Once Upon a Christmas Eve (3 page)

“But he didn't say anything about what you'd left at the hotel.”

He offered the conclusion flatly, burying the exasperation that came with it as he took a step closer. Scott had offered no explanation for yesterday's misunderstanding with this woman when he'd called on his way to the airport. Not that Max had wanted, or asked for one. Realizing last
night that he couldn't give the wallet to Scott to give to this woman himself since Scott wouldn't be around, all Max had asked was that Scott let her know he had it and that he'd get it to her sometime that day.

So much for follow-through.

“You dropped this,” he told her, and held out the small rectangle of hot pink leather he'd pulled from his pocket. “It fell out of your bag.”

There was no need to mention when it had fallen out. The unease in her expression told him there wasn't much about yesterday that she'd managed to forget. Still, surprise stole much of that discomfort the instant she'd noticed what he held. It also had her speaking in a rush, making one word out of three.

“Ohmygosh. I didn't even realize it was gone!”

“I thought you'd have missed it when you went to pay for your cab.”

“I had money in my coat pocket. Change from the ride over,” she explained, stepping closer to take her wallet from him. “I had no idea it had fallen out, too.” Apparently realizing she was repeating herself, or maybe just not wanting to think about how desperately she'd wanted to leave the hotel, she cut herself off, shook her head. “Thank you,” she murmured as the door behind them swung open. “Thank you very much.”

The younger waitress with short, spiked hair breezed in carrying an empty bread basket. As she headed for a tray of baguettes, Tommi turned into a short hall separating an open doorway from a wall of dry goods.

“And thank your partner, too, please,” she continued, her hushed voice encouraging him to follow, “for the roses he sent. It was kind of him, but it really wasn't necessary. What happened yesterday wasn't entirely his fault,” she insisted, backing into a closet-sized office. “The miscommunication
about why we were meeting, I mean. I'm sure he'd been misinformed somehow on his end, too.”

Behind her, the wall was filled by a tall bookcase crammed with cookbooks and cooking magazines. A red metal desk and two black filing cabinets took up the narrow wall beside her. The top of one held binders, files and a gym bag. The other served as a space for culinary trophies that looked stored there rather than displayed. On the neatly arranged desk, below a bulletin board feathered with a haphazard array of wedding, birth and graduation announcements half covered by notes and reminders, a computer shared space with invoices and hand-written recipe notes.

She opened the desk's bottom drawer and bent to drop in her wallet. As she did, he couldn't help but wonder at the odd mix of disarray and organization in the cramped and crowded space. It seemed as if she tried to control the chaos with order, but just couldn't quite succeed. What struck him most, though, was her easy sense of fairness. Or maybe it was forgiveness.

He didn't know many women who wouldn't have thought flowers the least a guy could offer after leaving her sitting so long. But she still didn't seem to be on the same wavelength as his partner, either. However the meeting had come about, which he considered no business of his, Scott's personal interest in her remained unquestionable. He'd even made a point of asking Max to say only nice things about him, and to tell her he'd make up for the misunderstanding as soon as he got back next week.

I'm not asking you to sell me, buddy,
he'd said,
but at least don't say anything that'll scare her off. Okay? I'd be a fool to let her get away.

The guy had it bad. Which was fine with Max. As sensible as Tommi sounded, she'd probably be good for him.
Still, he wasn't comfortable at all playing messenger between his colleague and the man's intended romantic target. If Scott wanted her to know he'd make up for having pretty much stood her up, he could tell her that himself. If she wanted Scott to know he didn't need to send roses, ditto. He was still curious, though, about the disappointment underlying her consternation yesterday when she'd figured out that the meeting hadn't been about business.

“Miscommunication,” he repeated as she nudged the drawer closed. “It's pretty obvious now that Scott thought he had a date with you. Do you mind if I ask why you thought you were meeting him?”

The hint of disquiet in her expression belied the dismissal in her small shrug. “I thought he wanted to talk about my bistro.”

