Deep Autumn Heat (4 page)

“Table for one?” Lexie asked archly, even though she already knew what Paige’s answer would be.

“Oh, no, dear. I’ll just take a piece of the you-know-what to go.” Paige gave her a
conspiratorial smile.

She didn’t bite. “Up to your usual tricks, Paige?” Lexie’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll never figure it out.”

“We’ll see.” Paige’s smile was gone.

“I could refuse to serve you, you know.”

“You could, but you won’t. You’re too proud to stoop to that.”

“You’re right.” Lexie slid open the display case and pulled out the coconut cake. She cut a generous slice, placed it carefully into a small container, and handed it to Paige. “That’ll be four ninety-five,” Lexie said matter-of-factly, holding out her hand.

“You’re charging me?”

“As if I’d let you try to figure out my recipe for free.”

“So much for professional courtesy.” Paige reached into her designer purse and pulled out her wallet. She plunked down a five on the countertop. “Here. Keep the change.”

Lexie scooped up the money from the counter and popped it into the till. “I’d say it was a pleasure doing business with you, but we both know that’d be a lie.”

“Do stop by the next time you’re in Falmouth, dear,” Paige said, before making a brisk exit.

“You don’t have any recipes I want to steal, Paige,” Lexie muttered to her departing back.

Much to Lexie’s relief, the rest of the breakfast crowd soon cleared out. “Buster, do you, Isis, and Jenny have everything under control back there?” she called into the grill room.

“Yep,” Buster Quigley, her grill cook and right-hand man, answered.

“Good.” Lexie untied her apron and grabbed a cardigan from behind the counter. Isis Dandridge and Jenny Arthur were two of her line cooks. Isis, a slim black woman in her early thirties, was solid as a rock, and Lexie had no qualms about giving her additional responsibility. Jenny, a younger woman with strawberry-blond hair that was usually pulled back into a tight braid, was another matter. Until recently, Jenny had been one of her more dependable
employees, showing up on time and even offering to help out with the baking, but over the past few months, she had been calling in sick with increasing frequency. Thankfully, she was here today. “I’m heading out to Martins’ Market for the produce we need for lunch and dinner. I was too pressed for time before to grab everything we needed this morning. I’ll be back in twenty.”

She heard a grunt from the grill room, which she assumed was Buster’s assent. Stepping outside, she began the brisk walk to the Martins’ shop, sucking in large gulps of the cool, fresh air. It was novel to be out and about in the middle of the day, and although her mission was critical, she was happy to have the chance to clear her head. There was no question about it; Sebastian had rattled her. The last time she’d felt like this, she’d ended up in the relationship from hell. Now that her body—and mind—had cooled off, she wasn’t rattled anymore. Just angry. She was furious at herself for letting him get to her, and furious at him for pushing her past her limits. She’d been on track, physically and mentally, until he’d walked into her restaurant. There was no way she wanted to mess that up.

By the time she arrived at the Market, she’d calmed down considerably. The familiar coolness of the shop was like a balm to her soul. Joanne Martins, who co-owned the Market with her husband, William, greeted her at the door.

“Lexie, wonderful to see you,” Joanne said warmly, her eyes twinkling.

“Great to see you too, Joanne,” Lexie responded. “I wish I could stop to chat with you about planning for the Harvest Festival, but I’m in a bit of a rush. Produce shipment didn’t come in this morning.”

“I know, you poor dear,” Joanne said, her silver bob swaying as she stepped out of the way. “William told me you dashed in earlier. We’ll talk about the festival another time. Get what you need, and please let me know if I can find anything else for you. We have some extra supplies in the storeroom.”

“Thanks.”

Lexie gave a wave to the elderly Will, who was manning the cash register, and then, with the practiced eye of an expert, she quickly loaded up three large crates with her selections. She
really needed to get to the bottom of the missing produce shipments. Art had been prompt with his deliveries until a month ago, when things had gone downhill. Increasingly, shipments had shown up late or not at all. And when she called Art to follow up, he never seemed to be able to give her a straight answer. There were a few other suppliers she used, but the bulk of the goods came from Art.

“Can we help you get all of this back to the restaurant, Lexie?” Will asked as she paid for the goods.

