On the Steamy Side (12 page)

Devon cursed like a drunken frat boy when Frankie couldn’t rustle up a last-minute replacement, and told Grant to have the servers mix the drinks for their tables. He sure as shit couldn’t spare anyone from the kitchen. They’d figure out how to replace Samara later.

“Is this about the bar?” Devon demanded. “If your precious waitstaff can’t manage to shake a few martinis . . .”

“No, no.” Grant shook his head. “I mean, yes, that’s been a . . . challenge tonight, and if we could think of anyone to call in for the second half of service, we should do it, but this is actually personal.”

“Christ, Holloway, I don’t give a shit about your personal life,” Devon said. Not entirely true, a voice in his head whispered. Wouldn’t you like to know exactly what Lilah is to him? Whirling, he held up the same ticket he’d been staring at for thirty minutes. Way too long. “How long on table six? One book trout, one roast chicken, two rib-eye, one rare, one normal?” Nothing but panicked glances.

Devon wanted to tear his hair out. “How long?” he bellowed. “Answer me.”

“I need five more minutes, Chef,” Frankie called after a peek at the fish station. The tall sous chef was a blur at the grill station, flipping and checking meat, turning and cross-hatching the marks on the steaks.

“Christ on a cracker,” Devon muttered. “You’re ready to go with the rib-eyes, aren’t you, you fucker.

It’s the goddamn fish holding everything up.”

The guy on fish was young. Holy God, Devon thought, watching him. There was raw talent there, for sure, but not a lot of experience. “I’m sorry, Chef,” the kid gasped out now. “I’ve never done celery foam before, and it keeps separating on me.”

“His name’s Wes. He’s an extern from the Academy of Culinary Arts,” Grant said, making Devon jump.

He hadn’t noticed the other man coming into the kitchen, but he was here now, standing at Devon’s side and looking extremely unhappy about something.

“I don’t care if he’s the Pope on loan from the fucking Vatican,” Devon gritted between clenched teeth.

“Somebody get on fish and help him with that sauce!”

Quentin spun away from sauté and wordlessly grabbed the whisk out of Wes’s hand. Satisfied that the situation was dealt with, Devon turned his attention to Grant.

“You’d better be back here because the dining room is out of clean forks, and not because you’re about to plead some bullshit personal issue that’s going to take you out of commission.”

“There’s someone here . . . maybe we should go down to the office.”

“You’re insane. I can’t leave the line in the middle of service. Oh, for the love of—Spit it out, Grant!

What, are you having a kid, too?”

The restaurant manager winced. “Funny you should ask . . .” Even through the chaos of the worst case of weeds Frankie’d ever battled, he caught the sound of Grant’s flat, unhappy voice. It made Frankie look up and take notice in time to see, at the other end of the kitchen, the back door leading to the alley open to admit a tall woman holding a small boy by the hand. The woman wore the navy blue uniform of a police officer.

The little boy was skinny, all dark hair and big blue eyes. His solemn mouth was pulled into a thin line, as if he was afraid but unwilling to show it with so much as a tremble.

Frankie stared down the line, through the smoke and leaping flames from the grill and the scuttling bodies of hustling cooks, and wondered what else could possibly go wrong tonight.

“What the hell is going on?” Devon asked, motionless at the pass. Frankie’s attention was caught by the intense stare Devon had leveled on the child wearing a ratty Justice League T-shirt and a wary expression. A faded green backpack dragged on the floor beside the boy, strap clutched tight in one white-knuckled fist.

Grant stepped close to Devon the Tosser. “Your assistant told them you were here. Apparently they tried to call from the station house but couldn’t reach you. I guess in all the, um, excitement tonight, no one was bothering to answer the kitchen phone?” Grant tried to keep his voice down, but Frankie was close enough to hear.

He vaguely recalled an annoying ringing at intervals throughout the evening, but on some level he’d thought it was a ringing in his ears caused by extreme stress and volcanic rage, so he’d ignored it.

Frankie couldn’t remember ever being buried as deep in the shit as they were tonight, and the blame for it lay squarely at the feet of their fearless temporary leader.

Who started weaving through the running cooks, ducking hot trays and steaming pots. “Where’s his mother?” Devon asked.

