MacAllister's Baby (5 page)

Angus clipped his badge onto the collar of his jacket. He was wearing more casual clothes than the last two times she’d seen him: worn but spotless jeans, a loose T-shirt with the England football logo on it, trainers, and a battered brown leather jacket. He carried a black backpack.

‘Nice to meet you, Harjeet, and good luck with the renovations,’ he called, and followed Elisabeth down the hallway.

‘Renovations?’

‘Harjeet’s husband is redoing their bathroom. She’s a little frightened about his lack of plumbing skills.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry. I must’ve kept you waiting for a long time.’

‘No, I’d only just arrived.’

He’d only just arrived and he knew all about Harjeet’s husband’s plumbing? She glanced at him to see if he was having her on, but he didn’t look any more mischievous than usual. ‘How’d you find that out?’

He shrugged. ‘Just chatting. So how’s your day been?’

Filled with thoughts of you.
‘Fine, thanks. Have you given any thought to what I said about Jennifer and Danny?’

‘It’s all I’ve been thinking about,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I’m very excited about the challenge. I don’t get many opportunities like this, you know.’

She glanced at his face. He’d charmed Harjeet within seconds, and now, she was sure, he was trying to charm her by acting enthusiastic about this project when he was anything but. But his expression was open, and his tone held no trace of sarcasm.

‘Neither do the kids,’ she said cautiously, and opened the door to the food technology room. Good. They were here before the students, which gave them a better chance of establishing a safe territory for Jennifer and well-defined rules for Danny.

Children and adolescents appreciated definite boundaries and rules. She knew this particularly, since she’d grown up with so few of them herself.

And it gave Elisabeth a few more minutes to attempt to calm down her raging hormones. ‘So,’ she said, ‘keeping in mind what we talked about yesterday, I think it could be a good idea to—’

‘Why are you angry at me, Elisabeth?’

She’d been heading for the centre of the classroom, putting some distance between herself and Angus, taking control of the room. But at his words she stopped.

‘Um.’

She’d expected him to say all the charismatic, insincere, famous-person things. Not that sudden question.

‘I’m not angry,’ she said at last. But as soon as she spoke she knew it wasn’t the truth. She was angry as hell. Who did he think he was, coming into her world and doing anything he wanted? When she couldn’t? When she had to put up boundaries, control her feelings, do whatever she could so she wouldn’t lose herself?

Angus put down his rucksack on a counter and leaned back against it, his tall body comfortable-looking, his grey eyes sharp.

‘Yes, you are. You look like you want to punch me in the face. What have I done to upset you? Because I want to stop doing it.’

She swallowed back her anger. He was right; he hadn’t done anything. And it wasn’t his fault that she couldn’t do what she wanted. That was just the way life was. She had inappropriate desires. Hardly surprising, given her background. She just had to deal with them.

‘It’s not what you’ve done,’ she said. ‘It’s who you are.’

‘What is it about who I am that makes you angry? We’ve just met, Elisabeth. Do you not like chefs? Or people who keep chickens?’ He stepped forward, and spread out his hands in front of him in a helpless gesture. ‘I think you should let me know before we start working together. Maybe I can change your mind.’

Oh, God, this was such a stupid idea. She’d hoped she could ignore the way her body felt about Angus, that she could be cold and distant and he would let her be just a teacher in the room. But he was standing like that, his eyes and face open and friendly and appealing, and he wanted her to
like
him, of all things.

‘It’s not important,’ she said, and turned away from him as if she were inspecting the room.

Even without looking at him she knew he’d come closer, because every inch of exposed skin started tingling.

‘It is important,’ he said, and her skin tingled even more at his husky voice. He was right behind her. Close enough to touch. ‘Because—’

There was a tentative knock. Elisabeth, relieved and disappointed in equal measure, saw Jennifer’s outline through the frosted glass of the door. ‘I’ll get that,’ she said, and started towards it, but Angus beat her to it with a couple of long-legged strides.

The teenager stood in the doorway, thin and lank-haired, with her eyes cast down.

‘You must be Jennifer,’ Angus said. He spoke gently. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you, Jennifer, and I’m very pleased to meet you. I’m Angus.’