“What made you think that?”

“Because I was told that he'd read my latest review and wanted to meet me.”

“Do you always meet men who read your reviews?”

She eyed him evenly. “I do when the man is an investor and I'm in need of one. I saw on your website that Layman & Callahan invests in local businesses. I'd hoped to talk to him about mine.” A regretful little smile curved her mouth. “But that was before you said your company doesn't invest in restaurants.”

“What I said,” he clarified, conscious of her lingering disappointment, “is that we
usually
don't. Our investors expect a certain return on their money. A business has to be big enough to produce an assured annual revenue before we'll look at it.”

She frowned at that.

“What made you think mine wasn't big enough?”

“The Corner Bistro?”

She'd named her place exactly what it was. And what it was, was small.

“Oh,” she murmured, and went silent.

His own quick silence had more to do with the deafening sound of opportunity knocking.

He had no idea how Scott intended to pursue this establishment's admittedly intriguing owner. All he knew for certain was that it could be in his own best interests if the guy succeeded, and that the opportunity to help both himself and his partner was literally staring him in the face.

In the years since he'd helped the former college football hero save the company Scott had inherited from his father, Max had taken the business that did the legwork for corporations looking to relocate, from regional to national and beyond. As agreed when Max had achieved what Scott had thought impossible, Layman & Son had become Layman & Callahan. Driven, focused and refusing to stop there, Max had grown the company to include property investments for the same corporate officers who sought them for their company's expansions.

Tommi Fairchild's bistro was definitely smaller than the apartment buildings, hotels, trendy nightclubs and high-end restaurants in their partnership portfolio. But the place did have potential. The framed reviews by the hostess desk were four-star. Aside from the FedEx guy eating a bowl of soup and two women with Book Nook shopping bags, the customers he'd seen leaving by cab and under umbrellas appeared to be brokers, secretaries celebrating someone's birthday, and attorney-types from the high rises a mile away. To bring people out in the rain in the middle of the work week, it seemed to him that her food and service must be pretty amazing.

He wouldn't play messenger, but as he watched Tommi Fairchild's pretty brown eyes shift toward the doorway as if
waiting for him to move, he could certainly start checking out the place as a possible investment. Since working with her would give Scott the perfect excuse to hang around, his partner could pick up the ball when he got back and take it from there.

“You said yesterday that you own this,” he reminded her, not above doing whatever he had to do to achieve a goal. As long as it was legal, anyway. “Are you the sole proprietor?”

Looking surprised by the question, or maybe surprised that he remembered what she'd said, her glance shifted back to him. “I am.”

He'd wondered before how that was possible, given how young she appeared. He wondered again now. “Do you mind telling me what kind of financing you have?”

“I have a small SBA loan,” she said, speaking of the Small Business Administration. “I needed it to buy a salamander and add the wine bar.”

“Salamander?”

“It's a kind of broiler. I use it for fish and to melt and brown cheese on onion soup, and to caramelize the sugar and cook the fruit for some of my salads. The pear carpaccio, especially.”

“That's it?”

“Oh, not at all.” Enthusiasm brightened her eyes as she quickly shook her head. “It's good for crisping toppings, too, or to bring the temperature up on a dish that had to wait while others for a table were prepared. It's a great piece of equipment. If I need to deepen a glaze—”

“I meant,” he said, patiently he hoped, “that's it as far as who's financially involved in the business.”

Her quick zeal faded with her quiet. “Oh. That's it, then.”

“There's no bank? No investor?”

She shook her head.

“No loan from a boyfriend?”

“No,” she said flatly.

“How about friends?” he ventured, noting the unquestionable finality in her last response. “Any side loans you have to repay for getting started? Any family members you owe?”

“I understand what you mean by financially involved,” she informed him, her expression graciously tolerant. “But I said there's no one. As for my family, they didn't want me becoming a chef in the first place. Mom and two of my sisters, anyway. This is all mine.”

