Born to Be Wild (2 page)

“The
two
of us, Charles.”

“But I don’t cook, and, pardon me for saying this, but neither do you.”

“I prepared a meal for you once when I was a teenager, and I believe you told me it was delicious.”

Charles’s eyes darted toward the black and white tiles on the floor. “I lied, Miss Remington.”

She smiled, trying to disguise her hurt and to ease Charles’s discomfort. The revelation that she couldn’t cook shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise, she realized, taking another bite of cookie. She stared at the blur of papers in front of her, remembering another time when she’d tried to please a man in that age-old-way: through his stomach.

She’d been a young bride of not quite twenty when she’d fixed a meal for her husband, hoping to give Chip a reason to stay home rather than
run off to the track where he did nothing but lose money.

Chip, sadly, had preferred horses to her—and her cooking.

And then there was Leland Lancaster—husband number two—who’d preferred liquor to food, and sex with other women to making love to his wife. She hadn’t bothered cooking for any man following her disastrous marriages to Chip and Leland. After all, the men she knew weren’t interested in her homemaking skills, only in merging their old blue-blooded money with hers.

She’d learned far too late that neither one of her husbands was interested in a family life, a house full of children, or loving her, all the things she’d truly wanted, desires that were nothing more than elusive dreams.

But none of that mattered right now, she decided, shaking away the dregs of her past and her insecurities about her present and future. The important thing was finding someone who could create fabulous canapés. She would not let Betsy down on her special day.

Charles stepped toward the table, adding a few more cookies to the plate. “Are you sure you’ve called every caterer in the book, Miss Remington?”

“Every one. Even Bad Bubba’s Barbecue.”

Charles ran his own finger down the page, slowly looking at each entry. “I believe you might have missed one.”

Lauren leaned close. “Where?”

“Right here.” He tapped the page. “It’s nearly hidden by the line you drew through Bad Bubba’s.”

Lauren scrutinized the entry for a moment, then laughed. “You don’t really believe that a place called Born To Be Wild Catering could live up to the standards of Palm Beach society?”

“Might I remind you, Miss Remington, that you’re beginning to sound like your mother.”

Lauren gritted her teeth. She was not a snob— she had never been and never would be. On top of that, she was tired of doing things that pleased her mother, her father, her brother, her ex-husbands, or her friends.

She wanted to do things her own way, on her own terms. Her friends snickered about the choices she’d made in the last couple of years. They’d lambasted her for dumping Australian polo player Peter Leighton shortly before their wedding, and the tabloids were having a ball talking about her attempt to be a wedding planner.

The laughter hurt. They didn’t know and they obviously didn’t care how much succeeding at this venture meant to her. She’d failed at all the meaningful things in life, and she wanted desperately to change all that. Her business was just the first step in starting over; she wouldn’t let pride get in the way.

Taking a deep breath, she stared at the phone number in the Yellow Pages and decided that desperate times called for desperate measures.

She grabbed the phone and punched in the number. Born To Be Wild might not sound like the per
fect caterer for Betsy Endicott’s high-society wedding, but Born To Be Wild appeared to be her only hope.

As she listened to the first ring at the other end of the line, she silently prayed for a miracle, for Born To Be Wild Catering to be available on Saturday and—she crossed her fingers—to be able to make something besides fried chicken or ribs.

The people of Palm Beach could laugh all they wanted at her attempts to be a businesswoman. She didn’t give a fig for what they thought. All that mattered was her own self-esteem, which had been knocked for a loop a few times over the years.

She’d failed at two marriages, and would have failed at a third if she’d gone through with marrying that jerk Peter Leighton. The tabloids painted a picture of her as a flighty, not terribly bright fashion plate. But they were wrong—dead wrong! It didn’t matter if she proved it to the people of the world or not. She had to prove it to herself.

oOo

Max Wilde lifted the wooden spoon to his mouth and tasted his newest concoction—sizzling
pork ribs with pineapple and papaya hot and spicy barbecue sauce. Not bad, he had to admit. Helena Fabiano had asked for something special for her husband Luigi’s seventy-fifth birthday party, because Luigi had grown tired of her raviolis and lasagna, and Max planned to go all out.

Tonight he’d test the menu for Saturday’s
event on his kids. Ryan and Jamie never failed to tell him when a recipe sucked—their choice of words, not his. If he got even one set of thumbs down, he’d spend all night improving the recipe. He didn’t know Luigi from Adam and he could have told Mrs. Fabiano that she’d have to select from the stock catering items, but that wasn’t his style. Born To Be Wild Catering aimed to please. Besides, Mrs. Fabiano had tweaked his cheek when she’d asked for something special. How could he possibly turn her down?

“Hey, Max!”

Jed Trumbo’s voice hit Max’s ears long before his teenage assistant pushed through the swinging doors and swaggered into the kitchen. Before Max could stop him, Jed stuck his finger into the pot of steaming sauce. “Shiii...” The curse was stifled when Jed shoved his finger into his mouth.

“Lesson number thirty-two,” Max said, turning off the burner. “Don’t stick your finger in anything that’s bubbling on top the stove. That’s a sure sign it’s hotter than hell.”

Max turned the cold water on in the sink, grabbed Jed’s hand, and shoved it under the faucet. “Hold it there for a minute and it’ll feel better.”

“You know, Max,” Jed said, shaking his hand under the water, as if that would make the pain die down faster, “I’m not too good at this kitchen stuff. It’s not that I don’t like working with you, it’s just that I’d be better off fixing engines or something.”

Max knew full well that Jed knew how to fix
engines, He knew how to hot-wire them, too, which was what the kid had been doing when Max first laid eyes on him. Jed hadn’t had a record when he’d tried to take off with Max’s ’68 Corvette, and Max was determined the kid never would.

