The Chef's Choice (6 page)

“Looks good but let me show you something.” Damon picked up the shrimp pan and pulled out a second plate, this one flat and square. He didn't bother with the salad, just drizzled a small circle of the transparent red chili pan sauce in the center of the plate and then positioned three shrimp on it with their tails together and pointing in the air like inverted commas. Using a spoon, he carefully dripped small dots of bright green cilantro oil around the plate, the colors vivid against the white porcelain.

“Keep it simple,” he said as he worked. “Go for height, contrast. The sauce goes on the plate, not the food. You get more visual impact that way.”

“Yes, Chef.” Roman admired the shrimp. “That plate looks like something else.”

“Looks are good, taste is better.” Damon reached out for a shrimp and swabbed it through the colored dots. He took one bite, considered. Squeezed on some lemon and took another. And another. “It's good,” he said to Roman. “Add some lemon juice to the chili sauce, brighten it up. Plate it the way I showed you, finish it with some micro cilantro.”

“We don't have any.”

“How about the green market?”

“Not that I know of. You'll have to get it—”

“If you say shipped in, you're fired.”

“Yes, Chef,” Roman said.

“All right, forget about the microgreens. I'll figure something out.”

He turned back to his tenderloin tournedos, sealing them in plastic storage trays, then pulled Roman's cutting board toward him. The sous chef stared, knife in hand.

“Well, get to work,” Damon told him. “I'll finish this. You've got another hour to refine the sauce and write it all down and come up with a name.”

“A name?”

“Sure. It's got to have a name if it's going to be our appetizer special.”

Roman grinned. “Yes, Chef.”

Cady always felt calmer in her greenhouse. It wasn't big as hothouses went, maybe twice the size of her living room, but it was her territory. There was a serenity in the ranks of greenery and the warm, humid air. Out here, shut away from the rest of the inn, she could put her hands in the earth and forget all about difficult guests, pesky clients, unreliable suppliers and other annoyances.

Like Damon Hurst.

She shook her head. She wasn't going there. She was not going to think about that moment in the kitchen when he'd leaned in close, when she'd seen in his eyes that he was going to kiss her. She wasn't going to wonder what it would have been like. She wasn't going to wonder how it would have felt. Nope, not going there.

You don't know, you might like it.

That was precisely the problem. She might, and that would spell disaster. A guy like Damon Hurst wasn't interested in someone like her. She'd seen him on the magazine covers wrapped cozily together with this model, that actress, and one thing Cady could say for sure was that she was not his type. Maybe he was bored, maybe she was a challenge, maybe seduction was a knee-jerk reaction for him. Whatever it was, she'd been down this road before. She wasn't about to be played.

The problem was, when he got to looking at her and talking to her, she forgot all about that. All she could do was watch his mouth and wonder.

“Don't be an idiot,” she muttered and began transplanting petunia seedlings into the hanging basket that sat on the workbench before her. This was what she needed to be focusing on. She needed to be thinking about how she was going to design the perennial beds she'd spent the morning clearing out over at the Chasan place. She didn't need to be thinking about Damon Hurst.

Feet crunched on the gravel walk outside and, as though she'd conjured him by thinking, Damon opened the door across the room from her.

And serenity flew out the window.

“I thought I might find you out here,” he said, stepping inside. “Hiding out?”

“Working,” she said.

“Lot of that going around.”

Calm had disappeared. Sanctuary was no more. She was uneasy, more than a little tongue-tied and, dammit, had butterflies. It didn't matter that she was on the other side of the room from him. Suddenly, the greenhouse seemed very small.

Damon strolled around, still in his checks and chef's whites. He should have looked ludicrously out of place and awkward. Instead, he seemed right at home. She was the one who was tense.

He turned to her. “Nice place.”

Cady tried to see it through his eyes: the four long wooden tables covered with flats of pansies and snapdragons or trays of potted marigolds, the hanging baskets of geraniums and petunias, still waiting for their first blossoms. On the far side stood her workbench and the tables with pots of evening primrose, forsythia, bleeding heart. The air smelled rich and green and fertile.

“What's all this stuff?” he asked, fingering the velvety green leaf of a petunia.

“The flats are annuals—pansies, marigolds, snapdragons. The plant you're about to take a leaf off of is a petunia,” she added. “It's cheaper to grow them than to buy them.”

He nodded and began to wander again. Having him in her territory felt strangely intimate. The walls were opaque, the door closed, the only sound the occasional drip of water. For the first time, they were truly alone. There were no distractions, just the two of them amid the green.

“These go in the ground now?” he asked, watching her as she went back to transplanting the petunias.

“I'm starting to set some of them out in the yards I'm working on. I probably shouldn't before Mother's Day—you never know if you're going to get a frost up here—but I'm taking my chances.”

“Cady McBain, extreme gardener.”

“I like to live life on the edge.”

“Really?” He studied her. “That's good to know.”

Her skin warmed. “That wasn't an invitation.”

“Do I look like I need one?”

No, he looked like the kind of guy who just went after what he wanted, she thought uneasily. She just couldn't figure out why it happened to be her.

“If you plant all this, you'll have a lot of space afterward. You could probably find a corner for a commissioned job, couldn't you?”

And there was the answer. Her eyes narrowed. “If this is about growing ramps for you, no. My hands still smell.”

“Not ramps, microgreens.”

“If they grow in the forest, I'm not interested.”

“They don't grow in the forest.”

