Chapter 6
Early June
Titus nudged open the heavy back door and stepped into warmth thick with garlic, onions, and butter pushed one breath too far on the stove.
The crate of steaks dug into his shoulder, but the ache barely registered once he spotted Kyla cutting across the kitchen with her hair twisted up and her mouth set firm.
He stopped just inside, not ready to call her name, not certain his voice would come out right if he tried.
He shifted the crate to his other arm. The handle had already worked a sting into his palm. The useful kind that came from carrying something needed. In the dining room, chairs scraped and somebody laughed too loudly, not because anything was funny, but because he wanted everyone close to hear him.
Mason jar candles burned low along the tables. Light broke in the bowls of wineglasses and skipped across faces Titus did not know.
Kyla stood out before his eyes fully adjusted. Black jeans that did nothing to soften the strength in her legs. A white chef coat buttoned high like armor. Shoulders shaped by years of lifting stockpots and hauling more than her frame had ever promised.
She caught a wobbling water glass before it tipped, wiped the pass-through with the back of her hand, then moved again with her lips shaping silent numbers. Every motion came clipped and clean. No wasted turns. No wasted reach. Nobody else in that kitchen took up so much room without speaking.
Titus lowered the ribeyes to the far end of the counter, fingers spread wide so the crate would not bang against the steel. This deep in the kitchen, the dining room dulled to a low layer behind the scrape of pans and the hiss off the range.
When Kyla passed close, vanilla cut through smoke and sweat. Lotion, maybe. Soap. Something softer than the room around her.
A line of knives waited in order on the prep station, bright from fresh steel. Herbs dusted the rim of a mixing bowl. Titus rolled his sleeves higher and dragged his hands down his thighs. Sweat tickled at the base of his neck.
Work kept his head pointed straight. Work kept it off the mortgage, the feed bill, and the question of whether Kyla would let him stay in her orbit if all he brought to her was a strong back and willing hands.
She glanced over. Quick. Measuring. Her brows lifted in a look that told him to either move something useful or get out of her lane. He met it for half a beat, then bent over the crate and peeled back the butcher paper. Thick ribeyes lay there, marbled and dark and costly enough to matter.
“Top right,” Kyla said. “I’ll cut.”
No thanks. No extra word. For some reason, that steadied him. It meant she had already made room for him in the rhythm of the night.
He lined trays along the prep counter and cleared the path she would need in the next hour.
Space to turn. Space to reach oil without catching his elbow.
Space to move fast when the room outside wanted feeding all at once.
Through the swinging door came chatter, forks striking china, glass touching the side of a carafe.
Titus kept his attention on the safe parts of the kitchen.
Steel. Tile. Stove light. No one in Big Timber would say it plain, but this night mattered.
City writers, Denver money, old ranchers hungry for a story they could repeat at breakfast. If they liked what Kyla had built, tonight would linger longer than the receipts.
Her sleeves were rolled high enough for him to see the old burn scar below her elbow.
He had noticed it before, but never this close.
The mark sat there without apology, ugly in the best way, proof that she had earned everything people said about her.
Her knife moved through the first steak, trimming fat with a confidence so deep it made everything around her look clumsy.
“Four tops or twos,” he asked, stacking chilled plates.
His voice rasped at the end. He swallowed it down and kept moving as if it made no difference.
Kyla ran the knife through one more pass, then set it flat on the board. “Twos near the window. Couples where they can admire themselves. Simone’s crew gets the worst light.”
A brief smirk touched her mouth. Private. Gone almost before it arrived. She looked at him then, and for one small opening, the stress in her face made room for pleasure.
The walk-in door opened behind them and the sous-chef hurried through with a tray of herbs, breathless and apologetic and easy to forget the second he passed. Titus wiped his brow with the back of his wrist and kept his hands busy.
Plates. Towels. Salt bowl. Anything that kept him from fidgeting with the crate. Warm air from the stove fan ran over his face. Kyla stayed near the edge of his thoughts whether he wanted her there or not.
She worked around him in close passes that never quite touched. She opened the oven, slid plates onto the rack, crossed behind him, and each time the distance narrowed by a fraction.