That made Frankie drop a steak back onto the grill. Checking his going concerns, Frankie determined the meat could all be let go for a minute or two. This was too good to pass up. He followed the Tosser to the back of the kitchen, noticing that Grant’s sweet piece, Lolly, appeared to agree—she was drifting toward the incipient drama like she was magnetized.

The cop regarded the Tosser coolly, unimpressed with his bluster. She was evidently a woman of great perception and insight. “Heather Sorensen was arrested earlier this evening; she’s being brought up on charges of driving while intoxicated and reckless endangerment.”

“Your son was in the backseat,” Grant supplied softly from Devon’s right.

Instant meltdown. Frankie could’ve sworn he heard the sound a vinyl album makes when the needle scritches over it. Or maybe that was only in his head.

Bloody hell. The Tosser had a kid. Frankie stared at the boy’s still, pale face. Poor little bugger, with a dad like that.

Falling back on aggression, which Frankie knew to be his default setting, the Tosser rounded on the cop. “And let me guess, Heather needs my help. After spending the last ten years as her personal ATM, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Well, Officer, my checkbook is in the office downstairs, I’ll go get it and we’ll clear this whole mess up.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be necessary, sir.” The calm voice of the cop stopped Devon’s move toward the stairs.

“Why is that?” he ground out, sounding like he was speaking around a mouthful of broken glass.

“Because Ms. Sorensen isn’t asking for bail money. She has voluntarily agreed to enter a rehabilitation center and is asking that you assume temporary custody of one Tucker Sorensen for one month.” The boy, Tucker, squirmed his hand out of the cop’s grasp and folded his arms across his chest.

Devon stared down at his son, and the expression on his face hit Frankie hard. There was something there, as the man watched his child make the same defensive gesture he himself made on a regular basis. Something torn and bleeding that made Frankie want to stand shoulder to shoulder with Devon and maybe help prop him up.

“I can’t,” Devon rasped into the awkward silence. “I’m not the kind of . . . I don’t have time for a child.

What would I do with him?”

A high, distressed noise came from Frankie’s right. So soft nobody else probably heard it, but it made Frankie turn to look at Lilah. Tears stood in her pretty green eyes, her throat working visibly.

The policewoman—Officer Santiago, her badge said—gave Devon a long, appraising look. Then she glanced down at Tucker, who was staring at his scuffed sneakers. Angling her body away from the boy, Santiago tilted her head to indicate she wanted a private word with Devon.

Stepping forward, Devon leaned in to hear what she had to say. Without thinking twice about it, Frankie followed suit.

“Sir. If I were to understand you to be declining custody at this time, my next move would be to contact Child Protective Services and get Tucker started on the foster-care process. Ms. Sorensen indicated to me that there was no one else, no other family to turn to. Is that your understanding as well?”

Devon’s eyes closed. “Yes. Heather was a runaway. I’m not even sure where she was from originally.”

“And what about your family?” the officer probed. “Do you have anyone who could come stay with you for a few weeks, help out?”

Devon laughed, the sound as harsh as a gunshot. “I haven’t spoken to my family in years.”

“That’s too bad,” Santiago said. “In situations like these, it’s best if the child can stay with a close family member. But if that’s not possible, or if the family members aren’t willing to accept that responsibility, then perhaps foster care is best.”

With that chilling pronouncement, she turned back to Tucker and wrested his hand back into hers. The boy didn’t even look up. Of everyone here, he seemed the least interested in how the evening was progressing.

Until Lilah spoke up, her sweet voice cutting through the hushed tension.

“Wait,” she said. “Wait, don’t leave. Devon wants him. He’ll take custody.” CHAPTER TWELVE

Lilah clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late to call the impulsive words back. And really, when she looked into Tucker Sorensen’s suddenly blazing blue eyes, she wouldn’t if she could.

That child needed someone to speak for him.

From the look on Devon’s face when she dared to raise her gaze to it, Lilah realized with a shock that maybe the father needed someone to speak for him just as badly.

Devon looked like someone had just heaved a sack of rocks off his back. A glimmer of relief strong enough to make Lilah’s eyes water crossed his face for a split second before the customary hardness settled over his features again.

His eyes narrowed to slivers of frozen steel as he looked at Lilah. Snared by the intensity of that look, Lilah did her best to stand tal and hold onto the moment when she knew she’d done the right thing for the father as well as the son.

