| |
Dark chocolate sour cherry fudge. Marbled black and white chocolate mousse in chocolate wafer cups. Devil’s food cupcakes stuffed with coconut custard, sprinkled with chopped almonds.
Enveloped by the rich aroma of cocoa, Sarah sat on a kitchen stool and read the newspaper. Tarts and éclairs towered over her on stainless-steel rolling racks, waiting to be wheeled into the restaurant dining room and arranged in the display case.
Sarah wiggled her nose and inhaled deeply, her head spinning into paradise for a moment. The temptation to grab and gobble was nearly irresistible.
She swung her long blond hair behind her shoulder, turning her head slightly. She stared at the Almond Joy cupcake in the center of her field of vision. “Yum,” Sarah whispered, hypnotized by the image. Her hand twitched, and she struggled not to reach out.
“Hey, pretty lady, you okay over there?” Jerome called out to her from across the kitchen. He slapped a bunch of fresh basil on the cutting board. Sarah looked up with a guilty quiver, and he winked at her. “Getting drunk on those chocolate fumes? I see those big blue eyes turning all glittery rainbow-colored, girlfriend.”
“You just be careful and don’t cut off your thumb!” She folded up the newspaper to read it more comfortably. “The customers don’t like to find body parts in their food, you know.”
“Ow!” Jerome cried in a falsetto voice, mincing herbs while he hummed along with the radio. Dressed in baggy kitchen-white chef’s pants and a body-hugging sleeveless T-shirt that showed off his toned brown body, he had a red bandanna wrapped around his head to contain the long, kinky dreadlocks. Diamond studs twinkled in his earlobes, smoky black eyeliner and gray shadow adorned his long-lashed eyes, and an ornate tattoo of a green dragon wrapped around his left bicep.
The second sous chef was his perfect counterpoint. Buttoned-up and tidy, Raoul was spotless in his traditional white chef’s jacket and creased pants. He sliced potatoes into almost transparent disks while he talked a mile a minute in Spanish with his wife, Isabelle, on his iPhone, set to speaker and resting on the shelf in front of his workstation.
A delivery boy came through the back door with boxes of fresh produce stacked high in his arms, heading for the walk-in cooler. The big Hobart dishwasher hissed and gurgled as a cloud of steam belched out of its mouth. Jerome ran over to pull out a clattering rack of clean mixing bowls, leaving them to cool while he shoved in another rack and pulled the handle to lower the doors. It was bustling and noisy, as always on a Friday afternoon in the kitchen at The Three Chocolatiers, where everyone prepared for a busy night.
“I’m totally sick of so many Mexican recipes, Grandpa. Yes, they invented chocolate, but why can’t we try something new? Let’s be daring. Create our own innovations!”
Sarah’s grandfather, Chef Emile Dumas, and her cousin Paisley—at age thirty-four, already a renowned pastry chef herself—entered from the bar and crossed to the tiny office at the back of the kitchen. In appearance, the cousins were like salt and pepper. Sarah, fair and tall, and Paisley, dark and small. They were just as great a combination when they paired their talents. Paisley cooked, and Sarah took care of sales, as they had since their first lemonade stand.
Her cousin looked over at Sarah now, sending a quick shrug and eye roll. Sarah held her tongue and gave Paisley a warning glance. As the junior members of the “Three” in the restaurant’s name, they tried not to challenge Emile’s authority. Sarah had joined the family business only three years ago, when she was laid off from a corporate marketing job. She was still learning and tried not to take sides.
“Paisley, you know the chocolate chili is always popular.” Emile ran his fingers through his mane of white hair and tugged as his voice began to rise. “We must think of sales, ma petite! People are nervous about some of the more unusual dishes. What they really want is your fabulous desserts, of course.”
Since Grandma Annie passed away last year, Sarah had graduated from bartender to take on the role of family peacemaker along with management of the dining room. She wondered if her diplomatic skills were going to be needed now. The two chefs faced one another with hands on hips.
Paisley backed down, flinging up her hands in surrender. “Okay, Grandpa. But tomorrow night, we make the chocolate tenderloin. We have a freezer full of beautiful grass-fed beef, and it’s too good to grind into hamburger.” She stomped away.
Sarah was absorbed in reading the local business news, and someone had entered and was standing in front of her, clearing his throat, before she noticed. She looked over her paper to see long legs in faded blue jeans, leading up to a brown leather belt with a silver concha buckle, and then farther up to a red plaid shirt covering a flat belly and broad chest. The shirt was worn unbuttoned at the throat to reveal a tanned neck adorned with a few nice curly brown hairs.
Following this fascinating path toward his smiling face before she could stop herself, Sarah recognized Blake Harrison, the manufacturer who supplied The Three Chocolatiers with its signature brand of premium double-chocolate ice cream.
He was in his midthirties with dark-brown hair and green eyes, and word on the street had it that he was currently single after a long-term relationship. Blake wandered through the kitchen once a week or so, meeting with Emile to take his order. He always wore his sleeves rolled up, as if he were ready for action. Sarah enjoyed imagining what kind of action that might be.
“Hi!” Sarah squinted up at Blake. “Nice, um, belt.” She realized she’d been staring at his crotch, and her cheeks tingled with embarrassment. “Can I help you with something?” She cleared her throat and tried to look businesslike.
No point in giving him the wrong idea. She wasn’t dating. She couldn’t risk the heartbreak again. Better to stay solo and concentrate on being a great mom. That was what she told herself, anyhow, during the long dark hours before it was finally time to get up and make coffee.
