“Sorry,” she muttered, shutting it off. Alex shifted from one foot to the other, her gaze sliding to her car as she contemplated the meal she had been heading outto collect, but then sighed, and asked, “What are you doing here? ”
“Bev mentioned you had run into a problem and I wondered if I might help,” he said quietly.
“Why?” she asked with surprise, drawing a short laugh from him.
“Do Canadians not believe in helping others when they are in need?” he asked rather than answer the question.
“Well, yes, but you don’t even know me,” she pointed out dryly.
“I’d like to,” he responded, and Alex stilled in surprise. She’d become so used to men simply walking away or ignoring her lately that his words quite took her breath away. It was a bit stunning … and—if she was honest with herself—tempting. Cale was a good-looking man, and at another time she might have been pleased to let him get to know her, but this wasn’t the time. Alex had a restaurant to get up and running and another to keep from floundering. Flirting with a coworker or—even worse—an employee just wasn’t smart.
Shaking her head, she said quietly, “I’m afraid I don’t have time in my life right now to get to know anyone. Excuse me.”
Alex turned to cross the short distance to her car but was only halfway to it when Cale was at her side again.
“Where are you going?” he asked, matching his step to hers as she walked around her car.
“Home,” she lied, hoping that would get rid of him, but instead she caught him shaking his head out of the corner of her eye.
“I don’t think so. You left the lights on in the restaurant and you haven’t finished painting yet,” Cale commented.
Alex stopped at the driver’s side door and glanced at him sharply. “You were looking through the windows?”
“I have been here quite a while. I did knock several times, but you apparently couldn’t hear me with your headphones on,” he said wryly. “Besides, it is a business, not a private home. You needn’t make it sound like I am a Peeping Paul.”
“Peeping Tom,” she corrected absently, wondering how long he’d been watching her. Deciding it didn’t matter she hit the button to unlock her car and pulled the driver’s door open. “Fine, I’m not going home, I’m heading out to get something to eat. But I have a lot on my plate and really don’t have time for men right now, so good night.”
Alex then quickly slid into her car and pulled the door closed before he could say anything else to tempt her. Fortunately, he didn’t make a pest of himself but backed a couple of steps away from the car. Breathing out a little sigh of relief, Alex stuck her key in the ignition and quickly cranked it forward, only to freeze as all she got was a
click click click.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me,” she muttered, cranking the key again with the same result. She was no mechanic, that had been her father, and while he’d tried to teach her the fundamentals about cars when she was young, she hadn’t paid much attention. Still, she knew that sound couldn’t be a good sign. Alex tried a thirdtime with the same result, and then groaned and let her head drop to rest on the steering wheel in despair. This was the living end. She just could not handle all these problems hitting her one right after the other. What the hell had she ever done to deserve this ridiculous run of bad luck? She was a good person, generally nonjudgmental and nice to everyone she met. She also gave to charity. What the hell had she done to deserve this?
A tap at her window made her raise her head to peer out at Cale. To give him credit, he looked concerned rather than smug about her latest problem, which was nice since she’d just basically told him to hit the road in a very polite way. Alex heaved out a breath and straightened in her seat. Forgetting that the engine hadn’t started, she hit the button to unroll the window, realized her mistake when nothing happened, and instead opened the door.
“Can I help?” he offered quietly.
Alex felt her lips twist and asked, “Do you know anything about cars? ”
“No. It is not my area of expertise,” he admitted apologetically. “But I have my rental car here and can take you where you wish to go.”
Alex stared at him silently, debating the matter. She suspected most men would have wasted her time banging around under the hood, and then simply given her some spiel about not having the parts to fix it rather than admit they didn’t know how. She appreciated his honesty, but she’d just told him she didn’t have time for a man, and she didn’t. Would accepting his help now constitute using him? Would he expect somethingfrom her in return? Did she care? Frankly, Alex was so hungry she would start eating paint chips if she didn’t find some food.
“No strings attached,” Cale added solemnly, and that was enough for her.
“What the hell,” she muttered, grabbing her purse and quickly getting out of the car.
