If Alice was surprised, she hid it well. Her face was empty, composed. Her eyebrows slightly arched as if to say “excuse me?” The cup of coffee in her hand steady.
“I’m not kidding,” Gabe said as coldly as possible. He bit his tongue against what he really wanted to say: I need to be free of you. I can’t get on with my life with you here. “I want you out.”
“Why?” she finally asked, setting down her cup as though it might break in her hand. “What’s happened?”
“It doesn’t matter. This isn’t going to work.”
“I think I deserve an explanation,” she said. Her anger fueled his, especially since she didn’t have any right to hers.
“What time did you finally get out of bed today?” he asked. She opened her mouth but he didn’t want to hear what she had to say. He knew the truth. He’d always known it and he was a fool to try to convince himself this situation could go a different way. “How late did you stay up drinking last night? It was Monday for crying out loud. Your first day and you decide to get drunk?”
“Gabe—”
He shook his head, feeling oddly emotional. As if a great boulder of pain and anger was bearing down on him. “I was an idiot to think this was going to work.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on here.” The white flesh of her neck flushed slightly pink and he nearly relished that small sign of her involvement. Her caring. Her goddamn interest in what was happening. “You’re firing me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because you’re a drunk. You’re unstable. “Because this is my home,” he said instead, surprising himself with the honesty. His body was hot and he couldn’t control it, couldn’t calm himself. His throat hurt from not yelling. “Mine. I made it. You can’t have this one. You can’t take this one from me. Or ruin it.”
They both blinked while his words rocked the very foundation of the building.
“You think that’s what I want to do?” she asked, so composed, except for her hands, which trembled before she pressed them against her apron. Her lips were white.
“I don’t think you want to, but you will.”
She looked away for a moment, blinking, and he wondered if he’d gone too far. Compassion for this woman he used to love with an all-consuming force welled up in him, slow like black tar.
But he refused to give in to it. The Riverview, his sanity, his home—it was all at stake now.
Alice didn’t know why she didn’t open her mouth and tell him the truth. Why she, in fact, didn’t scream the truth from the rooftops and rub his face in his wrong conclusions and allegations.
Because he’s right. Part of her agreed with him.
I am a failure. Everything I touch turns to mud.
She brushed her hands of mint and turned to leave. She’d have her bags packed and be back in Albany with a glass of wine before the real pain set in.
“We went to the dairy farm outside of Coxsackie,” Max said from the door to the dining room, where he’d been standing for God knows how long. The blush and emotion she’d been able to barely control flooded her and she put her hand on the chopping block for balance because her head felt light. Her body too awkward. “She wanted to go early to see the first milking.”
“Max,” she started to stay, ready to tell him she didn’t need defending.
“You were going to let him think the worst,” he said, not looking at her.
He sauntered to the coffeepot and smirked at Gabe, practically egging him into a fight. Max loved to catch Gabe flat-footed and from her ex-husband’s openmouthed, slack-jawed look of surprise, she had to guess Max won this round.
She’d been defended. The truth was out and all it took was one look at Gabe’s face to realize it didn’t matter.
He wanted her gone, drunk or not, working or not.
Gabe shut his mouth, shook his head and seemed to gather himself. She could read him like a book. He still didn’t want her here, but now he had no reason to fire her.
She fumbled with the ties on her apron.
He was right—this was a mistake. For both of them. If this failed, if she screwed this up…it would hurt. More than what she felt right now. If she cared more…if she worked longer with these beautiful foods, in this beautiful room and then had to leave…the pain would magnify. Double and triple over.
Max poured himself a coffee. “Stop being an ass,” he told his brother and slapped Gabe on the back before heading outside. Alice wished fervently she could join him.
“Why didn’t you say something?” Gabe asked.
“I thought I was supposed to be running the kitchen. You weren’t going to interfere,” she managed to say, when what she wanted to say was, “You’re right. What’s the point of defending myself against the truth.”
“But I accused you—”
“Of what? Drinking too much?” She shrugged. “I did. I do.”
He licked his lips, his gaze so steady, so rock solid that she ached from the pressure. Nothing about her was rock solid. Nothing was steady. She was a house of cards and there was a fire beneath her.
