Chapter Fourteen
OF COURSE, THERE WAS no such thing as a free lunch. Or a free… midafternoon meal? It came at the expense of blood, sweat, and tears. Lots and lots of tears.
“Oh my God,” Emma murmured, slicing away at her pile of onions. Tears streamed down her face in a way that set alarm bells blaring in Hunter’s chest—even if he knew it was just the damn onions. “How do real chefs do this all the time?”
“Here.” Hunter pushed his own cutting board aside and reached for hers to take over.
“No, it’s fine.” She was not fine, swabbing her eyes with her sleeve.
“I got this.” And okay, yes, his eyes were watering, too, but not nearly as bad as hers were.
“I swear I know how to chop onions, just this one is made of pure evil.”
“I know you know how to do it.”
They hadn’t been at this for long, but it was readily apparent that Emma had more skills than he had.
That said, Chef had already taught him a thing or two, showing him how to hold his knife differently, in a way that gave him better control over what he was doing.
He’d balked at first; everybody knew how to use a kitchen knife; no fancy techniques required.
But then he’d tried Chef’s way, and it took a little getting used to, but surprise, surprise. It really had helped.
Putting his new knowledge to work, he went to town on Emma’s onion, chopping it finely, just the way Chef had told them to.
Chef was wandering around, giving out pointers. Emma straightened up, like she was going to get in trouble for not cutting up her own onion, but Chef just clucked sympathetically. “At home, try running a fan blowing away from you, or doing it under running water. It helps with the eyes.”
“Thanks.” She’d fished a tissue out of her bag and was still dabbing at her face with it. “I’ll try that.”
Chef patted her shoulder and gave Hunter a knowing look, which he did his best to ignore.
The way he’d hung out with Emma at the line dancing event had already gotten tongues wagging among the gossips in town. Being here with her today was going to cement it—especially with Betty Jenkins and Shirley Brown over on the other side of the table. But he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Honestly, he himself didn’t even know exactly what was going on between him and Emma.
He was still attracted as hell to her; even though they hadn’t seen each other in a week, and he’d worried things would be awkward, they’d fallen right back into an easy, teasing rhythm.
Half his brain was telling him to run away screaming, but the other half just wanted to wrap an arm around her and pull her in close.
But he wouldn’t. Not because of people watching, or because he was still trying to spite fate.
Mostly because he was literally covered in onion juice.
Finishing up, he slid her onion into a prep bowl and passed her cutting board back over to her. Chef had moved on, giving them tips for peeling and mincing garlic.
“Now I see why my mom always had a jar of the pre-minced stuff in the fridge,” Hunter grumbled.
Emma put her hand to her chest. “Blasphemy!”
“What, your parents always did this rigamarole?”
“My grandma would have had my mom’s head if she’d dared try to use anything else.”
“Harsh.”
“Yeah.” Emma shook her head, smiling wryly. “But that was Grandma.”
Her smile slowly faded away.
It wasn’t exactly an awkward silence that ensued, considering Chef was yapping away, and Hattie was fawning over Betty’s scarf, and everyone else was cursing their garlic as they mashed it into tiny pieces. He glanced over at Emma and cleared his throat.
“You, uh, said your grandmother lived with you when you were growing up?”
“Yeah. She had a bunch of health issues.” Emma chuckled. “My dad used to joke sometimes that she was my mom’s second child.”
“Sounds tough.”
“It was. But it was also cool. I got to know her a lot better than most people ever get to know their grandparents. And my mom would have done anything for her, you know?” She exhaled roughly, mincing her garlic to the point of almost being paste.
“But it also made my mom so stressed. She worked, and took care of me, and took care of her own mom. We couldn’t go on much in the way of vacations or anything, because it would have meant getting some sort of interim care for Grandma, and she wasn’t well enough to travel for years there at the end. ”
“Yeah, I get that.” Hunter’s parents had had all of their plans go up in smoke when his mom had gotten sick, too. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Anyway, it’s cool that they get to travel together now.”
He snuck another glance at her. The wistfulness in her voice showed up as lines around her mouth.
He hesitated, focusing on sliding his garlic into another tiny prep bowl. Lord help whoever had to do the dishes after this class.
But then he cleared his throat. “So what was your dad up to, during all of that?”
