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“Nope. It’s not. I love my brother’s food and I want his. That’s a great compliment and he knows it.”
He shook his head. It was and he was a sucker for his twin sister and let it go. She did a lot for him anyway.
“It’s not like she comes in daily,” he said. “It’s all good. You’ll get your cake this week too.”
“Thank you, Duke. Your bark has always been worse than your bite.”
He got up and left before he made some sarcastic comment back to her. He got what he needed today anyway and would go for a run. He'd do some work from home and then he’d go to the restaurant and get started on his day.
Anything to get his mind off of meeting with Hadley tomorrow.
11
In The Shadows
Hadley pulled up at Southside at ten. She knew the delivery was coming before then. The truck would have been on the nine a.m. ferry from Plymouth.
When she parked, she saw the delivery guys wheeling everything in while Duke looked it over since a delivery was changed last minute.
“I didn’t realize you weren’t working today,” Duke said when she walked closer to him.
“It’s fine,” she said.
“No, it’s not. I should have checked the schedule. It wasn’t until I got here and didn’t see your car that I wondered what was going on.”
She smiled softly. “Did you think I was late or slacking off?”
“No,” he said. “I can tell that in my staff right away. Just like I knew Diane wasn’t happy here, but I didn’t think she’d do what she had. Doesn’t matter. I’ve got a new chef starting tonight.”
“That was fast,” she said.
“Zeke is already employed at Duke’s as a line cook. He’s young and eager.”
“Oh,” she said. “Was that the guy you were with before we opened yesterday?”
She’d seen him here talking to someone, but he didn’t come over to say much to her. She hadn’t even known he was going to be here. He came in and went to his office and then was showing someone around. By the time she was done baking, she was taking pictures and cleaning up, then moving to the front of the house to get ready for the lunch service. He’d still been in the back with the guy.
“Yes. He’s going to be shadowing the kitchen tonight, but he knows most of the menu. This will allow him to see how things are done for the few things he might not know.”
She nodded. Most of that didn’t mean much to her. “That’s great,” she said. “And since he’s working for you already, no worries about tempers or walking off the job.”
He frowned at her. “Tempers? Who has a temper?”
She put her foot in her mouth with that. “No one. Don’t cooks have tempers in the kitchen? Diane did. I remember my father and mother telling me about it before. But I haven’t seen much of anything since I’ve been here.”
No way she was going to rat anyone out. Some of the servers got moody in the back, but she hadn’t seen anyone take it out on a customer. If she did she wasn’t sure she’d say anything either.
Life was just easier in the shadows where she liked to stay.
“That’s good to know. I’d like to be informed if there were problems, but understand it doesn’t happen. I’ve been vocal with all the staff about that. Don’t feel like I’m just saying it to you.”
That made her feel better. “Do you want me to help you put all this away?”
“Nope,” he said. “It’s just about done. Everything is here and once the truck pulls away, I’ve got staff coming in to deal with it. It’s part of their job.”
She wasn’t here the last few deliveries or wasn’t paying attention more than anything else. “Okay. Where do you want to meet? In your office? I’ve got my laptop to show you some things I’ve put together.”
Her purse was big enough to toss her laptop in there.