“I'm still not interested.”

He tapped his knuckles on one of the wooden tables. “They don't take much room,” he offered. “Just a little dirt and water and a week or two of growing time.”

“Two weeks? You know what you're going to get from two weeks of growth? Grass. Micrograss.”

“Strongly flavored micrograss. They taste phenomenal, trust me. Makes all the difference in a dish.”

“Then I suggest you tap into your underground chef network and find out where you can get some. In case you haven't noticed, this greenhouse is full, and when I've planted the annuals I'll be filling it up with perennials.”

“The microgreens don't take a lot of space. And I need them,” he said simply. “The restaurant needs them.”

The thing she couldn't say no to. “What, nobody in the entire country sells them?”

“The closest supplier I could find is a guy out in the Midwest.”

“And let me guess, you want local.”

“Bingo,” he said. “A lot of other chefs do, too. You know, this wouldn't just help the Sextant,” he added thoughtfully as he wandered away from her along one of the rows. “It could work for you, too. You could probably supply microgreens to half the restaurants in Portland, in New Hampshire, shoot, maybe even Boston. You could turn a tidy little profit. Help you pay for this nice greenhouse.” Damon glanced over at her as he rounded the end of the bench.

“What makes you think I need help?”

He tapped a hanging basket with his fingertips as he walked, setting it swinging. “I know it's new, and judging by the look of your truck, you're not exactly rolling in dough.” He pushed another basket so it swayed. “And for a person who's running a business, you sure seem to spend a lot more time around here than you do on job sites.”

“I didn't realize you were paying such close attention,” she returned tartly, reaching for more petunias to transplant.

“I always pay attention.” He nudged the next basket in line to sway with the rest. “Especially to people who interest me.”

“Or to people who can do things for you.”

“Or in your case, both.” He came up short in front of her. “I find myself thinking about you, Cady McBain, a lot. Why is that?”

“You're bored.” She would have backed up but the wood of the workbench was behind her. “You're stuck in a small town.”

“It's not boredom.”

“And it's not about me.” She tried for dismissive but her voice came out oddly breathless.

“Oh, I think it's very definitely about you. I keep finding myself wondering what it would be like to kiss you. I'm cutting up fruit and I'm wondering about the way you taste, about the way you always smell like apples and cinnamon.” He rested his hands against the bench on either side of her, trapping her. “When you've got a job that involves sharp knives, spending a lot of time wondering isn't very healthy.”

Any reply she might have made dried up in her throat. He stood before her, his face a study in lines and planes. The ruddy glow of the afternoon sun coming through the greenhouse walls turned his skin golden, like that of some herald in an old painting. His eyes were hot and dark on hers.

“You know this doesn't make sense,” she said unsteadily.

“Probably not, but we're both wondering about it.” He moved in, stepping between her feet.

“I'm not your type.”

His fingers slipped into her hair. “I'd say that's for me to decide.”

“You're not my type.”

“I think I can change your mind,” he whispered. And then his mouth came down on hers.

If he'd been gentle, she might have been able to ward him off. Perhaps he realized that, because he gave her no chance to think, just dragged them both into the kiss.

Heat. Friction. The warmth of mouth, the slick of tongue. The pleasure burst through her in a furious blend of taste and texture until it was all she could focus on. He kissed her as though he owned her, as though he'd watched her and learned every nuance of her. She had no defense for it, no way to hold back, and even if she had she was too dazed to want to. The hand she'd pressed against his chest to stop him curled into the fabric of his tunic, because she was suddenly afraid that if she didn't hold on, she might go spinning away into a hot madness.

Cady had kissed guys before. She'd always figured it wasn't a big deal; she knew what it was about. She knew nothing, she realized as she tasted Damon, inhaled the scent of him, felt the brush of the stubble on his chin.

And she wanted more.

He'd kissed her because he'd been curious, because he was tired and more than a bit annoyed at having her on his mind. It stung his pride to be preoccupied with a woman who claimed to be indifferent to him. But when he heard that soft gasp of pleasure, felt her finally surrender and slide her arms around him, it wasn't about annoyance or curiosity.

It was about desire, pure and simple.

He'd expected a quick, matter-of-fact kiss that would satisfy his curiosity. He hadn't expected her to be soft and yielding against him. He hadn't expected that apple-cinnamon scent of hers to wind into his senses and make him dizzy. He hadn't expected her to give.

He hadn't expected her to drive every other thought out of his head.

When he raised his head, it was for the sake of his own sanity.

Stunned, Cady stared back at him. Her eyes were huge and dark. Her mouth was swollen from his.

Abruptly, he felt annoyed with himself even as he wanted more. This wasn't what he was supposed to be doing here. He'd come to Maine to change.

Suddenly, change didn't seem all that appealing.

She shifted away from him, eyes clearing. Perversely, it gave him the urge to hold her tighter. Instead, he made himself release her.

She paced a few steps from him as though seeking safety. “Happy? Satisfied your curiosity?”

“Not by half.” His irritation rose a notch because he realized it was true.

“Too bad, because that's it.” But her lips still felt hot and bruised from his. He'd kissed her as no one had ever kissed her. He'd woken up every sleeping desire she'd ever had. He'd made her yearn, and that scared the hell out of her.

Because she knew it wasn't real.

“That's it?” he repeated and started back toward her. “I don't think so. I don't know what's going on here but you don't start up something like this and just shut it down.”