The admissions caught him a little off guard. Especially the claim about her family. She didn't strike him as much of a rebel. But instead of being intrigued by the possibility, or asking why her family had been against something that appeared so successful, he made himself focus on the note of protective ownership in her voice. Given how proprietary owners could be about what they'd created, that attitude could be a problem in a partnership. But that was the analytical part of him.

Another part, the purely male part, had settled on her mouth.

As yesterday, that gentle fullness remained unadorned. There was no gloss or shine to interfere with its texture, the ripe-peach blush of its color, its taste.

Now, as then, he couldn't help but wonder if it would feel as soft as it looked.

A muscle in his jaw jerked.

“What do you want an investor for?”

Aware of his scrutiny, more aware of his faint frown, Tommi felt the same sense of disadvantage she had when she'd first met him. It was as if he knew something about her that she didn't, and he wasn't sharing. Or maybe what
brought the vaguely intimidating feeling was the way his big body had her more or less trapped in her office.

She wasn't accustomed to feeling intimidated. Or to being so conscious of a man.

But she wasn't accustomed to being pregnant, either. Or to needing help. Or to craving the odd reassurance she'd felt from him yesterday and would give just about anything in the world to feel again.

Even as she scrambled to deny that unwanted admission, she couldn't help the hope that flickered.

“I need to hire a sous chef.” She'd bet her best sauté pan that he was not a person who wasted time. Especially his own. If he was asking questions, it was for a reason. “When I opened two years ago, I only served breakfast and lunch.

“Six months ago,” she continued, telling him exactly what she'd told all the loan officers who'd turned her down, “I hired a sous chef for next to nothing and started staying open for dinner. He left for an opportunity he couldn't refuse,” she told him, sweeping past enough details to choke a goat. “Since then, I've been through two experienced cooks and a trainee, but none of them fit with what we have here. The person I want requires more in the way of salary than I paid Geoff, but he's exactly who I need to maintain the quality and feel of my kitchen.”

“Why'd the other guy work for so little?”

“Because he was just looking for experience,” she said, which was exactly what she'd known when she'd hired him.

“And this other chef?”

“We went to culinary school together. He's working in San Francisco right now, but he's moving back to Seattle in February,” she explained quickly. “He's been offered another position here, but he hasn't accepted it yet. He'll
work for me if I can match their offer. He just can't afford a cut in pay. He has a family to support.”

The man blocking most of her doorway remained silent as his sharp blue eyes moved over her face. She had no idea what conclusions he might be drawing about anything she'd just said. She couldn't even tell if she'd piqued his interest or killed it. His beautifully carved and annoyingly guarded features gave away absolutely nothing.

Neither did his tone.

“I should let you get back to work,” he finally said. He glanced at his watch, something that flashed platinum and probably cost as much as the salary she was hoping to cover. “I need to get going myself. I'll take a look at your books, if you're still interested in showing them to us. Scott won't be back for a week, but it's me you'd deal with initially, anyway.”

Tommi felt herself go still. She blinked, breathed in. Just like that. He wanted to look at her books.

“Of course I'm interested.” Fighting the urge to hug him, amazed by how badly she wanted to do just that, she looked behind her, looked back. “Hang on just a sec.”

Max could almost swear he felt her relief. That he could sense what this woman felt so distinctly would have bothered him, too, had he considered the odd phenomenon. Sensitivity had never been his strong suit. Or so he'd been told by his ex, and a few other women who'd wanted to get closer than he cared to allow. As it was, he just wondered why she felt that relief so strongly. He could have understood her reaction had she been drowning in debt or facing foreclosure, but all she wanted was to hire a chef.

Or so he was thinking when he watched her turn from the drawer she'd just opened. As she faced him with the portfolio she'd had with her yesterday, she was smiling. Not with the restraint he'd seen before, but with an ease that
lit the little chips of gold in her dark eyes. That same ease relieved the strain he hadn't even noticed until that stress no longer tensed the fragile lines of her face.