Jennifer L. Hart - Southern Pasta Shop 02 - Murder À La Flambé (13 page)

He stared back, unflinchingly. "I've got some business in town. It wouldn't be out of my way."

Pops looked at me, raising one bushy eyebrow. I shrugged, at a loss for words.

"It is done then. Malcolm will drive you to Doctor Harrison, and I will go to the pasta shop with Andy after Mass."

"Aunt Cecily, you know I don't go to daily Mass." I barely made it on Ash Wednesday and Palm Sunday.

"You will go to Mass." Aunt Cecily had spoken, and so would it be.

God help us.

"I'll get the wine." I pushed back out of the chair. "Malcolm, a hand?"

The kitchen was open but far enough away that we could exchange a private word.

"What was that?" Jones asked as I took down the wineglasses.

"Oh, nothing, other than when I left this morning, Pops and Aunt Cecily were under the impression we were broken up. And here you are at dinner, offering to drive my grandfather to the doctor."

He frowned. "But Cecily invited me for dinner."

"Of course she did. She knows you're a prize and thinks I'm an idiot for moving out. She busted out eggplant parm for you. It's the Italian woman's equivalent of a siren song."

"Maybe she wants me for herself then," Jones teased.

"You know nothing." I did my best Aunt Cecily impression, brandishing the corkscrew. "The Rossetti women must ensure the next generation is married with many fat babies who will one day make the pasta."

Jones barked out a laugh. "Okay, so then why is my being here a problem?"

"It isn't a problem. They're just surprised you've come around so quickly, and possibly that I managed to fix our relationship myself without the cholesterol bomb for life support. Fricking hell," I grumped, exasperated with the situation and the damn cork, which wasn't budging from the desperately needed merlot.

"Allow me." Jones plucked the bottle from my hands and expertly divested the bottle of the cork.

I scowled up at him. "Show-off."

"It's a ride into town," Jones mumbled as he poured the wine. "Not a commitment."

"Taking my grandfather to the doctor—equivalent of taking a bullet for me, and you know it," I hissed.

He offered me a glass, which I took. He didn't let go though, only waited until I lifted my gaze to his face. "I'd do that too."

I melted on the spot. "I don't think I deserve you."

He cupped my chin with his forefinger and brushed a soft kiss across my lips. "We deserve each other."

"My eggplant, it gets cold," Aunt Cecily called. "You, come, sit, eat."

I turned, wine fortification in hand. "And just what did we do to deserve her?"

Jones laughed. "We'll do that later."

Eggplant Parmesan

You'll need:

2 eggplants cut into 1/2-inch-thick disks

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

1/2 cup Egg Beaters

4 cups Panko bread crumbs

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, sifted

1 cup olive oil for frying

1/2 cup prepared tomato sauce

1/4 cup fresh mozzarella, cut into small cubes

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

1/2 cup grated provolone cheese

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon olive oil

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Pour Egg Beaters in a shallow bowl, and set aside. Mix bread crumbs and 1/2 cup Parmesan in a separate bowl. Set aside. Place flour in a sifter or strainer; sprinkle over eggplant, evenly coating both sides. Dip flour-coated meat in egg product. Transfer to bread crumb mixture, pressing the crumbs into both sides. Repeat for each slice.

Heat 1 cup olive oil in a large skillet on medium-high heat until it begins to simmer. Cook eggplant until golden, about 2 minutes on each side. Place in a baking dish, and top each with about 1/3 cup of tomato sauce. Layer each with equal amounts of mozzarella cheese, fresh basil, and provolone cheese. Sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons of Parmesan cheese on top, and drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil.

Bake in the preheated oven until cheese is browned and bubbly, and eggplant is cooked through, approximately 40 minutes. Serve with al dente pasta.

**Andy's note: This may seem like a lot of work for a vegetable, but believe me, it's worth doing right. Just like you want evenly cooked chicken in chicken parm, or veal in veal parm, the eggplant is the star of the show. It's important to cut your eggplant disks into proper thickness so they cook evenly for a consistent texture throughout.