The police officer cleared her throat. “Sir? Can I leave him with you?” Without sparing the officer a glance, Devon prowled over to where Lilah stood. Her knees went to jelly, but she managed to stiffen her spine.

In a low, vicious voice that sent shivers down her back, Devon said, “Lilah Jane Tunkle.” She gulped. “Yes?”

“You’re fired.”

No. Not possible. She’d only just started! An angry protest welled up in her chest, but Devon forestalled it with a single raised finger. “If you can keep the kid quiet and out of the way until closing, you’ve got a new job. Nanny.”

Boy, when they talked about life in the fast lane in New York City, they weren’t kidding. Lilah gaped at Devon, feeling like she was spinning out in a racecar doing 160.

Devon crossed his arms over his chest and stared her down. “Take it or leave it.” Okay. She’d messed up quite a bit as a busgirl. And hadn’t enjoyed it that much. And this situation here, with little Tucker staring up at her like she could make or break his world with a single word—

okay, she’d pretty much brought that on herself. Lilah looked into those blue eyes, the same shade as his daddy’s and well on their way to being just as shuttered and shadowed, and knew she couldn’t walk away.

“Done.”

Satisfaction gleamed in Devon’s eyes an instant before Lilah held up her own forestalling finger and added, “On one condition.”

He rocked back on his heels. “You’re not in any position to make demands.”

“Bull pucky,” Lilah said bluntly. “You don’t want Tucker getting lost in the system any more than I do.

And I understand, with the restaurant and everything”—“everything” being a euphemism for “your incredible self-involvement,” she thought but didn’t say—“you could use some help looking after him.

I’m agreeing to be that help. Out of the goodness of my heart, and for the same salary I was promised for bussing tables.”

Devon’s fine mouth quirked. It wasn’t fair he should look so handsome when making such a derisive face. “I haven’t the first clue what a busgirl makes these days, but I’m sure that’s doable. Was that your condition?”

“No,” Lilah said, ticked at Devon’s casual dismissal of the money issue. Her salary might be pocket change to him, but it was all that was keeping the wolf from her door. Shoving it from her mind, she continued firmly, “No, my condition is that you stop referring to Tucker as ‘the kid.’ He’s got a name; use it.”

Devon blinked, obviously taken aback. She braced herself for questions as to why she was making an issue out of this when there were so many other details to discuss, but instead Devon’s gaze flickered toward his son. For a strange, suspended instant Lilah wondered if Devon was going to refuse, but then he shrugged and said in a bored voice, “Fine. Are we through here? We’ve still got an hour of dinner service to go.”

In fact, the kitchen had ground to a complete standstill while the Sparks family drama played out in the back. Lilah saw line cooks hop to at Devon’s words, though, and soon enough the bustle of a working kitchen covered the cop’s transfer of Tucker’s clammy little hand to Lilah’s. Officer Santiago looked well satisfied with the way things had turned out, albeit in a cool, phlegmatic way. Lilah supposed she’d seen lots worse in the course of her career than a self-centered rich guy hesitating to take responsibility for his illegitimate child.

Without a backward glance or a word to Tucker, Devon strode back up the line and started barking out orders, chivvying the cooks along like a hound amongst the hares. He shouted for Frankie, who rolled his eyes and clapped a long-fingered hand on Lilah’s shoulder. She looked up at him, expecting some joke. The serious expression in his black eyes surprised her, but not as much as his quiet voice saying,

“You did a good thing, luv.”

With that pronouncement, he loped back up the line to his station and spun easily into whirling dervish mode, flipping steaks and chops, bending and sliding to a beat only he seemed to hear.

Grant gave Lilah a brief hug and studied her with concern. “You going to be okay?” Lilah paused, catching her breath and her balance. The world had just tilted sharply to the left and back again, but the cold hand clutched in hers reminded her that this was no time to space out.

“I’m fine,” she said firmly. “We both are. Right, Tucker?”

Devon’s son nodded mutely. Lilah eyed him, wondering if he was too nervous to speak or what.

Grant shifted from one foot to the other. “Lolly. Hon, I hate to do this to you, but I’ve got to get back out front. Lord only knows what the servers have gotten up to, and with the bartender situation, I’ve gotta . . .”