Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Colby leaned back against Ford’s office door and let her eyes slip closed, taking a moment for herself, her first breather all day.
She was used to long ones. Baking before dawn, on her feet in the downstairs storefront until two, then up here to prep for dinner.
Sometimes she caught a power nap between finishing prep and when pastry was needed for service, but more often than not, she was the first person to arrive and the last one to leave, with no break in between.
And she was fine with that.
Loved that.
But today had been different.
And more days in the future would be too.
Feeling her chest begin to tighten, she pushed off the door and crossed the room to the window, staring out at the gently rippling water of the sound.
The water always calmed her, be it the Pacific waves near her parents’ home, or the Mississippi River she used to walk along in New Orleans, or the Nantucket Sound visible from Miller’s building.
She didn’t think she could ever take a job, ever live somewhere, far from the water.
It was as much a part of her as red hair, Crocs, and pastry dough.
The knot beneath her breastbone began to loosen. She laid a hand over her chest and inhaled deep, calming herself more with Ford’s lingering citrus and sandalwood scent. The reminder of her friend, the human equivalent of zero pressure, acting as another release valve.
Feeling closer to settled, she tossed her phone on Ford’s desk and plopped into his chair. Her ass had barely hit the seat, though, when two sharp raps sounded against the door. “Col, you in there?” Miller called.
“Yeah.”
The mountain of a man pushed open the door, his smile big, and her pulse shot right back up, an unfamiliar mix of fear and hope fueling the emotional roller coaster.
He lifted his hands, palms out. “No news yet.”
She blew out an exaggerated breath and sank back in the chair.
His smile grew impossibly wider, bright white in his silver-flecked chestnut beard. “I remember that feeling.” He pushed up his plaid sleeves and lowered himself into the chair across from her. “Take the rest of the day off if it’ll help.”
“It won’t.”
He laughed. “Remember that feeling too. We’ve got a full house tonight to keep you busy.”
Super busy as she hadn’t had time to do her usual prep. She’d be flying by the seat of her pants. Exhilarating and exhausting. Just what she needed.
“Everything go well with the photographer? Cash Marston, right?”
And there went her pulse again. “That’s them,” she answered.
“And it went better than expected.” She pushed down the fear and leaned into the cheer.
“They browsed the shop before coming up here. Saw the madeleines, the chocolates, all the desserts and sweets. They don’t just want to shoot a magazine spread for Render. They want to shoot a whole cookbook.”
“Fuck yeah.” Miller slapped the front edge of the desk with his big hand, then fisted it and held it out for a bump. “You deserve it.”
She bumped back. “That’s what Ford said before he left for Boston.”
“That’s what anyone who walks through our doors says.”
“Thanks for giving me a shot here.”
“Thank you for accepting the offer, though you would’ve gotten the recognition regardless.”
Maybe.
Definitely, Ford whispered in her head.
But working for a second Beard award–winning chef, one who also had Michelin and Render stars under his belt, didn’t hurt, and getting to work with ingredients in another region of the country had also helped her become a better chef.
Recognition, awards, and cookbooks aside, she always wanted to learn and improve, to find new bites of happiness and bring those to diners.
“Did y’all talk concept for the shoot and the cookbook?” Miller asked.
“We did.” Colby told him how Cash had suggested a variety of seasonal sweet spots for the magazine, and then for the cookbook, they’d select and shoot recipes based on the various locations where Colby had lived and the inspiration she’d drawn from them.
“That all sounds amazing, Col. So why is your mood here”—he held his hand chin level, then raised it above his head—“instead of here?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Did you pick up the detective shit from Greg?”
“One hundred percent,” he answered with a chuckle.
Miller’s best friend was the head chef of Dram, the restaurant in New Orleans where Colby used to work, and Greg loved nothing more than to play detective.
He’d recruit others in the kitchen too, peeking beyond the pass to the dining room to predict what diners would order before they did, to speculate on why they’d chosen Dram for dinner, to bet on whether a couple’s evening ended in a kiss or a friend conveniently calling them away.
