been on time if he hadn’t rescheduled to make one more contact in Denver. A contact that had been a big waste of time.
“Hey. Don’t blow this off,” Anton barked. “You’re lucky Reuben runs with Marcus West’s boys or you’d be eating crow for a very long time to come.”
“As a matter of fact, Reuben and I have tickets to tomorrow night’s Rockets game. A few beers and it’ll all be good.” This decision was the hardest one Doug faced. Not the beer or the basketball, but the firm. He was no closer to making a decision tonight than he had been a month ago.
He and Anton had made their original Neville and Storey plans while at the University of Houston’s College of Architecture, nearly ten years back. The move to Denver felt like an upward move on the career ladder. Doug had been wooed by the biggest boys on the block, and that was something that came along only once in a lifetime.
It was just that selling his share of their architectural firm made him feel as if he were giving up on a dream, as well as selling out and betraying his very best friend. He’d thought the change would bring a sense of calm to his restlessness of late. He’d been wrong.
And that was what was keeping him from signing on the Denver group’s bottom line.
“You’ve got time,” Anton said, pensively studying the leather arm of his chair. “And I’d rather you take it than do the wrong thing.” He pushed to his feet then, shaking off what seemed to be a remnant melancholy. “Now, me? My time’s up. Lauren’s waiting.”
Doug slapped his palms to his thighs and forced himself to follow. “Yeah, I’ve got to get going. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me.”
“And all I’ve got is a honey to do.”
“POE, I THINK you’re the only one here who doesn’t know Isabel Leighton, a friend from further back than I care to admit. Izzy, this is Annabel Lee, known fondly around the office as Poe.” Sydney made the only introduction necessary, then turned and gave Kinsey a grin of devious proportions. “Kinsey, who everyone knows, is the reason we’re here.”
Where they were was in the kitchen of the suburban home Sydney shared with Ray Coffey. Sydney, Lauren, Izzy and Poe had all come to help Kinsey put together a meal guaranteed to make Doug weep. And weep in a good way, not because her cooking sucked. Since her woefully understocked kitchen sucked, as well, Sydney’s state-of-the-art setup made for a much better classroom.
It was definitely good to see Izzy again. Though Kinsey had lost touch with the other woman once both were busy in school, the two of them had been fast friends as young girls. They’d spent hours running wild at Kinsey’s parents’ home where, for almost twenty years now, Izzy’s uncle Leonard had worked magic with the Grays’ lawn and tropical garden.
“You know this is hopeless, don’t you?” Kinsey really wanted to smack whoever had started the rumor that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. “I burn microwave popcorn. I add too much water to packets of instant cocoa. Carryout was invented for a reason, hello. Doug is not going to want to eat anything that comes out of my kitchen.”
“It won’t be coming out of your kitchen.” Lauren climbed onto the bar stool behind the cooking island. “It’ll be coming out of Sydney’s.”
“With too many cooks spoiling the broth, it looks like,” Kinsey grumbled, glancing at the latest batch of hovering fairy godmothers. Calm. Collected. Ohhmmm. Why had she let herself be talked into such a ridiculous idea?
Now it was too late to back out.
She’d canceled the regular Sunday morning breakfast she shared with her parents to get in this quick cooking lesson before tonight’s date. She’d left Doug a message Friday afternoon after the infamous planning luncheon; he’d left her one last night on his way to a basketball game.
But a phone tag relationship was not what she’d been hoping to explore.
“So, what’s on the menu?” Wearing a royal-blue headband to hold back her short chunky dreadlocks bronzed with highlights, Izzy pulled open the refrigerator door and peered inside. “And do not tell me you’re thinking to fix up anything low or reduced or light. You will not win a man with a woman’s diet. Just ask my Gramma Fred. A man’s hunger has to be fed and fed right.”
Sitting beside Poe on a third bar stool, Kinsey buried her face in her hands. “Why do I sense a disaster rather than a home-cooked meal in the making?”
“Have a little faith here, Kinsey.” Sydney joined Izzy at the refrigerator’s open door. “You know full well Izzy grew up in her grandmother’s restaurant. And Ray hasn’t exactly wasted away since I’ve taken over the cooking, though Patrick’s been doing a lot of it since he’s been home.”
Kinsey sighed, then glanced over at Poe, who shrugged and said, “I’m only here for the show.”
One less pair of hands in the mix, anyway. And since Kinsey planned to do nothing but take notes…“Okay, then. Where do we start?”
“Hmm.” Sydney examined the labels on several packages of butcher-wrapped meat. “I bought pork and lamb and chicken and beef. Whatever you don’t use for Doug, I’ll freeze for Ray. I guess the first thing is to decide what you’re in the mood for, since you’ll be eating it, too.”
“If I’m supposed to eat my own cooking, then the deciding factor is what’s the easiest to fix and the hardest to screw up?” Sad, but true.
“No. The deciding factor is what you want your cooking to say.” At the sound of Patrick Coffey’s voice, five pairs of female eyes turned toward the doorway where he stood.
His hands hooked into the frame overhead, he leaned forward, his long, lanky body covered by nothing but a pair of low-rise jeans and a ribbed white tank-style T-shirt that showed off an intricately woven tattoo ringing the bulge of his right biceps.
His hair hung in dark twisted strands to his shoulders, hiding much of his face in the shadows. At least until he pushed away from the door frame and entered the room, raking all that hair back into a ponytail he secured haphazardly with a thick red rubber band.
Kinsey released the breath she’d been holding, heard Poe do the same at her side. Having seen him off and on now for over a year, Kinsey still remained clueless how the man managed to inspire equal parts lust and trepidation. But he did.
She supposed it was a normal reaction to his circumstances. After all, how many guys returned home after being held hostage for three years by Caribbean pirates?
Naturally, her heart pitter-pattered in a fan-to-movie-star response—one no more meaningful than the patter inspired by Brad Pitt, or the pitter brought on by George Clooney.
Now the trepidation…that part was real. That pirate thing was too bizarre to let go.
Totally unaffected by Patrick’s arrival, Sydney moved away from the refrigerator with a chicken in her hand. She tossed it to Patrick, who caught it without even looking her way.
“Believe it or not, ladies,” Sydney began, “here is the member of the Coffey household best suited to showing Kinsey how to turn a meal into magic.”
2
KINSEY TOOK THE CHICKEN from
