Turn Up the Heat (22 page)

After the third time Shane checked the same engine valves in Lucky Gunderson's Cadillac, Grady arched his brow and followed it with a knowing grin.

“You wanna tell me what's on your mind, or are you gonna keep daydreamin' and tell me it's nothing?”

Shane did his best to hide his smile in his flannel sleeve as he pushed his hair back from his face. It was pretty much a no-go.

“Sorry,” he said, bracing himself with both palms against the Caddy. Lucky wasn't exactly living up to his name as far as the Coupe de Ville was concerned, but that was okay with Shane. It gave him something to do other than watch the clock.

“Nothin' to be sorry about when you're wearing a smile like that.” Grady's laugh echoed through the garage on a rumble. “So what's her name?”

Damn, Grady's sixth sense was just unnatural. “Who said I'm smiling over a woman?” Shane's attempt to blank his expression fell woefully short, and he ended up grinning like a fool at the Caddy's engine.

“I might be old, but I ain't stupid, son.” Grady chuckled as he examined the contents under the Cadillac's hood, running his hands from the engine to the oil filter. “Only one thing brings out a smile like that on a man's face, and that is a pretty girl.”

Shane shook his head. He knew when he'd been beaten. “Her name's Bellamy. She's here for the week. As a matter of fact”—he paused to jut his chin at the Miata—“the two-seater is hers. She's waiting for us to fix it before she can go home.”

“And where would home be?” Grady kept his eyes on the car, but Shane felt his skin prickle at the question.

“She lives in Philly.” He kept his tone purposely neutral, but Grady didn't follow suit.

“Huh. You do like a hornet's nest, don't you?”

Shane exhaled, long and slow. “I know, all right?”

“Do you, now?” There was no accusation in Grady's tone, and the honesty of the question made Shane realize that he had no good answer for it.

“It all happened kind of fast. I didn't exactly plan on . . . you know. Any of it. But it's no big deal,” Shane tacked on. The lie might as well have left scorch marks on its way out, considering how bad it tasted and how hard it burned. Still, big deal or not, Bellamy was headed home before the weekend was out, and there was nothing he could do about it.

“Does she know?” Grady looked up from the Coupe de Ville to pin Shane with a questioning stare before lowering the hood.

Shane folded his arms over his chest. “No.”

“Mmm.” Grady turned his eyes back to the car and got behind the wheel to start it up, but Shane couldn't tell whether he was just listening to the engine or waiting for a response.

God
dammit
, the last thing Shane needed was guilt over this. Knowing she was leaving was hard enough. Baring his innermost secrets to her would only take things from bad to worse.

“It's pointless to tell her, Grady. She's going back to the city. It's where she belongs.”

The old man scrubbed a hand down the silvered stubble on his chin and killed the Cadillac's engine. “Places are places, Shane. You come and you go, but in the end, it ain't the places that matter. It's the people you had with you that counts.”

“The places matter to me,” Shane said, his voice cold with finality.

Grady shook his head, and the faintest trail of a smile crossed his jaw, like he was thinking of something familiar. “You'll learn. Now hand me that wrench, would you? The valves on this lifter are shot, and if we don't pull it for a new one, it ain't ever gonna run right.”

“I gotta admit, Sunshine. When I first saw you, I didn't think for a second that you could hold your own.” The fact that Adrian's face only held slight disdain was a weird little comfort to Bellamy as she stood, exhausted and elated, at a food-splattered kitchen station deep in the bowels of the resort.

“What do you think now?”

“I think you'd better clean up your workstation before Chef di Matisse catches you. You're a fucking mess.”

Bellamy wrinkled her nose at him, but only to cover up the grin that wanted to work its way over her face. She still wanted to pinch herself at the fact that she'd spent over an hour working on a list of techniques and test dishes in a professional kitchen. It blew the tiny yet functional kitchen in her condo out of the water, and she was still kind of in shock that Adrian had let her come down here to play even after she'd told him she was just an armchair cook with no professional experience. It didn't seem to matter, as nobody questioned her presence while they worked side by side on the same test dishes. Bellamy remembered that they were overhauling the restaurant. How freaking cool was it that she was getting to reap the benefits of menu-testing firsthand?

“You'd better hope your cooking's better than your kitchen management, girl. I'm not kidding about the mess.” Adrian tapped his foot impatiently, but Bellamy could see traces of a smile under the few days' worth of dark stubble on his face.

“You're a real sweetheart, Chef Holt. Really. I'm swooning over here,” she muttered, starting to tackle the mess in front of her with fastidious hands. He couldn't be serious about Carly catching her. Chef di Matisse would probably be pissed if she knew Adrian had let her come into the kitchen just to mess around, but she didn't want to leave any signs that she'd been there, just in case.