He was a seventeen-year-old who’d been knocked around by his father, had dropped out of school, and was living on the streets—the same thing that could have happened to Max if his foster dad hadn’t taken him in. So he’d found Jed a place to stay, had given him a job and attempted to be his mentor. After three weeks of trying to make things work, Max knew that Jed’s mechanical skills far outweighed his abilities as a chef’s assistant.

“Why don’t you head over to the Hole and talk to Jazz or Gabe,” Max suggested, pulling a tray of sweet potato biscuits from the oven. “See if they can help you find a new job.”

“Does that mean I can’t hang around here no more?”

“You can hang out here or the Hole whenever you want, as long you get another job, show up to work on time, and stay out of trouble.” Max tossed Jed a towel. “Before you take off, could you call—”

“Oh, crap!” Jed blurted out. “There’s some lady on the phone wantin’ to talk to you about catering a wedding on Saturday. I told her you was busy, but she refused to take no for an answer.”

Max bit back his irritation and slapped Jed on
the shoulder, knowing the kid needed encouragement more than harsh words. “I’ll see you at the Hole later.”

Jed didn’t waste a minute getting out of the house, and before the back door slammed, Max grabbed the phone at the end of the kitchen counter. “This is Max.”

He expected someone to yell. He thought for sure the woman at the other end of the line would ask him what the hell took him so long to get to the phone, but he didn’t hear a word. Instead he heard the distinct sound of fingernails drumming against the mouthpiece.

“Sorry for the delay,” he said. “I had an emergency in the kitchen.”

“I know all about emergencies, Mr.—”

“Wilde.” He liked the sound of her voice. Sultry. Sexy.

With his luck she was probably ninety-two years old!

“I have a definite emergency, Mr. Wilde,” she said. “I have a wedding planned for Saturday and my caterer died.”

“Henri?”

“Please don’t tell me you’re going to his funeral.”

She sounded frantic... and a lot younger than ninety-two. “No, that day I’ll be catering Luigi Fabiano’s seventy-fifth birthday party.”

“That’s too bad” she said, followed by a very deep sigh. May I ask what kind of food you’re serving Mr. Fabiano?”

“Ribs.”

“Oh.” He couldn’t mistake the despair in her voice.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Don’t you like ribs?”

“I love ribs. But that’s not what I had in mind for this wedding.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Something a little more formal. Do you do anything exotic, like poached quail eggs?”

Max laughed at her question. He’d prepared quail eggs at the culinary academy and for too many uppity society shindigs when he worked with his foster dad. They were dainty and tasteless, a far cry from the spicy, finger-licking and mouth-watering fare he preferred. “Quail eggs were Henri’s specialty,” he said. “Mine’s ribs.”

“Oh, dear.”

He leaned against the counter, thinking he could spend a good hour or two listening to this woman. He liked the little-girl sound in the way she said, “Oh, dear,” the way she sighed deeply into the phone. Unfortunately, he didn’t have an hour or two to converse with a stranger. He didn’t have any time on Saturday, either, which meant he couldn’t possibly help the lady with the sultry voice. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m booked this weekend.”

“I understand that, but as I mentioned, this is an emergency. I’ve nearly two hundred guests coming. I hadn’t wanted to serve ribs but... well... She sighed again. “Are they good?”

The lady—if she was a lady—sounded awfully picky for a woman in need.

“They’re the best in Florida. But like
I
mentioned, I’m busy on Saturday.”

“I’ll pay twice your normal amount.”

“That sounds enticing, but I can’t be in two places at the same time.”

He heard her fingernails again, this time drumming on something other than the phone. A table maybe. A desk. Something expensive, considering her offer.

“Three times your normal amount.”

“The money sounds good, but—”

“Four times, and that’s my final offer.” She was silent again, giving Max time to think it over. “Please.”

He hated it when a woman said
please.
“Let me think about it, okay? Maybe there’s a way I can swing both. I’ll call you back in a couple of hours.”

“I can’t wait a couple of hours. I need an answer now. I’ll even pay you up front if you’re worried about the money.”

“You don’t even know what my ribs taste like.”

“Look, Mr. Wilde, as long as your food is edible, I’ll hire you. Of course, it would be nice to have something not quite as messy as ribs, something a little more elegant, but right now, I’ll take anything. If you need references, I can give you a hundred different people to call. I always pay on time. Call my bank. Just tell them you’re catering a wedding for Lauren Remington.”

Lauren Remington? The
Lauren Remington, the object of a foolish kid’s affection? The woman whose dress he’d accidentally doused with a glass of champagne when he’d been a waiter at
the rehearsal dinner before her first wedding? The woman who’d laughed at the incident, then followed him outside, where she’d kissed him and made him think that a tough, wrong-side-of-the-tracks guy like him could have a chance with a rich and beautiful socialite?

He rubbed his arm, where a tattoo served as a constant reminder of his folly, and laughed to himself. So, she was getting married...
again.
That shouldn’t surprise him, not for someone as fickle as Lauren Remington.

“Did you hear me, Mr. Wilde? This really is urgent.”

“I heard you,” he said, annoyed that the woman who’d once bruised his ego had popped back into his life, and damn if she didn’t have to do it right before another one of her weddings.

“Who’s the lucky guy?” he asked, wondering what poor sucker had fallen for her this time around.

“You mean the groom?”

He laughed, as if there was more than one lucky guy in her life. “Yes, the groom.”

“Dickie Stribling. Do you know him?”

A vision of Dickie Stribling hit Max between the eyes. “I know him.” He’d waited on Mr. Stribling once or twice. He’d served half the people in Palm Beach, Florida, when he was younger, back in the days when everyone who was anyone hired his foster father’s high-class French catering business.