He extended his hand to her, but when Jennifer shrank back he dropped it and stood aside so she could enter the room without coming close to him. Her gaze flickered to Elisabeth, but then it was back on her shoes as she put her books on a bench and stood there, one of her hands gripping the thumb of the other.

A scared little girl. Elisabeth’s heart went out to her. She knew exactly how Jennifer felt.

Talking more with Jo, she’d learned the girl only had one parent, and that one was rarely home. She was practically raising herself. A situation that Elisabeth could definitely relate to.

‘Hey, Jennifer,’ she said softly, coming to stand beside her, ‘I’m so proud you were chosen for this contest. It’ll be great to learn from a real chef, won’t it?’

Jennifer made a movement of her head that could have been a nod.

Danny arrived wafting stale cigarette smoke that Elisabeth could smell even from a distance. He stood in the doorway, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his trousers, the tie of his school uniform hanging loose around his neck.

‘How long is this going to take, anyway?’ he said. ‘I got stuff to do.’

His voice was surprisingly young-sounding for his slouchy teenage body. He registered Elisabeth’s presence and then settled his eyes on Angus. The expression on his face could have been taken for either hostility or fear.

‘All right, Dan, glad you’re here,’ Angus said.

There was something subtly different about Angus; it took a moment for Elisabeth to realise that his accent had relaxed into a slight Scottish sound. Less intimidating than his normal diction.

She saw Danny register Angus’s jeans and trainers and his football T-shirt.
Not teacher.
For the first time, Elisabeth wondered if Angus had chosen these clothes specifically to put the kids more at ease.

‘Great, we can get started,’ Angus said, and rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. With a swift movement he grabbed his bag, took out a bundle of dark cloth, and took it to a table in the centre of the room. ‘Come on, I won’t hurt you.’

Elisabeth could have sworn Angus directed that comment at her.
Yeah, right,
she thought, and then noticed that both Jennifer and Danny were watching her, waiting for her to take the lead.

Not surprising; she was the familiar element in this whole scenario, and even the little trust they had in her was more than they had in Angus. Although she’d intended to do no such thing, she went to stand near Angus’s table, and the students followed.

Angus waited until they were all standing in front of him, quiet and waiting. ‘My name’s Angus MacAllister,’ he said, ‘and I like to be called Angus instead of Mr MacAllister or sir. But when you’re in this room, you call me one thing. And that is “Chef”. Do you understand?’

Jennifer did her tiny nod. Danny shrugged.

Angus looked at Elisabeth. She remembered what he’d said before the kids arrived, about trying to make her change her mind about liking him.

Part of her wanted to keep her mouth shut, defy him to make her respond to him. But she was here for the good of the children, and if this was going to work, they needed her to play along.

So she said what she’d really wanted to say, all along, since she’d first met Angus.

‘Yes.’

‘Yes, what?’

She smiled a little at that. ‘Yes, Chef.’

‘Good.’ He flashed her one of his smiles before he turned back to the kids. ‘Have you watched my television shows?’

Another nod and shrug.

‘What’s that?’ Angus prompted.

‘Yes, Chef,’ Jennifer and Danny said in self-conscious mumbles.

‘Excellent. Did you like them?’

‘Yes, Chef.’ The second time was easier for them. It would get easier every time, Elisabeth knew. Angus wasn’t a teacher, but he knew the teacher trick of subtle, good-natured bullying.

‘Brilliant. Thank you.’ He checked their faces to make sure he had their full attention, and then his face grew serious.

‘I want you to understand something right away,’ he said. ‘Being a chef is
not
like that TV show. It isn’t chucking a lot of things in a pan and then a jump-cut to a finished dish; it isn’t a lot of laughing and playing around with the camera. Being a chef is hard work.’

Angus leaned his hands on the table, his face level with the teenagers’, his voice quiet and authoritative. ‘I’ve been cooking since I was younger than you two. It has taken me years to get where I am today. I’ve worked eighteen-hour shifts in kitchens that were like war zones. I’ve sweated and bled and borrowed a hell of a lot of money to make a name for myself. And the work hasn’t ended just because I’ve got the name.’

He watched them, to make sure what he’d said had sunk in. Jennifer and Danny both looked slightly taken aback, but they were absorbed.