They were both silent as they walked around the building. For her part, Alex was too tired to come up with anything to say. She wasn’t even considering what she was going to do about her car. She was simply concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and not falling on her butt on the icy concrete. As for Cale, she had no idea why he was so silent.
She’d half expected him to redouble his efforts to convince her to let him “get to know her.” However, he didn’t and was also silent as he ushered her to a Lexus parked on the street in front of her restaurant.
Alex murmured her thanks as he opened the door and took her elbow to aid her in. He then closed the door for her before hurrying around to the driver’s side, and Alex wondered if good manners were a European thing. She had never had a Canadian man see her into a vehicle like she was spun glass that needed coddling.
She quickly did up her seat belt, and then glanced to Cale as the driver’s side door opened. He got into the car on a cold breeze carrying a combination of citrus and a woodsy aroma she couldn’t identify. Toronto air had never smelled that good. Alex was pretty sure the scent was his, some designer aftershave she guessed, and found herself inhaling deeply with appreciation.
“Where would you like to go?” Cale asked, starting the engine before doing up his own seat belt.
Alex opened her mouth, and then hesitated about admitting she’d planned to hit a fast-food joint. He was a Parisian chef, for heaven’s sake, and would no doubt sneer at the thought of fast food. On the other hand, she wasn’t interested in him and shouldn’t care, Alex reminded herself and spat out the name with defiance.
“And where is that?” Cale asked, not even arching a supercilious eyebrow at her choice.
Alex found herself relaxing and gave the directions. It wasn’t far, and she hadn’t considered that it was past midnight, so was relieved to see that the restaurant had a twenty-four-hour drive-thru.
It quickly became obvious Cale had never gone to a drive-thru before. Alex found herself biting her lip with amusement when he rolled the window all the way down and leaned half out of it to talk directly into the speaker. Her eyebrows rose with surprise, however, when he gave her order, hesitated, and then said, “Double everything please, it’s for two.”
Alex now suspected she was going to have company for her meal. She’d been hoping he’d simply drive her back and drop her off with her booty, allowing her to get on with her business. But if he asked to join her to eat, it would really be rude to refuse after he’d taken her to the restaurant and back … and even paid for the food, she added with silent irritation when he waved away the money she offered to pay for both meals.
Alex spent the ride back to the restaurant ignoring the scents emanating from the bag on her lap andconcentrating on figuring out the best way to get rid of Cale once they were done eating. A polite, “Well, I have to get back to work now, so thanks for everything,” seemed the best way to go. At least that was the best she’d come up with by the time they’d reached her restaurant again.
Rather than risk a ticket for parking on the street, Alex directed him to park around back and was out of the car almost the moment he stopped. She was walking toward the back door of the restaurant, the bag of food in one hand and searching her pocket for her keys with her other when Cale called her name. Pausing impatiently, she glanced back to see him coming around the car with one of the drinks in hand.
He smiled almost painfully as he approached, and then said, “I doubled the order intending to eat as well.”
“Yes, I figured that out,” Alex assured him, and when he hesitated, she recognized the significance of his only carrying one drink and realized he hadn’t intended on joining her as she’d feared. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, flushing, “I thought you expected to eat here with me.”
She started to shift the bag in her hands, intending to retrieve her half of the food, but he said, “Well I hadn’t intended to because you’d said you were busy, but since you are inviting me, I will be pleased to join you.”
“Oh, I—” Alex started to tell him that it hadn’t really been an invitation, but he was already hurrying around his car to shut off the still-running engine and fetch the other drink.
Sighing, she shook her head at her own inept tendency to get herself into these ridiculous situations,and then turned and continued on to the back door of the restaurant. By the time she had unlocked it, he was behind her, and Alex pulled the door open and then held it for him to enter with the drinks. She followed him inside, but Cale paused after only a couple of steps to peer around.
A low whistle slid from his lips as he took in the setup. “It’s huge.”
“Three times as big as the original La Bonne Vie,” Alex acknowledged proudly as she paused beside him to peer over the kitchen herself. She was rather pleased with what she’d done here. She’d designed the layout herself and thought it was perfect. There was plenty of room so people wouldn’t be tripping over each other, and yet no one was so far away that they would have to raise their voices to be heard.
