All Fired Up (Kate Meader) (17 page)

“How are we doing?” he asked while pouring a finger of scotch into a couple of lowball glasses.

“Good. Desserts will be out any minute, and then the wind down. Should be done in thirty, forty-five max.”

“Did you tell the kitchen—”

“To remove the chocolate tartuffo mousse cake from the fridge to get it to room temperature? Done an hour ago.”

“And—”

“Mona knows to use the one-oh-nine tip for the lemon tart decoration.”

“She always wants to use the smallest one,” he said, half grumbling.

“I know. She got the message.” Mona, Shane’s second at the pastry station, was a bit of a flake but she knew her place.

Flashing that drool-worthy smile, he nudged his hip against hers. “We’re bossin’ it, then.”

Yes, they were. Shane’s calm, easy competence was the perfect complement to her high-energy flutter. The idea of them working side by side spiked her pulse before her mind was hijacked by wicked thoughts of teaming up for more pleasurable activities. Dialing back her libido around Shane was getting to be a problem.

One of his adoring fans propped her stupendous boobs on the bar.
Cheerio, libido. Nice knowin’ ya.

“Shane, honey, is this when you release the serpent?” Rack of Gibraltar slurred. Her less well-endowed friend, whose face bore all the hallmarks of chronic sun abuse, nodded her approval.

Cara’s head snapped back in alarm. “Release the what?”

Shane let loose a chuckle, laden with Irish charm. From a glass jug, he poured a measure of water into each of the whiskey glasses. “The serpent has been released, ladies.”

Cara could feel her mouth gaping and she was having a mighty hard time closing it. “What does that mean?”

“Well, the full flavor of the scotch is only released when you add water to it,” Shane said. “In whiskey parlance, we call that releasing the serpent.”

I bet you do.

The ladies sniffed, swirled, and sipped tentatively from their glasses. “It’s good. Really good.”

Leather Face pointed over his shoulder. “What about that bottle there?”

“The Glenmorangie LaSanta? Oh, that’s a great one, too. Honey, caramel, and toffee notes. Soulful stuff.” Reaching up, his shirt strained against his back, outlining every delicious muscle pulled taut. The stretch did marvelous things to his ass as well. One of the spectators wet her lips and blew out a long breath while her friend squirmed. That’s when Cara noticed the gaps on the top shelf, each one formerly home to the three bottles of high-end scotch now comprising a tasting trio on the bar.

“Soulful stuff, indeed,” Leather Face murmured while Gibraltar moaned. The woman actually moaned!

A very feminine urge burbled in Cara’s chest. It was like she was the cool kid who had the inside skinny on the underground band, but now the word was out. Shane had gone mainstream and every Jane, Dee, and Sally was getting in on the act.

“The Glenmorangie is matured in white oak barrels before they finish it off in sherry casks.” Shane opened the new bottle and grabbed a couple of clean glasses. “The quality of the wood is key, girls.”

The girls, who probably hadn’t been called “girls” since their heyday circa 1969, preened.

“Quality wood is key. Right, Suzanne?” Leather Face elbowed Gibraltar.

The woman’s mouth had dropped open at a Shane chest-hair sighting when he bent over. “Uh-huh.”

“God, Suzanne, I can’t take you anywhere.” Leather Face handed him a fifty dollar bill, making sure she brushed Shane’s fingers as she did so.

“The bar is open, girls. No need to pay.”

“That’s for you, Shane,” she said, her smile like a great white shark’s in her basketball-orange face.

“The staff sure appreciates your generosity.” He dropped it into a jar behind the bar, one that was already filled to overflowing with fives and tens. A couple of twenties, too.

Shane’s lips curved as he met Cara’s eyes. He winked at her.

Cara stifled her giggle as it hit her. The thought of Shane Doyle using his masculine wiles to get more tips was too, too funny.

Gibraltar leaned over, her scary breasts swiping the bar like some lewd bar wash. “Shane, do you do private parties?”

