Her Las Vegas Wedding

The three chitchatted a bit about a successful New York bakery chain and how they went about their expansion.

Shane hadn’t seen Reg in a couple of weeks. Something more than his usual worries was bothering him. He’d thought his brother had been in favor of this friendly marriage to Audrey. Maybe something had changed. He needed to speak with him privately.

But in between snippets of conversation, Audrey took bite after bite of the cake. Until it was gone. She made a final swirl around the plate with her fork to capture any bits that might have been left behind.

Then she pointed to Reg’s plate. “Are you going to finish yours?”

Gotcha! A pirate grin slashed across Shane’s mouth. After she’d barely eaten the dinner, he finally had her. “Now we see what you like, Sugar.”

* * *

Audrey swiped the key card to her bungalow, opened the door and immediately eyed the cardboard cutout of Shane she had removed from the restaurant entrance earlier. “What are you looking at?” she snapped at the photo, which seemed to have a raised eyebrow she didn’t remember from earlier.

No sooner had she arrived in Vegas than three handsome men had overwhelmed her. One was her father. She knew Daniel wanted the best for her and his concern for her unmarried status was at least half of his motivation in the matchmaking. Two tall, dark and handsome brothers were the other players.

The idea of a marriage being arranged and handed to her in a neat organized file was a relief. At twenty-eight, she knew she had decades of work ahead of her to keep up the Girard legacy that her father, and his father before him, had worked so hard to build. Yet she knew that going it completely alone could be a hard path.

A distant and uncaring mother had cured her of any silly dreams about a love that takes a whole heart. She would never set herself up for that kind of hurt again. Words like allegiance and devotion had been removed from her dictionary. Sensible and logical were welcome.

Timing the wedding to coincide with the opening was a good move. Audrey hoped Reg felt the same way. He had never gotten around to telling her what he wanted to talk to her about tonight, partially because he became invisible every time his brother burst into the dining room.

Shane was a thunderstorm of a man, all mysterious dark skies and punishing rain. Obviously still not over the death of his wife, he hulked under a cloud. That obsession with what she was, and wasn’t, eating had been so annoying. Audrey snarked at the photo of him in the corner. How smug he had become when she couldn’t stop eating that unbelievably scrumptious tres leches cake.

Throwing one of her suitcases up on the bed, she started to unpack as she hadn’t had time to earlier. In a month she’d be married to Reg. There was no reason to care what the other Murphy brother thought of her. Yet when she unzipped the interior, she almost convinced herself that she had to open the flap in a direction that blocked Shane’s photo from seeing what was inside. Was she crazy?

Okay, Shane. Here it is, she thought defensively as she pulled the first item from the case. Cookies. Yes, she had brought package upon package of her favorite cookies from Philadelphia! She didn’t know if they would carry them in Vegas stores so she had stuffed as many as she could into her luggage. And not just cookies. There were boxes of candy from a famous Philadelphia chocolatier, too. There was no way she could live without those. When she ran out, she’d order more online.

“I like sweets. So what?” she challenged Shane’s disapproving expression. He had no business becoming the third man prying into her affairs. She should just get that six feet and two inches of cardboard out of the bungalow tonight and be done with it. Hopefully Reg would ask for it tomorrow.

Yet somehow she liked it right where it was. Those deep, dark eyes of Shane’s were magnets that pulled her in and wouldn’t let go. She wanted to dive into those eyes, to understand the complexity, agony and secrets she knew lay beneath them. As nice as the furnishings in the suite were, Shane was clearly the focal point.

Once she emptied her suitcases, she picked out a nightgown and went to change in the bathroom so as not to let Shane’s photo see her naked. Bonkers, she confirmed to herself, but did it anyway.

After she pulled back the covers on the bed and climbed in, she realized she wasn’t the slightest bit tired. So she didn’t turn off the bedside lamp. She examined Shane’s full lips. Wondered how that beard stubble would feel against the delicate skin of her neck. Scratchy and rough in the most divine way, she figured. And she pondered his tangle of dark hair, the snug fit of his jeans, those leather cord bracelets!

