CHAPTER 8
Now that the storm had passed, the morning’s sky was a lovely Wedgwood blue. Willa sat on the hanging bench on the front porch, waiting for the man from last night—Hudson, the apparent island repair god—to come.
She felt a little nervous. Not about the stove, per se. It wasn’t like she’d smelled gas in the kitchen or anything, though she knew enough about gas stoves to know not to mess with it. Even if rationally there wasn’t much chance, better safe than sorry. It was practically a family motto.
Not that her parents considered any decision she’d made, pretty much since she’d gotten together with Steven, to be safe, if she was honest. This endeavor, thinking of moving to a small island in the Pacific Northwest, was just the latest.
“I don’t blame you for hying off to the PNW,” her friend Nat had said as she’d packed her car to the brim with kitchen stuff and clothes. “It’ll be good to go somewhere new, clear your head. Figure out what you want to do next. Your parents still on you about how you’re going to make a living? Any thoughts there?”
Willa had nodded, biting her lip with embarrassment. “It’s been a long haul, and I’ve been busy handling the estate stuff.”
First for her husband, then her great-aunt. She had probate lawyers on speed dial and could talk about trusts in her sleep.
Her uncle—her father’s brother—had volunteered to “help her out” (read: take over) when it came to executing her great-aunt Caroline’s will, but Willa had refused, even though the man was Aunt Caroline’s son. He was also shocked that she didn’t simply liquidate the house. A small part of him might have wanted a bit of the money from the house, too, she realized. But she tried not to think about that. Her mother had also wanted her to sell, to get the money ... because obviously, in her eyes, Willa needed to do something .
Nat had shifted her weight from one foot to the other, looking at her with concern. Willa was getting used to those looks from friends and family. Nat had flown down from the Bay Area to help her get packed, and she’d stayed at Nat’s house as a rest stop on her way to the island. “You know you can ask me for anything,” she’d said seriously.
“It’s fine,” Willa had assured her. “I appreciate you helping me out, but I could’ve done this by myself, you know.”
“Of course you could. You are almost dangerously independent, you know that, right?”
Willa had grinned and shrugged, even though she knew it was a family tradition. From an Asian standpoint, or at least as far as her mother had told her, you didn’t share family business outside the family, and you certainly didn’t take favors. You’d owe someone, and they’d know that, essentially, you were weak. Willa’s father came from sturdy Slavic stock, just a few generations emigrated. He felt the same. You counted on your family, and you didn’t reach out for help if you didn’t have to.
They also liked stability: steady jobs, no debt, tight budgets. Certainly not gig economy, hand-to-mouth, “frivolous” jobs like anything in the restaurant or food industry.
Willa actually had planned on being in a stable job, once upon a time. She’d gotten a degree in food science and probably would’ve wound up either in the FDA, writing guidelines and testing things, or working for a big corporate food conglomerate, making turnip chips taste like delicacies without revealing the trace amounts of things like sawdust they actually contained.
Then Steven had blown into her life like a comet, and she’d followed in his wake. She couldn’t regret it. He’d introduced her to a dazzling array of culinary geniuses, and she’d learned more with them than she ever would have at a culinary school.
She could still remember eating fresh abalone with Chef Perry Park, back when you could still harvest it in Northern California. He’d taught her about flavor combinations, the perfect balance of heat and sweet, of salt and sour, and the punch of umami that made everything better.
She’d learned how to make perfect sourdough from the eccentric Berkeley baker Chef Lei D’amato. She’d learned how to make miso-caramel ice cream from the chef’s girlfriend, pastry chef Phyllis Galanis.
Finally, she’d learned how to combine everything together under Marceline Dumonde, one of the most fearsome, brilliant, and wonderful people she’d ever known. Under her fierce but comprehensive tutelage, she’d found not only a mentor but a friend.
In those years, Steven ran what amounted to a culinary salon of chefs, restaurateurs, and investors. She’d helped organize their events. She’d cooked at their pop-ups. That was how she’d gotten into cookbook writing. It was flexible, and with the strange hours she worked, it made it easier.
When Steven had wanted to open a restaurant, it genuinely hadn’t occurred to her that they could fail, with all that talent and energy around them. She’d been starstruck and optimistic. So had Steven, if she thought about it. She’d loved that about him. When it seemed like she’d always been tentative and confused about her future, he’d been fearless and focused. His confidence was one of her favorite things about him.
But they hadn’t made it, and the house had paid the price, as well as their credit. And, ultimately, Steven’s health.
She didn’t want to blame that for the spiral that seemed to occur for the next few years. Steven was a type 1 diabetic, after all, with whatever genetic trigger that kicked in the disorder hitting him without warning. His bon vivant lifestyle hadn’t caused his condition. His lifestyle was his way of rebelling against his condition. Where others could indulge in sugar and food and alcohol until their bodies were battered, his had been trying, in immune-compromised error, to kill him ... in a slow process that had started when he was ten and would pick up speed until it finally won.
She’d married him when she was twenty-three and he was thirty-two, just one year after she’d graduated. He’d warned her at the time. She didn’t care. She was in love, and she’d thought she knew what it meant, to commit to what was coming.
