darling. Be good for Daddy and Grandma Nora. I’ll call you every night.” She clung to her a few more moments, then kissed her on both cheeks and stepped back.
“Au revoir, folks,” she said with an irritating wave of her fingers, before turning and tottering away in her ridiculously high heels to her car. She seemed more like someone off on a beachside vacation than someone off to play nurse.
As Linda sped off down the long drive, Lachlan turned to Eliza. This is awkward, he thought, wondering what she must make of arriving in the middle of his family drama. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “That was my ex-wife.”
“I guessed.” She nodded and her shoulder-length, chocolate-brown hair bobbed a little.
“I had no idea she was going to come over like that or I wouldn’t have scheduled the interview.”
“I guessed that, too,” Eliza replied, but her lips didn’t even offer a hint of a smile.
“Daddy.” He felt Hallie tugging at the side of his shirt. “Dad-dy. I’m hungry.”
“Wait a moment. Can’t you see I’m talking?” The moment his words were out, he realized how snappy they sounded.
“Sorry, Daddy,” she said, a quiver in her voice and her eyes glistening.
He swallowed the frustration at his daughter—none of this was her fault—and took her small hand in hers. He squeezed it gently three times, which was their secret, silent way of saying I love you. “It’s okay, glitter-pie. Everything’s going to be okay. Can you just give me a moment and then we’ll go get some lunch?”
She nodded solemnly and squeezed his hand three times in reply. His heart flooded with warmth. No matter how angry he was at her mother and however untimely this new arrangement was, he never wanted to make Hallie feel like she were a burden.
He looked back to Eliza and offered her a conciliatory smile. He could tell she wasn’t impressed with his and Linda’s behavior. Although it really wasn’t any of her business, he wanted to stick up for himself, wanted to give her a little history of the last tumultuous decade with his ex-wife. But he would never speak badly of Linda in front of Hallie. And besides, there were still so many questions he wanted to ask Eliza about herself and her own professional experience.
Sadly, conducting an interview with his eight-year-old daughter in tow was also not ideal. He was about to ask her if she’d mind if they rescheduled the interview for later in the day or even tomorrow but decided he didn’t really have the time. Opening night was four weeks away and so far he’d interviewed ten people for the job and none of them had been suitable.
Yet from the moment Eliza had walked in the door, he’d thought she was the one. There was just something about her that made her look like she belonged in the restaurant—he could already imagine her weaving between the tables on a busy night, chatting to the customers, directing the waitstaff, helping make McKinnel’s the place where people wanted to be.
His older brother, Callum, would probably berate him for hiring someone without calling their references or finishing a proper interview but this was Lachlan’s restaurant and sometimes you had to go with your gut. He ignored the voice in his head that told him how wrong his gut had been about Linda—there’d been adolescent hormones involved there, so it didn’t count.
As far as he could see, the only thing against Eliza was that she couldn’t cook—but considering he wasn’t hiring her for the kitchen, that didn’t actually matter. It was her personal skills that counted and the way she’d taken Hallie away from the drama impressed him. Not that Hallie was difficult but he believed Eliza would be able to handle difficult customers, leaving him to focus on the restaurant, which was his area of expertise.
“When can you start?” he asked her.
“What?” She blinked. “You’re offering me the job? Don’t you want to ask me more questions? Check my references?”
“I’ll call your references later but they won’t change my mind, will they?”
“They better not,” she said. “Wow. Okay.”
“Is that a yes?”
She deliberated so long, he thought she was about to reject his offer, but finally she said, “Will Monday be okay? I have a few things I need to organize first.”
As today was Friday, that seemed reasonable. “That would be fine, but if you need a little longer, that’s okay, too. And let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. Now, my daughter here is hungry and I think I recall you saying you were, as well. Would you like to have an early lunch with us?”
Again she deliberated, but not quite so long this time. “If it’s not an imposition?”
“Not at all. It will give us a chance to talk a little more and you can start to try some of the dishes I’ll be putting on the menu. Come on, let’s head back inside.”
“Can we have mac’n’cheese, Dad?” Hallie asked as they started toward the restaurant.
“Of course,” he replied.
“That’s my favorite food, too,” Eliza said, smiling down at his little girl and Lachlan felt the tension that had built inside him with Linda’s arrival start to dissolve again.
They went inside and Hallie and Eliza sat at one of the tables while Lachlan went back into the kitchen to make lunch.
He made two separate dishes—one for his daughter sans the whiskey and one for his newest employee with all the trimmings. As he worked, he kept one ear to the door, smiling as he heard Hallie chattering away to Eliza, telling her about school, the distillery and the fact her two new aunties were both having babies very soon. It didn’t sound like she was too affected by her mother’s sudden departure and for that he was grateful. Although Eliza didn’t say much, her replies were soft and encouraging and the belief he’d made the right decision in hiring her solidified inside him.
“This smells delicious,” she said a few minutes later when he emerged from the kitchen, carrying three bowls of steaming pasta.
“Thanks, Daddy,” Hallie said before picking up her fork and diving in as if this were the first meal she’d had in months. He had to wonder if Linda had given her breakfast but again he bit his tongue.
“Let’s hope it tastes as good as it looks.” Lachlan sat down beside the girls and waited in anticipation as Eliza tasted her first mouthful. He was a good chef but he knew from her résumé that she’d worked in restaurants with some of the best chefs in America and he found he really wanted to impress her.
“Wow,” came her one-word reply after a few moments. It wasn’t the word but the way she said it and her almost-black eyes that lit up as she did so that made his heart soar.
“It’s okay?”
She smiled. “Okay is an understatement.”
He let out a breath he hadn’t even known he’d been holding and picked up his own fork. But before he’d even loaded it with macaroni, the door of the restaurant burst open again and in came half his siblings.
“What’s for lunch?” Mac said, before he, Blair and Sophie—his youngest sister by two and
