I’m not sure Gerald or Jerome need any help.” Kylie worried at her lower lip, wearing away the pink lipstick she had been wearing. “You’ll have to talk to Erin about that.”
“Who wants to talk to me?” A woman with red hair and a pencil stuck behind her ear showed up at the cash register beside the seat on which Vivienne had perched. The register chimed as she rang up a total and pulled the bill out of the top.
“I do.” Vivienne tossed a glance at an old cowboy limping toward the counter. She had to hurry. Ted Jameson, Cody Jameson’s uncle, may walk slow, but she remembered all too well that anything he found out spread through town faster than a wildfire. “I was wondering if you need a cook.”
Erin shot her a frown, then grinned as she glanced from Kylie to Vivienne. “This is a joke, right?”
Vivienne squirmed. “No. I’m serious. I need a job.”
“But goodness, girl. You’re a Cordon Bleu–trained chef. And you’re getting your inheritance.”
Vivienne resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Who in town didn’t know about her grandfather’s will?
Kylie leaned closer, lowering her voice. “She only gets the money if all the cousins stick around for a year.”
Erin nodded, understanding. Then she gave Vivienne an apologetic look. “Sorry, hon. I’ve got nothing. Jerome and Gerald don’t really need any help.”
“I can do pies,” she offered. “And my mousse cake is so light, it would just float in here.”
Erin scratched the side of her head with her index finger. “Arabella does most of my dessert and pastries.”
So much for that idea. Vivienne had never thought her own cousin would end up being her competition for work.
“What about working for the resorts over the pass?” Erin suggested, brightening.
“I don’t—”
“Her brother Zach would never let her do that,” Kylie interjected with a firm shake of her head. “Not after that horrible accident he had to deal with on the road up there. And winter is coming, so the roads would be really bad.”
Erin folded the bill she had just printed off.
“Even if she applied and got a job, he’d talk her out of it,” Kylie continued, crossing her arms over her chest in a decisive manner, as if she and her fiancée were on the same page.
“So she can’t work there,” Erin replied.
I’m right here, Vivienne felt like saying as their talk slipped past her.
“Who can’t work where?” Ted Jameson had reached the counter at the same time Erin and Kylie had reached their conclusion. His blue eyes looked all the brighter against his tanned skin. A fine network of white lines radiating from his eyes deepened as he frowned down at her. A battered straw cowboy hat sat askew on his head, and the grin he gave her had a few gaps.
“Vivienne—” Erin said.
“—Can’t cook at the resorts over the pass,” Kylie finished.
“You can’t cook?” Ted asked, leaning to one side to pull his wallet out of the back pocket of a pair of blue jeans shiny with grime. Vivienne guessed they hadn’t been washed in months.
Mental note. Don’t sit in any booth Ted has just sat in.
“I thought you liked to cook,” he continued. “Thought you were some fancy chef?”
“That’s right,” Vivienne said, struggling to keep the haughty edge out of her voice. “I trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.”
Ted eased a few bills out of a wallet thick with cash. “Well, I suppose that means something to somebody.”
“It’s a very famous cooking school,” Kylie explained. “Gourmet cooking, in fact.”
“Gourmet, you say?” He snickered as he shoved his wallet in his back pocket. “Hey. That rhymes. I’m a poet.”
“And you didn’t know it,” Kylie finished for him with a happy grin.
“So you really know your way around a kitchen?” Ted asked, snagging a toothpick out of the miniature wooden barrel sitting beside the cash register.
“Yes, I do. I cook very well.” This was said with a defensive tone. Very well was not a phrase to be used by a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu. Graduates of that famous cooking school were superb. Amazing. Par excellence.
But her confidence had been shaken in the past month. How could things have gone so wrong with the wedding menu? She never had any doubts about her cooking.
Don’t go there. That’s over. Stick around long enough to get your inheritance. Then you can go back to New York with your head held high and your bank account flush. Then you can start your own restaurant and prove your old boss wrong.
“And you need a job?”
“Yes. I do.”
Ted looked her up and down, as he unwrapped the toothpick. Vivienne felt like he was assessing her as he would a prize stud or a bull.
“You look like you have an idea,” Kylie prodded.
A few more people came up behind Ted to pay their bills. The entry grew crowded.
Ted angled his head to the door as he tucked the toothpick in his mouth. “Let’s chat outside,” he said to Vivienne.
So she followed Ted across the street to the park, where he sat down on a picnic bench. Vivienne glanced down at the seat, trying not to make a face at the bird droppings liberally decorating the bench. She found a clear spot on the edge and perched there, hoping she didn’t come into contact with any other questionable material.
“So what did you want to talk to me about?” she asked, crossing her long legs and flipping her long hair back over her shoulder.
“We’ll consider this part of your interview,” Ted said, resting his elbows on the rough wood of the table.
“Interview?”
“Yep. If it’s a cooking job you’re looking for, we could sure use you up at the Circle C.”
“But that’s a ranch,” Vivienne said, tucking her hands into the sleeves of her sweater. The sun had drifted behind a cloud and a breeze had picked up, tossing bright yellow leaves around their table, swinging the seats on the swings of the playground beside them. “I’m a gourmet chef.”
“Well, yeah. I get that.” The toothpick in his mouth migrated from one side to the other.
“I do gourmet cooking for high-end restaurants.”
“Sure. Whatever.” Ted leaned closer, his gnarled hands folded together, his eyes twinkling at her. “But we need a cook, and from
