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“Really? So no aspirations to open a restaurant in a more populated area?” I asked.
“None whatsoever,” he said. “Does that make me boring?”
“No, not boring. Unusual though.”
“I’ve always been an odd duck.”
“Better than an Ugly Duckling,” I said.
“Don’t tell me you think of yourself as an Ugly Duckling?”
“Well, obviously, I’m a swan now, but I haven’t always been.”
“You certainly are now. A swan, I mean.” His gaze moved away from me to focus on cleaning his counter of flour. “I’m just a man content with what I have,” he said, after a moment. “You want a sandwich? We should eat.”
“I’d love one.”
As he put turkey sandwiches together, he described how he’d loved to cook from the time he was a little boy. “Mama encouraged me to do what I felt passionate about, so here I am.”
“You were lucky to have a mother like that.”
“I was. I am.” Caspian slid a plate with the sandwich over to me, then untied his apron from around his waist and set it on the counter before pulling up a stool to sit next to me. “What about you?”
“My aunt Biddie was super encouraging,” I said. “If my mother had lived, I think she would have been too. I was cooking all the meals by the time I was ten.”
“When did she pass away?”
“When I was eleven,” I said.
“And you lost Aunt Biddie recently, right?”
The way he said her name made me almost tearful. “That’s right.”
“You miss her. Obviously.” His eyes softened.
“I do. It’s weird to think I have no family left at all.”
“Is that why you didn’t ask for any time off at Christmas?” Caspian asked.
“You noticed that, huh?”
“It did pique my curiosity about you. But I haven’t wanted to pry.”
“I don’t mind. You can ask me anything.” I nibbled on a corner of my sandwich, not really hungry but knowing I should eat.
“What about your dad? Was he around?” Caspian took a bite of his sandwich and chased it with a sip of water.
“No, he was a nonentity. My mom never talked about him, other than to say he was a fling.”
“That might have been a blessing,” Caspian said. “Knowing my real father left me wishing I hadn’t.”
I wanted desperately to ask him to elaborate but didn’t. Instinct told me that men like Caspian Moon shared when they were ready.
“How did you end up in culinary school?” He pushed his plate away and turned to look at me.
“I knew that’s what I wanted to do,” I said. “A teacher at my high school encouraged me to make my passion a career. I loved culinary school. For the first time, I felt like I met my people.”
“How so?”