Shane swallowed and it was so damn cute. “Ah, no, I’m strictly a company man. No freelancing.” He looked over their heads. “Desserts are out, girls. You might want to return to your table so you don’t miss out on my lovely lemon tarts and decadent chocolate cake.”

That earned him another jaw drop. “You made the desserts, too?”

“I’m a man of many talents.”

Leather Face wobbled off the bar stool and snatched at one of the scotch glasses. “I hope they’re paying you well.”

“I’d pay him well,” Gibraltar replied in a loud whisper. “To release
his
serpent.”

In a gurgle of lusty giggles, they lurched back to the dinner table to load up on sugar.

Cara suspected her stunned expression might stop a clock. “Wow, Doyle, I never would have thought you had it in you.”

Shane cleared away the half-drunk glasses and spilled the dregs into the bar sink. “Come again?”

“Using your body like that.” Immediately, she cringed as the words left no doubt that she’d been enjoying the show just as much as the customers.

“I don’t know what you mean. Are you suggesting I’d use this”—he gestured at his chest, then sliced through the air in a downward motion past his waistband—“to make a few extra dollars? What kind of a person do you think I am?”

Her cheeks smarted in mortification. “Oh, I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Cara, I’m happy to be of use.” A wicked smile played on his lips, and he leaned in close. He smelled incredible. “We make a good team, don’t you think?”

She hoped her swallow didn’t sound as loud to him as it did to her. “I do.”

His gaze held hers for a beat too long and when he looked away she realized it hadn’t been long enough.

I do?
Had she just answered his question about their brilliant partnership with “I do”? She’d heard of women with pregnancy brain; she must have its hormonal cousin, “wedding brain.” Ruffled, she surveyed the room, an action that came as natural to her as breathing. Surely someone needed her, but her vision was filled with content guests, not an upturned nose or searching glance in sight.

“We should be doing bigger events, don’t you think?”

There he went again with the
we.
Her heart fluttered at that tiniest of words and all the hope it held. She turned back to find him considering her with that sexy, boyish expression he had a patent on.

“Jack doesn’t really care about the events stuff,” she said.

“Why not?”

“It’s just not interesting to him. More trouble than it’s worth.”

“That’s ridiculous.” His brow creased in bafflement. “You do an amazing job keeping these rooms full practically every night we’re open. We should be expanding. There’s that place next door—”

“I know!” she interrupted, unable to rein in her excitement. Jack was always putting her off with wait-and-see and no one else ever expressed interest. She filled him in on her plan to get Penny Napier’s Pink Hearts Appreciation Dinner and her hope that it would plant the seeds for the restaurant’s expansion.

“Jack’s not interested in catering, as he calls it. He says it’ll dilute the product because he can’t oversee everything to his exacting standards. You know how these egotistical chefs are.”

“Present company excluded,” he said with a so-help-her-God smile.

“Oh, right. You’re nothing like Jack.”

A shadow passed over his face before brightening to that easy expression she loved. The dark was interesting, though, and she wanted to know more.

“Unless you want to be.”

“Unless I want to be what?”

“Like Jack. You’ve been angling to be part of his team for a while now, haven’t you?” Lili had said Shane sent his résumé every month for a year, begging for a job at Thyme in New York, then pushed hard to transfer to Chicago, so enthusiastic was he to work with a great chef like Jack.

Shane nodded slowly. “I have.” His voice didn’t quite match his expression. He had wanted to say something else but checked himself at the last second. “I could learn a lot from him but I don’t think I have the temperament to be an executive chef. I have the standards. I just don’t enjoy bellowing at people.”

She ducked her head to hide the cool little smile she could feel burgeoning. That’s what she loved about Shane, how different he was from all the guys she knew: Jack, her father, most of the men she’d dated in New York. And while these days she was drawn to weaker guys who let her lead, she didn’t see that in Shane. There was nothing weak about him even when he was acting like Opie Cunningham.

