Chapter 16 #2
“Oh, it is,” he assured her. “We’re all in a massive house on the beach that my dad built—he’s an architect—and Atlas and I basically have the whole ground floor.
So, don’t judge, but I am literally living in my dad’s basement.
I mean, if Florida had basements. This one has a pool and the Gulf of Mexico outside, so it doesn’t hurt to live there, but… ”
“But it’s still living with Daddy when you’re thirty?”
He nodded. “And have a four-month-old kid.”
She leaned back, regarding him with a smile that somehow said none of that scared her, and that did more stupid things to his heart. Because she didn’t scare him, either.
Au contraire.
“You’ll figure it out.” She said it with a confidence that felt like a hand on his back, steadying. “People like you always figure it out.”
“People like me?” he scoffed. “You have no idea.”
She placed her elbows on the table and propped her absolutely adorable upside-down-heart chin on her knuckles. “I don’t,” she agreed. “But I’d like to.”
Oh, boy. That, ladies and gents, was an invitation if he’d ever heard one.
He looked back at her—this woman who somehow made a campus coffee shop feel like the most interesting place in the world—and felt the urge to RSVP right then and there.
Tomorrow? Dinner? Walk on the beach? Deep kisses and throaty laughter? Yes, please.
“So,” he said, steering into the last turn he’d been avoiding. “The guy in New Orleans.”
Pepper’s expression shifted—not closing down, just rearranging into something serious.
“Over after five long, frustrating years without the commitment I wanted and deserved.”
He winced. “Sorry.”
She waved that off. “Same as dance—always in the ensemble, never the lead.”
Oof. It wasn’t the analogy that hit him, though it was rough, but the way her real pain came through the cavalier words. It made him think there were many layers to Pepper Broussard. Many.
“It’s my pattern, apparently. Almost but not quite.
” She looked at him with those amber-tinged eyes glinting with a lightness he suspected was hard-won.
“But hey—I’m here now. Fresh start, new city, zero expectations.
Working for—and living with—my dad. No basement or Gulf of Mexico, but plenty of… peace. Which I need.”
Before Jonah could respond, he caught sight of a tall man in whites strolling into the café, eyes exactly the color of Pepper’s pinned on him.
“Speak of the…chef.”
“Yep.” She didn’t turn or follow his gaze. “I feel a change in The Force.”
Chef’s expression was neutral—the default Broussard setting that could mean anything from “mildly content” to “about to end someone’s career”—as he walked to the table. How did he know that was Pepper from behind?
Unless he was looking for Jonah?
He reached the table and stopped, looked from one to the other, and then the approximately twenty-four inches of table that separated them. Suddenly, Jonah was transported back to a middle school dance and a chaperone making sure the youngsters had a full basketball space between them.
“Pepper,” Broussard said instead of anything that sounded like a greeting.
She looked up. “Hi, Pops.”
His eyes flickered, clearly not a fan of the nickname.
“The department coordinator needs the fall enrollment projections in less than an hour. They’re on my desk in the blue folder—she’ll need the originals, not copies.
And I need you to call the vendor about the replacement immersion blenders.
The order confirmation should have come in yesterday and it didn’t.
The kitchen is essentially crippled without it. ”
Pepper’s expression didn’t change, but Jonah caught the tiny, practiced shift of a daughter who recognized her father’s maneuver for exactly what it was—an end to this rendezvous.
“Right now?” she asked.
“My next class starts in a few minutes. I can’t do it.”
“Of course.” She stood, gathering her bag and her coffee with the grace of, well, a dancer. She looked at Jonah. “Good luck with the internship. And the basement.”
“Thanks.” He gave her a tight smile. “Good talk.”
“Say hi to my little man.”
Jonah smiled but Broussard’s mustache twitched.
Jonah resisted the urge to watch Pepper glide out of the room and appreciate the rear view but only because he valued his life and career.
Broussard slid into the chair she’d vacated with the ease of a man who’d planned this transition before he’d walked in. Had he known they were in here?
“So,” the chef said, folding his hands on the table. “Isobel tells me you have a kitchen test.”
The shift was immediate—from Pepper’s warmth and electricity to the cool, focused intensity of his professor. Jonah sat up straighter without thinking about it.
“I do. She wants a signature dish.”
“And you’re making?”
“Brazilian shrimp. Moqueca style—coconut milk, palm oil, cilantro, lime. Shrimp stock from the shells.”
Broussard nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing in the way they did when he was building something in his mind. “The shrimp stock is smart. Most students would skip that step. How long are you simmering the shells?”
“Ten to twelve minutes.”
“Go fifteen. Low heat. You want to coax every bit of flavor out of those shells before you strain. And don’t add the palm oil with the sauté. Stir it in at the end with the coconut milk. It keeps the color clean.”
“I was going to sauté the aromatics in olive oil and add the palm oil later anyway.”
“Good. Then you’re already thinking about it the right way.” He paused. “What about the rice?”
“Just standard. Fluffy, neutral.”
“Consider coconut rice. Subtle way to tie the dish together. Isobel will notice the cohesion.”
Jonah filed that away. Coconut rice. Of course. It was the kind of detail that separated a good dish from a real winner.
“You’re ready,” Broussard said, and the two words carried more weight than a paragraph of praise from anyone else. “Practice the recipe until you could do it in your sleep. Trust your palate and don’t rush the stock. She’ll be watching your timing as much as your flavor.”
All good advice from a master. “Thank you, Chef.”
Broussard stood, pushing the chair back into place. He picked up Pepper’s abandoned napkin, folded it once, and set it on the table—a small, controlled gesture that seemed to have nothing to do with napkins.
Then he looked at Jonah.
The mentor was gone. In his place was something older and harder and infinitely more personal.
“One more thing, Lawson.” His voice was calm and measured, but the temperature in it had dropped. “My daughter moved here because she’s been hurt. Badly. She came to Destin, at my urging, to start over. Not to complicate her life.”
Jonah held his gaze. “Chef, I wasn’t—”
“Yes, you were.” Broussard’s gaze held steady and grew colder. “You do want that internship, don’t you?”
Wait a second. Was he implying…
“Don’t you?” he pressed.
“Yes, Chef.”
“Then be smart. Stay focused. And do exactly what I say.”
Jonah was pretty sure he didn’t mean the coconut rice. But was he making the internship contingent on staying away from Pepper?
“Heard, Chef,” Jonah said, his voice tense.
“Good.” Broussard straightened his whites. “See you in class.”
He walked out, and Jonah sat alone at the table in The Grind with his cold coffee and the ghost of Pepper’s laugh and a warning he understood completely.
The problem was, Jonah Lawson had never been great at doing what he was told. And Pepper Broussard, with her ballet slippers and her freckles and her five-year heartbreak and that laugh that still echoed long after she was gone—was not a woman a man could easily walk away from.
He turned to the window and caught sight of the two little birds doing their choreography.
Was she worth the risk?
Jonah knew the answer. He didn’t like it, but he knew it.