On Lavender Lane (31 page)

She hustled off, and as Madeline watched her laughing and chatting with the couple, she said, “She seems happy.”

“Yeah. She does. You two used to be really tight.”

Although Lucas didn’t ask, she could hear the unspoken question in his tone. “I know. The funny thing was, we wrote back and forth all the time while I was in Europe. It was after I got back to the States that things got crazy.”

“Sounds as if you’ve had a lot on your plate the past few years.”

“Haven’t we all? That’s still no excuse to lose track of friends.”

“Van seems willing to pick up where she left off.”

“Yes.” Madeline studied the menu for a moment, and found even more enticing items than Rebecca and Roxie’s waffles she’d been craving. “Do you think that’s possible?”

“Why not? If both people want it. Are you and I different people than we were ten or fifteen years ago? Sure. Do we still have that connection? I’d say yes. At least on my part.”

She took a drink of coffee and eyed him over the thick white rim of her mug. “Mine, too,” she admitted. “But remember, that doesn’t mean I’m going to marry you.”

He flashed her his most encouraging grin. “Sure you are. You’re just not ready to admit it yet. Meanwhile, we’ll take things one step at a time. Like deciding what to eat.”

39

Because he was enjoying her company, Lucas decided to table any discussion about the restaurant until after they’d eaten. So as they worked their way through tall glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice, three fried eggs, perfectly fried strips of bacon, buttermilk biscuits, and sweet potato hash for him; along with organic, steel-cut oats topped with fresh berries, and an egg scramble with smoked salmon and goat cheese for her, he caught her up with what was happening with Sax and Kara, and Kara’s mother, whom Madeline admitted had always intimidated her.

“I think everyone in town felt that way,” he said. “The one time I went to her, after I hit my head on a rock surfing, she wasn’t all that warm and fuzzy. But she was a damn good doctor. Remember Danny Sullivan?”

“It’s hard to forget someone who was a dead ringer for Donny Osmond.”

“Funny. That’s what all the girls used to say. I never saw it, but maybe I was just jealous.”

“That’s hard to believe, since you never seemed to have any problems getting girls.”

“Since we’re getting along so well, I’m not going there,” he said. “Anyway, Danny got shot in the head and Kara’s mom operated on his brain and saved his life. According to Sax, it was touch and go for a while.”

“That’s horrible. What’s he doing now?”

“Oh, he’s back to teaching. And just married a nurse who has a kid from a previous marriage. They’ve got another on the way.”

“Seems to be a lot of that going on,” Maddy murmured, glancing over at Van, who was seating what appeared to be a group of tourists at a four-top next to the window, which looked out at the seawall and the harbor beyond.

“Cole married Kelli. They’ve been working on getting pregnant, which isn’t proving as easy as they were afraid it would be back when they were in high school and had that scare. But personally, from what Sax said and the way Cole described it, I think they might be trying too hard.”

“I’ve heard that stress can make a difference. One of the producers on my show went through what sounded like hormone hell trying all sorts of expensive, painful, and unsuccessful medical methods before she and her husband finally gave up and adopted. Two months after they brought their daughter home from China, she got pregnant. The old-fashioned way.”

“Lucky them. How about you?” he asked. “You ever think of having kids?”

He could tell by the way her hand, which had been reaching for a piece of the whole-wheat toast, froze above the plate that she hadn’t been expecting the question. And the fact that she didn’t just answer with a yes or no had him suspecting the topic might not be the best one for a first date. Or even an outing she refused to consider a date.

“Yes.” She picked up the quartered toast and took a bite. “I have,” she said. “Although there’s this feeling in the culinary world that women have to sacrifice their lives to the kitchen god, to give up any idea of a family if they want to be successful, that’s not my ultimate goal. I’ve put off starting a family because I wouldn’t want my children raised by a nanny or a housekeeper, and so far I haven’t figured out how to be in two places at the same time.”

“Having a housekeeper as a mother model isn’t the
worst thing in the world,” Lucas volunteered. “After my mom left, ours filled in the best she could while Dad was spending so much time working all over the world.”

“But it’s not the same as having two parents who are there to do homework or talk about everyone’s day over dinner,” she said.

“No,” he agreed. “It’s not.”