No, Audrey didn’t lie down and go to sleep. Instead, she bolstered up her pillows. Leaned back and laced her fingers behind her head.

She was going to win this staredown with Shane.

Even if it took all night.

* * *

Shane leaned back against one of the archways in the wedding pavilion, an outdoor terrace space shaded by an awning and edged by long rectangular planters filled with desert succulents. The late afternoon sun had moved toward the mountains and he crossed one leg over the other and folded his arms across his chest to settle in for a gander at the spectacle at hand. The pain-in-the-behind photographer who had just tortured him through a session in the restaurant was now at work on Audrey and Reg.

The guy and his assistant buzzed around like bees. Positioning Reg’s hand a couple of inches higher, repinning one lock of Audrey’s glossy hair, patting Reg’s face with a cloth.

Shane didn’t like the way Audrey was fashioned today. Was that some stylist’s idea of the blushing bride to be? The updo hair was far too prim for someone as sexy as Audrey. The floral-print dress and pink shoes looked too country club. That sweet image was pretty on some women. But it just wasn’t Audrey. He wanted to smear that pink lipstick right off of her mouth.

He chuckled to himself as the bees swarmed around the happy couple, posing them this way or that. If it was up to him, he would have Audrey in a bloodred dress cut way down to there, fitted enough to hug every one of her tempting curves. He’d leave that exquisite blond hair unfastened and free. And he wouldn’t allow a speck of makeup to come between her smoothness and his hands or mouth.

There he went again, conjuring up improper images about the woman who was betrothed to his brother! And even if she wasn’t, he was never going to marry again so he didn’t need to be fantasizing about what his fiancée would wear in their engagement photos. Ridiculous.

Daniel Girard appeared from the other end of the pavilion nicely dressed in a beige suit.

Shane had on his signature chef’s coat and jeans.

“Daniel, Shane, we’re ready to bring you in for a couple of shots,” the head bee called.

With a roll of the eyes, Shane trudged over. The Murphy brothers with their partners in business, and now in life, the Girards. Shane was apparently about to become Audrey’s brother-in-law.

He had burned the few photos of him and Melina that they had taken the day they went to a justice of the peace in New York to become a legally married couple. It had been a no-fuss ceremony. Afterward, they’d had lunch with Reg, Shane’s parents and Melina’s mother. Melina’s estranged father was not in attendance.

When he looked back on it, Shane wasn’t really sure why he had agreed to marry Melina. It was she who’d wanted to. As a young man with the level of fame the restaurants brought, Shane attracted more than his fair share of chef groupies. He supposed Melina pressured him into marriage to try to insure his fidelity. The truth was that he’d been so immersed in cooking and the restaurants at that point, she needn’t have worried. Though he did seek acclaim, he had no interest in sexual dalliances.

Melina was an outcast blueblood. Her father, a wildly successful mogul overseas, had cut her off because of her party lifestyle, but that hadn’t changed her ways. Shane met her at an art gallery opening after he had returned to New York once the LA restaurant was up and running.

She was an eccentric who sang in a band. As a young star chef, Shane had temporarily enjoyed the diversion of her rock ’n’ roll crowd, who were in great contrast to the luminaries of New York who came into the restaurant.

But he’d tired of the superficiality of Melina’s orbit. And had become acutely aware that they were not growing closer. They were not turning marriage into a foundation to stand on together. Their apartment was not a home.

It had been a reckless and immature decision to marry Melina. Even their nuptials were a spur-of-the-moment plan on a Tuesday afternoon. They had never been right together.

His four years with her were now comingled with memories regarding the horror of her death. The phone call from the highway patrol. Police officers who were gracious enough to come to the cabin to pick him up during the snowstorm and drive him to identify his wife’s body.

Shane hadn’t even been a guest at a wedding in many years, so he’d forgotten about all of the pomplike engagement photos. Now, the next wedding he’d attend would be his brother’s. Studying Audrey again, whose mere being seemed to light something buried down inside of him, he simply couldn’t picture her and his brother together.

Reg seemed ill at ease with this photo shoot, breaking frequently to text. They hadn’t had a chance to talk privately last night, but Shane could tell his brother was bearing the weight of the world on his slim shoulders.

