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“If there’s a serial killer out in those woods just waiting for the cover of a creepy storm so he can kill us, I’m going to bepissed.”
Carly di Matisse snickered as her best friend Sloane Russo’s wild imagination got the best of her…again. Carly stopped short on the floorboards of the cozy mountain bungalow they’d shared for the last six months, undoing the top button of her chef’s whites and tossing her keys on the counter.
“You watch too many horror movies. It’s just a little storm. Look, I’m barely wet.” Carly raised her arms up as proof. As if offended by her nonchalance, the storm flashed a split of silvery light outside their living room window, immediately chasing it with a crack of thunder to rival the shrieking wind.
Sloane arched a brow in Carly’s direction from her perch on the couch before shooting a wary look at the windows. “That’s because we have a garage, smartass. I swear it doesn’t rain like this in Brooklyn.”
Okay, fine. So Sloane had a point. The wind sure didn’t shake the bricks of Carly’s New York brownstone with its gusting and groaning, and you could forget being able to hear it from the deep recesses of any big city kitchen. Raindrops crashed over the bungalow with even more force now, like handfuls of marbles being angrily pelted at the logs.
Things were definitely different in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains, a.k.a. The Middle of Nowhere. And the severe weather wasn’t the half of it.
“Yeah, yeah. We’re not in Kansas anymore,cucciola.” Carly hoped her homesickness didn’t permeate her voice as much as it did her chest. God, she hated being so far away from home.
Sloane’s head snapped up. “Oh, Carly. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” Lightning streaked the sky, and a near-simultaneous clap of thunder ripped through the night. “So you want a cup of tea? I was going to give that new vanilla chai a whirl, see if it’s any good.”
Not the slickest subject change in the world, but it’d do. Carly didn’t want to talk about the reasons she’d left New York any more than Sloane wanted to tangle with that imaginary serial killer.
“It’s after midnight. Aren’t you exhausted?” Sloane eyed Carly’s sauce-splattered chef’s whites, the product of a typical Saturday double shift.
“Weird hours are an occupational hazard. Especially since it’s just me in the kitchen now.” She flicked on the overhead light in the kitchen, her Dansko clogs whispering over the hardwood as she moved to find the teakettle.
“Weird hours. Don’t I know it.” Sloane closed the laptop propped over her pajama-clad knees with a mutter. “If I don’t get these pages to my editor before I leave on Monday, I’m going to be ankle-deep in a shit situation. Speaking of which,” Sloane paused just long enough for it to be noticeable. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay all by your lonesome for a whole week while I’m at my conference?”
Carly tested the water rushing from the kitchen faucet, her answer as steady as the stream under her fingers. “In the twenty years you’ve known me, have I ever not been okay?”
Sloane held up her hands to concede. “Point taken. Youareeveryone’s favorite tough cookie.” She padded over to the breakfast bar separating the kitchen from the living room, flinching at a particularly loud clap of thunder as she went.
“I come by it honestly,” Carly said, coaxing a burner to life with a turn of her wrist. Her profession dictated she wear a certain amount of toughness on her sleeve. Current circumstances took things one step further, pushing her to wear the rest of her fortitude like a suit of armor.
“Yeah, about that.” Sloane winced, tucking the dark swath of her bangs behind one ear. “Travis called while you were at work. Said it was important.”
Carly’s stomach did a full gainer due south. “Did he say what he wanted?” It figured she’d get hit with this when she was trying to unwind. Travis had always known how to wreck a good thing.
Sloane made a rude noise and a face to match, propping her elbows on the granite counter at the breakfast bar. “You should be so lucky. He just said he needed to talk to you ay-sap. His cheesy expression, not mine.”
“Well, shit.” This was about as eloquent—and polite—as Carly got when it came to her ex. While she could run a high-pressure kitchen without feeling an ounce of stress, dealing with her soon-to-be former husband was another story altogether. The man was the living embodiment of ulterior motives.
“Personally, I think you should ignore the call and let your lawyer have at him. He’s just trying to rile you up. Now that you’re not there in person, he’s got no choice but to phone it in.”
Carly reached for two mugs, dropping a tissue-thin tea bag into each one. “Travis wouldn’t spend the energy unless he wanted something. This is a man who manipulated his way into a head chef’s job by way of my coattails, then schmoozed everyone in the five boroughs into believinghewas the true talent behind our husband and wife team. Never mind thatI’mthe one who created the menu at Gracie’s from pot to plate while he just stood there looking pretty and taking the credit.”
Her voice gave a slight hitch over the name of the restaurant where she’d spent over four years as co-head chef, only to be ousted by the owner when she gave him the either-Travis-goes-or-I-go ultimatum. Of course, the fact that the owner’s daughter, Alexa—who also happened to be the restaurant manager—was completely smitten with Travis probably went a long way toward making the decision easy. Carly often wondered if the owner would’ve felt the same way if he’d been the one to catch Travis and Alexa having sex in the back office after hours. Not that it mattered now.
Sloane rolled her baby blues. “Please. You’re so much better off out here.”
“Am I?” The question crossed Carly’s lips before she could tamp it down. “It’s not as if Travis had to leave the city to get out from beneathmyshadow.” She should’ve known better than to tie herself to him so inextricably in the first place. Everything they’d done in their five years of marriage had been a joint endeavor, with his name headlining. God, with all his sweet talking and that confident trust-me smile, he’d had her convinced it was all just a part of their happily ever after.
More like a bushel full of poison apples, each one stamped with his conniving name. The only way to salvage her reputation among the tight-knit kitchen circles in the city was to hope that out of sight truly did mean out of mind.
And running a kitchen in the Pennsylvania boondocks certainly qualified as out of sight.
Sloane interrupted Carly’s thoughts. “Yes, but Travis wasn’t offered the once-in-a-lifetime chance to revitalize a restaurant at a beautiful mountain resort. Pine Mountain’s executives courted you alone, darling, and with good reason. Once the reviews come in and La Dolce Vita takes off like the superstar it is, you’ll be able to write your ticket to any restaurant in New York.” She gave a look that dared Carly to argue before adding, “Ifyou even feel like going back.”
“You’re kidding, right? I’m a born and raised city girl.” New York was the Promised Land in the restaurant world, and she wanted her place back as a rising star. Badly enough to wait things out in Mapdot, Pennsylvania.