“Yes, please.”

“Good.” He smiled at her. “My teenage grandson, Tim, is visiting for the week. I’ll have him carry everything over for you. It’s only a couple of blocks, and he’s a big, strong boy.”

“Great, thanks,” Lexie agreed.

Five minutes later, teenager in tow, Lexie arrived at the service entrance to the restaurant. It was closed, so she gave it a sharp knock. After a few seconds, Buster pushed it open. He took the top crate from the teen and ushered them both inside.

“Are Kara and Rachel here?” she asked Buster, referring to her two second-shift servers.

He nodded in the affirmative.

“Thank goodness.” She turned. “I appreciate you carrying the stuff for me, Tim. I’d never have been able to do it myself.”

“No problem, ma’am.”

Lexie saw him out, pressing a few bills into his hand as extra thanks. Once he was gone, she turned to her short-order cook. “You got everything under control, Buster?”

Buster nodded again as he methodically unpacked the produce, laying what he needed on the counter and shelving the rest. After he finished, he called Charlie, one of their line prep cooks, over with a jerk of his head and gave him a few words of instruction before heading back to the grill room.

Lexie smiled to herself. Her laconic employee rarely spoke. It had been that way since day one.

A few days prior to the LMK’s opening, a tall, slim, world-weary sort of man had shown up on her doorstep. A worn baseball cap was perfectly molded to his head, and he was holding a torn-out page of the
Barnstable Patriot
. The help wanted ad she’d placed was circled in blue ink.

“I’m here about the short-order cook position,” the middle-aged man had said in a low, quiet voice that held the hint of a Boston accent. His eyes didn’t stray from her face while they were talking—a good sign, in her book. He reached into his back pocket and unfolded a paper with three carefully handwritten references. Without speaking, he handed it to her.

Lexie had looked at the list and then into his eyes. She didn’t consider herself a terribly good judge of character—she’d been proven wrong too many times to count—but she could usually tell if someone had it in him to work hard.

“Let’s see what you can do,” she’d said, inviting him into the grill room. He immediately fired up the griddle and began turning out food as she called out orders, giving instructions and ingredient additions on the fly. When he was done with her requests, she tried each dish. One bite was all it took. “You’re hired. When can you start?”

He just shrugged, as if to say, “Whenever you’d like, lady. I have all the time in the world.”

Ever since that day, they’d had a stellar professional relationship. They couldn’t be less alike in temperament, which could be the reason why they got along so well. Buster liked working, so Lexie hadn’t hired a second short-order cook. They were the restaurant’s only two full-time employees, and she trusted that Buster had her back. She was thrilled when he decided to rent the apartment above the restaurant. He was always there—a constant, comforting presence.

Lexie gathered the empty crates and stacked them outside the back door, one on top of the other. When she turned to come back inside, she noticed that something was taped to the door. As soon as she saw it, she began to laugh. Paige Sinclair hadn’t been able to leave without a parting shot. She pulled the note off the door, Scotch tape and all, and went inside.

Buster had just emerged from the grill room, and when he saw the small envelope in
Lexie’s hand, one shaggy eyebrow raised.

“Yep, just found it taped to the door.” Lexie didn’t have to explain anything to Buster. They’d been through this before. “Let’s see what this one says.” She opened the envelope with a quick flick of her finger and read. “ ‘You have it. I want it. Leave the recipe in an envelope taped to the door tonight or else you’ll be sorry!’ ” She looked at Buster. “Handwritten in block letters. No signature, of course,” she said wryly. “You’d think that Paige, of all people, would be more original.”

Buster shrugged.

“Should we put this one with the rest?” Buster nodded and held out his hand. Lexie gave him the note, and he tucked it into the manila envelope where he’d stored the rest of the notes Lexie had received, all demanding the same thing—the recipe for her coconut cake. Though she’d found the notes amusing at first, they were getting kind of old. Next time she saw Paige she’d say something to her. “Now let’s get back to preparing for lunch service.”

