One More Taste (23 page)

Perhaps, just for this night, they could leave their baggage and careers behind in Dulcet and simply be two friends out on the town. It was worth a try, anyway.

The Smoking Gun was a molecular gastronomist's take on a traditional Texas barbecue joint—a hipster paradise in the heart of hipsterville itself, Austin's Warehouse District. The mood was electric, the dining room crowded and noisy. They were seated at a relatively intimate window table and immediately attended to by a youthful, goateed server in skinny jeans and an even skinnier tie.

As soon as they'd ordered a bottle of Syrah and the server left, Emily tore a corner off a piece of Texas toast from the basket on the table. “You said you had a great day. What happened?”

She would, of course, learn the results of today's battle of wills in due time, probably along with the rest of the resort staff when it was announced that Knox was replacing Ty as the CEO, but not tonight. There was no way he was going to interfere with the warm sweetness that had returned to Emily's face or the casual, intimate manner with which she'd asked the question, as though this were merely one of thousands of nights that they'd come together over dinner, reviewing their day. He'd missed that this week, since she'd relegated him to the dining room to eat dinner alone.

So, instead, he told her simply, “I met with a team of structural engineers today about the expansion. It's great to see my vision for the resort starting to materialize. Hey, here's a question for you, since you've lived in Dulcet for quite a few years. Tell me stories about it snowing at the resort. I heard it doesn't happen often…”

To his delight, she regaled him with stories of flurries and miniature snowmen scraped together from the occasional light dustings of snow that Dulcet experienced in a normal year. After that, they poured over the menu, with Knox pausing to quiz her about various techniques and ingredients he'd either never heard of or been curious enough to ask about, and none he'd probably remember if he'd been tested, he was so fixated on Emily rather than their meal choices.

Their wine arrived, with Emily doing the tasting honors. At the first sip, her body swayed and her eyes fluttered closed for a long moment. A smile curved her lips. “Oh, wow.”

The dim mood-lighting played on her body the same way as the moonlight had on the rowboat ride they'd taken. The glow kissed her skin and reflected off her hair like gold flecks. It glittered over her lower lip and played in her eyes like lightning. And just as he had on that boat ride, he couldn't take his eyes off her.

While the server filled their wine glasses, Knox ordered one of every dish that had caught their eye, eager to expedite the server's interruption so he could have Emily to himself again. When the server left, Knox took his wine glass in hand. “So, it's good?”

“Better than good. I can think of six different dishes to cook for you that I could pair with this wine.”

“Why? What does it taste like?” Anything to keep her talking.

“You.” Her smile fell. With a shake of her head, she pinched the bridge of her nose. “That came out wrong. What I meant was, it reminds me of you. Complicated, peppery, with a touch of sweet berries and notes of leather and tobacco that remind me of your rodeo days and that black hat you're so fond of.”

He took a sip. The flavors burst against the roof of his mouth and tingled over his tongue. “I'll have to order a case for my house.”

That sly smile returned. She swirled the wine in her glass. “Funny, I was just thinking about how I'll have to order it for my new restaurant.”

Yes, she would. But he couldn't think of a way to answer her that didn't jump the gun about making his decision. Because as soon as that happened, then their deal was done and he wasn't prepared to give up the pleasure of coming home to her every night. So instead, he cleared his throat. “Decker and I were able to hook up for a fishing lesson earlier this week. It was fun.”

Her only acknowledgment of his abrupt change of topic was a brief flicker of her eyebrows. “Did you catch anything?”

“A few small bass.”

“No sign of Phantom, though?”

Knox rolled another sip of wine over his tongue. “That sneaky fish didn't even jump out of the water to make his presence known. I told Decker the story about Phantom attacking me, and he thought I was bullshitting him.”

“Keep trying to catch it. Once Decker sees Phantom, he'll believe you.”

“That's the plan. Decker loaned me his fishing gear, said he wasn't going to need it for a while with the baby on the way, so if you feel like trying your hand at catching Phantom, be my guest. It's in the boathouse. I could even share the pointers Decker told me, if you'd like. Maybe between the two of us, we'd stand a chance at catching Phantom.”