Of course, Sarah did have totally normal, healthy urges, which sometimes pulled her in the opposite direction. Such as her current inability to stop staring at Blake Harrison with a goofy grin on her face, and the fact that her eyes kept wandering back to his belt.
“I’m definitely interested.” He grinned at her, and their eyes locked.
“Huh?” Her mouth fell open. Is he reading my mind?
“Yeah, the chocolate wedding catering job sounds great. Count me in.” He nodded and put his hands on his hips.
Her brain finally snapped into gear. “Oh, you got my email! Fantastic, the clients will be thrilled. Let me get my notes. Be right back.”
She jumped off the stool and fled into the office to pull herself together.
* * *
THERE SHE GOES, RUNNING away again.
Blake admired Sarah’s retreating form and wondered why she always seemed so skittish around him. Not that she didn’t look great from behind, but he didn’t have a lot of time for chasing women. He was a hardworking business owner.
For weeks now, he’d been hanging around the Chocolatiers kitchen, trying to catch a minute alone with Sarah. Blake was pretty sure Paisley knew what he was up to. She’d caught him staring at her cousin more than once.
He just wanted to take Sarah out on a perfectly normal date. With some perfectly normal sex at the end of it. What was wrong with that? They were both single, and both needed some social contact. A win-win as far as he could see.
But every time he found an excuse to start a conversation, she bolted.
He paced in front of the office doorway, watching as she shuffled through some papers on the table. Considering how he’d been dumped by his last girlfriend, right after paying the nonrefundable deposit on a Bahamas rental for their wedding, he should think twice about getting involved again. Hadn’t he sworn off women when Mandy fled with their vacation fund and her trainer from the health club? He obviously wasn’t good at this serious-relationship stuff. That was the second time he’d thought he found The One, only to be disappointed. Blake had thrown himself into work after that, struggling to fight off depression. Now he dated only casually. Very casually. As in, no spending the night and no promises.
A lot more opportunity existed for this lifestyle than he’d realized during the years when he was half of a couple. Women weren’t at all shy about what they wanted these days. All he had to do was sit at a bar, and before long, some kind of invitation would appear. As long as he was totally honest and the woman knew what she’d signed up for, what was the harm?
That was his theory, anyhow. But while the uncomplicated sex was nice, he still felt lonely and unfulfilled. The lack of real love was downright depressing, and underneath his mask of cool self-assurance, anxiety buzzed.
Blake wondered what it was about Sarah that tempted him so. Why did he keep coming back for a closer look when she gave him no encouragement? That alone should have deterred him. Most women seemed interested in Blake, even the married ones. All ages, all types. Other women didn’t run away. They even tracked him down and pounded on his door in the middle of the night. Well, that had happened once. Sarah’s reaction to him was illogical. He wasn’t giving up, though, because instinct told him she might be worth the risk.
He paced in the other direction, smiling when he caught her eye.
Was it that long taffy-colored blond hair, flowing down her back the way it was now or up in an elegant twist like a French pastry when she worked, showing off her graceful neck and the place behind her ear that he wanted to touch with his lips? Or maybe it was her tall, curvy shape. Or those little freckles sprinkled across the tops of her breasts like cinnamon on toast. He’d caught a good view of them when he stood over her just now, as she sat on the kitchen stool.
She made his mouth water. It was that simple.
It might even be serious if they ever got to the relationship part. There was an energy between them that he’d never encountered before. When he looked at her, he recognized a kindred spirit, with a lightning bolt of sexual attraction mixed in.
Last night, when he saw the new profile he’d been matched with at the online dating site, his intuition began to twitch right off the bat. CocoLvr and Sarah had the same cinnamon freckles and the same breasts, not to mention the same tiny starfish charm that dangled between them on a fine gold chain. What he had seen a moment ago confirmed it. Same interest in chocolate too, so it couldn’t all be coincidence. He wouldn’t have thought she’d be the sexting-with-strangers type, but things seemed to be going pretty well until she’d abruptly disappeared.
Even online, when she hadn’t known it was him. So, it wasn’t personal. Sarah ran away from everyone.
Blake had heard the stories about her ex. How the weasel ran off with some bimbo and left Sarah to raise their boy alone. A cute kid, whom Blake had seen playing Little League baseball. The guy obviously must be a jerk and an idiot. Who would walk away from all that?
Blake narrowed his eyes and watched her like a dog stalking a rabbit. Then he caught himself and tried to be cool. He stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets and leaned in the doorway.
Emile sat at a desk and opened mail while Paisley wrote on the specials board with chalk. Sarah looked up and smiled as she waved a yellow legal pad, and when their eyes connected, Blake felt his mouth smile back before he could stop it.
Damn! Grinning like a fool. Everyone will know I have a case for her.
He turned to one side and scowled, reaching for his cell phone to thumb through his messages and look busy.
“Let’s go up front and sit at the bar to talk,” Sarah said. “It’s quieter there.” She smiled and motioned toward the swinging door to the dining room, slipping past him with an accidental bump of her butt against his hip.
Blake’s grumpiness melted, and he turned to follow her like a sleepwalker.
Beauty and brains. She’d more or less run the place since Emile’s wife, Annie, died. And now she’d sold a chocolate wedding package to some rich foodies who wanted their own unique recipes created. Including a new flavor of his premium ice cream, packaged in custom-printed containers for local guests to take home in special insulated bags, along with cupcake versions of the wedding cake. All Sarah’s idea, of course.
Pretty slick. Sarah was quite a tasty-looking cupcake herself. Come to think of it, now he had two ways to win her over, in person and online.
Maybe Blake could figure out how to have his cupcake and eat it too.