The Chef's Choice (3 page)

“Okay, so he has some rough edges,” Tania allowed, forking up some fried rice. “Anyway, that boinking story was from years ago. Maybe he's past it by now.”

“God help us if he's not.” Cady squeezed a dollop of hot mustard out of its packet and swabbed her egg roll in it.

Tania watched her a minute. “Do you know you've probably burned off every taste bud you were ever born with by now?” she asked as Cady tore open a second packet. “How can you eat that stuff?”

“Puts hair on your chest.” Cady bit into the egg roll with a little hum of pleasure.

“Just what I've always wanted. Anyway, back to Damon Hurst—and I expect an introduction to him at the first possible moment, by the way—what are you going to do?”

Cady aimed the remote at her DVD player moodily. “Not much I can do. Mom and Dad seem to think he's the answer to their problems.”

“And you don't agree. You know you're only prejudiced against him because he's good-looking.”

“I'm prejudiced against him because he's trouble. He's one of those guys who thinks he can get anything he wants.”

“Can he?” Tania asked curiously.

“Watch the movie.”

“It's just previews.” Tania turned to face her. “This is much more interesting. Come on, what's he really like?”

What was he really like? “A charmer, like it's second nature. He knows exactly what to say and how to say it. He's got this way of looking at you so that even when you're ready to strangle him all you can do is just stand there staring up at him like an idiot.”

Tania became very still. “‘You' like hypothetical or ‘you' like you?” she asked carefully.

“Do I look like an idiot?”

“I'll pass on answering that just now.”

“He's so cocky, he thinks he's God's gift and he can get you to do whatever he wants you to. ‘This could get interesting,' my ass,” Cady burst out in frustration. She sprang up from the couch and began pacing.

Tania just watched. “You're getting awfully excited about a guy you hardly know.”

“It doesn't take long with him. I mean, he leans in and gets right in my face, deliberately, when he
knows
I'm pissed about him. And he does that thing with his eyes—”

“What thing with his eyes?”

“Like he wants to eat you up,” she responded, moving restlessly to the window. “Like you're the only person in the world. And he makes you want to believe it.” It was irritating. Beyond irritating, infuriating.

“Let's go back to the ‘eat you up' part,” Tania ordered. “You mean he tried to kiss you?”

Cady stopped and flopped back down on the couch. “Give me some credit, will you? I would have stopped that one way before it ever happened.”

“Why?”

“Why?”
she repeated.

Tania forked up a dumpling. “You ask me, you could use kissing. How long has it been, anyway?”

“You know how long it's been.” Cady took a drink of her Coke. “Since Ed Shaw.”

Tania stared. “Ed Shaw was what, three years ago? Cady, sweetie, you've got to get out more.”

“Maybe I don't want to,” she retorted. “I mean, it's fine for you. You're gorgeous, you've always got guys after you. It doesn't work that way for me.”

“That's because you scare 'em off with that mouth of yours.”

“Maybe I want to scare them off. Maybe I just don't want to deal with it.” She didn't want the nerves, didn't like the anticipation, despised that feeling of having it suddenly matter whether some guy called or not. And having no control over whether or not he did. Somewhere along the line it had just become easier, more comfortable, less nerve-wracking to avoid guys altogether.

“I think you're nuts,” Tania pronounced. “I mean, what about Denny Green or Stan Blackman? You've had guys interested in you before.”

“Not the ones I wanted interested.”

“Maybe that's because you chose the ones who wouldn't be.”

“Self-fulfilling prophecy, Ms. Freud?” Cady glanced over from the menu on the screen.

“I just think you haven't given guys in general much of a chance. Why not try with Hurst?”

“Are you nuts? That would be like sticking a kid with a learner's permit in a demolition derby. No thanks.”

“It would be interesting.”

“So would skydiving without a parachute, at least for the first couple of minutes. Damon Hurst is in and out of here. And no,” she said as Tania's eyes brightened, “before you start, I don't need in and out, either metaphorically or literally.”

“Well, I think that you're the one who's nuts,” Tania said, picking up the carton of broccoli beef. “I'd go for him in a heartbeat.”

“Then why don't you?” Cady asked tartly.

“Maybe I will. Maybe I'll just…” Tania trailed off, staring at Cady. “You've got a thing for him,” she said with slowly dawning delight.

“I don't have a thing for him,” Cady retorted. “I told you, I don't want any part of him.”

“Oh yeah, you do.”

“I want him gone.”

“Liar.”

“Watch the movie,” Cady grumbled.

“N
o tuna at all?” Damon asked. He sat in the tiny nook off the kitchen that served as his office. Smaller than a phone booth, the space held a little counter just wide enough for a laptop and a phone, high enough that he could either sit on a tall chair or stand and look out across the kitchen.

“No more tuna, not today. We're already out,” the fish vendor said over the phone.

“How about skate wing?”

“We got some nice scallops,” he offered.

It was an education in what was possible, Damon told himself. “Fifteen pounds of that.”

“I got you down for haddock and lobster, also. Standing order. You still want it?”

“For now. Things will be changing soon, though.” He hoped to God. With a scowl, Damon ended the call.

