Wedding At the Riverview Inn Page 8

  “Those are great terms,” he said and stuck out his hand.

  She slid her hand into his giant paw and quickly tried to remove it, but he gripped her, his thick callused fingers closing in around hers.

  “Al.” Her nickname again and the room shrank, the space between them was too small. She could feel his heat and his breath against her face. “Please stop drinking.”

  She shook her head. She should and she would. But it wouldn’t be because of he’d told her to do it. “No. What I do on my time is my business.”

  “I can’t—”

  “I’ve committed, Gabe.” She finally looked right into his eyes, the brilliant blue that could burn her or freeze her, that could bring her to life or shut her down in a hundred different ways. Belatedly she realized what she’d done. She’d tied her fortune to a man who could destroy her—again.

  “You won’t get any more from me,” she told him and somehow they both understood that it wasn’t only work they talked about. His hand was hot in hers. The callus on his thumb seemed suddenly personal, the proof of his labor too much for her to witness.

  “Alice, about Daphne—”

  She jerked her hand away.

  “I have a lot of work to do.” She turned from him, retying the strings of her apron.

  “Me, too,” he murmured. She heard him go into his office and shut the door.

  The breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding leaked out of her, and she nearly sagged.

  A business card appeared under her nose and, startled, she jerked upright. Max, the damn sneak stood there, his expression unreadable. “Sheriff in town runs an AA meeting out of the station on Sunday nights,” he said.

  “I’m not an alcoholic,” she said.

  He shrugged. “Not really my business,” he said, “but if you want to talk to him tell him I gave you his number.”

  “Max.” She tried to laugh. “I don’t need the card.”

  But he just stood there, so different from Gabe yet at the core of both of them lay the same stubborn compassion that ran them both ragged in different ways.

  Once upon a time Max had wanted to save the world and all Gabe had wanted was to save was his own family.

  She sighed and took the card knowing Max would stand there all day if she didn’t.

  A week later, Alice checked her watch and decided an afternoon coffee break was in order.

  Coffee, she decided, some fresh air and I’ll think about those potatoes that need to be dealt with.

  The sun sat in the crook of the western mountains and the property was a dramatically different world than the one she’d greeted at dawn this morning. The fog had burned off, the cacophony of springtime insects that had seemed so loud this morning were gone, replaced by the sound of Max and his gang of street thugs clearing brush.

  A week after her compromise with Gabe and she was seriously regretting her decision to do all the prep herself. Not that she’d ever admit that to Gabe, who’d been staying out of her way, even as he watched her like a hawk, waiting, she was sure, for her to screw up.

  So she worked and pretended he wasn’t there, though she felt him at her back so much that when she slept she could feel him there, curled against her the way he had when they were married.

  She woke up every morning, turned on and annoyed. And it only got worse throughout the day.

  But all of this watching and ignoring had to come to an end. She had a menu coming together that she needed to be sampled and she didn’t have any details on the wedding. Numbers. Themes. Money.

  Sooner or later they were actually going to have to work together. But until then it was best they avoided talking to each other. He called up things in her that she hated, emotions that were ugly and petty.

  In the meantime, she was up to her sore elbows in work. She’d forgotten how hard it was building a kitchen from scratch. There were deliveries to put away: heavy bags of onions and potatoes from Athens Organics; sides of beef that she preferred to butcher herself, which was no easy task.

  And then there was the constant boiling, baking, basting and freezing of stocks, marinades and flavored oils. She fell into bed at the end of every day too tired to even think of drinking and woke up every morning sore to the bottom of her feet but her mind already working on the day’s chores.

  Today it was potatoes. Gnocchi and latke. The huge bag of potatoes sat in the pantry mocking her and her tired biceps.

  She wished she had some help, just a little, for the afternoon. But she’d made this bed, she would lie in it. After her break.