“If you want to have a prayer in the kitchen, you'd better be able to handle it. Nobody pats you on the head in this business, that's for damn sure.” Adrian flicked a glance over the cavernous kitchen, bustling with movement and smells and sounds. He tipped his platinum head at her before turning to walk down the row of stainless steel counter space, each with stations that looked like different variations of the one Bellamy was currently cleaning.

“By the way, I gave one of your test dishes to Carly. She'll be back from her break in five.”

Bellamy was ninety-nine percent sure that the not being able to breathe thing would subside eventually.

“You never said . . . I mean, you didn't . . . she's not supposed to
taste
any of it!” She scrambled for wits that seemed to have no intention of surfacing. Adrian's impromptu invitation to come show her stuff in the kitchen was supposed to be a fun-and-games kind of thing. She didn't even have formal training, for Chrissake!

Adrian crossed his arms over his retaining wall of a chest and eyed her. “This is a kitchen, not a playground. What do you think all of these people are doing here?”

“Um, working?” Reality started to sink in, hard and fast.

“Competing for jobs, sweetheart. This isn't a swanky cooking class just for fun. This is the nitty-gritty, right here.” He creased his forehead, knitting his brows into a dark slash over his eyes. “Clean up your station. Anything for dishwashing goes on the tray under your table. You can take it back there.” Adrian thrust a meaty finger toward the back of the kitchen.

And he was gone.

“Don't feel bad. At least Chef di Matisse saw yours. Some people's test dishes didn't even pass plating earlier. Chef Holt pitched one based on smell alone.”

Bellamy swung around to see a tall brunette in splattered chef's whites meticulously scrubbing down the workstation next to her.

“Are you serious?” Bellamy reached out to brace herself with both hands, the coolness of the table seeping into her palms. Oh God. Oh God oh God oh God.

The girl nodded, but didn't even break stride with the bowls in front of her. “And he's not even the hard-ass of the pair. Chef di Matisse sent two people home before lunch without even tasting their stuff. You don't get where she is without being tough as nails.”

Bellamy broke out of her panic long enough to furrow her brow. “But when I met her the other night, she was so nice,” she said, confused. They
were
talking about the same woman who had patiently listened to Bellamy prattle on about plank salmon, right? Oh, this was going to be really, really bad.

One brown eyebrow arched up from behind the adjacent workstation. “Let me guess. You weren't working for her then, were you?”

“I'm not working for her now,” Bellamy said, trying to swallow the knot of fear that had taken over most of her throat.

“Oh yes you are, or at least you're trying to. Look out.”

The girl had no sooner given the set of swinging doors at the head of the room a pointed look than they flew open in one heart-sickening swoosh.

“Adrian!
Please
tell me that we have fresh produce. That stuck-in-a-snowstorm excuse is wearing thin. I can't make something out of nothing over here!” Chef di Matisse glided through the kitchen with graceful, latent strength, her dark eyes scanning the entire kitchen in less than ten seconds. “I'm not having messy workstations, people. Sloppy stations equal sloppy food. Neither one of those is happening in here.”

She continued moving through the kitchen, stopping to shake her head, her chestnut-colored French braid swishing down her back as she peered into a bowl at someone's workstation. “No, that's not going to cut it. I can't put remoulade that looks like that on anything, I don't care how good it is. People eat with their eyes first, and if it looks like Elmer's paste, that's what they'll taste. The recipe's right in front of you. Do it again.”

Adrian leaned in to murmur something in Carly's ear, and both sets of eyes lasered in on Bellamy's workstation, which was still dotted with dirty mixing bowls and utensils. She scrabbled to collect them and then wipe down her station with blinding speed, then bent low to snatch the tray from under the counter. Maybe she could hide under there if it got really bad.

“You made chicken piccata.”

Bellamy jumped and banged her head on the lip of the table. How the hell had Carly made it down the row so fast on those short little legs? It just wasn't natural!

“I, ah. Yes,” she admitted, straightening and clutching the tray. Damn, the woman was intimidating for such a tiny thing. Bellamy had a good four inches on her, and yet she felt as if Carly was ten feet tall and bulletproof. A flicker of recognition appeared in Carly's dark glance as she looked at Bellamy closely.

“Where did you learn how to cook like that?”

“In my kitchen,” Bellamy squeaked. Where else would she have learned how to cook?

Adrian chuckled over Carly's shoulder, but a head-turn, eyebrow-lift maneuver from Carly cut him off pretty fast.

“When we met the other night, you didn't tell me that you'd gone to culinary school, Miss . . . ?”