Now here she was. Alone and scrambling for some kind of security in a very unstable world.
She needed this cookbook. She needed to somehow get back to her life. It was easy to feel creative and to pull work out of your ass when you were twenty-three. Forty-six? Yeah. That was a lot harder.
At least she had the house as a backup. Yes, her parents would love it if she simply sold it, used it as a nest egg while she moved back home and got back on her financial feet. That was a last resort, though.
She turned on her tablet, opening up to the chef’s short videos. If she was going to have to create a cookbook out of whole cloth, then she was going to have to click back into the mindset of a ghostwriter. She needed to know who this guy was and what he was about. Hopefully, with enough videos, she’d see a pattern. Then she could choose a theme, or at least sections, and flesh them out with recipes that made sense. That couldn’t be that difficult.
Or at least so she thought ... until she saw the first video.
Sam was a good-looking guy, no question there. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, which she’d expected. From an objective standpoint, she felt the little stir of Hey, he’s pretty good looking . He had muscle definition, but wasn’t like bodybuilder-on-steroids bulked up. He had dark wavy hair that was tousled artfully. He smirked, revealing a deep dimple pitting his left cheek.
Everything about the guy screamed sex.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said to the camera, his tongue doing the world’s quickest slick along his bottom lip. “Hungry? Me too. I thought I’d make us something yummy ...”
She frowned. He had a decent voice, she supposed. And again, he was good looking. But he was making ...
Wait. What the hell was he making?
“Asian pork belly tacos,” he said, his hazel eyes twinkling.
“What the heck?” she muttered, backing it up.
In less than a minute, she saw a sped-up montage of him “being sexy” while cooking tacos. From what she could tell, it was just him flexing while squeezing lime. Shaking his butt (with rhythm, she’d give him that) while chopping onions, tomatoes, cilantro. Wiggling somehow and then licking his finger while making some kind of Asian dressing with soy sauce, oyster sauce, way too much ginger from the looks of it. ( And hoisin and five spice? Did this guy just hit the ethnic aisle at his grocery?)
When he actually slapped the pork belly , then gave a little ooh sound, pursing his lips at the camera, she couldn’t help it. She burst out in hysteria-tinged laughter.
“Oh, God,” she whispered to herself, putting a hand on her face. “This is going to be awful .”
But it was the job. She’d just grit her teeth through some more of his videos and see if there was something she could pull out. Even if it was ridiculous, it was how she made a living. She’d make him seem like a sexy Michelin chef if she needed to, now that she knew what his shtick was.
She was thinking that as the truck pulled up. She quickly shut off her tablet—God knew she didn’t want the guy seeing it and wondering if that was what got her hot and bothered. Actually, she didn’t want him wondering anything about what made her hot and bothered.
It rolled to a stop. She stood up, putting the tablet down and smoothing her skirt. Which then made her frown because ... why?
“Hey there,” he called out as he left the cab of the truck.
His voice was just like she remembered: deep, rich, smooth. Like Swiss chocolate, the real stuff, not the stuff here in the States. It was almost hypnotic. The “sexy chef” on the videos wished he sounded like this guy.
She frowned. Not that it mattered, of course.
She was still pushing that invasive thought away when he stepped around the front of the cab, opened the passenger door, then pulled out an absolutely enormous gift basket.
“What’s that ?” she yelped.
He grinned, his expression full of mischief. “This,” he said, holding up the basket, “is a welcome present.”
“Why?”
His grin stretched into a full, amused smile. “Because you’re new here? And we’re neighbors? And you saved Noodle? Dealer’s choice, really.”
“Oh, you didn’t have to—” she quickly protested, but he handed it to her, and she would have had to drop it if she refused. It wasn’t light either.
“I know,” he said. “My mother and my daughter helped, though. Welcome to the island, from Marigold Farm.”
She thought about Nat’s comment, about her being dangerously independent. He seemed nice, granted. Still, she could only imagine what this guy might want in exchange ... and if she was honest, what paltry gift she could offer in return.
Not that he’d want anything, she internally scolded herself.
Not that she’d be interested in what that might look like.
She bit her lip, forcing herself to focus. There was no way she could graciously turn this down, she realized. Maybe she could overpay him for fixing the oven? For the first time, she hoped that a local tradesman would screw her over in the estimate.
“Now, why don’t you show me the oven, and we can figure out what’s going on there,” he said, gesturing to the front door. Baffled, she lugged the basket, letting him open the screen door for her in a courtly gesture. His smile was still there, more gentle than anything ... even if there seemed to be something more in his eyes, maybe? She wasn’t sure what. She didn’t think he was making fun of her, though. On a gut level, that didn’t seem to be the case.
God. She’d kept her head down for so long, she didn’t know what was the case anymore. She was out of practice hanging out with anyone but her parents, some lawyers, an accountant, and the few friends she kept in touch with. That wasn’t helping at all .
“Come on in,” she mumbled, and then walked into the kitchen, wondering how she should proceed.