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   Bellywasher's attracted what Jim generously called a local crowd—mostly older than middle-aged guys, the kind who wore beat-up army jackets and talked about the good old days over shots and beers. While they might not have appreciated the blue food, they did apparently enjoy what passed for ambiance.

   Uncle Angus had been the proprietor and barkeep almost since the day he set foot in this country from Scotland. Over the years, he'd filled the caramel-colored paneled walls with a collection of memorabilia that included photos of the Scottish countryside, even one he swore showed an authentic Nessie sighting. The pictures hung side by side with broadswords, kilts, and (I swear this is true) an autographed picture of Mel Gibson in blue face paint. The tablecloths were plaid, there was a mural of a thistle over the bar, and more often than not, there was a bagpiper on one of the barstools who was happy to play in exchange for a wee drop of something to wet his whistle.

   It was eclectic to say the least, and while I'm not a snob, it took only one visit for me to recognize that as it stood, Bellywasher's wasn't going to bring in the kind of upscale crowd Jim wanted to attract.

   Fortunately, in the months since he'd taken over, reason (not to mention good taste) had prevailed. The paneling was gone, replaced with clean white walls, and all of Angus's Scottish ephemera was stored in the basement. There wasn't a scrap of plaid in sight. The tables—there were only ten of them and twice that number of seats at the bar—were covered with crisp cloths. The chairs were ebony and sleek. The ceramic tile floor was white, too, with just a touch of gray in it, and thanks to the spare, clean colors and windows that looked out onto King Street, the lighting was good even at the bar at the back of the room.

   We'd done well. At least, as well as we could with a limited budget and one odd legal constraint. Under the terms of Uncle Angus's will, Bellywasher's it was, and Bellywasher's it had to stay. According to Jim, a bellywasher was a drink, and though these days we were more interested in providing our clientele with fine food and fresh ingredients than we were in shots and beers, we were learning to live with the name even though we (well, actually,
I
) hadn't quite yet made peace with it.

   "Are we ready, do you think?"

   Some time while I'd been lost in thought, Jim had come out of the kitchen. I heard his voice right behind me. I turned and tried for a smile that told him everything was under control and I wasn't the least bit apprehensive about what the day would bring.

   Fat chance.

   I could no more pretend I wasn't nervous than I could make believe that being anywhere close to Jim didn't make my hormones flare like a kitchen grease fire.

   Jim MacDonald is himself a born-and-bred Scotsman, and he has the knee-melting accent to prove it. Jim is tall and rangy. Mahogany hair. Hazel eyes. Athletic body. We met at that cooking class; he was the instructor. And if it sounds like I'm head over heels about him?

   I tamped back the thought and those out-of-control hormones.

   Sure, Jim is good-looking. Sure, he's decent and kind, and he has a great sense of humor. Yes, he's made it clear that if I'm interested, he's plenty interested, too.

   But . . .

   I twitched aside the thought and told myself to get my mind off my disastrous romantic track record and back on the restaurant where it belonged.

   "We're ready," I told Jim. I guess I didn't look all that convinced, because he laughed.

   "You're not being made to march in front of a firing squad. Loosen up, woman! If you forget to breathe, we're going to have more trouble on our hands than just some missing radicchio." He drew me closer and kneaded my shoulders.

   Jim has strong hands.

   Expert hands.

   Warm and gentle hands.

   I nearly fell under the spell, until reality hit like a ton of made-out-of-recycled-tires place mats.

   "What do you mean no radicchio?" Before I even realized I'd shot out from under his grip, I was on my way back to my office to find the appropriate paperwork. "I know you ordered it. I know I paid for it. I can find the invoice to prove it. The rest of the produce came, didn't it? We aren't out of lettuce? Or tomatoes? Oh my gosh, how are you going to make the mozzarella salad without tomatoes?"

   "Annie."

   Jim's voice barely penetrated the panic-induced fog that filled my brain. I didn't pay him any mind. Already in my office, I shuffled through the papers on my desk.

