Spooning Daisy (23 page)

Rita pointed out the entrance into the kitchen behind the bar, then she led Daisy across the hall and through an arched doorway into the dining room.

Airier than the bar due to the wall of windows showcasing Kachemak Bay, the generous room still managed a masculine ambience with burgundy and forest-green striped wallpaper and butcher-block tables with overstuffed leather chairs.

Fit for a king
, Daisy thought, or at least for men who wished to be kings.

Rita took her the length of the room, past the massive painting of Mt. McKinley—
Denali
now that Daisy was a local—and around a quick bend into the kitchen.

“Holy-moly,” Daisy muttered, scarcely believing her eyes. From every direction, stainless steel winked and teased and tempted her. Whatever medieval fantasies Wild Man inspired, its kitchen was the new millennium.

Rita took a stool at the butcher-block island as Daisy waltzed around the kitchen, caressing surfaces and exploring drawers and cabinets, looking like a kid at Christmas. Her fingers brushed gleaming pots and pans hanging like culinary wind chimes above the griddles and gas burners. Her eyes danced across the black knife handles protruding from wood scabbards. She nearly hugged the refrigerator, barely containing her ecstasy over the hulking appliance. Her expression as bright as the silver surrounding her, Daisy turned toward Rita. “It’s absolutely fabulous. And so
clean
.”

“How ’bout we eat?” Rita suggested, lacking Daisy’s predilection for metal.

“Let me.” Simultaneously opening the refrigerator’s double doors, Daisy audibly sighed at the vast interior. After a string of similar reflective pauses—at the razor sharpness of the knife blade, at the walk-in cooler, at the half-dozen bread-makers—Daisy and Rita were finally sitting together at the island enjoying turkey sandwiches with lodge-grown lettuce and freshly baked bread. And drinking diet sodas out of Waterford tumblers.

“So . . . ,” Rita began after finishing the first half of her sandwich. “You like the kitchen?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Daisy nodded, her mouth full. She followed up a swallow with soda, then dabbed her lips with a paper towel. “It’s fabulous.”

“So, it’ll make up for your cabin?”

“In spades”—she stopped—“I mean—”

“I know what you mean. It’s hard to lose everything and start over. But isn’t there a saying about losing everything to gain everything?”

Daisy was pretty sure that Biblical reference didn’t refer to breakups or getting ripped off by Myron Porter, but she merely shrugged and finished her sandwich.

“So when do the guests arrive?” Daisy asked.

“There’s a party of four coming next week, but we’ll have a full lodge the week after for pretty much the rest of the summer and into the fall. You have a few days to finalize your menu and make a list of what you want from Anchorage. I’ll set up a meeting with the kitchen help tomorrow morning . . . about ten?”

“Sure.”

“You remember that we’re open to the public for dinner?”

Which accounted for the forty leather chairs in the dining room. And she also remembered that breakfast was served to the guests, but lunches had a limited, set menu and were usually “to go” for whatever excursions the guests had selected. The middle of the day was Daisy’s downtime.

“This Sunday night we have a dress rehearsal for the locals—invitation only—and we always have a full dining room. But since it’s free, no one ever complains if things aren’t quite perfect. It’ll give you a chance to work out the kinks.”

“Kinks?”

“Well, you are in Otter Bite. And the boss likes to hire residents whenever possible . . .”

“Yeah . . . ?”

“When you add in the cleaning staff and the groundskeepers and the kitchen help and the waitstaff and the deckhands, we’re the largest single employer in Otter Bite.”

“Yeah . . . ?”

“The boss is very proud of that,” Rita said, taking the dishes to the sink.

“Okay.”

“Kinks come with the territory.”

A slight twitch of an auburn brow was Daisy’s only response. “So when do I meet
the boss
?”

“Right now,” a voice growled from behind.

Chapter Twenty-Two

D
aisy ignored the pounding in her heart and on her cabin door; she snatched her blouses and khakis from their hangers and stuffed them into her suitcase.

Her life had become a free-for-all, where everything was unfair or, by Machiavellian standards,
fair—
and nothing made sense and she seemed to be continually battling bad luck. But now wasn’t the time for thinking. She had a plane to catch. Or a boat. Hell, she’d hitch a ride with an otter if she had to.