‘Do you two want to be chefs?’

As he asked the question Angus looked straight at Danny who, caught unexpectedly, stammered, ‘Y-yeah. Chef.’

‘Yes, Chef,’ Jennifer murmured when Angus directed his gaze at her.

‘This is a fresh start,’ said Angus. ‘Whatever might have happened to you before today, whatever problems you might be having at school or in your life, in here they are gone. I’m not going to judge you for anything that’s happened in your past. I don’t care about that.’

He’d been speaking to the kids, but with those words Angus looked directly at Elisabeth. And she knew what Jennifer and Danny had felt like when he’d put them on the spot: pinned by the full force of his attention, all of his intensity, helpless to do anything but respond as he wanted.

Except in Elisabeth’s case, the feeling was compounded by a rush of sexual desire. And the realisation that he was referring to their earlier conversation, when he’d asked her why she was angry at him when he hadn’t done anything.

She swallowed, not trusting herself to say anything in front of the students. Angus looked away.

‘For me, all that matters is how well you cook,’ he said. ‘That’s it. I’m going to judge you on your dedication to making good food. Look at these.’

He held his hands out before him, palms up, fingers spread.

For a moment, Elisabeth couldn’t tell what he meant. His hands were beautiful. Strong and capable, with long fingers and slightly turned-out thumbs. The most extraordinary hands she’d ever seen, the only hands that had ever made her body respond before she’d ever felt their touch.

But why did he want the kids to look at them?

Then she saw it, what she hadn’t been able to see before because she hadn’t been looking closely, and she drew in a sharp breath.

His hands were covered in scars from fingertip to wrist.

Some were white and fully healed, some pink and shiny. Some thin, some round. He turned his hands over slowly so they could see that the backs of his hands, and his forearms, were similarly marked.

‘If you become a chef, you’re going to have hands just like this,’ Angus said. ‘Knives will cut you; pans will burn you. I won’t even go into what a bacon slicer can do. This one—’ he ran his right thumb up a jagged scar the entire length of his left index finger ‘—was caused by a prawn. And if you become a chef, you’ll be proud of every scar, because every single one of them taught you something that’s made you better.’

Elisabeth couldn’t take her eyes off them. She imagined the pain each scar had cost.

She knew about scars. Although none of hers was visible.

‘I’ve been burned plenty of times,’ Danny boasted. He held out his own hand to Angus and Elisabeth saw a dark red line across his knuckles. ‘Got it off the grill pan.’

‘And what did you learn from that?’ Angus asked.

‘Don’t make bacon sandwiches when you’re drunk.’

The smile on Danny’s face was smug, challenging.
Go ahead, tell me off for under-age drinking,
it said.

‘Good lesson,’ Angus said blandly instead, and he pushed forward the bundle of cloth he’d put on the table and started unwrapping it.

‘I learned early that if I wanted to avoid being hurt, I needed to look after these.’ He finished unrolling the cloth and Elisabeth saw that it was a holder for a set of gleaming, silver-coloured knives. ‘Jennifer, could you get me an onion and a chopping board, please?’

The shy girl obeyed, placing the items in front of Angus. He smiled thanks, pulled a knife from the collection, and, with a quick movement that Elisabeth barely registered, sliced the onion in half. He continued talking while he peeled the onion and sliced it into paper-thin half-moon shapes.

‘A sharp knife cuts things by itself. It requires very little pressure, so it’s less likely to slip. A sharp knife will prevent many more accidents than it causes.’

Angus’s hands moved like a magician’s, taking a whole onion and transforming it into slices seemingly without any effort whatsoever.

‘You’re not crying,’ Elisabeth said, drawn into the spell of watching him.

‘That’s for two reasons. One, is that this is a very sharp knife. Two, is that I’m not a crier.’

Well, that’s one thing he and I have in common,
Elisabeth thought. She wasn’t a crier, either, any more.

He finished slicing the onion and gave the knife to Danny, presenting him with the handle; he pulled out another knife for Jennifer, who held it as if it were alive.

‘Miss Read, you look like you need a big one,’ he said quietly, his grey eyes sparkling. He pulled out a huge knife and offered it to her.