Only today, Colby was the one drawing Miller’s conjecture.
She glanced again at the water, inhaled a deep breath of calm, then turned her gaze back to the other chef.
“I am excited—and beyond grateful—but the expectations are currently here.” She mimicked Miller’s earlier gesture, lifting her hand from chin level to over her head.
“And they’re about to go to here. That’s CC’s territory, not mine.
” Her older sister was the family overachiever, and Colby was a-okay with CC being the star.
She liked being the supportive sister instead.
She liked even better being the Clarke who could goof off, who could mess up, who could take a little longer figuring out what to do with her life and no one would think twice on it.
“Expecting success is more her speed. Surprised by it is more mine.”
A sweet smile turned up the corners of Miller’s mouth, and Colby knew even before he spoke that Miller was thinking about his husband. “One of my first meals with Clancy,” he said, “we toasted to the un-greatness of great expectations.”
“I’d lift a glass to that.”
“But you don’t need to, Colby.” He leaned forward and laid a hand over hers on the desk, his drawl and gaze earnest. “The first time I tried one of your sweet spots—blackberry with lime whipped cream, I still remember it—I knew that you cooked for you.” He laid his other hand over his heart.
“From here. To bring yourself and others happiness. Folks rarely expect that about anything these days. It is a surprise. You can’t help but be successful for it. ”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“When it’s something you love, it usually is.” He gestured around them. “Took me almost dying and finding the love of my life—and s’mores—to realize it, but I did. Don’t think we’d have this, much less be opening a second Chess, if I hadn’t.”
“S’mores, huh?” She tapped a finger against her chin, a new sweet spot coming to mind.
“Just make sure Clancy isn’t on shift whenever this”—he mimicked her chin-tap as he rose—“comes to fruition.”
“You got it,” Colby said, just as her phone rang, CC’s face lighting up the screen. “Speaking of my big sis.”
“You take that,” Miller said, already halfway out the door. “And I’ll see you in the kitchen in a few.”
She waited for him to close the door before pressing Accept on the video call. “Hey, big sis,” she answered as she propped the phone against Ford’s framed staff picture from last Christmas. “You get your care package?”
“What’s the jam?” She held the open jar to her nose and sniffed. “I can’t place it.”
“Move more than two feet away from your smoking-hot wife in the chlorine-scented pool, then give it another go.”
CC rolled her eyes and shot her the bird but did as Colby suggested, strolling away from Al in the pool and over to the back steps of the shotgun double they’d once shared. She sat on the stoop, closed her eyes, and sniffed the jam again.
“Now what do you smell?” Colby said.
“Vanilla, citrus, a touch of lavender.” Her eyes popped open, a sure sign her clever mind had quickly put it together. “Is it Earl Grey?”
“Ding, ding, ding.” Colby clapped and smiled, remembering the biscuits and jam jars she’d boxed up on Wednesday, the very reason she’d decided to make Earl Grey madeleines that same night with Ford. “I thought you might like that.”
“I do! That’s breakfast tomorrow sorted.”
“Those were the last two jars of that jam, so you better save some for when I visit and need another hit of it.”
CC forgot all about the jam, her smile growing bigger. “You’re visiting?”
A different sort of ache tightened Colby’s chest. She missed her sister.
A lot. They’d lived together for six years and before that in the same place most of their lives.
It was hard being in different cities now, especially when CC was finally happy.
Colby was sad not to be there in person to witness her sister enjoying all her just deserts.
A good job, a good wife, an even bigger family.
“Earth to Colby,” CC said, keeping her thoughts from straying farther. “When are you visiting?”
“I don’t know exactly yet, but you know that photographer—”
“Oh, wait, did you—”
“Don’t make it awkward,” Al said as she lowered onto the stoop beside CC.
She shook her head, her short gray curls showering CC with water and making all of them laugh.
Colby appreciated the diversion. Annaliese, whose entire family was connected to the hospitality industry, would know better than most how frustrating the wait-and-see game could be.
“I haven’t heard yet. As soon as I do, I’m calling you first,” she told her sister.