“Daisy—”

She jumped at the sight of Max, every hunky inch of him, standing in the bedroom doorway. “Get out!” she demanded, shooting her arm in his direction.

“I own this cabin.”

Her eyes blazed. “Well, you don’t own me.”

“Actually” crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe—“I sorta do.”

Daisy sputtered air. “In your dreams!”

“We have a contract—”

“Sue me.”

“I will.”

Daisy paused, envisioning herself in front of a judge and explaining about the perfume on the pillow. “Why would you even want me here?” she asked, disbelieving the hope she had for his answer.

“I don’t—”

She swallowed her hope and set her jaw.

“—Unfortunately, I don’t have time to find another cook.”

“
Chef!
”

“Whatever,” Max spat back. “The point is, I need a
chef
and you need a job.”

“Don’t tell me what I need.”

“A four-star
chef
doesn’t come to Otter Bite, Alaska, unless she needs a job.”

“I needed a change of scenery,” she countered. “But instead it’s just the same old view.”

Daisy’s opinion of him was obvious, but the reasons behind the ice still had him guessing. He paused and softened his approach. “We’ll hardly see each other.”

“
Hardly
is still too much.”

Max frowned and leaned into the room. “What is your problem?”

“My problem?
My
problem?
You’re
my problem.”

“Yeah, I gathered that from your note.”

“So that’s it.” She stepped toward him. “You can’t stand that
I
left
you
.”

Max came off the doorframe and threw up his arms. “Like I care enough to care.”

Daisy shook her finger at him. “You may not care, but you
care
.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

But Daisy wasn’t about to explain the obvious to the obtuse. “Why didn’t you tell me you owned this lodge? And who is M. K. Endall? And why is he on your brochures?”

Max paused, the typo on his brochures long forgotten, but not the 50 percent discount he’d gotten for the error. Besides, the brochures, the website—they were red herrings he barely paid attention to.

Daisy cocked her head at Max’s silence as the answer to the puzzle revealed itself. “M. K. Endall. M. Kendall. Max Kendall.” A head cock the other direction. “Why the subterfuge?”

“You always see the worst, don’t you?”

A lifted brow challenged his contention.

“It was a typo, for Chrissakes. And no big deal since my repeat guests know who I am and new guests don’t care.”

“And you got a discount, of course. Is that why you haven’t bothered to update it?”

Max rankled at the insinuation that he was cheap. It was just another variation of the Midori-and-rum argument. “Why didn’t
you
tell me you had a job here? Why’d you hide
that
information?”

Daisy jerked back. “I didn’t hide it!”

“Your note doesn’t count,” he said, remembering Daisy’s instructions on where to send the $53. “And, by the way, I owe you zip! You should pay me for putting up with you. You are so boring, the way you go on about napkins. And don’t get me started on your weird sheet phobia.”

“It’s not a phobia!” Daisy reined herself in. “I don’t know why I’m even talking to you. In fact, I’m not.” She turned and made an exaggerated show of packing.

“That’s what I thought. You never told me you had a job here.”

Daisy spun toward him. “I did too!”

“Where the hell was I?”

She held out her arms as if beseeching heavenly help. “Sitting across the dinner table from me!”

“I don’t remember that.”

Daisy rolled her head from shoulder to shoulder. “Fabulous. And I suppose you also don’t remember agreeing to drive me to Valdez so I could catch the ferry to Otter Bite.”

Max did remember
something
about Otter Bite, but he was pretty sure that was about the time the Chanel blonde had been seducing a breadstick.
Uh-oh
, Max thought, keeping his thoughts far from his face. Could Daisy
know
? But
how
?

“Sorry,” Max said, allowing her no satisfaction.

Daisy planted her hands on her hips. “Why the hell do you think I let you share my cabin?” Making her point, she stepped toward him.“I traded my cabin for a ride. You agreed. We had a deal. Why else would I give you the bed?”

“How else were you going to get me
into
your bed? And as I recall. . .”

Her eyes exploded into green fire. Something between a scream and a howl escaped her as she went for his throat.

