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Was she making trouble? Or fixing trouble? Seeing Addie grin up at her adoptive uncle/father, Josie wasn’t quite as sure as she’d been a few hours before.
CHAPTER FIVE
I will not cry.
Regret mixed with apprehension as Josie watched the skilled team of men package and roll her cache of kitchen equipment into clean, white panel trucks. They handled things with care, and the man and woman assigned to prepackage the smaller kitchen essentials treated her scuffed-up corn bread pans with as much tenderness as they did her stoneware ramekins for crème brûlée, a Bayou mainstay on the dessert menu.
It wasn’t the move she was regretting. The choice to stay had been taken out of her hands.
But maybe she was being foolish on multiple levels. Would she be subject to the whims of hotel executives by renting their space? Would they know better than to boss the kitchen boss? And more important, had she traded her hard-won autonomy for a chance to mess up two lives?
“I can’t believe they work this quickly.”
The rolling whir of metallic dollies had screened Jacob’s car. His voice took her by surprise. He apologized quickly, which only made him seem nicer. “Didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to make sure things were going all right, and Dale had texted me that the smoker might have to come in pieces.”
Her smoker was a brute of an outdoor apparatus. She should have built the massive device on a trailer, but didn’t because she never imagined moving it. “It’s custom-made. And huge. And ridiculously heavy.”
He followed her to the far side of the building and whistled lightly when he caught sight of her pride-and-joy piece of equipment. “Whoa.”
“I should have made it mobile, but I wasn’t planning on smoking at catered events. And it seemed silly to mount it when I planned on staying here, but as you can see, it’s a monster.”
She wasn’t sure what she expected as Jacob inspected the oil-tank-size smoker with layered smoking racks inside, but when he snapped several pictures from multiple angles, she had to ask. “Are you taking pictures to show the insurance company when we make a claim after we try to move it?”
“Not going to move it.”
“No?”
He shook his head.
“But that’s a cornerstone of Bayou beef, pork and chicken,” she told him. “Knowing what to smoke, how to season, spacing, crowding, layering. My smoker is an integral part of how I do business, Jacob.”
“If it’s been created once, it can be created again, right?”
She supposed so, but who would—
“I think it’s more cost-effective if we rebuild on-site, and to avoid this problem ever again, we’ll use a heavy-duty trailer base. I’d also like to commission a smaller version for catering. Even if we’re not really smoking per se at the event, people like the effect of having the smoker on hand.”
“You look that far ahead? Even though your part in all this will be over by then?” His oversight would be complete in a few months. He’d mentioned that last evening.
Her question surprised him. “Because it’s the right way to do things, isn’t it? To plan this out with an eye toward the future? My dad always taught me to look ahead, plan big and dream bigger.” He shrugged. “If we’re going full tilt toward making the Bayou Barbecue part of the inn, knowing folks will love that you’re still right here on the lake, why not go at it with a workable plan? You’ve done catering here.” He indicated the two decorated vans parked on the backside of the lot. “Why should this year be any different?”
Clearly he was missing the importance of a timeline when it came to restaurant food. “Because we’re going to be closed for six weeks? Because it’s hard to schedule parties when your business is in limbo? I was tied up in litigation until this week,” she reminded him. “I didn’t take on anything, I refused all requests because I had no idea if I’d even be in business this summer, Jacob.”
He ran a hand across his chin and winced slightly. “I hadn’t considered that fully. This move isn’t just affecting a six-week window, it’s affected an entire season. But we can start booking for the late summer and fall season, can’t we? And if Carrington makes the announcement that you’re coming on board, and advertises accordingly…”