   "It's here," I mumbled. "I know the invoice is here. I know I marked it as paid. I saw it yesterday."

   "Annie."

   "It was with all the other bills I've paid." I was babbling now. Stress and fear and first-day jitters were bound to produce some sort of phobia in a person like me who treasures nothing as much as predictability. "If you give me a minute, I'll find it and call them and—"

   "Annie!" This time, Jim wasn't taking any chances. Putting his hands back on my shoulders, he spun me around to face him. The heat of his skin penetrated the black blazer I'd chosen to wear that day along with black tailored pants and a creamy blouse. OK, so I was no more daring when it came to fashion than I was about anything else in life. That didn't change the fact that Jim's touch warmed me through to the bone. He was far taller than me, and he bent down to look me in the eye.

   "I don't care about the radicchio," he said, speaking low and slow, the way a mother does to a small child. Or a trainer does to a dog.

   I swallowed a gulp of dismay.

   "I've already worked around the missing radicchio," he continued. "I'll use endive in the salads instead. We've got it. It's fresh. It isn't as colorful, but we'll make do." He gave this news time to sink in. It wasn't until he was sure it had and that I wasn't going to start rooting through the papers on my desk again that he loosened his hold.

   Loosened, not let go.

   He linked his fingers at the back of my neck and tugged me a little closer. His thigh brushed mine. His breath was soft against my cheek. "Feeling better now?" he asked. His gaze dipped to my lips.

   I nodded.

   "You're sure?"

   I wasn't, but I nodded again, anyway. How could I do anything else? It was hard to think rationally when Jim was this close and when—according to the clock I could just catch a glimpse of if I twisted ever so slightly—we had exactly ten minutes to go until opening.

   "You don't want to forget this whole restaurant thing and just go back to working only at the bank?"

   The bank? I didn't. But—

   "I just want to make sure everything is perfect!" I wailed.

   Jim chuckled. "Aye, as do I. But we've done all we can, Annie. And let me remind you, we've done it all well. We're as ready as we're ever likely to be, and now is not the time to worry about little things like radicchio. If you're going to succeed in this business, you're going to have to learn to roll with the punches. Radicchio that hasn't been delivered, that's not a crisis. Just a bit of an inconvenience."

   "You're right." I willed the tension out of my shoulders and felt the knot in my stomach ease. "I just want things to go well."

   "And they will; you'll make sure of that. Heaven help us all if they don't. Anything goes wrong today, and you'll have my head on one of Angus's old crockery platters."

   "Will not." He'd gotten his way and coaxed a smile out of me. I forced myself to keep it firmly in place even though, when I looked, I saw that the clock had ticked away another minute. "It's just that—"

   "You're nervous and excited." Jim nodded. Like a diver preparing for a leap off the high board, he drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "So am I," he admitted. "This restaurant . . . it's what I've always wanted."

   "Which is why I need to make sure—"

   "No." The glimmer in his eyes settled into a smoldering spark. "
You
don't need to make sure everything goes right.
We
need to do that. There's another thing you'll have to learn if you're planning to last in the restaurant business. It's a team effort, you see. Kitchen, front of the house, business end. We all need to work together. It isn't any one person's fault if things don't go right. Even when that one person is a certain woman who takes far too much responsibility on herself." One corner of his mouth pulled into a smile that revealed a dimple in his left cheek. I knew what was coming, and I braced myself for it.

   "You might feel less stressed," he suggested, "if you quit your job at the bank."

   The subject had been a bone of contention between us all summer, and truth be told, I understood Jim's point of view. Though his position could be construed as being cold and calculating, I knew he wasn't thinking of the restaurant and how much of my undivided attention it got. He was worried about me, about how I put in eight hours a day at the bank, then another five or six at Bellywasher's. Stress? I had it in spades. But that didn't mean I was willing to budge an inch. Taking on the obligations of a new business was risk enough. I didn't need to compound it by quitting a job that offered stability, a steady paycheck, and decent benefits.

