Chapter Five
“R ustin Wildish, when are you going to start using the front door?”
Rustin paused, feeling guilty and exposed even though he was delivering the plate of appetizers for Chloe’s meeting, but using the side door off the kitchen was habit.
Miss Millie stood in her kitchen preparing a cup of tea.
“You didn’t see me,” he practically growled, annoyed at being caught.
The crème de le crème of Belmont’s society women must have arrived early because he could hear a murmur of voices in the front parlor.
“No reason to hide from anyone, Rustin,” Miss Millie stated.
There was every reason. When people learned he was back in town, he wanted it to be on his turf and his terms.
“I’m not hiding.”
“Skulking then.” Miss Millie sipped her tea from a dainty flowered teacup. “Own your accomplishments and take your victory lap, boy.”
“I haven’t been a boy in a long time, Miss Millie.”
Miss Millie’s hawkish features softened minutely, or perhaps it was a trick of the light. “You were never a boy, Rustin.”
She looked at the covered platter he held.
“Bailing out Chloe?”
“No.”
“Humph.” Miss Millie gracefully rose and peeled off the foil covering of the platter he held. “This looks like a life preserver to me.”
“It’s a thank you.”
“Your success and dedication are more than enough thanks, Rustin. You’ve become your own man and a passionate, dedicated chef. I was merely a flashlight illuminating the first few steps on your path.”
It was unlike Miss Millie Maye to be modest. Rustin’s suspicions swirled.
“You were my shot,” he said, not wanting to say any more because Miss Millie had been a helluva lot more than that. “But I’m thanking Chloe for a kindness years ago.”
“You’ll have to be more specific.” Miss Millie sipped her tea and regarded him as if she were measuring him for a suit jacket. “That girl is endlessly kind. She practically runs her own cat and dog rescue with Jessica on my old family farm on Cramer Mountain. I’ve heard a rumor about a goat, so I’m waiting for Jessica to hex Chloe on an upcoming full moon, as goats eat everything, and Jessica loves her plants more than people.”
He waited for the familiar kick to his gut whenever he heard Jessica’s name, but it felt more like a casual nudge this time.
Miss Millie took one of the jalapeno poppers he’d made with pimento cheese and olives, then wrapped in a thin slice of crisp pork belly.
“Oh my.” She chewed thoughtfully. “Where are you getting the whisper of sweet?”
“It’s in my nature.”
She laughed. “I think the spice will clear out half the room. You may save that girl yet, though she’s never lacked courage. Go on then, remount your white horse.”
Miss Millie propelled him with surprising strength toward the swinging door that led to the parlor. “By the way, I made a change on the feast map this year. Check-in will be at The Wild Side as well as where the patrons will finish. I’m expecting the unexpected and wow factor, Rustin, so stop perseverating.”
She pushed him through the door, but he stuck his foot out to stop it from swinging back into his face.
“I’m not involved in the feast,” he said decisively. “This”—he brandished the tray—“is my contribution.”
Just the thought of the Movable Feast turned his stomach. Growing up, the event had sounded like a golden ticket to an adult version of Willy Wonka’s works. He’d heard stories about guests buying new clothes, magazine-worthy food, live Christmas music at every house, chocolate fountains, steaming, savory cheese to dip homemade bread and more in, real reindeer, and Santa handing out presents and prizes all in homes that were mansions, full of treasures and history.
Rustin, who’d always been hungry, had lived to catch details about the food. He’d wanted to sneak in, hide, and spy on the opulent pleasures. Steal some food to take home to his family so they could pretend to be grand, part of something good.
“Of course you are.” Miss Millie had no doubt. “I’m thinking a little nightcap or bounce at the end of the evening to encourage the guests to open their wallets again.”
“That was never part of the deal. I’m not opening until after the New Year.”
“It is now,” Miss Millie said complacently. “Sitting out the holiday season is dumb,” she said bluntly. “And you are not a stupid man.”
“I’m not ready,” he said, fiercely resenting the manipulation pushing in on all sides now.