  She slid on her sunglasses and sat down on the small hill behind the kitchen, flanking the makeshift parking lot, and watched Max herd the kids like they were cattle. Or cats.

  “Hey,” he said, his voice echoing through the woods as he emerged from the tree line. “Stop slacking, this is our last tree.”

  He and a girl dragged the shorn trunk of a fallen poplar toward the huge pile of debris they’d gathered in a cleared area next to the lodge.

  “We gonna burn this stuff or what?” Cameron appeared from the woods, half-heartedly pulling a limb from the tree behind him. “Because I think that would only be the right way to end this whole thing, you know?”

  “No,” Max said succinctly, rolling the thick trunk under some of the brush at the base of the pile. “I don’t.”

  Alice couldn’t tell if Max and the kids were a match made in hell or heaven. From the closed-down, locked-up expression on Max’s face she bet he wasn’t sure, either.

  “This huge tree goes down, no one knows. It sits there in the woods, rotting, bugs eating it, animals pooping on it. That’s no way for a tree to go,” Cameron said and Alice found herself warming up to the kid with his overworked sense of drama. “We gotta burn it. Put it out of its misery.”

  “Be quiet,” Max said and Cameron, after a few more jokes on the tree’s behalf, did. Alice was a little surprised at the progress Max had made with the mouthy kid. He wore a hat that kept the hair out of his eyes, and his pants, still too big, were held up by a belt. And he was working.

  Maybe now that he was house-trained she could actually work with him in the kitchen. He could run his mouth and peel potatoes at the same time.

  “We’re not done,” Max said, heading back to the forest, and a chorus of groans followed him even though the kids didn’t. “Let’s go,” he said. “Anything you’re doing right now is better than what you’d be doing in juvie.”

  That shut up some of them, Cameron included, and they started after Max.

  “Max,” she called, pushing herself to her feet. “Can I borrow Cameron for the day?” she asked.

  Max looked at her, then at Cameron, who made a face as though she’d asked him to run around naked, and finally shrugged. “If you want him.”

  “Hey! You can’t just trade me whenever you feel like it!” Cameron cried.

  “It’s easier than what you’re doing,” she said.

  “I’m there,” Cameron said quickly, and stepped out of line to head her way.

  “Good luck,” Max called over his shoulder. “If he gives you trouble, send him out to me.”

  “Will do,” she yelled back.

  Cameron came to stand in front of her, his face scratched and dirty and his eyes on his shoes.

  “You gonna give me trouble?” she asked and he shrugged.

  I can’t ask for more honesty than that.

  “Well,” she said, as she led him inside. “It’s time for you to meet your new best friend—a potato peeler.”

  He groaned, but he followed.

  Gabe closed his e-mail and sat back with a grin. Four more guests thanks to his Internet promotion, plus Bridezilla had capitulated on the swans—thank God—and had promised him final guest-list numbers by the beginning of next week. Though he wouldn’t hold his breath for that, so far the guest list had swelled and receded at least five times.

  She’d decided on a band rather than the quartet, and the singer had e-mailed hi
m their requirements, which weren’t too bad.

  With blue marker in hand he turned to update his wall-size calendar.

  Someone knocked at his office door. It could only be Alice since his father and brother didn’t believe in things such as closed doors and polite knocks.

  “Come on in,” he said. They’d been walking careful circles around each other for the past week and a half—smiling politely and staying out of each other’s way. But he’d been watching her and if she was drinking, it didn’t show. The woman was a chef possessed. And he couldn’t be more relieved.

  “Gabe,” she said from the doorway, her voice cool and stark, letting him know she was here for business. He nearly rolled his eyes. Alice always wore her intentions on her sleeve and the tone of her voice let everyone know what her next move was.

  She thought she was going to put his feet to the fire right now. As a partner and chef she thought she had that right.

  And, he considered, she probably did.

  He grunted while writing in the Andersons and Pursators on the third weekend in August. They would share the five-bedroom cabin closest to the lodge.