“You better,” CC said, her affectionate, wistful voice a reflection of Colby’s insides. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too.”
Al looped a comforting arm around CC’s shoulders, and sadness walloped Colby all over again.
But relief was a bigger wave. CC finally had someone dependable, loving, respectful, and downright awesome by her side when Colby couldn’t be.
“So, Col,” Al said. “What were you about to say before Red so rudely interrupted?”
Colby grinned at the back and forth shoves the two gave each other before she filled them in, her sister’s brown eyes getting wider by the detail.
“A cookbook?” CC exclaimed.
“I’ll be sending you the contract as soon as I get it from Cash’s publisher.”
“Congrats, Colby,” Al said. “That’s amazing.”
“So you’ll come here to shoot the New Orleans recipes,” CC said. “Then we’ll go home for the California ones?”
Red hair and curves aside, Colby really couldn’t be more different than her sister.
CC was the definition of professional, came to every meeting overprepared and overdressed, and believed complete meals could be made with a blender.
Colby, on the other hand, lived for flying by the seat of her pants, had never met a high heel shoe she liked, and wanted to chuck that fucking blender out the window many a morning.
But despite their differences, they could read each other like a book.
“I won’t say no to a tag team,” Colby replied. While they had loving, supportive parents, they could also be a lot. Two on two was always better.
“We’ll make it happen.”
“I need to head out that way anyway,” Al said as she stood. “Munchkins and vineyards to visit.” She gave Colby a little wave, then went inside the house, leaving CC to speculate about which desserts Colby might feature.
Colby’s attention, however, had wandered to the framed picture behind her phone, to Ford standing with one arm over her shoulders, the other holding a bottle of wine from the vineyard Al shared with her ex-husband under the Rosin Hospitality banner.
“I might see if Ford wants to tag along too. He hasn’t visited the West Coast properties yet. ”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Colby whipped her attention back to CC, knowing that sound and the twinkle in sister’s eyes. “Don’t go there, Carrington Clarke.”
“Do you know you’ve mentioned Ford in every conversation we’ve had since the day he arrived there?”
“At least half of that’s business.”
“And the other half…”
“He’s my best friend here. That’s all.” She flopped back in the chair. “Stop lawyering me.”
She didn’t. “When’s the last time you went on a date?”
“Two weeks ago. A nurse Clancy introduced me to.”
“Are you going on a second date with them?”
No was on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. Bit harder as she rewound through other dates the past year, trying to find a second to refute CC’s implication . . . and found none. “I’ve been busy.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
There were also disadvantages of knowing each other so well.
“Ford was married, CC, and it didn’t end like Al and Ezra’s marriage.” Al was still best friends and business partners with her ex. “He’s only just started dating again.”
“Worth a shot if you’re serious about him.”
“I don’t do serious, you know that. And even if I were ready to make an exception, I wouldn’t do it right now with everything else going on.”
“Does it have to be serious, then?”
Colby bit her tongue so hard she winced.
CC didn’t miss it, the reaction or the implication. “Oh my God, you’re fucking him already, aren’t you?”
“Hanging up now.”
“Col!” CC’s earnest shout stalled her thumb over the End button. “Just keep an open mind. He’s a good guy. I want you to be happy too.”
“I am happy.” Aside from her sister being right next door, there was nothing else missing in her life.
She had a great job doing what she loved with people she genuinely liked and admired.
And she got to have amazing sex with one of those same people, the best of them, with no strings attached.
She had no complaints, zero pressure. “You’re loved up enough for the both of us. ”
“That’s what I told Ezra,” Al shouted from somewhere nearby. “And then I fell in love with your sister.”
CC preened and flipped the ends of her hair. “We’re irresistible, Col.”
Colby couldn’t help but laugh, couldn’t help but be filled with joy at her happy, confident, loved up sister. “Okay, hanging up now for real. Love you, sis. And see you soon.”
“Love you too.” She blew her a kiss, then with a parting wink, added, “If you tell him before you tell me, you have your answer.”