what do I tell him?” Cady asked desperately.

“Leave it to me. I know how to handle these kinds of idiots. Now go take care of your tables.” He turned away, hands already moving in a blur.

Chapter Eight

Cady went back out to the dining room, mind buzzing. On the positive side, he hadn’t actually gone ballistic. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? If he’d planned to kick them out, wouldn’t he have stormed into the dining room?

Leave it to me. I know how to handle these kinds of idiots.

He’d looked well and truly ticked. And no matter how she tried to respin what he’d said, it didn’t sound good. She’d seen it before on camera, seen that intensity flare into scorching temper.

Well, it wasn’t going to happen here. Clamping her jaw tight, she headed for the kitchen just as Damon strode out. She moved to intercept him. “Don’t even think about it."

“Think about what?” he asked without stopping.

“Kicking him out.” Cady followed hot on his heels.

“It sounds to me like he’s got it coming.”

“My parents don’t.”

“Leave this to me,” he told her. “I’ll deal with it.”

That was what she was afraid of. With every minute Damon was out of the kitchen, the line fell further and further behind. He wouldn’t be in the dining room unless he was planning something.

The part of her that had been predicting disaster should have felt unsurprised—vindicated, even—to see it all play out as she’d predicted. But, she suddenly realized, there was another part of her that had begun to hope for something different. There was another part of her that had begun to believe things had changed.

“You are not going to make a scene,” she hissed, seizing his arm to tug him behind the high barrier of the empty waiters’ station. “Don’t you dare kick him out."

“Why not?” He stepped toward her, backing her into the wood of the barrier. “Give me a good reason not to, just one."

She could hear the suppressed anger in his voice and she knew suddenly he wasn’t talking about a dissatisfied customer.

Dark eyes, simmering intensity, a stare that didn’t ask but demanded. Her hand fell away from his arm as she breathed in slowly. “This isn’t the—“

“Time or place.” Damon caught her wrists. “You say that a lot. You ask me, it’s long past the time and place."

A treacherous weakness began to seep through her. “Not here,” she said desperately.

“Then where? When?” “Later, all right?” “At the end of the night?” “Whatever you want, just don’t—” “Good.” And he turned toward the table before she could catch him.

“Good evening,” he said to the couple, inclining his head. “I’m your chef, Damon Hurst. I hear you’re not happy with your meal."

“It was terrible,” the balding man grumped. “Poorly cooked, not what the menu promised."

“I see.” She could see the tension in Damon’s shoulders.

“What do you intend to do about it?”

Here it came, Cady thought, and stepped forward. “Damon, we—“

“I’ve made you a new entrée.” Damon nodded to a runner who set a fresh plate before the man.

“What about my wife? Her dinner’s stone-cold by now.”

“Walter, it’s not a problem,” the woman began.

“I thought that might happen,” Damon said, even as the runner whisked her plate away and set down another.

Cady gaped.

“What is this?” The man poked at the meat on his plate.

“Beef tenderloin with a truffled fois gras sauce I whipped up,” Damon told him. “It’s got a bit of wine, some caramelized shallots."

The man took a bite and chewed. “Huh.” He chewed some more. “It’s good.” Swiftly, he cut another piece. “Really good. Isabel, you’ve got to try this."

But Isabel wasn’t listening. She was staring at Damon. “Damon Hurst,” she said slowly as though just registering the words. “You’re that chef, aren’t you? The one on TV?"

“Now and then,” he said.

“Oh, I love your show. I can’t believe we’ve had your food. The girls in my bridge club will be so jealous."

“I’m here Tuesday through Saturday. Tell them to come in. What’s your name?"

“Isabel Cottler,” she supplied. “This is my husband, Walter.”

“Isabel, tell your friends to give the waiter your name when they come. I’ll take special care of them."

“Oh!” She pinkened. “I will, you can be sure. Thank you so much."

“No, thank you.”

Stunned, Cady watched as he sketched a small bow and left them to their dinners.

“What happened to the guy who used to throw customers out into the street?” she asked as she followed him back to the kitchen.

“Who wants to be predictable?” He stopped in the vestibule and turned to her. “Besides, I got something out of it."

Her pulse bumped. “What I said doesn’t count. You plated new entrées. You were never planning to kick them out."

“We made a bargain.”

“I have to go check my tables,” she retorted.

But before she could escape, he leaned in and brushed his lips over hers. “You do that. I’ll see you when service is through.” And he stepped through the doors into the kitchen, leaving her standing there.

The final hours of dinner service passed by in a blur of taking orders, delivering plates, opening wine. When Cady saw the last customers rise to leave, she should have felt relief at the prospect of release. Instead, she just felt disoriented.

Damon. She didn’t know what to think. Nothing about him was as she’d expected. Instead of partying into the wee hours and showing up at work in the late afternoon, he was in the kitchen at the crack of dawn every morning. Instead of shouting at his staff, he presided over a kitchen that was positively serene. Instead of kicking out rude customers, he charmed them.

