The Chef's Choice (20 page)

He ordered scotch only because he wanted to be alone at his condo even less.

“Having a good night?” She was blond and beautiful, dressed in a scrap of a skirt that matched the glossy red of her lips. She slid onto the bar stool next to him with a look of frank female appreciation.

“Sure,” he answered automatically. “You?”

“All right. There's only so much casino time I can take. My girlfriend's playing blackjack. I figured I'd take a break. How about you?”

He was supposed to be taking a break, too, and she was the kind of woman who'd always been his type. Why, then, did it feel like work to come up with a reply? “Me? Just stopping off on my way home.”

“Oh yeah? Do you work here?”

“In the kitchen,” he answered, already sorry he'd let himself get drawn into the conversation. Because she was studying him. Any moment it would hit, the journey of speculation to recognition to excitement.

She straightened. “Oh my God. You're that guy. The chef. I saw you on
Good Morning America
. You have a funny name, Damien somebody, right?”

And for the life of him he couldn't figure out why he was tempted to lie. “Damon,” he said, taking a swallow of his scotch.

“Damon. Nice to meet you, Damon. I'm Leslie.” She held out her hand, clasped his just a little too long. Her blue eyes gleamed. “So what does the name Damon mean? Are you a devil?”

Cady would have probably said so, he reflected. Then again, Cady hadn't given a damn for his celebrity. If anything, it had worked against him, as far as she was concerned. “Nope, not a devil. Just a guy.”

“You look a little devilish to me,” she said.

Her leg was pressed against his, her mouth was ripe. She was gorgeous and sexy and available.

And he had absolutely no interest in her at all. No arousal, even though her eyes told him he'd only to ask. But they were the wrong color eyes. They were the wrong color eyes and her makeup was too glossy and she didn't smell like apples and she was—

Not Cady.

The thought echoed through him. It was as simple as that, he realized, setting his glass down. It wasn't that his taste in women had changed, it was that Cady was the woman he wanted. Challenging, yes. Infuriating, almost certainly. Exciting, always. And generous and loyal and kind.

And he'd walked away from her.

What in the name of God had he been thinking?

Out in the casino there was a sudden cacophony of bells and sirens and shouts.

Leslie clutched his arm. “Someone's lucked out.”

He'd lucked out back in Maine; he just hadn't realized it. He'd been so busy grabbing that brass ring Cady had talked about that he'd overlooked the pure gold right in front of him.

And suddenly, like a puzzle piece dropping into place, he realized the truth: he loved her. How had he missed that? How had he thought he could ever really walk away?

And not just from Cady, from the Compass Rose, the Sextant, the sense of home. The sense of family. He belonged in Grace Harbor. He belonged with her.

So what the hell was he doing sitting in a bar in Las Vegas?

“Excuse me.” He picked Leslie's hand off his arm and rose.

She frowned. “Where are you going?”

He turned to look at her and he could feel the grin spread over his face. “The airport.”

“You spend fifteen bucks for a lobster and you're putting Tabasco on it?” Tania asked.

Cady paused, bottle in the air. “I like Tabasco on lobster.” She started shaking again.

“The Tabasco is for the steamers. The lobster gets the butter.”

“The butter goes on the corn. Along with the Tabasco.”

“I don't know why I take you anywhere,” Tania muttered.

Cady just smiled. It was an old debate. They sat on the deck at Spiny's, a beachfront restaurant outside of Ogunquit, eating Sunday brunch in what had long been their ritual.

Or almost ritual.

For four weeks, she'd missed brunches with Tania. For four weeks, her Sundays had belonged to Damon and sheer happiness. Now, he was gone. Now, she was free for brunch again. And however much she ached, there was a comfort in the tradition that helped.

“You know, don't take this wrong but it's nice to be doing this again,” Tania said, almost as though she'd known what Cady was thinking.

Cady looked out at the water. “I know I disappeared for a while. I'm sorry. Sometimes you've got to take advantage of the time you've got.”

“I know.” Tania took a drink of her mimosa. “So how are you doing?”

“I'm getting through,” Cady said. It was, perhaps, the fairest assessment she could give. She'd endured almost four weeks so far. The days still crawled, but mornings no longer featured that unbearable moment of surfacing to realize that Damon was gone. The ache remained but she'd grown accustomed to it. And if she still wondered every hour on the hour where he was, what he was doing, well, time eventually would take care of that, too.

“Have you heard from him?” Tania asked.

Cady shook her head. “I didn't expect to. I'm sure he's off doing his thing, making a big success of himself.”

“One of the women I do hair for saw him on the morning show a couple of weeks ago. Just raved about watching him cook and how she couldn't believe he was from Maine.”

Cady raised her eyebrows. “From Maine?”

“Once down east, always down east.”

“Not Damon. He's not down east anymore.” As a joke, it didn't fly. There was a little too much misery hidden beneath.

Tania played with her water glass. “So he never asked you to go with him?”

“I think he knew it wasn't an option.”

“Would you have gone if he'd asked?”

Cady gave a humorless laugh. “Oh, right, me in Vegas? I can just see it now. Fancy parties, VIP lounges, all-night gambling. Sequined dresses and high heels. Sounds like my kind of life.”

“Would you have gone?”

“My life is here, Tania, you know that,” she returned impatiently. “This patch of coast. My family, my job, my friends, my history, everything. This is what I'm about.”

“Would you have gone?” Tania asked again.

Cady looked out at the water, staring at the horizon for long moments, watching a ship box the compass. “If he'd asked me,” she said softly, “I would have gone anywhere with him.”