  “Earth to Gabe,” she said, annoyed, and he finally turned, capping his pen.

  He shook his head with a laugh. “Sorry. A lot’s going on.”

  “Right, well, me, too.” Her tone was all business and he didn’t want to fight. Not anymore. They needed to work together. He just needed to figure out how to get them from here to there in as little amount of time as possible. “I wanted to talk about a few things with you,” she said, still in the doorway.

  Sunlight streamed in behind her and lit the black hair escaping the bun she always wore while she worked, turning the runaway strands red.

  In the week and a half she’d been here she’d managed to get some color on her face, her lips were pink, and she’d lost some of the fragile tragic look she’d had when he’d first seen her behind Johnny O’s.

  “You look good,” he said, putting her off stride, which had been his intention. “Healthy.”

  Her fingers darted to her hair and she turned her face to the side for the shortest second, a small uncontrolled moment of self-consciousness. The gesture pinged through him, turning his compliment into a double-edged sword that sliced though his gut.

  “Thanks,” she finally said.

  He nodded and looked away, his throat dry. But the tension around her was eradicated. Compliments were the best way to disarm a person, always worked. “What did you need?” he asked.

  “Information about this wedding. I’ve got some sample menus, but I don’t know anything about the event.”

  “I have a conference call with them at the beginning of next week.” He glanced at the calendar behind him and quickly wrote the time of the call into his busy work week. “I’m supposed to get final numbers and details then. Why don’t you join me.”

  “On the call?” she asked, clearly surprised.

  “Sure.” He shrugged. She’d compromised with him, the least he could do was try to make her job easier. His life got much easier by having her deal directly with Bridezilla and her flesh-eating mother rather than through him.

  Brilliant, really, why didn’t I think of this earlier?

  “It’ll be easier for everyone,” he said. “I’m probably going to need some of your ideas on decorations—”

  She smiled.

  “Are you laughing at me?” he asked, knowing she was. This moment of ease, of light conversation was too nice to give up.

  “You’re great with leather and black-and-white photography,” she said, summing up the decor of every apartment and restaurant he’d ever owned. “I would imagine wedding receptions will be a bit beyond you.”

  “You have better ideas?”

  “About a million,” she said, her dark eyes gleaming.

  God, she’s pretty when she’s happy.

  And it had been so long since he’d seen her happy.

  The skin along his arms and chest twitched with the sudden urge to hold her.

  “See—” he got swept up in their sudden chemistry “—I knew you were the right person to bring in on this.”

  That might have gone too far. His silver tongue had led him astray and what he’d said was too close to a lie. They both knew he didn’t choose to bring her, they’d both been too desperate for anything else. The color faded slightly from her face.

  “I’m happy to help out,” she said and the air between them changed again, turned cold. Her lush mouth compressed to a thin line.

  “Thank you, Alice. The call is on Monday, late afternoon.”

  A huge crash from the kitchen made her whirl in the doorway and he braced himself for some minor emergency. Some five-hundred-dollar stand-up mixer perhaps, or another two-hundred-dollar hospital visit for his brother who tended to get overconfident around saws.

  “Cameron?” Alice cried. “You all right?”

  “Fine,” the disembodied voice of the kid Gabe barely remembered yelled back, clearly disgusted.

  “Cameron?” he asked. “You changed your mind about having the kid help out?” He was surprised on a number of fronts. The kid had enough attitude to light up New York State, and Alice, since the last miscarriage and the failed in vitro procedures, had gone way out of her way to avoid children of all ages.

  Maybe she’s healing, he thought, his stomach twisting with hope and sadness, a chronic sensation left over from his marriage. Maybe she’s finally letting go.

  “Just for today,” she said. She turned back toward him, her lips fighting a smile. “He knocked over the bucket of potato peels. He’s covered head to foot.”

  He laughed. “Beats hauling wood with Max.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “So, when do you want to dazzle me with your menus?”