After eight o'clock Mass, in which I prayed that Aunt Cecily wouldn't kill me for changing her tried-and-true menu, I drove us to the Bowtie Angel. She frowned at the grand opening banner for Lacey's restaurant. "What is this?"

"That's Lacey L'Amour's new restaurant. French food." I tried to not sound bitter.

"French." She spat on the ground, a wordless gesture letting everyone around us know what she thought of the concept. Or perhaps the French in general. With Aunt Cecily, who could tell?

"Yes, well, it'll be opening tomorrow. Fine dining, cloth napkins, all very different from us." Well, at least the way we were now. I was hoping Aunt Cecily would see the need to spiff the place up a bit, now that we weren't the only ethnic game in town.

Aunt Cecily gave the restaurant one last glare and then shuffled into the pasta shop. I said a silent Hail Mary and followed her, still trying to figure out what to say and possibly where to hide.

Mimi met us in the kitchen. She hugged Aunt Cecily and then beamed at me. "Good news, the health inspector agreed to come in and—"

I'd been busy making a slicing motion across my throat, but my keen-eared great-aunt had picked up on the key word.

"The health inspector?" she repeated. Slowly she rounded on me in a terrifying way.

"He was sick," I lied. As far as lies went, it was a crappy one.

"From our food?" Her steely eyes narrowed.

"No!" I practically shouted. This was becoming ridiculous. I needed to get a grip. Surely she wouldn't give me The Eye. Not her own flesh and blood. Who else would make the pasta?

"It was my fault," Mimi said before I could compound things further.

Aunt Cecily pivoted toward her. "Your fault?"

Mimi and I exchanged horrified glances. "Yeah, Mimi has a cold, and she gave it to the health inspector. By accident of course, at the post office, not through the food."

Mimi sneezed unconvincingly and whispered, "I called him to apologize."

Aunt Cecily looked between the two of us and muttered something in Italian too low for me to pick up. Probably for the best. "Come then. We must make the pasta."

When she moved to the office, I scurried over to Mimi. "Sorry, she sprung herself on us at the last minute. So, what did Theo say?"

"He agreed to take another look and average the two grades. Of course, he didn't say when he'd be back around, so it could be at any time." Her gaze followed after Aunt Cecily. "Do you still want me to bake today?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I was hoping to ease her into this slowly, so slowly that she wouldn't notice. But maybe it's better to spring it all on her at once."

"Like a surprise party?" Mimi asked.

I tried to picture Aunt Cecily at a surprise party, all the color and energy and happy people around her small, dark, and glowering form, and winced. "Sort of."

The back door opened, and Kaylee came in. "Hey."

I looked to the clock. "Shouldn't you be in school?"

She shook her head. "Teacher conference day. Is it all right that I'm here?"

"Of course," I said, still miffed that she'd blown us off yesterday to hang out at Lacey's, but not wanting to make a big deal out of it.

She looked around. "What can I do?"

"Come, you will make the pasta." Aunt Cecily had appeared like a small Sicilian apparition to spirit Kaylee away.

"But I thought…" I began. I was the one who always made the pasta with her, had been since I was eight years old.

Aunt Cecily waved me off. "You can do the vegetables and the gravy."

I blinked, confused. Was I really being demoted to chief veggie prepper and bottle washer in my own pasta shop?

I opened my mouth to say something, but as I watched Aunt Cecily instruct Kaylee on what she needed to get from the pantry, I resigned myself to the situation. So what if I'd wanted to be the one to teach my biological daughter how to make pasta? I'd learned from the best, so she might as well go to the source. Aunt Cecily was getting up there in years. Was it really right of me to cheat Kaylee out of the firsthand experience?

Plus, I couldn't afford to be sentimental—I had a business to run.