Since her lunch servers had made it in on time and were out on the floor, Lexie went back to the kitchen to ice the rest of the cakes. She smiled as she worked, sweeping her long baker’s knife in a curl at the top of an enormous devil’s food cake. Concentrating on her decorating was the perfect thing to block out the stresses of the day. With a flourish, she swirled the knife one last time, then lifted it off of a shining peak of creamy dark frosting. Turning the cake stand around, she examined her finished product with a practiced eye. Gorgeous.

Unfortunately, the thoughts she’d been trying to tamp down all day snuck into her consciousness once she had finished. Letting out a deep breath, she leaned against the island in the middle of the kitchen. No one ever said that running a restaurant was easy.

And no one had warned her that a man with a face like a fallen angel would cause her, even for a second, to waver from the carefully calculated path she’d chosen to follow. No attachments. No relationships. Just work.

She couldn’t believe she’d allowed a man—that man—to get under her skin. Lexie shook her head in disbelief. She must be losing her grip on reality. Hadn’t she hardened herself? Hadn’t
she put up the walls she needed to effectively run her business—and her life—the way she wanted? The last thing she needed was for a man with bedroom eyes to knock her off her path. The fact that he was a famous chef? Well, that just made it worse. If he came back, she’d just ignore him. She needed to keep her head in the game.
And her body out of it
.

At the end of the evening, when all the cakes had been baked for the next day, the floors swept clean, and the dishes washed and shelved, Lexie stretched, then yawned. It had been a grueling day, made more difficult by the missed delivery. She sighed. Yet another thing she had to follow up on tomorrow.

As usual, she was the last one out the door at nine-thirty. She was glad she didn’t have to walk home tonight. Though her pride in the LMK usually outweighed the tired ache in her bones, she was happy she’d brought her car. Gratefully, she sank into the driver’s seat and drove the few miles to her house on the other side of town.

From the moment he left the LM Kitchen that early autumn morning in Star Harbor, Seb’s mind started to whir. Not about food, although he really should have been thinking about expanding and enhancing his already impressive culinary repertoire. Not about his career, although he could do with a few hours of brainstorming, both alone and with his very competent assistant-slash-business manager, Ivana Vlatova. Not about the space for his new restaurant, although Ivana had set up a meeting for him with a Boston Realtor this morning. And certainly not about his new show, the underlying theme and tone of which he hadn’t quite settled on.

No, Seb was thinking about sex. Specifically, sex with the delectable proprietor of the Lexie Meyers Kitchen.

He’d kept his thoughts in check while he was in the company of his brothers, who obviously thought that he’d insulted Lexie. But once he was on his bike on the way to Boston, his thoughts were free to wander. And wander they did.

All over Lexie’s delightfully lush body.

He saw beautiful women every day. That wasn’t anything new. What was new was when a beautiful woman—a woman who had nothing to lose by being nice to him and everything to gain—recognized him and rebuffed him soundly. It was intriguing, to say the least. Very intriguing. Women had been flinging themselves at Seb for as long as he could remember, even before he’d achieved celebrity status.

He wasn’t sure why Lexie was affecting him this way. There were other women, after all—many of them. But there was something about the curve of her hip and the sparkle in her eyes that he couldn’t stop thinking about. Something that physically drew him closer even as she very verbally pushed him away.

Seb thought about Lexie for a long time. He thought about her for the entire ride to
Boston, and was still thinking about her when he met Ivana at the Realtor’s office. He thought about her some more while the Realtor showed them space after unremarkable space for his new restaurant.

Unfortunately, Seb came out of his Lexie-induced stupor at an inopportune moment. One minute, he was in the throes of a daydream involving him, Lexie, plastic wrap, and cake batter, and the next, he was staring into the face of a middle-aged woman with a chic bob and a hopeful expression.

“So you think it’ll work?” she asked.

“Yes. I think it’ll work nicely,” Seb responded, still musing about Lexie. “Very nicely.”

“Great, so we can sign today.”

“Sign?” Seb was confused. “Sign what?”

“Why, sign the lease. For the space, of course.”

Now Seb was fully present. “I’m not signing anything for this space. The light’s not right, the layout is terrible, and the kitchen is way too small.”

“But … I thought you … I mean, that is …” the woman sputtered, but Sebastian was already halfway out the door.