seemed flustered by his initiative so he took what he needed and left her alone, thinking that woman was going to have to start relying on him.
Frankie hung up the phone and stared at it. After a glowing report from the owner of La Nuit, it appeared as if she’d won the lottery when Nate walked through her back door.
A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. A classically trained chef who had worked in Paris. Who’d have thought? Assuming that Henri guy was on the up-and-up, and her instincts told her he was, Nate was a gift from God.
Which got her thinking…if he stayed long enough, maybe he could help put them back on the map. At least with the locals. And then they could—
Frankie looked up and saw Nate standing in her doorway.
Trying to hide her surprise, she lifted her eyebrows and waited for him to speak.
“Here’s my list, Boss.” His voice was relaxed, the term almost an endearment.
He came forward and dropped the sheet of lined paper on the desk. His handwriting was all in capitals and very neat. The list itself was ordered logically by food group, also including his meat and dairy requirements.
“I assumed we wouldn’t have more than ten people a night for the next seven days so I’ve kept it light. And just so you know, I’m going to redo your menu. It’s old and boring.”
She nodded and looked up, narrowing her stare. “I spoke with Henri just now.”
Nate smiled. “How is the old buzzard?”
“He told me you were…very good.”
“Precisely why I gave you his name. Figured if you heard it from him you wouldn’t worry about me so much. And by the way, I don’t have a criminal record and the only time I was in a police car was when I was in college and went skinny-dipping in the Charles River by mistake. My father had a lot to say about that one but I wasn’t formally charged. Oh—but I do have about thirty outstanding parking tickets in New York City.”
Frankie frowned in an attempt to keep a smile off her face. “Let me ask you something.”
“Shoot.”
“Why would someone with your background and training want to work here?”
He shrugged. “I need the money. And it’s just for the summer.”
“But why don’t you find somewhere like La Nuit to work? Down in the city. You could be making a lot more.”
Frankie closed her mouth, thinking she should shut up. Was she actually trying to talk him into going somewhere else? Because he was right—she did need him.
Nate considered her for a long moment, as if debating how up-front to be. “A buddy and I are going to buy our own restaurant. We’ve been looking for the last four months in New York, Boston, D.C. and Montreal, but the right opportunity hasn’t come along.” He grinned. “Or maybe it’s more like we haven’t found a place we can afford yet. I’ve been living off my savings and we need that money for a down payment to secure a small business loan. Right about the time my car broke down, I’d decided to find summer work and then resume the hunt in the fall. Your place is as good as any.”
Frankie looked down, absurdly hurt. To her, White Caps wasn’t just any place. It was home, it was family, it was…everything. But to a stranger, of course, it would just be a bunch of walls and a roof.
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Besides, how can I resist the opportunity to work for someone like you?”
She glanced up. “Like me?”
His gaze drifted from her eyes to her lips. Her breath stopped.
He was looking at her as if he wanted to kiss her, she thought. He truly was.
Time slowed, then halted altogether. She looked away from him, unable to stand the tension.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said softly.
She braced herself and met his eyes again, thinking that the casual endearment really shouldn’t please her.
“Smile for me and don’t hide it this time.”
She flushed. “Maybe later.”
Nate’s lips lifted slightly, as if he enjoyed her show of spirit. “I’m willing to wait.”
And then he went back out to the kitchen.
Frankie put her head in her hands, propping the weight up by her elbows. She was not the kind of woman who fell for romance. She really wasn’t. But, in a matter of moments, he could completely disarm her with that charm of his. Somehow, even if it was a ruse, just some throwaway words to him, his husky voice had the power to short out her brain and turn on her body’s boiler system.
This was not good.
In the middle of all the chaos, being attracted to her new cook—chef—was a complication she didn’t need.
The phone rang and she picked it up with relief, ready to be distracted. It was, unfortunately, someone canceling their reservation for the following weekend. When she hung up, she looked through the window. Out on the lawn, which needed to be mowed again, there were a pair of chipmunks racing around.
An old memory drifted through her mind. She saw Joy and Alex and her much younger self in the midst of an Easter egg hunt. Joy had found only one egg, but that was because she’d been looking for the bright pink one in particular and had stopped once she got it. Alex had found three, but then lost interest and climbed up a tree to see how high he could go. Frankie had scampered around, retrieved all the other eggs and divvied them up between the baskets equally. Finding them had been easy enough to do. She’d helped her mother hide them.
That was so long ago, she thought. Back when their parents had seemed like fixed objects in the sky, a surefire, two-pronged orientation system to the world. That feeling of safety, however illusory, had been so powerful.
God, she missed them.
When the chipmunks got bored with playing keep-away and disappeared into the lilac hedges, she let the past go.
Measuring the lawn, and envisioning hours of pushing the ancient manual mower, she looked back down at the desk. Next to Nate’s list was the letter from the bank—the one that reminded her she’d been behind on the mortgage payments for six months in a row. Her banker, Mike Roy, had written on the bottom of the form letter: Let’s talk soon—we’ll work something out.
She was lucky she had Mike to deal with. He’d been head of the local bank for almost five years and had always been fair. Maybe a little more than fair. She’d gotten behind in years past, especially at the end of the long dry spell caused by winter. The summer season provided her with the opportunity to get caught up and she’d always managed to get things under control again. At least until last summer. For the first time, she’d gone into the winter still behind, which meant she had an even bigger hole to dig out of this season.
She worried