“But you could have told me what your plans were. I don’t think it’s—”
She let out some of the steam building in her, vented it on him. “Considering—” her voice dripped with sarcasm “—your date this morning with the young mother, I didn’t want to bother you with details like milk.”
He rocked back on his heels. “Young mother?” His incredulous laughter felt like acid against her skin and heart. “You have got to get over this. It all happened years ago.”
It’s right now, she wanted to howl. It’s every minute I’m not a mother.
They both took deep breaths until the tension in the air dissipated, something they’d learned to do the hard way in the last few months they were together.
“This isn’t about Daphne,” Gabe said, his voice soft. “And it’s not about our marriage.”
“And it’s not about me drinking. So what is it, Gabe? What do you really need from me right now that I’m not giving you?”
“I need a commitment,” he said plainly. “You’re my chef, you’re a cornerstone for my business, and you’ve got me so nervous right now that I’m ready to do it myself.”
“Tomato soup from a can and grilled-cheese sandwiches? The bride will love that.” She mocked him, mocked the meal he used to make for her that once brought her such joy.
He winced, then rubbed his hands through his hair, putting the blond waves on end. The mask he wore—the I-can-do-it-all Gabe Mitchell mask—fell away for just a moment and she could see him. The real him—small and nervous and sleepless inside the suit of professionalism he wore—behind the smoke and mirrors.
The great and powerful Oz was at the end of his rope.
She trembled on the edge of something, on the edge of her solitary existence, on the edge of her combined failures that she wore like armor to prevent herself from risking too much again.
She tried to remember how she’d once been, when she’d taken risks, when she’d loved her life and her work, when collabo-rating with Gabe had been as exhilarating as making love to him.
Give a little, Alice. Give a tiny bit. Offer something that he doesn’t have to fight for.
“Look, I can handle prep and cook for your guests. But I need some help for that wedding by the end of this month.” Her voice was gruff, her compromise hidden and buried beneath her begrudging tone.
Gabe blinked, then blinked again. “I can find you help before then. I’ve got feelers—”
“I’m telling you, you don’t need to. I can handle it—just not the wedding.”
“That’s a lot of work,” he said. “I’m expecting twenty guests in May and I’m still taking reservations.”
She shot him a puh-leeze look. She’d handled more than that as a sous chef with laryngitis and a broken oven.
“All that work? Really?” he asked.
She nodded. “It’s not like there is anything else to do,” she said. And work would keep her mind off other things. Like booze. Like Zinnia. Like failed marriages and her ex-husband dating.
“Okay,” Gabe said. “I can hire—”
“I’ll hire someone,” she interrupted, “from my salary for a larger percentage of ownership.” The words toppled out of her mouth willy-nilly and awkward. She had very little experience with compromise.
She managed a quick look at Gabe to see if his response was favorable.
“Oh, shut your mouth,” she said, exasperated by his shocked expression. “Let’s both be reasonable.”
“Those are great terms,” he said and stuck out his hand.
She slid her hand into his giant paw and quickly tried to remove it, but he gripped her, his thick callused fingers closing in around hers.
“Al.” Her nickname again and the room shrank, the space between them was too small. She could feel his heat and his breath against her face. “Please stop drinking.”
She shook her head. She should and she would. But it wouldn’t be because of he’d told her to do it. “No. What I do on my time is my business.”
“I can’t—”
“I’ve committed, Gabe.” She finally looked right into his eyes, the brilliant blue that could burn her or freeze her, that could bring her to life or shut her down in a hundred different ways. Belatedly she realized what she’d done. She’d tied her fortune to a man who could destroy her—again.
“You won’t get any more from me,” she told him and somehow they both understood that it wasn’t only work they talked about. His hand was hot in hers. The callus on his thumb seemed suddenly personal, the proof of his labor too much for her to witness.
“Alice, about Daphne—”
She jerked her hand away.
“I have a lot of work to do.” She turned from him, retying the strings of her apron.
“Me, too,” he murmured. She heard him go into his office and shut the door.
The breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding leaked out of her, and she nearly sagged.