“Then I suggest you prep yourself. Nothing like a time crunch to get the creative juices pumping. Fear doesn’t look good on you, Rustin. Besides,” her voice turned crafty, “you came here today as a thank you, so clearly you owe me.”
“You said my success was thanks enough.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
And with one final push from Miss Millie, Rustin was propelled backward through the swinging door into a narrow passageway—it was a sort of a butler’s kitchen—that lead to the parlor.
*
Chloe clasped her hands together between her thighs.
“Thank you everyone for coming,” she said, noting that Jessica had ensconced herself in Grandma Millie’s usual chair. Chloe practically sighed at how effortlessly elegant and beautiful Jessica was. She held court like a queen. Hard to imagine Chloe saw her more wearing gardening gloves and a dirt-stained romper than dressed up in her Lilly Pulitzer pretty.
Chloe waited for everyone to sit, but they didn’t. And Meghan and Sarah hadn’t showed up yet—hopefully that meant they trusted her to pull this off. More nervous, she looked to Jessica, who raised one elegant brow as if to say your party .
More like my doom.
Chloe cleared her throat. No reaction. She could feel Jessica’s look drilling into the side of her head.
Pull it together. You are a teacher!
“I’d like to get the meeting started.”
The volume of women chatting didn’t dim one decibel as far as she could tell.
“Ladies, please, let’s get started! We have a lot to talk about with the Movable Feast, and I know y’all are busy.”
Of the seven women attending the meeting, three huddled together near the blazing fireplace chatting away, and four others sat together, two on matching Stickley chairs and the other two on a love seat, but really in one conversational grouping.
Chloe bounced out of her seat. “Ladies,” she sang out and then rhythmically clapped. Seven pair of eyes swiveled in her direction.
“Really, Chloe,” sniffed Mrs. Mason. “We are not your students, dear. Of course, we are waiting for Miss Millie. It’s unlike her to keep us waiting. And your mother, Jessica; she’s uncharacteristically tardy, and I don’t see your sisters.”
Chloe gulped.
And we’re off…
“Actually,” Chloe dug deep for her teacher’s smile, the one that said I know y’all don’t want to do this, but we’ll find some fun , “we’re switching things up a little this year.”
You’d have thought she’d burst out of a cake in pasties and a G-string and started rapping an Ice Spice song.
Dead silence and unnerving stares. A shiver bloomed at the base of Chloe’s spine and spread to the tips of her toes and fingertips. Even her lips felt chilled.
“How very unusual,” Mrs. Parker Louisa Smith said. She had grown up alongside the Maye sisters and Chloe and now lived on her family’s town estate with her husband and three young children. “And quite shocking to spring it on us with no warning.”
Her hard gaze pinned Jessica. “Don’t tell me your hobby garden will be on the feast’s map this year. That’s more than a stroll—the…what was it called…farm, I believe is five miles out of town.”
Jessica, sipping her own created spicy chai blend, stirred in the chair, and Chloe could practically hear her claws unsheathe.
“Ahhhh, not exactly,” Chloe hedged, not wanting to insult Jessica—Did she want to be on the feast’s map?—“but Jessica is—”
“Surely you’re not thinking of cooking anything, Chloe,” Parker interrupted sweetly. “Perhaps a punch. I’m sure you could manage a punch. My Reese, who’s seven…”
And then it started. A cacophony of comments about needing to rearrange the order of the feast. The menus. The map. The printer. She heard “Dear God, not Chloe, bless her heart” several times. Everyone was talking at once, and Chloe knew she had to gain control before Grandma Millie felt the need to launch a rescue. She was nearing twenty-seven. She was a teacher. A choir director.
Shame coated her throat. She should have let Jessica take the feast. Or Sarah. Meghan would have hated doing it, but any of them would have skillfully risen to the challenge. All the Mayes would have.
Except me.
She couldn’t help but shoot a desperate look at Jessica, who pursed her lips and put two fingers to her lips as if to whistle. She winked, and Chloe felt a ping of humor.