Bellamy's heart made a beeline for her shoes. “Bellamy. I mean, Blake. Bellamy Blake,” she corrected herself, cheeks flushing. “I'm sorry. I didn't tell you that because I don't have any formal training.” She was tempted to add that she'd
told
Adrian that when he'd set her up at this workstation to begin with, but she knew it wouldn't matter. God, this had been a crushing mistake. As boring as it was, she belonged in an office with the suit and briefcase set.

“Mmm. Chef Holt?” Carly perched her chin on her shoulder to fasten Adrian with a stare. “Can you please escort Miss Blake to my office?” Her eyes skimmed over Bellamy's, and even though she wanted desperately to look down, Bellamy stood her ground.

“I'd like to have a word with her in private.”

“Jesus, Bellamy,” Shane said, his gut twisting at the serious look on her face in the low light of the cabin. The thought of some huge sous chef and his iron-fisted boss giving Bellamy a hard time made his insides churn. Maybe he'd just have to go over there to let them know that toying with people's dreams wasn't very good manners. He pondered Bellamy's description of the guy for a second. Maybe he'd take Jackson, just in case.

“I know. It was all I had not to throw up right then and there.” Her cheeks had a rosy glow in the firelight from the wood-burning stove, and she recrossed her jeans-clad legs as she sat across from him on the floor. Man, she was beautiful.

“So what'd she say?” Shane tried to keep the tension from his voice, but he was pretty sure he was doing a bad job of it.

Bellamy's face curved with a wicked smile. “She said my chicken was the only decent representation of her recipe that she'd tasted all day, and that while my workstation was unacceptable”—Bellamy paused to wince, but then continued—“she wanted to see me do a few things herself. After about twenty excruciating minutes, a little bit of slice and dice, and some aioli later, Chef di Matisse put my name on the list of people she and Chef Holt are considering for their new staff. They're going to choose their line cooks next week, once they've seen enough candidates.”

Shane's brows felt permanently lifted in shock, and Bellamy tossed her head back and laughed.

“Wait, so she didn't . . . oh, you little cheat!” he said, starting to laugh.
Damn
was Bellamy's poker face good.

And the face she had on now was downright stunning.

Shane was on her in a second, bracing an arm around her back as he softly tackled her to the floor. She gave an uncharacteristic squeal and a set of giggles that made his insides turn soft and his outsides turn decidedly
un
soft.

“Fooling me like that isn't fair, you know.” He kissed the supple skin where her neck met her ear.

Bellamy threaded her fingers in his hair, which didn't make him want to stop kissing her. “I know. But you should have seen your face,” she sighed, arching into him. “Plus, having my name on the list just means that now I have an ice chip's chance in hell rather than no chance at all. I hardly think it's worth getting my hopes up for.”

“You're such a pessimist,” he said, nipping at her earlobe.

She rewarded him with a laugh that he felt all the way to his fingertips. “I'm really not kidding when I tell you that the list of hopefuls is as long as my leg. And they're all talented, probably with impressive résumés. Comparatively, I'm a nobody.”

“I wouldn't recommend this level of confidence once you get back in the kitchen. You're going to have to do better than that.” Shane pulled back to kiss the cute little crease in her forehead.

“I'm just trying to be realistic. It's really cutthroat, and I doubt I'll make it.”

Shane turned her so they could lie side by side in front of the woodstove. “You're a cutthroat kind of girl. And I mean that as a compliment,” he added when she parted her lips to protest. “Come on. You whipped up tonight's dinner with a handful of things we grabbed on the way back here, and it was amazing. You're great in the kitchen.”

Bellamy rolled her eyes even though she wore a sheepish smile. “It was lasagna, Shane, with sauce that came from a jar. I could've made it in my sleep.”

“Uh-huh. Right. The sauce tasted homemade by the time you were done doctoring it,” he joked. That lasagna she was trying to pass off as nothing special had been the best Italian food he'd had since . . . well, ever.

Her eyes lit with remembering before he could argue with her any further, and she smiled. “Oh! That reminds me. There's a ton left over, so I wrapped up a bunch in one of those plastic tray thingies we snagged at Joe's. That way you can bring some to Grady.”

Shane's heart lurched in his chest, and he pulled back to look at her. “What?”

Her green eyes grew wide. “Well, you said that you sometimes get extra groceries for him, so I thought maybe he'd like it.” Bellamy looked at him, tiny lines of confusion etched on her face.

He'd mentioned the extra groceries thing in passing when he'd grabbed a bag of jelly beans for the stash at the garage, never thinking anything of it. Sure, Bellamy's gesture was small—she'd just packed up some leftovers—but it felt important, special somehow.

She
felt important. Important enough to open up to.

“Shane? Is something wrong?” The confusion on her face crossed the boundary into concern, and she propped herself up on an elbow to look at him more closely. Her green eyes were flecked with gold in the firelight as her stare wrapped around him, and he knew she was seeing more than he meant to show.