“Oh, he helped, of course. But he worked this super intense job. Senior partner at a law firm. Long hours and all.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, but somebody had to pay the bills.” It sounded like she was quoting her dad there, and it grated at something in Hunter.
“Paying the bills isn’t everything.”
“No, but it’s important, especially when you have medical expenses to deal with.” She said it firmly. “And he really did pitch in the best he could. He kept all of our morale up. Reminded us to focus on the positive.”
Hunter couldn’t help feeling like maybe the guy had reminded them about that a little too much. Even now, Emma was visibly wiping the rueful expression from her face and replacing it with a way-too-cheerful smile.
“Can you pass me a tomato?” she asked.
He did, grabbing one for himself as well.
Even with a giant, commercial stove in the kitchen, only so many folks at a time could get going on actually cooking.
Chef had led the first group of four over to sauté up some chicken he’d chopped and marinated ahead of time with their onions and garlic, while the rest of them were starting in on preparing other toppings for the meal.
Hattie demonstrated coring and seeding the tomato, which was a pretty neat trick, if he did say so himself, and it was a good distraction while he tried to figure out whether to push Emma any further about her family.
He ended up compromising with himself, letting go of the whole grandmother issue to get back to cooking. “So, with all that mincing fresh garlic by hand going on, what kind of stuff did your mom like to cook?”
Emma perked up, seizing on the change of topic with obvious relief.
“Oh, all kinds of things. A lot of Chinese recipes, of course, but she loved having the Food Network on in the background. She was always trying new recipes from all over the world.” She shook her head.
“I know she’s having fun, going on Dad’s Great American Road Trip with him, but she must be losing her mind just a little bit, not having a real kitchen to play in. ”
He shrugged. “Maybe she’s enjoying the break.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged, finishing dicing her tomato and moving on to a cucumber.
“If they ever come back to the Northeast, I’m hoping maybe I can get her to give me some lessons.
” She gestured around with her knife. “Not that this isn’t great, but I’d love to be able to cook more of the dishes she used to make when I was kid. ”
“She didn’t hand down the recipes?”
“Half of them she made up, I think. The other half are scribbled on notecards and completely indecipherable.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Yeah. It is.” For once, she didn’t move on to “making the best of things” right away, her expression thoughtful as she finished chopping her tomato. Eventually, she cleared her throat, though, and nudged him carefully with her elbow. “How about you? Who was the cook in your family?”
“Definitely my mom. Well, you know.” He swallowed, his voice grating.
“Right—sorry—”
“No, it’s okay.” More than okay, honestly.
Before Emma waltzed into his life, he never talked about his mom.
There was a big, closed door in front of him that he’d never really even tested the knob on.
His dad had slammed it shut five minutes after the funeral, but that was over a decade ago.
Now, somehow, Emma kept knocking, presenting him with opportunities to crack the door open, and…
It didn’t hurt the way he’d always thought it would.
He didn’t want to go hurtling on through, running roughshod through memories. His eyes had watered enough chopping onions, thank you very much. But taking a peek? Letting a little more light in through the gap?
Somehow, that was okay.
“She mostly made basic meat-and-potatoes kind of stuff.” He could see his mother now, standing in the kitchen, sunlight shining on her dark hair. “And I was a picky little bugger. She refused to cook two meals to appease me, but she never let me go hungry, either.”
“Oh?”
“She’d find something to put on the table that wasn’t junk that I wouldn’t mind, and I learned real early how to make a mean peanut butter and jelly.”
“Dinner of champions.”
He wasn’t going to mention the fact that he still had it at least a couple of times a week, though usually for lunch, not supper.
“She had both me and Kyra help her out, too. Nothing big or dangerous, but just little jobs, so we learned something about how to feed ourselves.” He exhaled deeply. “But after she was gone, I’m not gonna lie. My dad was a wreck.” Still was. “So it was a lot of Chef Boyardee and Hamburger Helper.”
“I think I’d rather have the peanut butter and jelly.”
“Oh, believe me, I did. Regularly.” He shrugged, focusing on the veggies on his cutting board. “But we got by.”
He braced himself, not wanting any pity or sympathy. And bless her, she didn’t offer him any. But for a moment, she set down her knife. Her fingers twitched like she was thinking about reaching for his hand, but they were both messy, and that still felt like an awfully big bridge to cross.
Instead, she merely slid over a couple of inches, and for a second, she let her arm rest against his, and it was… nice.