I did the veggie prep, which included chopping arugula, fresh spinach, sweet bell peppers, mushrooms, and green onions for the new house salad. Aunt Cecily glared at the combination but said nothing.

With the gravy simmering on a low heat, I scurried back to the office to make a few phone calls. The first was to Jones. "Well, my morning's been a slow-motion train wreck. How about you?"

He laughed. "Your grandfather gave me a strong talking to about not letting the good ones get away. Then he refused to go into the doctor's office, claiming he was feeling just fine. I told him you'd break up with me for good if I didn't follow through on my promise, so he went in."

I grinned, clearly able to envision the scene. "You have a dark and devious mind, Malcolm Jones. I find that incredibly sexy."

"I try to use my powers for good instead of evil," he quipped. "What's been going on there?"

I summed up my morning and then confessed, "I'm actually hiding in the office, as the three of them don't seem to want me anywhere underfoot."

"Andrea, you need to tell Kaylee how you feel about what she did yesterday. And tell your aunt that you wanted to teach Kaylee how to make pasta."

I blew out a sigh. "If I read her the riot act, she'll leave. Then Aunt Cecily will glower at me, and I'll be right back where I started. There's been enough conflict around here lately."

Jones sighed. "You're trying to build a relationship with Kaylee, right? Think about what you and I have been going through. Wouldn't everything have been so much easier if we'd been up-front with each other? I know you, love. You can only keep things bottled up for so long."

"When did you get so smart?" I asked him bitterly.

"Oxford, remember?" There was a smile in his voice.

"And so modest too. All right, but if this goes sideways, I'm blaming you."

"I would expect nothing less. Now I need to go get an annulment before your baby daddy arrests me again."

"That sounds wrong on so many levels." I said good-bye to him and then rose from the desk. It was time for me to stop hiding and start taking charge. The Bowtie Angel didn't belong to Aunt Cecily anymore, and while I still respected her as my elder and a chef, she was no longer the boss of me.

Well, not officially anyway.

"Aunt Cecily," I began as I strode down the hall, wearing my determination like a badge.

I paused outside the restroom door, sucked back a deep breath—and a hand clamped over my mouth. I shrieked, but it was too muffled for anyone to hear. Another hand snagged me around the neck and tugged me into the bathroom.

The door shut in front of me, closing me in with my assailant. I'd been too stunned to move immediately, but as my adrenaline kicked in, I struggled with all my strength, flailing wildly in my attempts to free myself and recall my self-defense training. I'd taken a course when I'd lived in Atlanta, and remembered to go for the soft parts. I drove one elbow back. It connected with my attacker's stomach with a meaty thud.

There was a woof of expelled air, but the hands didn't let go. I sank my nails into the wrist holding me still.

"Calm down, Little Bit," a familiar voice wheezed. "It's just me."

I ceased my struggles as realization dawned. The hand left my mouth, and he spun me to face him. Jeez-a-lou. "Kyle? What the hell?" I shoved him, irate that he'd manhandled and scared the marinara right out of me.

There were small crescents dug into his wrist, a few of them oozing blood. "I wanted to talk to you without your boyfriend around."

"So you abduct me in my pasta shop with our daughter twenty feet away? What exactly is your damage?" I shoved him again for good measure.

"Take it easy." He held his hands up in a defensive position. "And no, I didn't abduct you. You're still here, aren't you?"

"Doesn't change the fact that you scared the crap out of me. You ever heard of a phone? Send me a text, and ask me to meet you," I huffed. "And just what is so important that you want to hide it from Jones?"

"Because he talks to Lizzy, and I don't want Lizzy to know I talked to you."

And around and around we go. "Kyle, I really don't want to get in the middle of you and Lizzy and your issues. I have more than enough of my own."

"Oh no? Then why did you feel the need to tell her I was escorting Lacey L'Amour around town?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but he cut me off. "Don't even try to deny it was you that told her."