After the last photos were taken and the bees left, Reg’s phone rang and he took the call. Shane didn’t like the look of alarm that came over his face. “Rick in New York.” Reg identified the caller. “Shane, take Audrey into the kitchen and show her the progress you’ve made on the cookbook so far.”

“Alright, let’s go.” Shane took Audrey by her hand, which was even tinier and softer than he’d imagined it was going to be, and tugged her in his direction. There wasn’t much to show her but maybe it was time he assessed what he had.

In the restaurant kitchen, Shane rifled through the papers on his desk, all of which needed his attention. From under them he pulled a tattered manila folder. He dumped its contents onto a countertop.

Audrey looked surprised but managed a pursed lip.

“This is how I work,” he said.

Ideas for recipes were written on food-stained pieces of paper. On napkins where the ink had smeared. On sticky notes that were stuck together. On the backs of packing slips from food deliveries. On shards of cardboard he’d torn from a box. There was one written on a section of a dirty apron.

“O...kay,” Audrey prompted, “tell me exactly what’s here.”

He glanced down to the front of the floral dress she was wearing for the photo shoot. The pattern of the fabric was relentless in its repetition of pink, yellow and orange flowers. Begonias, if he had to guess. The way she filled out the dress sent his mind wondering about what sweet scents and earthly miracles he might find beneath the thin material.

Shane wanted to know what was under the dress, both literally and figuratively. She was an accomplished woman yet he thought there was something untouched and undernurtured in her.

He admonished himself for again thinking of his brother’s soon-to-be bride, although he took a strange reassurance in the fact that this was an arranged marriage between people who were not in love.

Still, it was nothing he had any business getting involved in.

What he needed to concentrate on were these scraps of paper that were to become one of those sleek and expensive cookbooks that people laid on their coffee table as a design accessory and never cooked from. A book whose pages held close-up pictures of glistening grapes and of Shane tossing a skillet of wild mushrooms.

“These are my notes.” A scrap from the pile caught his eye. “Feijoada.”

He’d scribbled that idea over a year ago. When Reg had asked him to think about how to make use of the lesser cuts of pork he had left over from other recipes. “I’ve seen Brazilians throw everything into this stew, the ears, the snout, all of it. The whole pot simmers with the black beans for a long time and you squeeze the flavor out of every morsel.”

“Let’s see what you have,” Audrey offered. She leaned close to him to read the note together.

His tendons tightened at the sweet smell of her hair.

“There are no amounts for the ingredients,” she observed.

“Obviously.”

“How are we going to use these notes for recipes then?”

“I have no idea.”

“How do you get the dishes to taste the same every time if you don’t have the measurements written down?”

“I feel it. They don’t come out exactly the same every time.”

“You feel it.” She bit her lip. “Then how would someone at home be able to cook them?”

“They wouldn’t.”

Shane watched Audrey’s expression go from irritated to intelligent as she thought through what she should say next. “You’re not at Shane’s Table in New York and Los Angeles cooking every single dish. How does your staff prepare the food?”

“Of course the restaurant menu recipes are written down. We’ll use a few Shane’s Table guest favorites for the book. But it’s supposed to be all new food. Reg promised we’d deliver fresh, rustic and regional, and I’m still working on the dishes. The measurements are the least of my problems.”

Audrey took a big breath into her lungs and held it there.

She sure looked adorable when she was thinking.

“I’m trying to work with you here, Shane.” She exhaled. He liked hearing her say his name. “The restaurant menu had to have been ideas in your head at the beginning. How did you develop the recipes for those?”

“That was a long time ago.” Before Melina died. Before grief and frustration and anger clouded his mind and heart. Nowadays he went through the motions but stayed under the darkness. Which was how he wanted it. Or thought he did anyway.

Another Shane’s Table was opening. Truthfully, so what? A cookbook as a publicity stunt Reg said would bring their brand to every corner of the world. So what? The Feed U Project with the kids was about all he cared about anymore. Just as he and his family had done in a dozen other locations, he’d turned a warehouse in downtown Vegas into a kitchen where he taught local kids how to cook.