He wasn't used to not being able to get whatever he wanted delivered to his door, from suppliers no more than an hour or two away. Of course, he also wasn't used to getting off work at midnight to find that the entire town had rolled up the sidewalks. After hours of fast, hard, demanding work, he needed time to come down. In Manhattan, that had meant a bar or nightclub. In Grace Harbor, it appeared to mean his living room.

Then again, there was something to be said for getting enough sleep to be at work early. The kitchen, at this hour, was quiet. Only Roman was in, standing at the stainless steel counter that paralleled the row of stoves that ran along one side wall; together, the two formed the line, where the bulk of the entrées came together during lunch or dinner service. Opposite the end of the line was the little corner bay where hot and cold appetizers were put together; between the apps station and the end of the line ran a crosswise aisle that led through a doorway to the dishwashing station and the back door and the walk-in.

Which brought him back to fish.

“What kind of a fish market sells out of tuna at seven in the morning, Roman?” he asked.

Roman glanced up, but his knife never ceased moving. “A fish market that sells a lot of tuna to Japan for sushi, Chef. You could probably get some shipped in.”

“I'm not going to get it shipped in when it's fished right here.” He walked past Roman to the boxes of produce that had been delivered that morning. Farm Fresh From California, the labels proclaimed, but how fresh could it be if it had been shipped across the country by truck or plane or train? And why were they getting goods from California when New Jersey and Florida were probably growing everything they needed by this time of year? Doing business in Maine was proving more of a challenge than he'd expected.

At least the kitchen was in good shape, all white walls and gleaming counters and terra-cotta tiled floor. The powerful fans at the ceiling were silent at this hour. When the stoves were fired up and the unbroken surface of their tops became one giant radiator, the fans and AC would kick into gear. Not that it would help much. Once the dinner rush was on and all the cooks were working on the line, all the air-conditioning in the world wouldn't keep the temperature down.

At this hour, though, the kitchen was cool and empty, quiet save for the soft tick of Roman's knife.

Damon turned back to his tiny office, the walls lined with clipboards that held the order sheets, a separate one for each day of the week. It was an organized system and Roman had kept it up, Damon would give him that. Actually, he'd give him a whole lot more, having seen the guy work the line during service the day before. A good man with a knife, Roman, and he ran a clean station. He moved easily from the grill to sauté to apps as necessary, turning out clean, consistently plated dishes each time.

Damon had the facility, he had the staff. Now it was up to him to come up with the right food.

The Sextant's menu currently ran to entrées like baked haddock, steamed lobster, steak. Basic, satisfying fare, good enough for guests who didn't want to deal with going into Kennebunk or Portland, but nothing that was going to bring anybody to the restaurant on purpose.

The thing to do was to hold on to the New England traditions but rework them, take the lobster and blueberries and turn them into something more than the sum of the parts. It was that aspect of cooking that he really loved, letting his imagination take flight, playing with flavors, mixing elements to come up with a new twist that made the taste buds sit up and take notice.

Of course, the thing to do was to go gradually. He'd ride with the current menu for a week while he developed the new dishes and Roman and the rest of the line cooks perfected making them. Then they'd rotate a few dishes in each night until at the end of the second week they'd be serving a revamped menu featuring the familiar flavors but taken to a new level.

The restaurant currently had two stars in the guidebooks. The McBains were hoping for three; Damon had vowed to get them four. Of course, that had been before he'd found out what kind of food stocks he had to work with. A look at suppliers and food cost requirements meant jiggering things a bit, but he could still do it. He was going to blow away Ian and Amanda McBain. And their daughter.

Especially their stubborn, opinionated daughter.

She was definitely an original. Nice enough looking, he supposed, though you'd hardly know she was aware of it. He was used to women who flirted, women who were experts at polishing their own allure. He wasn't sure he could remember ever meeting a woman who just purely didn't give a damn about making a good impression, on him or anyone else. As annoying as it was, he had to give her credit. Her redhead's skin might look milky smooth but that tough, compact body could go toe-to-toe with anyone.

He remembered her scent and smiled. Going toe-to-toe with her could be kind of intriguing.

The phone rang and he picked it up absently. “Hurst.”

“Seven o'clock and already at work,” Paul Descour said in his lightly accented English. “I'm happy to see it.”

“That makes one of us,” Damon said, stifling a yawn.

“You can sleep when you're dead, my friend. You cannot build a world-class restaurant from the grave.”

“Now, there's a sprightly thought to start out the day. Was that the only reason you called, to cheer me up?”

“I called to see how your new venture is going.”

“Oh, great. I'm learning how to make meals without fresh produce.”

“No green market?”

“I'm working on it. So far, I can mostly tell you what they don't grow within a hundred miles of here.”

“So it is a challenge. It will show you what you are made of.”

“It's not what I'm made of that I'm worried about,” Damon said.

“You have always been resourceful. I am sure you will find a way. And how is the restaurant?”

“It's got possibilities,” Damon allowed. “The kitchen setup's good. A little small for the size of the dining room but it's not a problem right now. We've got enough tables to do a hundred and fifty covers a night but we've had less than a quarter of that since I've been here.”

