Chapter 5
Chapter Five
STACI WANTED TO FALL right to sleep but she couldn’t with all that was on her mind. She’d come here for a very specific reason and tonight it seemed clear that she was capable of letting herself be distracted. What was wrong with her?
Part of her knew it was because she’d never had a positive male role model. She didn’t need her shrink to tell her that when she met powerful men she was always drawn to them. And it seemed the more power they had over her dreams and her future the more lethal her attraction was.
But Remy...he had no real power over her other than the attraction.
She pulled her cell phone from her bag and texted Alysse.
She knew the other woman would be awake and was probably in her kitchen baking because Alysse’s fiancé Jay was on an assignment.
The retired marine worked for a private security company.
And while most of his jobs kept him in the Los Angeles area, he’d recently accepted an assignment in D.C. that had him away from home.
Staci: Can you talk?
Alysse: Yes. Give me a sec. Brownies going in the oven now.
Staci: Great. I won the first challenge and got to go to an amazing restaurant tonight.
Alysse: Cool. I don’t think you are supposed to tell me all this.
Staci: Oh. You’re right. There’s a guy here who—
Alysse: Cute?
Staci: Yes though that’s not the problem. He really bothered me in the kitchen tonight. I’m worried. What if I screw this up?
Alysse: Maybe he got to you because you just didn’t expect it. See what happens tomorrow, you know?
Good advice, Staci thought.
Staci: I’m so unsure and that’s not like me.
Alysse: Stop it. You’re the most powerful, kick-ass girl I know. You need to get him out of your head and you into his head.
Staci smiled to herself. It was a little late at night for Alysse’s crazy outlook on life but she knew her friend’s logic was sound.
Staci: Thanks. Heard from Jay?
Alysse: Not since yesterday but he said I wouldn’t. I hate that he might be in danger.
Staci: He’s coming back to you. And you both know it.
Alysse: Yeah. You okay now?
Staci: Yes. Thanks. Enjoy your brownies.
Alysse: I’m thinking of eating them all. :)
Staci: I suspected as much. Night.
Staci put her phone down and rolled over.
The coolness of the air-conditioning circulated through the room making her feel as if she were on vacation.
She and her grandmother didn’t have air conditioning in their old fashioned ranch house.
It had been built in the 50s and her grandmother had come to it as a young bride.
The kitchen was the only thing that had been updated religiously by the women in her family.
Her grandpa had been killed in Vietnam, her father...well, she’d never known him.
The Rowland women had a weird legacy of being left behind by their men. She scrubbed her hand over her eyes and rolled over again.
“Hey, what are you the princess and the pea,” Vivian grumbled from her bed.
“Sorry,” Staci muttered. She’d never had to share a room with anyone. And she’d liked it that way.
The only way she’d have a room to herself was to out-cook everyone else.
She forced her mind to cooking and the dishes she’d eaten tonight.
Food had been her ticket out before and it would be again.
WP24 was heavily Asian influenced and the tastes were familiar to her having grown up here on the West Coast. It was silly but she dreamed of food and cooking the way some women dreamed of shoes and purses.
What, she wondered, did Remy dream about? Was he like her and couldn’t sleep when something new had been introduced to his palate? And why did it matter? She rolled over and heard Vivian sigh.
“Put your headphones in,” Staci whispered. “I’m a very restless sleeper.”
The other woman grumbled as she took her iPhone headphones and put them in her ears. Staci grabbed her food diary as she thought of the night wind and the moonlight and the hot way that Remy had held her, touched her. She channeled that passion into food.
She heard the sea and tasted in her mind a new dish with seafood and spices but not from Mexico as she usually went to, but from China instead. There had been a wealth of new spices and tastes that had been brought to her tonight and now they were alive in her mind.
She wrote down ingredients, sketched in variations and maybes and then in her mind started to cook.
She drifted to sleep with the pen in her hand and the notebook open on her lap.
In her mind she was in the kitchen preparing her fresh ingredients.