“I’ve given it a lot of thought and talked with a lot of other women chefs. Some have chosen to concentrate on their careers. Some went the nanny route. Others have stay-at-home husbands.”

“I work from home.”

She frowned. Looked down into her coffee as if she was searching for some answer in the black depths. “You’re pushing again,” she said finally.

“No. I was just pointing out a fact.”

She shook her head, but he thought he saw a hint of a smile teasing at the corner of her luscious lips.

“I spent my first thirteen years in my parent’s restaurant, but I know women who’ve tried taking their children to work and found it scary because kitchens can, on a good day, be a madhouse. I know others who’ve given up restaurant work for a while to teach. Which they say keeps their passion for cooking alive.”

He wondered if she might consider teaching at Sofia’s school, but decided that was definitely a decision she was going to have to make by herself.

“I think what I’d want to do, in a perfect world, if I had my own place, would be to separate family and work,” she said slowly. She was pushing her scrambled eggs around on the flowered plate. “Which would mean hiring a young sous chef I could trust to take over for me during the times I wasn’t there.”

She took a bite of smoked salmon and seemed to be thinking it out in more depth. “I wouldn’t want to be gone all the time, like my husband is from his restaurants, but I
suppose I could learn to give up some control. To the right person.”

He thought it was odd that she specifically wanted a young chef.

“I’m approaching thirty,” she told him when he asked her about it. “Which is actually getting up there in this business. Culinary life is like dog years. But I have hopes that things will change because they can’t keep going the way they are or we’re going to have more and more people either burning out or dropping out.”

She sighed. “More and more chefs are coming into culinary schools from other occupations, which I partly blame on all the TV shows, although I’ve admittedly contributed to the problem. Doctors, lawyers, cops, Wall Street traders…They’re all making up a huge percentage of wannabe chefs. Did you know there are one hundred and fifty hot new chefs every year?”

“I don’t think I could name one,” he admitted. “Except maybe that Puck guy, because I used to buy his frozen pizzas at the grocery store whenever I was back for training in San Diego. Oh, and your soon-to-be-ex-husband, but that’s mostly because of the video.”

Great move, Chaffee
. “Excuse me while I ask Van for a butcher knife,” he said. “To cut out my tongue.”

She shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. I’m beginning to accept that it really doesn’t have anything to do with me.…And yes, Wolfgang Puck also contributed to the celebrity culture everyone seems to get caught in. You only know two names. With very few exceptions, most people couldn’t name one of each year’s stars.

“Which is why no one should get into this business just to get on television or see their name in lights or have a cookware line named after them.”

“I saw the commercial for your pans on your show.”

“I needed the money. Simple as that,” she said. “I don’t
think I’m going to be renewing because it involves too much travel, and it’s not what I got into the business for.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I tend to get carried away. As you can see, I’m a lot more passionate about cooking than I am the business stuff.”

“Never complain about being passionate. It was one of the things that attracted me to you. That and your eyes. Which are remarkable.”

“When they’re not looking like road maps, you mean.”

“So you’re human. Deal with it.”

“Is that tough love?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“Well, thank you. I much prefer it to people treading on eggshells around me. And, to get back to your original question, yes, although I realize it’s going to take a lot of juggling, I do want a child. I’d settle for one. But having been an only myself, I’d prefer at least two.”

Bingo.
“That’s pretty much the same thing I was thinking. I wasn’t an only child all my life. But for most of it. And I’ve always regretted losing my sister. Though I suppose it kept me from getting sent to juvie for punching out any guy who might someday have made her cry.”

“Well, then.” She took another bite of toast. “You’re fortunate
I
didn’t have a big brother.”

“Sweetheart, you’ve no idea how many times I’ve told myself that over the years.”

Van, who’d left them to their conversation, returning only to refill their coffee cups and make sure they didn’t need anything, arrived at the table with the check.

“No hurry,” she said again. “How were your meals?”

“Fantastic,” Maddy said.

“Roberta and Roxie couldn’t have done any better,” Lucas said. “I like the way you’ve added the sweet potato hash instead of just the plain white potato ones.”

“That was Jimmy’s idea. It was his mama’s recipe while
he was growing up in South Carolina.” She laughed. “You know what they say: You can take the boy out of the South, but you can’t take the South out of the boy.”