   Another look at the clock and I sidestepped around Jim and toward the door. "Maybe someday," I told him. Just like I'd been telling him all summer. "When things here are more stable. That's when I'll quit my job at the bank. You know, when this job is more dependable."

   "Aye, you mean when you don't have to take any chances."

   I didn't know why he had to make that sound like a bad thing. "There's nothing wrong with being careful."

   "There is, if you spend so much time being careful, you forget to live life while you're at it."

   Something told me we weren't talking about Bellywasher's anymore.

   The familiar thread of uncertainty coiled in my stomach. "Look, Jim, it's not that—"

   "Not that you don't care. Not that you don't like me. Not that I don't like you as well. And not that we didn't try."

   He was talking about the last few months, about how we'd actually given the whole dating thing a go. And honestly, dating Jim . . . well, that was pretty much right up there with salt-and-vinegar potato chips. Or a bag of those dark chocolates from Dove.

   Irresistible.

   Delicious.

   And loaded with pitfalls.

   Hand in hand, we used to walk around my neighborhood. Jim would tell me about his plans for Bellywasher's. And me? I talked about my dream of owning a home. Nothing wrong with that, right? Until I realized that every time I revealed some personal piece of myself, I flashed back to my relationship with Peter and how he'd always shared my dreams.

   Of course, that was before he ran off with the girl from the dry cleaner's and took half of my house down payment with him.

   Other nights, Jim and I stayed in, and he cooked dinner using the recipes he planned for the Bellywasher's menu. I know, lucky me. Jim is a fabulous cook, and staying snug and cozy at home had always appealed to me more than a night on the town. But no matter how hard I tried not to, those nights made me think about how I'd taken all the snug and cozy nights I'd spent with Peter for granted.

   We went to ball games and to a couple concerts and to the movies. I'll admit it, I loved sitting there with Jim's arm around my shoulders.

   And all I could think about was how lonely I was going to be once he moved on.

   As much as I missed our friendship and the sizzle that streaked through me every time I thought about taking our relationship to the next level, I'd slowly begun backing out of the relationship even before the demands of the restaurant swamped us both.

   As if he was thinking about the same things, Jim sighed. "Back when we met at Très Bonne Cuisine, you wouldn't have gone scampering away when I put my arms around you."

   It was true. But that was before I came to my senses and remembered that romance and I . . . well, the word
heart
break
comes to mind. So do the phrases,
don't go there, who
are you kidding
, and
don't take any chances
.

   Because I knew if I did go there, if I risked everything as I had with Peter, and if things didn't work out the way they hadn't with Peter, then my heart would be broken in so many pieces a truck full of super-duper glue wouldn't be enough to even begin to stick it back together.

   And I had the nerve to criticize Eve for her lack of logic? How about trying this argument on for size: I couldn't date Jim; I liked him too much.

   I didn't try to explain. Jim wouldn't have understood, and besides, we didn't have time. Instead, I stood there like a lump. I guess Jim felt as if he had to jump in and fill the silence.

   "It's my fault," he said, and honestly, it wasn't what I was expecting. I guess he interpreted the blank look on my face for disbelief. He was wrong. What that look really was, you see, was total surprise. He couldn't possibly think the fact that I liked him so darn much I couldn't stand the thought of things going wrong between us so I'd decided that I'd never let our relationship progress far enough for me to be devastated when it finally fell apart had something to do with him. Could he?

   Once bitten, twice shy, as they say, and the big ol' bite of divorce still hurt like hell.

   When I didn't protest the way he apparently expected me to, Jim went right on. "I've been so consumed by this place, I haven't paid nearly the attention to you that I should have these last months. We hardly talk except about the restaurant. We hardly see each other except passing to and from the kitchen. You stay late, and I have to be at the food terminal early, or I'll be left with what the other chefs won't touch. I know, it's hard, and I'm sorry, Annie. I really am. Things will get easier one of these days, and when they do, I swear I'll make it up to you."