tray on the table and adjusted her latex gloves and smiled at the other people who came up and grabbed the small plates of food she was offering. The festival was so busy and she’d been working at such a brisk clip her thought must have slipped out. Out loud.
Great.
Note to self. Check internal filter. Make sure it is firmly in place.
“Actually, I was speaking in generic terms,” she hedged. Oh, peachy. If she kept this up she’d end up digging herself into a deeper hole. Heat began to creep up her neck. “I knew someone was behind me—lots of people have visited my tent today—and I—I meant to say, ‘There you are.’ You know...as in ‘look what we have here.’ This is for you.”
She nudged the tray toward him. “Have some.” But he continued to squint at her for a few more beats before shifting his gaze to the proffered platter.
“Okay. So, what do we have here?”
“Sliders. Three kinds. I call this one the Tailgater. It’s a beef patty with bacon, cheddar and caramelized onions with barbecue sauce on the side. This one’s the Parisian. It has Brie, ham and sautéed mushrooms. Then there’s the Antipasto. It’s topped with roasted red peppers, spicy salami, provolone and a garlic-basil aioli.”
As he contemplated the platter of mini burgers, it was the first time AJ had the chance to get a good, uninterrupted look at him. She drank him in, his close-cropped sandy hair, the high cheekbones and his straight, slightly too-big nose that balanced his good looks with just the right amount of brawn. He would be too pretty with a nose any smaller—especially given the particular fullness of his lips. Yes, the lips were...sexy.
He looked up and caught her staring.
“May I try one?”
“Of course.”
Her gaze slid down his broad shoulders to his arms, which were tanned to gorgeous end-of-summer bronze perfection. Her focus finally found the tray of sliders.
“In fact, I’d appreciate it if you would try all three and tell me which one you like best,” she said.
“I’d love to,” he said. “I’m somewhat of a burger expert.”
“You are?”
She grabbed a larger paper plate from the supply she’d stashed under the table and used the tongs to dish up three sliders. When he reached for the plate, she noticed his hands were rugged, but the fingernails were short and clean.
Mentally, she checked off the clean hands item on the list of “Man Criteria” she kept in her head. Clean hands told a lot about a guy. Soft, manicured hands would be weird, but clean with short nails were still manly and indicated good grooming. As far as she was concerned, nasty hands were a definite deal-breaker—well, it would be a deal-breaker if she were looking for something more than his opinion on her new recipes.
“Since we’re getting into football season, Celebrations, Inc. is offering catered tailgate picnics. The sliders and crispy onion straws are just some of the items on the menu.”
Realizing the onion straws were missing, she turned to her friends, Sydney and Pepper, who were helping her out today.
Pepper was right behind AJ with a freshly filled tray of burgers. As she placed the burger tray down, she looked appreciatively at Shane, most likely realizing that he was one of the few people in this small Dallas suburb that she didn’t know. She cleared her throat. AJ had known her for so long she didn’t even have to look at her friend to know she wanted an introduction.
“Pepper Merriweather, this is Shane Harrison. He knows Maya. Can you believe it?”
“Really? Enchanté.” Always up for a bit of drama, Pepper extended her hand, not in a handshake, but palm downward and fingers dangling, as if she expected Shane to kiss her hand.
AJ suppressed a smile. Especially when Shane hesitated a moment as if unsure what to do, and finally gave her fingertips a slight squeeze. “Very nice to meet you.”
“You’re obviously not from St. Michel,” Pepper said.
“Pepper!” AJ said. Despite having been through finishing school and having made her debut into polite society, sometimes her friend didn’t realize how off-putting her words could sound.
“What?” she asked, her expression all wide-eyed innocence.
AJ gave her a look.
“What I meant, AJ, was judging by his accent, I gather that he is an American.”
She turned her attention back to Shane, suddenly all smiles and Southern sweetness. “How do you know Maya?”
Shane gave her the short version of how he’d been passing through St. Michel on his way back to the States, and Maya had asked him to bring chocolate to AJ when she learned that he was stationed at Fort Hood.
“AJ, you got chocolates from Maya and you didn’t share them with me?”
“Hey! What kind of burgers are you cooking up?” asked a man who had just walked up to the table.
AJ smiled at Pepper and with an almost imperceptible nod of her head, she silently asked Pepper to tend to the customer, which she did graciously.
“Hey, Syd, how are the onion straws coming along?” AJ asked.
The pretty brunette lifted the metal basket out of the deep fryer. “I have a fresh batch right here,” she said, her British accent upbeat and melodic.
For most of the morning, AJ had been cooking, and Pepper and Sydney had been expediting and greeting the potential customers who stopped by. That’s why AJ felt comfortable giving Shane her full attention now, while Sydney tended to the makeshift kitchen, and Pepper answered questions.
A few seconds later, Sydney gave AJ a who’s-the-hunk? look as she set a basket of onion straws on the table. Again, AJ made introductions and then put a healthy heap of onion straws on Shane’s plate. Sydney uttered a polite, “Very nice to meet you,” and returned to frying the onion straws.
Shane tasted the Tailgater slider first. AJ watched him bite into it. She got enormous pleasure from feeding people. Rapt, she watched Shane as he chewed and swallowed.
“What do you think?” she asked, not even trying to stifle the eagerness in her voice.
He nodded. “It’s delicious, but didn’t you say it had barbecue sauce with it?”
“Oh. Yes, it does.” She glanced at the crowded contents of the table and saw that the barbecue sauce was, indeed, missing.
AJ got the sauce and turned around to find herself staring into the ice-blue eyes of the one person she’d hoped not to see today: her grandmother, Agnes Jane Sherwood. Grandmother’s steely gaze assessed AJ. Judging by the way the matriarch frowned down her aquiline nose, AJ knew her grandmother found her lacking.
No big surprise. She always had. The only thing AJ could do was shake it off.
This was the woman for whom AJ was named—her mother’s feeble attempt to get back into her estranged mother’s