He could imagine himself and Emily sitting on his dock, spending an afternoon fishing and chatting amicably like they were tonight. The intense need for physical connection still crackled in the air between them, but rather than being a hindrance, it served to sharpen his awareness of every little detail of her, from the way she pressed the wine glass to her lips or tucked her chin and cast her eyes down when she smiled to every story she told and the inflection of her voice.

To the suggestion that they fish together, she raised her eyebrows in a show of skepticism. “Maybe we should try chumming for him from the dock. I just so happen to have a spoiled pot of Frito Pie at your house. It's your dad's favorite dish, and I get the feeling Phantom and your dad might have known each other, way back when, so who knows. Maybe the fish has a soft spot for Frito Pie, too.” She wrinkled her nose. “I know that probably sounds crazy.”

It did, but she was in sympathetic company. “Come on, you're talking to the guy who thinks his truck's haunted.”

“Well, it is haunted,” she deadpanned.

They shared a conspiratorial smile as their server laid out the dishes they'd ordered, a sampling from every section of the menu. In companionable silence, they dug in, critiquing the dishes as they went. After one bite of the pecan wood-smoked pork, Emily pushed the plate away.

“Uh-oh, you look queasy,” Knox said.

“That's not queasiness, it's disgust. What a waste of an opportunity. This pecan wood is muddling the flavors of what should have been a complex profile. And, by the way, what's up with the chef adding a pecan-sage cream sauce to pecan wood-smoked pork—how is that, in any way, a cutting-edge flavor combination?” She scooped a bit of the cream onto her spoon and held it out to him. “If you lick this and let it roll around in your mouth, what do you feel?”

Before he knew what he was doing, he'd leaned across the table and let his lips close over the spoon as she held it, as though she were feeding it to him. Their gazes locked, making the back of his neck tingle with the electric shock of their connection. She snagged her bottom lip with her teeth as her gaze dipped to his mouth. God, he could imagine it, what it would feel like to lose his hands in her hair as he kissed those full, strawberry lips.

“Now use your tongue,” she said.

Shit.

Her eyes went wide and her mouth fell open. “To taste the cream sauce, I meant. Spread it over the roof of your mouth to release the flavors.”

He couldn't very well swallow past the tightening of his throat, so he did as he was told, squishing the sauce against the roof of his mouth. A woodsy sage flavor bloomed over his tongue. Tasty, but rather flat. The flavor faded fast. “Nutmeg,” he said.

“But how do you feel?”

Was that a trick question? How he felt at that moment, sitting across the table from Emily Ford, had absolutely nothing to do with the pecan sage cream sauce. All he could manage was a shrug.

Emily threw her hands up. “There you go. A shrug. The worst review a chef could get.”

He could see how someone as passionate as she would be averse to mediocrity and bland feelings, especially given that every dish of hers he ate resulted in one big tempest of emotion. He took another bite of pork, redoubling his efforts to keep their night platonic and easy. “All I can think about now is you serving up your version of smoked pork. What would you do differently?”

She paused, considering the question. “Nothing I could say would capture the taste. You'd have to experience it.”

He felt the smile her answer elicited from him all the way to his heart, as a kind of delicious ache. “Okay, when? And don't say, when you have your restaurant.”

“Okay, then. When I'm good and ready,” she said in a playful tone.

He would never tire of the give-and-take battle of their conversations. Never. “I've been thinking of hosting a dinner party next weekend for my equity firm partners and their wives. Smoked pork would be perfect. I mean, assuming you'd agree to cater it.”

“Only if you don't make me hobnob with the dinner guests.”

The condition made him smile even bigger—made his heart ache even more deliciously—it was so
her.
“Not a big fan of schmoozing clients?”

“I don't do small talk. I'm terrible at it.”

It came as no surprise that for as confident and capable as she was in the kitchen, she was insecure about being the person in the spotlight. “It scares you.”