“I took a bite of Lucas’ hash,” Maddy said. “It was fantastic. The cumin was a nice surprise, and the cayenne and paprika added just the right amount of heat.”

Pleased color bloomed in Van’s cheeks. “I’ll have to tell him you said that. It’ll make his day.”

“It’s true.” Watching Maddy, which was easily becoming his favorite thing to do, Lucas could practically see the lightbulb flashing on over her head. “Do you think he’d be willing to teach it at Sofia’s school?”

“Willing?” Van laughed her surprise. “I’d like to see you try to keep him away. He’d be so honored.”

“We wouldn’t be able to pay much,” she warned. Lucas found the
we
an interesting choice of words. Although, as if perhaps though she might not realize it yet herself, she was already considering staying here in Shelter Bay.

“But”—she lowered her voice—“if you promise not to tell Mary, there’s a chance that the Cooking Network might be willing to put the school on the air. And if so, then we could negotiate. Especially if he has any more of those Southern breakfasts up his sleeve.”

“Oh. My. God.” This time the heat coloring her cheeks had her fanning her face. “I swear, he’d just die.”

“It’s just an idea,” Maddy warned.

“Oh, I’ve never been one to count chickens,” Van assured her. “But it sure is a fun thing to think about. Not so much for the money, but the thought of Jimmy bein’ on TV. I’ve always thought he was handsome enough to be on TV. The first time I saw him, I thought he looked just like Brad Pitt.”

She sighed as she picked up the AmEx card Lucas had put down. “And I still think so, though I’m sure no Angelina Jolie.”

“He got lucky with you,” Lucas said. “And obviously is smart enough to realize it.”

“You always were a sweet-talker, Lucas Chaffee,” she said with a sassy toss of her chestnut hair. “Now you just need to turn that talent to keeping Maddy here in Shelter Bay, where she belongs. We could always use another restaurant, and since we don’t serve dinner, so we can spend evenings home with the kids, we wouldn’t have to worry about competition.”

“That’s sweet,” Maddy said, as they watched her head back to the cash register with more of a spring in her step. “That she’s still so crazy about her husband.”

“I think that’s the way it’s supposed to be. What did you think of her idea?”

“The one about me staying here?”

“Yeah.” He studied her, wondering when she’d gotten so good at hiding her thoughts. Perhaps, he considered, when she’d realized that her marriage wasn’t turning out to be all she’d hoped. “I guess this place would be a big letdown after New York.”

“Not a letdown. Just different. There are a lot of chefs who’ve decided to work outside cities. Lee Skawinski’s Cinque Terre, where he specializes in small-town Italian cooking, was voted one of the top-ten best farm-to-table restaurants in America. It’s in Portland. Maine, not Oregon,” she clarified. “And Lisa Nakamura, who was chef de cuisine at a restaurant
National Geographic
called the number-one restaurant destination in the world, opened up a restaurant on Orcas Island, in Puget Sound, where she’s blending classic French technique with simple, Pacific Northwest flavors and ingredients.

“It’s a fallacy that people have to live in big urban areas to get good food. If nothing else, it makes sustainable cooking much easier if you go where the food actually is.…

“What?” she asked, when she stopped to take a breath and noticed he was grinning at her. “You’re laughing at me.”

“No. I’m just enjoying your enthusiasm. And how sexy you are when you talk about food.”

Pleasure lit her eyes. “Food is sexy,” she said. “Well, except maybe Pop-Tarts.”

Displaying less-than-ideal timing, Vanessa chose that moment to arrive back with his credit card. Lucas signed the check, adding a hefty tip, and he and Maddy both agreed that they’d be returning soon. If nothing else, the food really was great, and it gave him an alternative to Cajun and the seafood at the Crab Shack.

“Maybe you should cook me dinner one of these nights,” he suggested once they were alone again. “Educate my palate. Teach me all about the sex of food.”

“There’s this quirky Japanese movie,
Tampopo
, about a mysterious truck driver coming to town and helping a widow rescue her noodle restaurant, which has a gangster as a secondary character. It’s mostly only known among chefs and foodies for its soft-core food porn.”