“Actually, I’d like to open my own pastry shop someday,” he said with a cool little smile of his own.

In Chicago,
an internal voice squeaked before it was steamrolled by her common sense.
There is no future here.
“I’m sure Jack would hate to lose you but he’d jump on that as an investment.”

“I don’t need Jack.”

The words hissed through the air like a curse. It wasn’t the first time she had the impression that Shane had a problem with her future brother-in-law.

“Jack’s invested in my family’s restaurant and he’s going to be a part owner of Tad’s new wine bar. He has a good eye, but I can understand how you’d want to be your own man.” Most people would jump at the chance to go into business with someone as resourceful and well-known as Jack. Shane’s independence did him credit but there was definitely something else here.

Raucous hoots went up from the guests as Rack of Gibraltar defied gravity and pulled her top-heavy self to a stand and a shaky toast. Cara’s estimate of thirty minutes to go might have been premature.

“I didn’t mean to snap,” Shane said, his voice as tight as a drum. His color was high and Cara imagined a cat-five hurricane brewing beneath his typically calm surface.

“Working with Jack didn’t turn out the way you expected?” Cara prompted. Sometimes, it’s a bad idea to meet your heroes.

“No,” he said, lifting his eyes to meet hers. “He’s not what I imagined at all.”

Her skin scorched from his focus. Not a single touch, but she felt like she’d been rode hard and put away wet. When she had first met him, she thought she could read him. A sunny, carefree, bring-him-home-to-mama kind of guy.

Nice? What I’m thinking about you is the opposite of nice.

“I have some work to finish. I should get back to it.” That bottle of grappa in her desk drawer would come in handy right about now. She retreated with a wobble on one of her four-inch heels, all while he continued to stare. A hot, invasive gaze that made her feel desired and wrong.

Deliciously, wickedly wrong.

Chapter 9

By the time midnight rolled around, the room was quiet, the guests had been bundled into cabs, and Shane was talking to himself. The flirtatious ladies had stopped by to make him an offer for some after-hours fun times. The phrase “Irish ham sandwich” was bandied about liberally. He just about managed to keep his shudders to a minimum as he politely declined.

Sometimes the accent was a curse.

Now he was closing out the private-room bar and gabbing like an old biddy with a wall of bottles on how he wanted to play the Cara situation. Because he definitely wanted to play.

Tonight, there had been no mistaking that flare in her eyes while he suffered the mental strip-down from those bar patrons. He’d not intended to make her jealous but between the moment in Jack’s kitchen and her interest tonight, there could be no more doubts about their sizzling connection. Last night, he had fled Jack’s house because the thought of falling for her, of falling for the whole lot of them, scared him half to death. But surely he could separate out this thing with Cara. His stunning wife might be a ten to his sketchy six—he’d definitely married up there—but why shouldn’t they act on the heat between them and enjoy each other?

“Yeah,” he said to the bank of liquor. “Why shouldn’t we?”

“Watch out, first sign of madness.” Cara’s soft voice cut his not-so-internal debate short. With his back still turned to her, his body enjoyed the rustle of that silky blouse against her smooth skin as she settled in on a bar stool.

“Bartender, tell me all about releasing the serpent.”

He reached for the Glenmorangie LaSanta and was rewarded with a low whistle.

“Work it, Doyle. Soulful stuff, indeed,” she said, all mock sultry.

“Only the paying customers get to objectify.” He poured two fingers of scotch, splashed it with water, and pushed it across the bar. “Need the spiel?”

“No, I was part of your rapt audience earlier. Toffee, honey, and caramel notes, not to mention the oh-so-important wood.” She took a sip, then another longer one. “You going to let me drink alone?”

“I’ll cut you off when the time is right but I won’t partake. I’m not much of a drinker.” At her skeptical squint, he added, “Except during wild and crazy stag parties.”

“Worried I’ll take advantage of you again?”

“Well, there’s always the chance we might be renewing our vows before the night is out.”