In any other life, he might have put a hand to the small of her back and let it stay there. In this one, he braced both palms on the counter and tried to be useful without asking for more than she meant to give.
Then she started calling to the crew. Her voice stayed low and sharp, every order stripped to what mattered. He found himself breathing to her timing. She crossed to a rookie’s plate, lifted a garnish with her fingers, shifted it left, and moved on without apology.
She barely saw anyone but him in the brief seconds when the line eased and her shoulders dropped, but Titus had enough sense to know shared strain could look like many things from the wrong angle.
The evening tightened around them. Glasses rang in the dining room as new guests came through the door. Titus straightened, rolled one shoulder, and turned back to the pass before anyone caught the uncertainty working under his skin.
If she needed brawn or backup, she would tell him. Until then, he would move trays, stack plates, and wait for the smallest sign that he belonged here for more than muscle.
By seven, every chair in the dining room was full.
Plates came back scored with knives and half-finished bites.
Titus moved between kitchen and floor with sweat working under his shirt and steam sticking to his skin.
The room outside carried a city kind of noise that sat wrong on Montana air.
A car with Denver plates eased up near the curb.
Somebody in heels laughed into her phone beside the side door, lips painted the same red Kyla wore when she wanted the world to know she had come armed.
He crossed the dining room with a tray balanced one-handed, ducking coat sleeves and elbows and phones lifted to record first bites.
Gold rings caught the candlelight. Guests aimed cameras at their plates as if proof mattered more than taste.
Titus kept his jaw set and his eyes low.
Nobody looked twice at him. Kyla was the draw. He was traffic.
Back in the kitchen, sweat gathered between his shoulder blades and stayed there. Kyla ran the pass like the whole place answered to her pulse.
“Mid on six now. James, scallops. Titus, ice for the bar on the right.”
She pivoted, corrected a garnish with two fingers, then looked at him when he took half a second too long, and the look made clear she had no mercy left for anyone lagging behind.
He went for the ice bin, knuckles aching against the lid.
More guests crowded the dining room. Suits.
Sharp shoes. Watches that cost more than a feed run.
By the time he came back from the walk-in, the room had shifted again.
New voices. A ripple that moved through the front of house with no one willing to name it.
Then he saw why.
Simone came through the dining room with her dark hair pulled sleek and her suit sharp enough to make everyone else look rumpled. She did not hurry. She did not need to. Heads turned. Conversations dipped.
Even the locals who pretended not to care tracked her progress anyway. She carried Manhattan with her in the way she looked at a room, as if she had already measured what it could offer and found it lacking.
She came all the way to the pass before Kyla spoke.
“Critics eat last.”
Kyla flipped a plate and covered a mark nobody else would have noticed.
Simone leaned on the stainless edge as if it belonged to her. “You always did hide your best in a mess.”
Her tone stayed soft enough to pass for civility, but the line came sharp. Her gaze slid over Kyla’s arms and paused at the old burn before returning to her face.
The kitchen narrowed to that patch of counter. Titus set his tray down and gripped the edge hard enough for the metal to bite. Simone did not spare him a glance, but her perfume cut through the air anyway, expensive and cold with something bitter under it.
“Tomorrow night,” Simone said. “Manhattan. You, me, a hotel kitchen, and a pop-up with your name on it if you want the press.”
Her smile came thin and bright. “Unless you plan to waste this on Montana.”
Kyla did not move. Her shoulders locked tighter and a pulse worked once at the base of her throat, but her voice stayed flat.
“This pays. That doesn’t.”
Simone watched her as if the answer had only amused her. “New York would print your name where it belongs. Think about that before this place drains you dry.”
A server in plaid skirted between them with a stack of side plates and blocked the view for a breath. When the sightline opened again, Simone had already turned away. She sent one last look over her shoulder, sharp with challenge, and kept moving.
Kyla’s hands went still.
For one stretched second, kitchen noise thinned in Titus’s ears. The offer sat there, real and ugly in the middle of Kyla’s Montana soft open. Every part of his chest fought the urge to grab her hand or put his fist through the smug line of Simone’s mouth.