She cast him a wary look. “Yes, it scares me,” she said finally. “But who said we have to do everything that scares us? Humankind evolved to have fear for a reason, so why would we suppress it? Because some inspirational poster with a tightrope walker tells us that facing our fears is a virtue? That's bullshit. Maybe we're scared for a reason. Maybe we don't have to be great at everything. That's such a stupid American construct.”

“There you go sounding like you're rationalizing your choice to labor in obscurity at the resort. How can we evolve if we don't conquer what scares us?”

She set her glass down and leaned forward. The fire in her eyes was something a man could get addicted to. “There is a noodle maker in Hong Kong who's been making noodles the same way for sixty years, the same way his father did, the same way as generations before him did, bouncing on a bamboo pole. That's it. That's his life. That's his skill. He has perfected noodle making. Do you have any idea how few people in this world ever perfect the art of anything?”

Almost no one, ever. Which begged the question, which struck more fear into hearts—spending sixty years on a single goal or accepting mediocrity for the manufactured concept of personal growth? It was a point Knox had certainly never considered before. And the fact that Emily Ford was telling him the noodle maker story, that she dared to strive for a level of perfection that might take a lifetime to achieve, made her the most fearless person in his life right now. Possibly, in the whole of Texas.

“I rendered you speechless,” she said.

“I was thinking about how it is the rarity of diamonds that makes them so valuable.”

She rolled her eyes melodramatically. “Oh my God, it's like you're an inspirational poster come to life. The point is, I am a culinary artist. That's what I'm striving to perfect, and I'm not going to waste my time pretending to be someone I'm not or learning a skill that useless for me, like making vapid small talk at dinner parties when I'd rather be in the kitchen honing my art.”

Knox pushed the plate nearest him in Emily's direction. “Here's another dish that misses the mark, like that pork.” The dish was a deconstructed mole involving two quail breasts floating on pasilla chili-chocolate foam, surrounded by caviar-like gelatin balls, each containing a different spice used in the sauce. It looked and tasted like a gastronomical chemistry experiment gone bad.

“The mole? I loved it, but I knew it would leave you feeling empty. Remember, I told you that when I ordered it?”

He hadn't put that all together, but she was correct. “How did you know?”

She pulled a bite of quail meat from the plate with her fork and dredged it through the caviar gelatin. “Because deconstructed mole is not what you need.”

What he needed to do was slide his fingers through her unruly curls of hair. What he needed to do was call for the bill so they could leave this loud, pretentious restaurant and he could have her to himself. What he needed to do was kiss—

Stop it, you dirty bastard.
She is not your wife or your lover or yours in any way. A ten-minute fuck in your childhood bedroom does not a personal relationship make. And even if that could have been the start of something, it would all come crashing down the moment she learned of Knox's eventual plans for the resort. And then she'd probably never speak to him again.

Regret knifed through him. Suddenly, acutely. He'd thought his strategy for revenge was flawless. He would have never guessed that a small-time chef would prove to be the chink in his armor.

But never mind that tonight. He wouldn't allow anything to interfere with this one perfect evening with her. He had to reach back, struggling to remember the conversation at hand. Ah, yes. The mole that left him empty. “All right, then, what do I need, if not mole?”

She met his gaze with a triumphant smile. “I've been trying to show you since day one. You keep resisting. Are you ready to surrender? Are you ready to let me feed you like you need to be fed, every meal, unequivocally?”

He'd never heard a more erotic line of questions.

Their server appeared tableside. “How's everything, folks?”

Emily sat back in her chair. Knox did the same. Both of them watched the server pour more wine.

“You can take the smoked pork,” Emily told the server. “It didn't satisfy us.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. Would you care for something else?”

“Yes,” she said. “We'll look at some menus.”

Damn this interruption. He still hadn't gotten his answer from Emily, and he suddenly, quite desperately, needed to know what it was that Emily thought he needed. Then again, perhaps a better question was why was he intrigued by the idea that someone whom he'd only just met would know what he needed better than he would. He already knew what he needed. He forged his own path. He didn't take advice from anyone outside his close circle of advisors. And Emily was not in that circle.