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His hands went up and felt around. “It’s normally a ponytail, but when I’m in a hurry I just shove it there. I’ll fix it before I start cooking.”
And he always put a bandana around his head too even if he put a hat on with it.
“Crap,” she said. She’d burned the sugar by paying attention to him and had to move the pan away and start over.
The two of them were moving around the kitchen and not saying much. She wasn’t used to this.
Well, that wasn’t true. She didn’t mind the silence while she worked, but the tension was what was getting to her more than anything.
The buzzer went off on her blondies and she went to get them and when she returned the sugar that had the butter added to it bubbled over onto the burner and she smelled that batch was burned too.
And this was why she needed the time to get this right. More so since Duke was here and would see what she was doing.
“When are your brownies going to be done?” he asked.
She’d glanced at them when she got her blondies. “Five minutes or so.”
“Don’t start the caramel until they are done. It’s touchy just like a woman can be.”
She felt her face flame up and he laughed at her. “Not funny.”
“It kind of was. Want a trick to help with it?”
“Sure,” she said. She’d be nuts to turn down any advice or tricks from him.
“Whisk as fast as you can and once it’s all melted, pull the pan off the stove and add the cream while you continue to whisk. Don’t keep it on the burner or even near heat.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll try that. I make it a lot, but sometimes this happens. I think I get doing too many things at once. Or you could be making me nervous.”
“No reason for you to be nervous around me,” he said, frowning. “You know what you’re doing. You would have figured it out, but I just figured I’d save you from washing a fourth pan if you burned it again.”
She looked up and nodded and then went back to work, hoping he went off to do something else and she’d be done soon. She wasn’t sure why he made her so nervous, but she couldn’t seem to control it.
8
Unique Hand
At the end of the day, Duke was impressed that the pub was as busy as it was.
There was part of him that was hoping it was slow toward the end so that he could leave and get to his flagship restaurant, but he couldn’t be disappointed that this place was hopping as much as it was so early on either.
By five thirty, the last of the orders went out and he started to clean up. He could take off in a few minutes and have his line cooks finish up cleaning, but since they were closed tomorrow here and he’d checked in with his staff at Duke’s and they had it covered, he might as well stick around and lock up here.
“Four more desserts going out,” Stephanie said. “Damn. I think that is the last of the brownies. I was hoping there’d be one left for me to take home.”
“Really?” he asked. “They are all gone?”
“I think so.” He’d tasted Hadley’s blueberry jam that was half gone. The caramel sauce was good when she finished it too. “There are a few blondies left,” Stephanie said. “Oh, looks like one and a half of the brownies are left. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”
He laughed. He had to admit desserts were selling more than they were before. He wasn’t sure if people thought they were his or not. He was known for everything being fresh.
“I’ll take them out,” he said. He liked to go out and walk around and talk to people when he worked. More so since he was new here.
Stephanie finished up four desserts, he got the table number and brought them out.
He caught Hadley’s eye when he came out carrying them. “I’ve got it,” she said.
“It’s fine,” he said. “I want to see how their meal was.”