He was very likely out of his mind, Damon thought as he headed down I-95 toward Grace Harbor. What guy quit a mid-six-figure job to go back to an opening that might not even exist? What guy would leave the biggest opportunity of his life to go back to a woman who'd told him to get lost? And who might very likely still feel that way?

Then again, what guy moved away from a place and never bothered to break his lease? It wasn't as if he'd been making the best decisions of late. He'd meant to do something about the rental house in Grace Harbor. The weeks had slid by and he'd put it off, telling himself he was too busy, telling himself that the rent was paid up to the end of the month and there would be time to come back out and close things up. But deep down, he knew that wasn't it.

He hadn't quite been able to make himself let it go.

Maybe somehow he'd known he was going to come back, he thought as he stopped his rental car outside her apartment. Or hoped. Which made him crazy for ever leaving to begin with. He should have known. Cady had.

And now all he wanted to do was make it right.

There was no answer to his knock on her door. For a moment, he stood, wondering. It was unlikely that she'd be working on a Sunday. He wasn't sure where else to try.

He stared at the featureless wood. He'd accused her of not knowing him at all, but he realized as he walked back to his car that he knew far too little of her. Their time together had consisted of Sundays and of stolen hours and minutes spread through the week. It wasn't a normal life he led. There wasn't much to offer her.

Moodily, he drove to the house he'd rented. The night before, it had all seemed simple: find her and tell her how he felt. On the red-eye back, he'd been sure that everything else would come together. But could it? Wouldn't a woman like Cady, so close with her family, want more than a life stolen in bits and pieces?

He walked into the house and he could feel her all around. They'd made love in every room, he remembered, and need for her arrowed through him. It was all right, he told himself. They would be together again. He'd make it work no matter what it took.

The house was hot, the air stale after a month of being closed in. He headed over to the slider, to open the place up.

And saw her.

She was bent over the vegetable beds in shorts and a T-shirt. Her hair glinted bright in the sun. Her truck was parked nearby with tools propped against it. And she was working on the garden. Their garden.

The plants had taken off, he saw in amazement. Neat rows of lettuce and herbs marched across the beds. The corn was a good foot tall. She'd tended it, he realized, staring at the pristine, weed-free soil, the lush green leaves, the carefully staked peppers and tomatoes. It wasn't hers. She'd thought he was gone for good, and yet she'd returned day after day to tend to it.

He was out the door before he even realized he'd opened the latch.

She should have brought a hat, Cady thought, taking off her gloves to turn up her music. Sun and mimosas were a bad combination. But it had been a spur-of-the-moment decision to come. The conversation at brunch had made her miss Damon fiercely and she hadn't been able to bear the idea of sitting around her apartment. And so she'd come to work in the garden. Somehow, even though the reminder of him hurt, she felt an obscure comfort in working the ground they'd tilled together. She felt connected to him in some way.

When he'd gone, she'd expected the landlord to let the place again. No new tenants had materialized, though, so she'd just kept coming over, driving her truck around back to unload whatever she needed. Soon, she wouldn't be bringing it back to drop off tools and supplies; she'd be bringing it back to take away the harvest.

And one day, the plants would all die, the last tangible reminder of a time that had been a miraculous surprise, a wonderful gift, a precious time that would never come again.

She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyelids until patterns of orange and black and green appeared.

“You've been busy.”

People could jump out of their skin, she discovered. It wasn't just a saying. And when she whirled around, she was stunned to find Damon standing there.

She had to be dreaming, Cady thought wildly, or drunk or delusional. Adrenaline made her shaky. She couldn't seem to get her breath. In her ears, Alison Krauss and Robert Plant sang about being gone, gone, gone but he was there before her looking rumpled and unshaven and she wanted to weep at how good it felt.

Instead, she stood, wiping her hands off on her shorts. “I, uh, was just stopping by.”

“It looks like you've been doing that a lot,” he said, turning to survey the tidy beds.

“I couldn't just let it go. I couldn't let them burn up.” She hadn't quite been able to abandon that last reminder of something they'd planted together. Her mouth was dry. “What are you doing here?”

“I couldn't let go, either,” he said softly.

“What happened to the job?”

“It didn't work.”

“The restaurants?” She stared.

He gave a short laugh. “No, the restaurants are doing great. I'm the one who wasn't. Cady, I screwed up. I went carting off after that job because that's what I thought I wanted. It's always been my big dream. But sometimes your dreams change on you before you have a chance to catch up.” He met her gaze. “My dream's here now, with you.”

She wanted to sink into the warmth in his eyes. She wanted to find herself back in his arms. Instead, she made herself keep her distance. After all, she'd forgotten once before. “So you're back?”

“I sat out there and all I could think about was how it didn't feel right, how it wasn't what I thought it would be. Because it wasn't like here, I figured out. All I did was miss this place. And all I did was think about you and miss you. So yeah, I'm back.”

“For now.” She raised her chin.

“For good.”

“What does that mean?” she asked with a thread of desperation. “How do I know that's not going to change in a month or a year when you decide you're bored with this? When the party machine gets cranked up? When Jack comes to town with a new offer?”

“Trust me, he won't.” Damon smiled faintly. “You're what I want. I know that. A life with you, a life here in Grace Harbor, planting gardens, cooking at the restaurant, making a home.”

“Don't play me, Damon.” Her voice shook. “What happened with us…I let you in like I've never let anyone in before. Ever. And it about killed me when you left. I don't think I could go through that again, so if this is some kind of a lark with you, something you're doing to kill time, go away. I don't want you.”