A business card appeared under her nose and, startled, she jerked upright. Max, the damn sneak stood there, his expression unreadable. “Sheriff in town runs an AA meeting out of the station on Sunday nights,” he said.
“I’m not an alcoholic,” she said.
He shrugged. “Not really my business,” he said, “but if you want to talk to him tell him I gave you his number.”
“Max.” She tried to laugh. “I don’t need the card.”
But he just stood there, so different from Gabe yet at the core of both of them lay the same stubborn compassion that ran them both ragged in different ways.
Once upon a time Max had wanted to save the world and all Gabe had wanted was to save was his own family.
She sighed and took the card knowing Max would stand there all day if she didn’t.
A week later, Alice checked her watch and decided an afternoon coffee break was in order.
Coffee, she decided, some fresh air and I’ll think about those potatoes that need to be dealt with.
The sun sat in the crook of the western mountains and the property was a dramatically different world than the one she’d greeted at dawn this morning. The fog had burned off, the cacophony of springtime insects that had seemed so loud this morning were gone, replaced by the sound of Max and his gang of street thugs clearing brush.
A week after her compromise with Gabe and she was seriously regretting her decision to do all the prep herself. Not that she’d ever admit that to Gabe, who’d been staying out of her way, even as he watched her like a hawk, waiting, she was sure, for her to screw up.
So she worked and pretended he wasn’t there, though she felt him at her back so much that when she slept she could feel him there, curled against her the way he had when they were married.
She woke up every morning, turned on and annoyed. And it only got worse throughout the day.
But all of this watching and ignoring had to come to an end. She had a menu coming together that she needed to be sampled and she didn’t have any details on the wedding. Numbers. Themes. Money.
Sooner or later they were actually going to have to work together. But until then it was best they avoided talking to each other. He called up things in her that she hated, emotions that were ugly and petty.
In the meantime, she was up to her sore elbows in work. She’d forgotten how hard it was building a kitchen from scratch. There were deliveries to put away: heavy bags of onions and potatoes from Athens Organics; sides of beef that she preferred to butcher herself, which was no easy task.
And then there was the constant boiling, baking, basting and freezing of stocks, marinades and flavored oils. She fell into bed at the end of every day too tired to even think of drinking and woke up every morning sore to the bottom of her feet but her mind already working on the day’s chores.
Today it was potatoes. Gnocchi and latke. The huge bag of potatoes sat in the pantry mocking her and her tired biceps.
She wished she had some help, just a little, for the afternoon. But she’d made this bed, she would lie in it. After her break.
She slid on her sunglasses and sat down on the small hill behind the kitchen, flanking the makeshift parking lot, and watched Max herd the kids like they were cattle. Or cats.
“Hey,” he said, his voice echoing through the woods as he emerged from the tree line. “Stop slacking, this is our last tree.”
He and a girl dragged the shorn trunk of a fallen poplar toward the huge pile of debris they’d gathered in a cleared area next to the lodge.
“We gonna burn this stuff or what?” Cameron appeared from the woods, half-heartedly pulling a limb from the tree behind him. “Because I think that would only be the right way to end this whole thing, you know?”
“No,” Max said succinctly, rolling the thick trunk under some of the brush at the base of the pile. “I don’t.”
Alice couldn’t tell if Max and the kids were a match made in hell or heaven. From the closed-down, locked-up expression on Max’s face she bet he wasn’t sure, either.
“This huge tree goes down, no one knows. It sits there in the woods, rotting, bugs eating it, animals pooping on it. That’s no way for a tree to go,” Cameron said and Alice found herself warming up to the kid with his overworked sense of drama. “We gotta burn it. Put it out of its misery.”
“Be quiet,” Max said and Cameron, after a few more jokes on the tree’s behalf, did. Alice was a little surprised at the progress Max had made with the mouthy kid. He wore a hat that kept the hair out of his eyes, and his pants, still too big, were held up by a belt. And he was working.
Maybe now that he was house-trained she could actually work with him in the kitchen. He could run his mouth and peel potatoes at the same time.
