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As much as he hated the notion, selling off some of the property—although not to Bradley Pillsbury, not if he could help it—might be the best way to rescue the town.
Last resort, though. Totally last resort. Who knew? Maybe this year’s antique fair would fill in the cash flow gap, at least long enough for Dev to get a better handle on things. It always had before, and the deadline for vendor registration fees was Friday.
Yeah, that was the answer. All he needed was a little patience. A little patience and it would all work out. Dev could totally be patient—although Nash had always claimed what Dev called patience was really self-denial and pigheadedness.
Unbidden, the feel of Casey’s cock in his hand returned, the taste of Casey’s kiss, like peaches and honey, the tickle of Casey’s curls. If Dev had been more patient before he’d taken that leap, if he’d had an ounce of self control, maybe he’d have caught the signs, the signs that Casey wasn’t who he seemed to be.
Christ, Casey wasn’t just engaged, he was engaged to Bradley fucking Pillsbury. Anyone who’d be willing to tie himself to that asshole for life wasn’t somebody who could ever be happy in Home, who could ever be content with someone like Dev.
Patience. That’s all it takes. Casey would be gone in two months, and then Dev could return to his regularly scheduled life.
He glared at the spreadsheet. “The life with leaky library roofs, mysterious autopayments, and goddamn fucking Port-a-Potties.”
Oh, yeah. Good times.
“Casey, my dear.” Sylvia settled onto the stool at the end of Casey’s station. “You seem more than usually distracted today. Is there something the matter?”
Casey surveyed the carnage on his bench, the poor duck that was somehow burnt on the outside and raw in the middle. “Other than this, you mean?” And how did anybody curdle chutney?
Sylvia chuckled. “I suspect you would have made a better job of the chutney if you’d actually been paying attention to preparing it.”
She had a point. He’d been so focused on cornering Dev in the middle of the afternoon that he’d rushed through the recipe. Apparently, you couldn’t get duck to roast faster by glaring at it or upping the oven temperature every five minutes.
Who knew?
“Sorry, Sylvia. I’ll try harder next time.” He glanced at the clock. Nearly three. It had taken over six hours to get this far. If he had to start this stupid recipe all over again, he wouldn’t get out of here until after nine if he was lucky. Sylvia was being incredibly patient with him, considering he was taking up all her time too, and learning how to cook these recipes was the reason he was here. He needed to put his own wishes on the back burner. So to speak.
She pursed her lips and folded her hands in her lap. “I wonder if there should be a next time.”
The bottom dropped out of Casey’s belly. Was he about to be expelled from another cooking school, one Uncle Walt had paid a mint for, one where he was the only freaking student? “I promise I’ll pay closer attention. Please don’t kick me out.”
“What?” She slid off the stool and hurried over to him to enfold him in a hug. “Of course I’m not kicking you out. Not if you truly want to stay.”
He sagged within her embrace, returning the hug carefully. She was nearly seventy, after all, and her bones seemed as fragile as a sparrow’s.
“I’m not sure why I can’t get this.” He patted her gently on the back and released her. “I mean, billions of people cook every day, right?”
“That’s a safe assumption, since people do have to eat if they expect to survive. But not everyone attempts this level of complexity, at least not on a daily basis.” She flicked a finger at the canister that held the sourdough starter, which they’d named Carl. “Take Carl, for instance. Tomorrow we can use a bit of him to make a rustic sourdough loaf. Considering your success with those tarts—”
“I had help with those.” Casey dropped his gaze to the floor, scuffing the toe of his trainer through a scatter of flour. “I can’t claim credit for how they turned out.”
“Nonsense.” She gestured to the pitiful duck. “You had help with this too, with all the recipes we’ve tried so far, and yet those rustic tarts are the only things that… that…”
“Didn’t either destroy the summer kitchen or make you want to hurl?”
She chuckled. “I was going to say the only things that you were pleased with. You know, simple food isn’t shameful, neither eating it nor preparing it. In my book, a perfectly grilled cheese sandwich, browned nicely and served with a nice, crisp pickle, is just as admirable as roast duck. They both feed the body, but touch different parts of the soul.”
Casey picked up a bench knife and scraped chutney detritus off the cutting board. “Somehow, I can’t see Uncle Walt agreeing to change the Chez Donatien menu to offer grilled cheese and rustic tarts instead of Beef Wellington and Marjolaine.”
“Perhaps not. But Casey, my dear, perhaps he should offer those dishes with another chef at the helm?”
“But I promised him.” Casey’s voice shook. “He never once broke a promise to me”—unlike my father—“so how can I renege? He’s so set on this, on continuing the family legacy—”
“Piffle,” she said. “What legacy? Donald was the first chef in your family. If I recall, Walter is in finance. Yes, Donald opened a string of restaurants, all of which were successful for a time. But of those, only Chez Donatien was in operation at his death. And frankly? I suspect he would have moved on to another project before long if his blood pressure, temper, and refusal to moderate his diet hadn’t gotten to him. That’s the danger in believing in your own omnipotence.” She smiled wryly. “Humility in the face of our own mortality is a lesson we all have to learn. Unfortunately Donald’s came too late.”
Casey blinked at her. Nobody, not his father’s sous chef, his line cooks, the food critics—and certainly not Uncle Walt—had ever spoken about his father like that. Like he wasn’t the patron saint of haute cuisine. Guilt niggled at Casey because he found it such a relief that he wasn’t the only person in the world who didn’t worship at his father’s altar.
“Um…”