  “Well, with Cameron taking some of the load off today, I think I could pull it together for tomorrow night, Friday. I know we discussed things already, but I had to tweak the duck and so far I haven’t found any good—”

  “I trust you, Alice,” he said, shocking both of them. “You don’t have to defend your decisions. Max, Dad and I will be ready to be dazzled tomorrow night.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “This is not the Gabe Mitchell I know. The Gabe Mitchell who likes—”

  “Gabe Mitchell is busy,” he said. “He’s busy and tired and he knows, very well, how good you are.”

  Another compliment. Wasn’t he full of them today? This one had slipped out unbidden. Caught him unprepared. The truth was, he had intended to ride her the entire time she was here. Since her latest compromise, however, she’d been on point and he could rest easy. It was a gift, almost, one he wasn’t sure didn’t tick, about to blow up in his face.

  “Thanks,’ she said. “Again.”

  “I, ah…need to get to work.”

  “Right.” She pushed herself off the doorway. “Gabe, what I said last week, about Daphne—”

  “Don’t worry,” he said quickly, heat scorching his neck. This was the apology he’d thought he wanted, but now he’d rather continue with this comfortable unsaid truce between them. He didn’t want to discuss his love life with his ex-wife, not when things were going so well. “It’s forgotten.”

  “I was out of line,” she said, pressing on, as she always did when he wanted her to stop. “It’s none of my business and she’s a lovely woman.”

  “Yes, she is. Thanks for the apology.” He hoped she’d leave it at that, that she wouldn’t ruin this fragile equilibrium.

  He glanced at her, lit by sun, her chef whites unbuttoned, revealing a green shirt underneath. She smiled, awkward and sad, a different version of the bristly woman she’d become over the years with him.

  She looked like the twenty-four-year-old he’d met ten years ago. Sweet and smart with the devil in her eyes and the corner of her mouth.

  And his whole body, all of it, reacted, leaned toward her with the old desire.

  He didn’t need this. He di
dn’t need a reminder of the good times, of the woman he’d loved rather than the woman he’d grown to hate.

  She was beautiful, she was an asset, and she couldn’t leave soon enough.

  8

  The envelope Patrick had just signed for burned in his hand. He wondered if he would be branded, his palm black with the words to my husband.

  It had been three weeks since the first letter and a week and half since he’d mailed his response, via the lawyer. A week and half of checking the horizon for the black sedan bringing another letter from her. A week and half of eating better food that tasted like dirt and sat like stones in his stomach. A week and a half of wondering if he could ever change his sons’ minds.

  “Who was that?” Max asked, arriving silently from nowhere, to suddenly be at his side. Patrick watched the car brake at the end of the gravel road, then turn left toward the two-lane highway that would take it to the interstate.

  “No one,” Patrick said, shoving the envelope into his back pocket. “Letter from my lawyer.”

  “Everything okay?” Max asked and Patrick could feel his son’s police officer gaze searching him for clues.

  “Fine, just some information about investments.”

  “My inheritance?” Max asked and took a slug from the bottle of water he held.

  “Sure,” he said, distracted. “I better get back to work. I’m finishing electrical on the gazebo today so the Fish-Stick Princess can have her pink twinkle lights.”

  Max lifted his plastic bottle in farewell and headed off for the forest and his trail blazing.

  Patrick nearly ran to the gazebo, the warm wind at his back pushing him toward the freshly built structure with the view of the Catskills and the Hudson.

  He stood on the concrete slab he’d poured and leveled himself and ripped open the envelope.

  You’re not giving me the truth, Pat. I could always tell. Does Gabe still take after you, so eager to smooth away the bad stuff?

  When you say the boys are coming around to the idea, does that mean they are actually allowing you to talk about me? Or does Max simply walk away? You always were a silver-tongued man, Pat. But I can tell from what you’re not saying that my boys don’t want to see me.