“We’re not done,” Max said, heading back to the forest, and a chorus of groans followed him even though the kids didn’t. “Let’s go,” he said. “Anything you’re doing right now is better than what you’d be doing in juvie.”
That shut up some of them, Cameron included, and they started after Max.
“Max,” she called, pushing herself to her feet. “Can I borrow Cameron for the day?” she asked.
Max looked at her, then at Cameron, who made a face as though she’d asked him to run around naked, and finally shrugged. “If you want him.”
“Hey! You can’t just trade me whenever you feel like it!” Cameron cried.
“It’s easier than what you’re doing,” she said.
“I’m there,” Cameron said quickly, and stepped out of line to head her way.
“Good luck,” Max called over his shoulder. “If he gives you trouble, send him out to me.”
“Will do,” she yelled back.
Cameron came to stand in front of her, his face scratched and dirty and his eyes on his shoes.
“You gonna give me trouble?” she asked and he shrugged.
I can’t ask for more honesty than that.
“Well,” she said, as she led him inside. “It’s time for you to meet your new best friend—a potato peeler.”
He groaned, but he followed.
Gabe closed his e-mail and sat back with a grin. Four more guests thanks to his Internet promotion, plus Bridezilla had capitulated on the swans—thank God—and had promised him final guest-list numbers by the beginning of next week. Though he wouldn’t hold his breath for that, so far the guest list had swelled and receded at least five times.
She’d decided on a band rather than the quartet, and the singer had e-mailed him their requirements, which weren’t too bad.
With blue marker in hand he turned to update his wall-size calendar.
Someone knocked at his office door. It could only be Alice since his father and brother didn’t believe in things such as closed doors and polite knocks.
“Come on in,” he said. They’d been walking careful circles around each other for the past week and a half—smiling politely and staying out of each other’s way. But he’d been watching her and if she was drinking, it didn’t show. The woman was a chef possessed. And he couldn’t be more relieved.
“Gabe,” she said from the doorway, her voice cool and stark, letting him know she was here for business. He nearly rolled his eyes. Alice always wore her intentions on her sleeve and the tone of her voice let everyone know what her next move was.
She thought she was going to put his feet to the fire right now. As a partner and chef she thought she had that right.
And, he considered, she probably did.
He grunted while writing in the Andersons and Pursators on the third weekend in August. They would share the five-bedroom cabin closest to the lodge.
“Earth to Gabe,” she said, annoyed, and he finally turned, capping his pen.
He shook his head with a laugh. “Sorry. A lot’s going on.”
“Right, well, me, too.” Her tone was all business and he didn’t want to fight. Not anymore. They needed to work together. He just needed to figure out how to get them from here to there in as little amount of time as possible. “I wanted to talk about a few things with you,” she said, still in the doorway.
Sunlight streamed in behind her and lit the black hair escaping the bun she always wore while she worked, turning the runaway strands red.
In the week and a half she’d been here she’d managed to get some color on her face, her lips were pink, and she’d lost some of the fragile tragic look she’d had when he’d first seen her behind Johnny O’s.
“You look good,” he said, putting her off stride, which had been his intention. “Healthy.”
Her fingers darted to her hair and she turned her face to the side for the shortest second, a small uncontrolled moment of self-consciousness. The gesture pinged through him, turning his compliment into a double-edged sword that sliced though his gut.
“Thanks,” she finally said.
He nodded and looked away, his throat dry. But the tension around her was eradicated. Compliments were the best way to disarm a person, always worked. “What did you need?” he asked.
“Information about this wedding. I’ve got some sample menus, but I don’t know anything about the event.”
“I have a conference call with them at the beginning of next week.” He glanced at the calendar behind him and quickly wrote the time of the call into his busy work week. “I’m supposed to get final numbers and details then. Why don’t you join me.”
“On the call?” she asked, clearly surprised.
“Sure.” He shrugged. She’d compromised with him, the least he could do was try to make her job easier. His life got much easier by having her deal directly with Bridezilla and her flesh-eating mother rather than through him.
Brilliant, really, why didn’t I think of this earlier?
“It’ll be easier for everyone,” he said. “I’m probably going to need some of your ideas on decorations—”
She smiled.
