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This was important to Tad.
It was important toher.
She had wanted to do this and now was her chance. Through the window to the dining room, like a porthole onto another world, she surveyed the restaurant that needed feeding.
Bella had just seated a table of four and another party hovered at the hostess podium. Who the hell were these people and why were they eating so early?
She looked down at the hands that fed her son, rubbed his tummy when he was ill, soothed him when he was teething. She was more than a mom, a sister, a friend. One day, she would be a chef and it looked like that one day was now.
Time to brief her staff on the new world order. She was headed to the front of house to tell Bella who was running tonight’s show when in walked her date.
Bollocks.
* * *
Jules was actually enjoying herself. The menu was so small that she knew it by heart.
Food was getting out in a somewhat timely fashion and nothing had been sent back. Bella was struggling but Jules was usually on hand to recommend a cheese or charcuterie and wine pairing.
She had installed Dan at the bar and asked Reuben to give him whatever he wanted. Having to work at the last minute was actually the perfect excuse to send him on his way, but he had seemed so forlorn when she started in on her story about the scheduling snafu that she didn’t have the heart to cut the night short.
Besides, he looked no more than twelve and was sporting a bow tie. That indicated a certain level of sadness that she didn’t want to pile onto.
Ten minutes to go before Tad got here and rescued her, except she realized that she didn’t need rescuing. She had always thought that she had, from the moment she stood in class to read and felt the cruel stares of the other children before she had opened her mouth. They had all known what was coming. The stuttering, coughing delivery of an imbecilic schoolgirl, light years behind her peers. She had wanted the cheap linoleum tile of her classroom to open up and swallow her because rescue was inconceivable. It had taken the life-changing event of Evan for her to meet Jack halfway. To let him rescue her. And he had been doing it ever since.
Well, no more.
Blimey, what a great night! Except for Derry losing five pints of blood, that is.
Bella popped into the kitchen to pick up the cheese and charcuterie for Table 3. Jules had suggested a nice creamy Camembert and a smoky duck prosciutto that she was very fond of. It went so well with that medium-bodied Chilean Pinot Tad had introduced her to last week.
“I think it’s her,” Bella said as she picked up the plates. She could only manage two at a time, bless her.
“You think it’s who?” Jules asked absently. She smeared golden-toasted ciabatta slices with her artichoke and mortadella spread. Pride swelled her chest.My food is on themenu.
“Her.You know.”
“Going to need more deets, B.”
Bella put one of the plates down, then picked it up again, getting a better grip. “The woman fromTasty Chicago. I just seated her at Table 8.”
Jules bounded over to the kitchen window on a cloud of panic and verified her worst nightmare. Monica Grayson, über-critic. was in the house.
7:15 and no sign of Tad. Dread curled around every positive thought and choked it dead, not unlike the malicious weeds that tried to steal the life from her garden’s produce. But it didn’t have to be that way. Jules knew the menu—maybe not the wine menu as extensively as a knowledgeable server would, but she knew it better than Bella.
“Bella, go check on your tables.”
“But, what about—?”
“I’ll handle this,” Jules said with steel in her tone. Ooh, she liked how that sounded.
Bella’s usually blank face registered surprise, but she merely nodded and went back out front.
She’s just a critic. A sharp, all-knowing, intimidating critic.Imagine her naked.
Imagine her soft, porcelain skin…and soft, porcelain hands tracing Tad’s lean musculature.
Maybe don’t imagine her naked.