“You are planning for more kitchen staff, obviously,” he said, glancing over the various stations.
“More than double the staff at the original restaurant,” she acknowledged, “They’re already hired and trained and ready to go.”
He glanced at her curiously. “I am surprised you simply did not have one of them step in and take Peter’s place tonight then.”
Alex shook her head. “I’ve had them training with my staff at the other restaurant for the last month, but released them yesterday for the next two weeks so they could get themselves and everything else in order before this restaurant opens. Most of them went on vacation or headed home to move their families here this week.”
When Cale raised an eyebrow, she explained, “Several were from out of town and we had an agreement to wait for the training to end before making the hiring permanent. It was in case we couldn’t work together,” she explained with a shrug.
While Alex had been careful about whom she hired, people presented a different side during an interview than they did in the workplace. Peter was a case in point. He’d been charming and obsequious when she’d hired him but had become an egomaniac in the kitchen. She’d wanted to avoid making that mistake again so had put the temporary clause into the agreement to try to ensure she did. Fortunately, they’d all seemed to work out very well … so far.
“The head chef I hired is from British Columbia, and flew home this morning to help his wife move house here. Otherwise, I’d have asked him to take over at the original restaurant until I could find a replacement.”
“Aren’t you going to be head chef here?” Cale asked with surprise.
Alex felt her mouth twist with displeasure as she led the way into the dining room. “That was the original plan. I’d hire a business manager to take care of the business end of both restaurants and be head chef here.”
“But?” Cale prompted, following her to the center of the dining room, where she set down the bag of food and her purse and then shrugged out of her coat. Dropping that to the floor too, she plopped down to sit on the drop cloth and began to open the bag holding their food.
“But I ran into a few snags and the money started running out,” she said dryly as she set out the burgersand fries. Glancing his way as he set aside his coat and settled across the food from her, she added, “Business managers are expensive.”
“And head chefs aren’t?” he asked with surprise.
“Really good head chefs can be expensive if they are ambitious and want to use their own recipes and eventually start their own restaurants. But the man I hired is easygoing, not very ambitious at all. He’s more than happy just to cook my recipes in my restaurant and has no aspirations to be the next Gordon Ramsey.” She began to unwrap a burger. “He’s also originally from this end of the country, and eager enough to return that he was willing to work relatively cheaply … at least at first,” she added on a sigh. “I’ve agreed to increase his pay after the first six months. By then I’m hoping the restaurant is paying for itself.”
“But you would really rather be head chef yourself,” he said slowly, watching almost curiously as she bit into her burger.
Alex chewed and swallowed, just managing not to murmur with pleasure as the first bite dropped into her empty stomach. She then reached for a french fry and nodded. “Of course. Cooking has always been my first love. I’d rather do that than anything in the world. And, really, if I’d known that opening this second restaurant was going to be such a pain in the ass and force me to give up cooking, I’d never have started it.”
“I see.” Cale carefully unwrapped his own burger.
Alex took another bite and peered wistfully around the unfinished dining room. She’d had such high hopes for this expansion, fantasies about manning the lovelynew kitchen, creating amazing new recipes, serving world-class meals, and maybe even earning a much-sought-after Michelin star if Michelin ever did a travel guide for Canada. She’d heard rumors they were considering or even producing one, and it would be the highlight of her career to earn a Michelin star or two or three.
But those were just fantasies. The grim reality was that, thanks to all the problems she’d run into with opening this restaurant, she had gone through all her savings and had to take out a loan secured by her house to finish the renovations. Alex would now be happy just to get this restaurant up and running and supporting itself. The hope that it would do well enough that she could pay off all of her debt and hire a business manager so that she could return to cooking was just that, a hope. And it was starting to look like something not likely to happen until sometime in the very distant future … if at all. Alex now sincerely wished she’d never started this project. She’d been happy in her own little kitchen at the original La Bonne Vie with a nice little nest egg. Why hadn’t she simply been content with that?