My hands went automatically to my hips. "I won't. It was me. I thought she ought to know. If Jones had been mincing about with that strumpet, I'd want someone to tell me. Lacey is bad news."

Kyle scowled at me. "Some folks said the same about you when you came back to town. At least Lacey didn't poison an entire live studio audience."

"If I kick you in the shins, would that be considered assaulting an officer of the law?" I asked sweetly.

He glowered at me. "Anyway, mind your own business."

I fisted my hands on my hips and lifted my chin. "I'll have you know that Lacey lured our daughter into her lair yesterday."

Kyle actually rolled his eyes at me. "You make it sound like she's a witch who lives in a gingerbread cottage and eats children. If you must know, I asked Kaylee to go there yesterday."

"What?" I blinked, stunned by his admission. "Why would you do that?"

"To cover our asses?"

I poked him in the chest. "If you don't start making sense, I will have to beat it into you, sheriff or no." Something dawned on me. "Hey, why aren't you in uniform?"

"Because I'm not officially on duty. I took the day off so I could bring Lizzy to visit her mom. She's under a lot of stress, and I would consider it a huge favor if you would stop getting her so worked up."

"The problem with that, Kyle, is that Lizzy gets herself worked up. She's an instant stress machine. Just add air. I just can't stop myself from needling her when she's three seconds from detonation." I barely refrained from asking him if he knew his fiancé spent her nights lurking around the woods and hiding in the bushes. And he was calling me a drama queen?

"Well try," Kyle said dryly. "I'll talk to you later."

"Can't wait." He was gone before I realized that he'd never told me why he'd wanted Kaylee to go to Lacey's place. What had I ever seen in that man? I pushed out of the bathroom and headed back to the office, having all I could handle of personal conflict for a spell.

*   *   *

"Is Jones gonna be stopping in again tonight?" Pops asked. "I was gonna show him my target shooting trophies."

I'd just settled myself on the couch, glass of Chardonnay in hand and aching feet up on the coffee table. "I don't know, Pops. He's got a lot of work to do on his photographs for the show this summer, plus his regular work."

"Man's got to eat," Pops grumbled

"I know, but if he comes over for dinner, he'll end up spending the night. Besides, I sent him home with a care package from the pasta shop when he stopped by to see me earlier. Trust me. I won't let him starve."

Pops made a disparaging noise, probably at the carrying on of the younger generation.

I took my grandfather's hand and squeezed lightly. "I'm glad you like him, Pops."

"Who says I do?" he harrumphed.

"Well, you let him take you to the doctor. You've never let anyone but me or Nana do that, so I know you trust him. Speaking of which, what did the doctor say?"

Pops shrugged and looked away. "Same as I thought. There ain't nothing he can do. This dag-burned cold just makes it all that much worse."

I squeezed his hand again and made a mental note to check up on homeopathic arthritis remedies. "Where's Aunt Cecily?"

Pops smiled. "Taking a nap. She wouldn't tell you to save her life, but she ain't as young as she used to be. Spending a whole day on her feet in the pasta shop plum tuckered her out."

"Her and me both." I sighed and leaned my head back against the couch cushion.

"You all right, Andy girl?"

"Just tired, I think. The last few days have been an emotional roller coaster. Want me to grill a steak for dinner?"

Pops smacked his lips. "Sounds right tasty."

I got up and retrieved a steak from the freezer. Normally speaking, I would marinate a steak for a few days to infuse flavors, but I'd just got a new gadget that vacuum sealed the meat and spices to supposedly the same effect. Aunt Cecily considered most modern gizmos the work of the devil, so I'd been waiting until she was otherwise occupied to use it.

After setting the meat to defrost in the microwave, I took my grill pan out from under the stove and turned on the left burners. The meat dinged, and I transferred it along with a few cloves of peeled garlic, Worcestershire sauce, Kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper. I'd just hit the vacuum sealer and started peeling potatoes when my phone rang. Distracted by the promise of dinner, I didn't bother to look at the number. "Hello?"