Reg’s call interrupted his musing. His brother wanted to meet right away.

“I gotta go, Sugar,” he said to the five-foot-two ray of light.

“I thought we were supposed to achieve something on the cookbook today.”

He turned to the pan he had cooling on a nearby rack. With his fingers, he broke off a taste of what he had baked earlier. From an old recipe that it had occurred to him to whip up this morning. With Audrey in mind, if he was being honest.

“Pan de dulce de leche. Caramel.” Shane popped the chunk of still-warm cake into her delectable mouth.

CHAPTER THREE

“IT’S BAD,” Reg told Shane as they reached the edge of the pool after a lap. “Much worse than we thought.”

“Kitchen or front-of-the-house kind of worse?” Shane knew the New York and Los Angeles restaurants weren’t making the profits they once were but, apparently, that wasn’t the extent of it.

He shook some water from his hair.

When Reg had called while he was in the kitchen with Audrey half an hour ago, Shane suggested they meet for a swim in the employee pool. The Girards made a practice of building a private pool or gym at all of their hotels exclusively for the employees to enjoy. Though this pool was small and not at all like the deluxe rooftop pool area for guests, it was a handy, gated-off oasis that Shane had taken to using often.

“Both kinds of worse,” Reg continued his report. Shane could tell from the tone in his brother’s voice that this wasn’t just going to be “the price of tablecloths went up” bad.

“What?”

“Lee quit.” Their executive chef in New York. The man they had left in charge of running the kitchen while they kept their eye on LA and put their energies into getting this third restaurant off the ground.

Shane’s jaw flexed in disbelief. “Why?”

He’d always had a good relationship with Lee, whose friendly disposition never wavered no matter how difficult Shane could be.

“He got a better offer. A full partnership in London. Doing Korean food.”

Shane sighed. “That’s what he always wanted.”

“Effective immediately,” Reg added.

“Effective immediately?”

“I don’t have a lot of the details,” Reg continued. “He apologized profusely. Said he’d call you.”

“No executive chef in New York.” This was devastating. Shane couldn’t be in three places at once. He’d counted on Lee remaining a major part of the team. Still, he understood. Lee was a Korean American who longed to elevate the flavorful food he loved to a fine-dining clientele.

Shane dunked his head under the water and then popped back up.

“That’s not all.” With the setting sun casting a shadow over Reg’s face, Shane could see the disquiet in his brother’s eyes.

“Okay, what?” Shane didn’t want to hear whatever it was Reg was going to say, but knew he needed to.

“Rick reviewed the monthlies in New York and there are big discrepancies in the cash receipts.” Rick was their accountant in charge of balancing their books.

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning someone at the restaurant is stealing from us.”

Not again. This had happened before. Unfortunately, when cash changed hands sometimes some of it disappeared. But it had never been a large enough amount to warrant the tightness currently in Reg’s voice.

“How much money?”

Reg gave Shane a figure that set his pulse racing.

He pushed away from the side of the pool. This was everything he disliked about being in business. Dealing with staff and money and logistics was never his forte. All he’d ever wanted was just to cook and let his brother handle the rest of it. Yet now it was do or die. If Murphy Brothers Restaurants was going to have a future, he was going to have to extend himself past that comfort zone and start tackling these problems head-on.

Yet he wasn’t sure he’d be able to. Knew that he, himself, was the biggest problem.

Shane dove deep underwater and swam the length of pool without coming up for air. Took a quick gulp at the other end and then did the same on the way back. When he emerged, Reg hadn’t moved and was staring out at nothing in particular.

“Race.” Shane challenged his brother to a lap across the pool. A slight grin crossed Reg’s thin lips. Growing up, neither Murphy brother was a star athlete. Reg was more likely to have a book in his hand than a ball. But Shane would walk over to the playground in their Brooklyn neighborhood and shoot some basketball with whatever kids were hanging around.

“Go.” The two brothers sprinted through the water. Shane narrowly edged Reg to the end of the pool. He felt nothing at his victory. It was just a stall tactic before continuing the conversation.

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