“Good afternoon, ladies.”
Rustin Wildish strode into the room, a platter of beautiful somethings in his hands. And oh God it smelled amazing. Her mouth watered over the man and the food. She ate him up with her gaze, while Jessica, still sitting, paled, her deep green eyes widened, and she slowly stood.
Rustin knew how to make an entrance. He stood, feet slightly apart, floor-to-ceiling windows of the parlor at his back framing him in a halo of light like some otherworldly creature entering through a portal.
He wore black jeans. Black boots with chunky soles making him even taller. A black T-shirt that stretched over his broad shoulders and sinfully defined chest and hinted at abs that made Chloe’s knees weak. Black leather bomber jacket unzipped. His hair was unbound and flowed to kiss his shoulders in waves. His charcoal eyes appeared to be black and snapping with barely repressed emotion. His whole aura snapped and crackled like the moment before lightning hit. Chloe felt the sizzle of him on her skin.
The shock and tension clashed and would have been funny if she’d had any head space to notice anything except how Rustin looked as he dominated the elegant and feminine parlor.
“Sorry, I’m a bit late, Chloe.” He speared her with a look. “Your poppers have popped.”
His smile dazzled as she’d rarely seen it, and she gulped. Feeling behind herself for a chair and not finding one, she squished herself next to the immobile Jessica.
“R-Rustin Wildish?” Parker struggled to find her voice. “How dare…what…” She sucked in a breath. “Whatever are you doing here?” Her voice trailed off.
The silence pulsed.
“What are you doing back in Belmont?” Kitty Oxford, whose family had been in town almost as long as the Mayes, snapped. “And why interrupt our very important meeting?”
“Not interrupting.” Rustin’s smile went a bit feral, and Chloe’s tummy heated.
“I’m opening a restaurant, The Wild Side. It’ll be the first and last stop on the Movable Feast,” he said to the stunned crowd.
Chloe bounced on her toes.
Yes.
“Popper anyone?” she called out, and swept the tray out of his hands, noting the cocktail napkins said, O LIVE ME . For some hosts, the napkins would have been cutesy. Chloe felt like Rustin was symbolically flipping the gathered Belmont society leaders a wink and a middle finger.
“I insist,” she said when Parker demurred the offered appetizer.
*
Rustin returned to Miss Millie’s kitchen feeling like he’d run a marathon barefoot and with the flu, but he was still standing. He hadn’t turned to stone and then smoked to ash after seeing Jessica.
No black despair dragged him under. No fury burned through his brain.
He was whole.
It had taken nearly thirteen years, but he was free of Jessica’s pull. She was finally in the past where she belonged.
“You tricked me,” he said to Miss Millie, with no bitterness. Her manipulating and challenging him was hardly unexpected.
“She always had a crush on you.” Miss Millie added a splash of bourbon to her tea and raised her eyebrows, shaking the bottle at him.
And just that easily, Jessica roared back into his mind.
“She was ashamed to be seen with me.” The comment tore out of his throat though he returned to Belmont determined to ignore the past. The future held promise and challenge enough. He didn’t need to duel with ghosts.
“A putty knife couldn’t have scraped Chloe off her hero worship and crush.” Miss Millie sipped her tea, smiling fondly.
Rustin bit back a curse at his careless mistake. What would Miss Millie have done if she’d known how much he’d adored and worshipped Jessica?
Likely she’d have poisoned me and buried me on Cramer Mountain.
“You were a hero with your Byron looks, languid Edward Cullen sullen grace, and the rapper de jour’s spitting fury. You captured my sweet Chloe’s imagination. You were as much a changeling in your family as she was in mine. Renegades and outcasts.”
Rustin kept his mouth shut. He knew when he stepped in a hole he needed to stop digging.
But Millie wielded silence like a scalpel. And they had too much history for him not to get cut.
“She was a kid,” he said, “your granddaughter.”
Not that that had stopped his dogged pursuit and wild love of Jessica.