And somehow, when she hadn’t been paying attention, he’d charmed her.

She’d agreed to something in those desperate moments in the dining room, though she wasn’t sure what. And she wasn’t at all sure how she felt about it. Nerves, yes. Anticipation, yes. And confusion. She didn’t like confusion, she never had, and so she took her time with her after-hours duties, changing tablecloths, refilling salt cellars, putting off heading to the kitchen to the last possible moment.

She couldn’t say whether it was relief or disappointment that hit when she finally walked through the sliding doors only to find the kitchen cleared out. The rest of the floor staff was long gone, the line cooks had finished cleaning up and headed to the locker room to change. Only Denny, the kitchen porter, remained for the thankless job of washing the mountain of dishes and pans, taking out the rubbish, mopping the floors and counters for the new day.

Damon was nowhere to be found.

Which was good news. Definitely good news, she thought as she retrieved her keys and jacket from the now-empty locker room and slammed bad-temperedly out the back door. A woman would be out of her mind to take the risk of getting involved with Damon Hurst, with that mind-melting stare that could make her think she really wanted his kisses, wanted his touch, wanted his—

“It’s about time.”

Cady froze.

“I was beginning to wonder whether you were moving in.” Damon stepped out of the shadows into the pool of light outside the door. He wore jeans and an open-collared paisley shirt under his leather jacket. With his hair loose, his jaw dark with a full day’s growth, he looked like an artist who’d escaped his garret. The naked bulb overhead threw his eyes into shadow.

Nerves, anticipation, confusion. Cady swallowed. “I had things to do."

“We still do.”

“You can’t hold me to that. That was extortion.”

“Hardly. You were free to say no.”

Nerves, anticipation, confusion.

“You knew I thought you were going to kick them out.”

“Maybe I meant to.” “After you’d already made up plates?” “It doesn’t matter,” he said, watching her with that unwavering stare. “I think we have some unfinished business.” Nerves, anticipation, confusion. Nerves won.

“It’s twelve-thirty in the morning. I think the business can wait.” And a part of her wasn’t at all sure she could handle what that business might be. She started toward the parking area, tucked in pockets among the stands of pines that surrounded them.

And Damon walked beside her, through the shadows. “I didn’t have you picked for the type who’d go back on her word."

She snapped her head around to stare at him in the dimness. “I’m not."

“So?”

“So this isn’t the place to have some big talk. We both know there are too many people around."

“Fewer all the time,” Damon observed as the last stragglers headed for the exit. “And who said I wanted to talk?"

The thick pines loomed around them, breaking the wash of illumination from the arc lamps into stripes of bright and dark. Their feet crunched on the pine needles underfoot. Then, with a flash of taillights, the final car drove away and they were alone.

Cady stopped at the side of her truck and turned to face him. Against her will, anticipation began to thrum inside her.

He fingered her bow tie. “You stopped me in my tracks tonight when I saw you."

“It’s just the tuxedo.”

When he looked her up and down, she felt his gaze as surely as any touch. “No,” he said simply. “I’m pretty confident it’s got nothing to do with the tux."

Her mouth went dry. He watched her with the same intensity as when he was at work, creating, but now it was all focused on her.

“Why didn’t you make a scene with that diner tonight?” she asked. Abruptly, it seemed vital to know. “He was obnoxious. Why didn’t you kick him out? It’s what you would have done in New York."

Damon moved his shoulders. “This isn’t New York.”

“Is that why you don’t party all night anymore?”

He reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear. “I can think of other things I’d rather do."

His fingers lingered against her cheek and Cady felt a flip in her stomach. It was only a light touch and yet she was trembling.

Nerves, anticipation, confusion.

“Why are you here?” she managed.

“To cook.” He traced his fingers down the side of her throat. “That’s what I do."

“You can do that anywhere.”

“I’d rather do it here.”

Cady moistened her lips, never taking her eyes from his. “I don’t know what to think about you.” “Do you have to?”

It was imperative, somehow. But his hand was slipping back to curve around her neck, leaving a trail of heat that turned all her muscles liquid. She was sinking into lassitude and heat and wanting.

And wanting.

“I need to know,” she murmured as he bent his head to hers. “I need …"

“What?” he whispered.

And then his mouth was on hers.

They had no business kissing out here in the parking lot where anyone could see them; Cady knew it but she couldn’t make it matter. It wasn’t the time, it wasn’t the place, but the whole notion of right time and right place didn’t seem important anymore. They could have been in a million different places at a million different times and still all she would have been able to register would be the heat of his mouth on hers.

He had a reputation as a volatile genius, as an unapologetic player. She’d never expected gentleness from him. Yet it was gentleness he gave; sweet, persuasive caresses that undermined her defenses and left her helpless to do anything but sink into the warmth and the pleasure.

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