“Are you laughing at me?” he asked, knowing she was. This moment of ease, of light conversation was too nice to give up.
“You’re great with leather and black-and-white photography,” she said, summing up the decor of every apartment and restaurant he’d ever owned. “I would imagine wedding receptions will be a bit beyond you.”
“You have better ideas?”
“About a million,” she said, her dark eyes gleaming.
God, she’s pretty when she’s happy.
And it had been so long since he’d seen her happy.
The skin along his arms and chest twitched with the sudden urge to hold her.
“See—” he got swept up in their sudden chemistry “—I knew you were the right person to bring in on this.”
That might have gone too far. His silver tongue had led him astray and what he’d said was too close to a lie. They both knew he didn’t choose to bring her, they’d both been too desperate for anything else. The color faded slightly from her face.
“I’m happy to help out,” she said and the air between them changed again, turned cold. Her lush mouth compressed to a thin line.
“Thank you, Alice. The call is on Monday, late afternoon.”
A huge crash from the kitchen made her whirl in the doorway and he braced himself for some minor emergency. Some five-hundred-dollar stand-up mixer perhaps, or another two-hundred-dollar hospital visit for his brother who tended to get overconfident around saws.
“Cameron?” Alice cried. “You all right?”
“Fine,” the disembodied voice of the kid Gabe barely remembered yelled back, clearly disgusted.
“Cameron?” he asked. “You changed your mind about having the kid help out?” He was surprised on a number of fronts. The kid had enough attitude to light up New York State, and Alice, since the last miscarriage and the failed in vitro procedures, had gone way out of her way to avoid children of all ages.
Maybe she’s healing, he thought, his stomach twisting with hope and sadness, a chronic sensation left over from his marriage. Maybe she’s finally letting go.
“Just for today,” she said. She turned back toward him, her lips fighting a smile. “He knocked over the bucket of potato peels. He’s covered head to foot.”
He laughed. “Beats hauling wood with Max.”
“That’s what I told him.”
“So, when do you want to dazzle me with your menus?”
“Well, with Cameron taking some of the load off today, I think I could pull it together for tomorrow night, Friday. I know we discussed things already, but I had to tweak the duck and so far I haven’t found any good—”
“I trust you, Alice,” he said, shocking both of them. “You don’t have to defend your decisions. Max, Dad and I will be ready to be dazzled tomorrow night.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “This is not the Gabe Mitchell I know. The Gabe Mitchell who likes—”
“Gabe Mitchell is busy,” he said. “He’s busy and tired and he knows, very well, how good you are.”
Another compliment. Wasn’t he full of them today? This one had slipped out unbidden. Caught him unprepared. The truth was, he had intended to ride her the entire time she was here. Since her latest compromise, however, she’d been on point and he could rest easy. It was a gift, almost, one he wasn’t sure didn’t tick, about to blow up in his face.
“Thanks,’ she said. “Again.”
“I, ah…need to get to work.”
“Right.” She pushed herself off the doorway. “Gabe, what I said last week, about Daphne—”
“Don’t worry,” he said quickly, heat scorching his neck. This was the apology he’d thought he wanted, but now he’d rather continue with this comfortable unsaid truce between them. He didn’t want to discuss his love life with his ex-wife, not when things were going so well. “It’s forgotten.”
“I was out of line,” she said, pressing on, as she always did when he wanted her to stop. “It’s none of my business and she’s a lovely woman.”
“Yes, she is. Thanks for the apology.” He hoped she’d leave it at that, that she wouldn’t ruin this fragile equilibrium.
He glanced at her, lit by sun, her chef whites unbuttoned, revealing a green shirt underneath. She smiled, awkward and sad, a different version of the bristly woman she’d become over the years with him.
She looked like the twenty-four-year-old he’d met ten years ago. Sweet and smart with the devil in her eyes and the corner of her mouth.
And his whole body, all of it, reacted, leaned toward her with the old desire.
He didn’t need this. He didn’t need a reminder of the good times, of the woman he’d loved rather than the woman he’d grown to hate.
She was beautiful, she was an asset, and she couldn’t leave soon enough.