Max took advantage of her attack, snatching her wrists and locking them behind her as he corralled her in his arms. Then he did what he did best.

Daisy was unprepared for his lips and she was torn between what she wanted and self-preservation. She shared his kiss only long enough to collect her senses before pulling free of his grasp.

Eyes locked, there was barely space between them for Daisy to breathe; when she did, his scent filled her lungs. Her heart pounded through every inch of her and she feared she might very well explode. She wanted him and she hated that she wanted him. She had to break the spell—

The sting of her palm against his cheek jolted Max’s senses. His mouth tightened and his eyes blazed as he grabbed her wrist, warding off a second strike.

But Daisy was satisfied by her single slap.
Against lyin’ cheaters everywhere
, she thought. “
That
,” she snarled, her eyes locked on his, “is for
her
perfume on
my
pillow.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“F
ind another cook,” Max snarled to Rita as he stomped with his one good leg through the kitchen and into the bar.

Rita looked up from the list she was making; Max hop-sprinted by her like a whipped pup. “Hey,” she called, leaving her stool and chasing after him.

Max was already pouring his favorite scotch into a rocks glass when Rita caught up with him in the dark bar. She clicked on the ceiling cams and rose light dusted the polished wood.

“Shouldn’t you be using your crutches?”

“Don’t start.”

“It’s too soon for you to be stomping around.”

“I mean it.”

“So what’s this
find another cook
crap?” she asked, grudgingly changing the subject. “It took me three months to find Daisy, and let me tell you, we lucked out. Thank God for that cheatin’ ass of a fiancé—”

Max took a hearty swallow of Glenfiddich and grimaced at the burn.

“—or we’d be stuck with some hash-slinger. Just wait ’til you taste her cooking. Her mango chutney is to die for.”

Max slammed his empty glass on the gleaming cherry bar. “Mango chutney!
Mango chutney?
Men don’t eat mango chutney! Men eat raw meat smothered in A-1. What the hell were you thinking? Mango chutney!”

“Just because
you
haven’t changed your eating habits for twenty years—”

“Hey!” Max poured another two fingers of scotch. “Just the other day I had strudel for breakfast.”

“Well, excuuuuse me. I had no idea you were capable of such derring-do.”

Glass in hand, he stopped it midway to his mouth. “Derring-do?”

“It was the March sixth word on my word-a-day calendar. It’s the only one I haven’t used yet. Opportunity for
derring-do
doesn’t come around much in Otter Bite.”

“No,” Max said, slugging down his last round of scotch.

Rita opened her mouth, but words failed to follow. She narrowed her eyes on Max’s left cheek.

He caught her focus and offered his right profile instead.

She softened. “Did you really fire Daisy?”

Max stared vacantly into the room. “She quit.”

“Wow. She’s got no job, no place to live, no place to go, had her car stolen . . . and she actually
quit
?”

“Yes.”

“Man, you musta really done a number on her.”

“I did
not
do a number on her.”

“Yeah, that would explain her gold-medal dash outta the kitchen when she saw you.”

Shaking his head at an argument he couldn’t win, Max grabbed the scotch bottle by its neck—leaving the glass—and moved to a table.

“You gonna tell me about it?”

“She’s certifiable.”

Rita leaned on the bar. “Daisy doesn’t seem nuts. She’s just going through a tough time. That can make anyone erratic.”

“Erratic would be an improvement.”

Rita earnestly asked, “Why are you being so hard on her?”

“You just don’t know her like I know her.”

“Duuuh.”

He shot her an unappreciative glance. “She has a turtle.”

“I know.”

“But did you know she’s been lugging around that turtle for like twenty years?”

“Hmmm.”

“The turtle’s name is Elizabeth.
Elizabeth,
” he added incredulously.

“As compared with
Napoleon
?”

A longer, harder look.

“You wanna tell me what’s really bugging you?”

Max drank from the bottle, then answered. “If you must know, Daisy is the reason I’m in this brace.”

Rita searched her memory. “Daisy is the garage-sale woman?” She stifled a laugh, but couldn’t stop a smile. “The one who put you in the hospital? What’re the odds?”