She smelled sesame oil heating up in a wok and glanced over to see Remy standing there waiting.
He’d chopped the garlic. “Let’s cook together. I can help make this dish stronger.”
She nodded and started telling him what to put in and he did exactly what she told him to do.
They moved together in the kitchen, which, she noticed from the picture of her, her mom and her grandmother next to the stove, was her kitchen.
He was talking and smiling in a way he hadn’t when they’d cooked earlier and she started to resist the dream. This wasn’t real.
She shoved him out of her kitchen and out of her mind waking up to find her flashlight and notebook on her lap.
She didn’t want or need Remy Stephens cooking with her.
In real life or in her dreams, she needed instead to find her strength on her own.
It was something she knew very well that she could do.
She closed the notebook and rolled over on her side to watch the shadows on the wall. She drifted in and out of sleep but it wasn’t restful and in the morning when everyone started waking she was still tired.
She got dressed and hung out with the other women.
Drinking coffee and talking about what they thought the challenge was going to be that day.
She almost fooled herself into believing that she could handle Remy and that last night had meant nothing to her.
However, when they piled into the cars to go to the studio, she ended up sitting right next to him and she knew she’d been lying to herself.
He smelled good. She hated that. She didn’t want him to be one of those men who made her want to lean closer and breath more deeply.
“We have to talk about last night,” he said quietly under his breath.
“Not now,” she said. “We have to cook.”
He nodded, but she knew he wasn’t going to let it go for long.
“HELLO EVERYONE, I’M Fatima Langrene and I will be the host for the show. Each week we will start with a Quick Cook challenge,” she said as they’d all been wired for sound and had their make-up done.
Fatima had mocha-colored skin and almond shaped eyes. He noted she also had a pretty smile and as she outlined the rules for this phase of the game, he knew he should pay better attention and did with one part of his mind.
But another part wanted to get some closure to what had happened with Staci. He needed to know that he hadn’t hurt her. And that despite the timing, he wanted to see more of her.
“Our guest judge this week is Marcel Roubin, food critic from the LA Times. Mercedes is sponsoring this challenge so the winner will receive the keys to a brand-new M Class sedan. I’ll let Marcel explain this challenge.”
Marcel was skinny and wore all black clothing from the tips of his shining dress shoes to the color of his black dress shirt. His skin was pale in spite of the bright California sun.
“I knew it,” Dan said under his breath, “He’s a vampire.”
Remy smiled.
“We all know you can cook with fresh ingredients and a well-stocked pantry but many in America are forced to create dishes for their family with only packaged and processed foods. Many families need new ideas to create something healthy and filling for their families from these ingredients,” Marcel said, Taking the cover off a table that was laden with bags of frozen meats and vegetables.
“I mentioned Mercedes is sponsoring this Quick Cook challenge and they will be making a donation in the winner’s name to the local food bank in your home town. You will have thirty minutes to create a main meal from these ingredients. Your time starts now.”
Remy hadn’t cooked with frozen ingredients ever but held hope there’d be some shrimp he could create a dish from. When he got to the table he saw that most of it was breaded or coated in seasoning already. He tried to think how to turn these mundane ingredients into a winning dish.
“My grandma used to make these fish sticks once a week,” Staci said.
“Mine, too,” Vivian added. “I don’t know how I’m going to make them taste different but I’m starting there.”
Staci smiled as she grabbed her choices and then, when she caught him staring at her, she winked. “Better get a move on, southern man. I’m planning to beat you today.”
“Challenge accepted, cupcake girl,” he said.
He liked that they could still banter in the kitchen.
That was how it should be. The personal stuff would have to wait for now.
He grabbed some frozen shrimp and scallops, as well as a bag of frozen ravioli and went back to his station.
The pantry was open but the shelves almost bare, except for dried herbs, butter, milk, and eggs.
There were no fresh veggies so his idea for a Florentine pasta dish started to fade until he remembered there was frozen spinach.
He grabbed what he needed and then ran back to pick up the spinach.