“It is okay to start small. You are still working out the bugs.”

“Bugs are definitely not on the menu.”

“And that is a good thing. The health department just closed La Dolce Vida for violations,” Descour said, referring to Manhattan's Italian restaurant of the moment.

Damon shook his head. “Marco never was much on taking care of the details.”

“You may have had your faults, but you always kept a clean kitchen,” Descour said.

“I learned from a tough boss.”

“You did not learn everything from me, my friend. Some of what you know is a gift. Some of what you know I want no responsibility for,” he added before Damon could be pleased. “I did not like it when you were pissing your life away.”

Funny how the rebuke didn't sting the way it would have from Damon's father. Then again, Colonel Brandon Hurst would never have leavened the criticism with a compliment, or meant the compliment if he had. It would have been one more condemnation in a lifetime's worth, one more bit of proof that Damon had fallen short of expectations. Paul said it because he wanted better for Damon; the colonel would have said it because he wanted a better reflection on himself.

Which was an opportunity for its own kind of small revenge. However much Damon had squirmed at the exaggerations, rumors and outright lies the tabloids had printed about him, he'd always enjoyed imagining the colonel's reaction, coming across them in some grocery store.

He never knew for sure it had happened because he hadn't spoken to his father in nearly a decade.

If anyone had suggested to him that his drive for success stemmed from a need to prove himself to his father, Damon would have scoffed. Paul, though, Paul mattered. The problem was that Damon had no good answer for him. Mistakes, he'd probably—okay, certainly—made, but it was pointless to regret them now. The thing was to learn. If he'd done that much, then they could be filed under interesting experiences, no harm, no foul.

“What's done is done,” he said. “I can't change it. I'm more interested in what happens next.”

“I shall be curious to see,” Descour said.

“I'm even more interested in finding a way to get produce that hasn't spent the day soaking up exhaust fumes in some cargo bay.”

“I shall be curious to see how you manage that, too.”

“I'll let you know when I figure it out.”

After he'd ended the conversation and hung up, Damon stared at the phone before him for a moment. “Hey, Roman,” he said aloud. “What do you know about foraging?”

Early morning was Cady's favorite time. The day felt fresh and new, the air so crisp, even in May, that her breath showed as she loaded bags of Compass Rose yard waste into the bed of her battered pickup. The guests were all asleep, the employees yet to show up. She had the grounds to herself, just her and Grace Harbor, the quiet lap of the water against the rocks punctuated by the cries of the gulls.

Some people took time to find their place in the world. Cady had always known she belonged in Maine. Her brother, Walker, might have moved to Manhattan; her sister, Max, might have tried out Chicago before coming back to settle in Portland. As far as Cady was concerned, there was nowhere else she'd rather be than on this particular bit of coast. Life down east might not always be easy, but it satisfied her soul.

Of course, these days she had a bit more than her soul to worry about. After six years of working for another landscaper in the area, she'd decided to hang out her own shingle two years before. Be her own boss, her thinking went, though she hadn't quite realized at the time that being her own boss really meant that
everyone
was her boss, particularly her clients. To date, the best thing she could say was that she was keeping her head above water.

Barely.

One challenge was that the population of Grace Harbor was a whopping five thousand people, though that quadrupled when the summer tourists descended in droves. Another was that the Maine growing season was so short. Hard to make a living growing things when those things only grew from May to September.

But that was the job she'd taken on, so from May to September, she worked, she cultivated, she pasted a smile on her face and made nice until her jaws hurt. And in the winter, she put a plow blade on her truck and prayed for snow.

Still, she was making progress. Her old truck would have to last a few more years but the new greenhouse gave her a critical advantage in growing her own stock that would pay off big down the line. She'd acquired a few steady clients—businesses, rental property owners, her uncle Lenny at the marina. She'd scrape along, even if the Compass Rose was still her biggest account.

Cady settled another bag in the bed of her truck and turned back to the pile. It didn't matter that the inn was family owned, her parents had always treated it as a business, insisting on paying her just as they would any other groundskeeper. And because Cady was in business, too, she'd felt honor bound to negotiate long and hard with them over the terms. She still considered it something of a coup that she'd fast-talked her father so that he didn't realize he'd signed a contract that paid her less than he had his last groundskeeper.

It was her business, and she'd do what she wanted, including offer a family discount, even if the family didn't know. It wasn't as if she was going to go broke.

Yet.

She wasn't so sure about her parents, though. The past couple of years had been increasingly tight, even as repairs on the nearly hundred-year-old main building mounted up. They definitely needed to make a move to bring in more traffic.

Hiring an unstable guy like Damon Hurst wasn't making a move, though. It was desperation.

Damon Hurst. Just the thought of his name had her fuming, and if that didn't, the memory of his easy smirk did. Cady knew about him. Oh, she knew all about him whether she wanted to or not, courtesy of Tania, who was a complete junkie for his show.

“I don't care about cooking, Tania,” she'd pleaded at one of their weekly get-togethers. “Can't we just watch a movie?”