“Chloe was an unexpected and very welcome gift.” Miss Millie sipped her spiked tea, staring him down. “She’s always had an unbridled imagination, wide-open heart, and an old soul. She’ll need help with the Movable Feast.”
“She has three sisters…cousins…whatever. They can help. They’re all glued at the hip. Can’t believe they aren’t here bossing Clo Beau around.”
“This is important to Chloe.”
“It’s your party,” he parried. “Now that you’re forcing me to participate during the holiday season, I’m going to be too busy to help.”
“We’ll see.” Miss Millie had a smile he recognized. Over the years he’d seen the recipient of that smile get twisted up, shot down, or socially cut. “It’s not total magnanimity on your part. My Chloe will be a great help to you.”
He was about to correct her on that—no way was he babysitting—when the topic of conversation, followed by Jessica, nearly tumbled into the room.
“Rustin, you certainly know how to whip up the drama,” Chloe said, her eyes sparkling and her wide mouth stretched in that telltale grin of hers.
“Nothing new there,” Jessica accused. Her green eyes were beautiful and hot with temper. He saw a pulse flutter in her neck. “What game are you playing?”
“Jessica! What’s wrong with you?” Chloe practically flew before Jessica like a small crow, flapping as Jessica stalked toward him.
“How did you trick Grandma Millie out of her diner?” Jessica glared at him, pushing around Chloe. “You think my daddy will stand for you stealing from an old lady?”
“Jessica!” Chloe gasped.
“Old lady?” Miss Millie rose from her seat.
“Jessica, are you possessed? Rustin would never trick anyone.”
“Ha.”
“Grandma Millie’s too smart for that,” Chloe said staunchly.
“I’m the only clear-eyed one here. You’ve both lost your minds. I know what Rustin Wildish is.” Her exquisite face was pale but for twin slashes of color. Her breath came quickly, but it was Chloe who held his attention.
“A chef!” Chloe answered swiftly.
“A thief!” Jessica countered.
Rustin stared at Jessica’s beautiful features: so angry, so disdainful, so like a Maye. Beautiful. Entitled. Dismissive. And he felt…nothing.
Not true. He felt like he was floating free from his once-obsessive love like it was a bad dream. He was no longer that desperate boy.
“I’ve stolen nothing. Ever,” he said, not even angry at the accusation. She had no power to hurt him anymore.
“I’ve worked since I was twelve. I know you can’t say the same, Jessica.”
I can even say her name without choking!
“You think my childhood poverty and the violence I had to protect myself and my siblings from is a permanent stain on my soul whereas you are pure. But not from where I’m standing, Jessica Maye. Miss Millie offered to sell me Millie’s. I bought it. It’s mine. I remodeled it with my money, my team, and a friend’s construction crew, which I paid for along with all the supplies.”
Jessica swayed, and he wondered if he’d have to catch her like some dashing hero in a book. And would Miss Millie forgive him if he let her fall on her face?
“Your daddy can make up all the lies he wants about me. Doesn’t make them true.”
And then, because he was on a roll and feeling rather empowered with his I’m the boss of me persona, he slanted a look at Chloe, who stood on her toes as if trying to see something just out of reach.
Miss Millie’s words came back—it felt like a premonition—Chloe needed help, but she could somehow help him as well.
Miss Millie had saved him—at least he’d thought so—but she’d always told him that he had saved himself by taking her offer, working hard, and dreaming big.
“I’m home for good,” he informed Jessica. “Deal or don’t. Your opinion means less than nothing to me.” And then, because he could be contrary even in the same five minutes, he turned his attention to Chloe.
“You ready to roll, Chloe?”
Her shocked blue and purple gaze bounced between him and Jessica and back again. Her lips pursed as if to ask where, yet no sound came out.
“You were going to show me the recipe book you found,” he prompted.
“What book?” Jessica demanded.
Chloe focused her attention on him, and Rustin felt something inside of him shift. He hadn’t even been aware that he’d cared one way or the other if she said yes.
“Ready to roll, Rustin.” And Chloe Maye Cramer followed him out the door.