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“Oh, Casey, I’m so sorry.” She grabbed his hand and squeezed. “I lack the least modicum of tact. That’s one of the things that got me in trouble before. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“You didn’t.” He smiled at her as he returned the squeeze. “I was just surprised that somebody finally saw a different side of my father.” One closer to the one I knew.
She chuckled. “Well, I was his rival, not his employee, friend, or family, so perhaps I had a different perspective. I remember once when—” Her cell phone buzzed in her pocket. “Drat. I thought I silenced that for our lesson. I do beg your pardon.”
Casey picked up the bench knife again and waggled it in a shooing motion. “Go ahead and answer it. I’ll be cleaning up this mess for a while anyway, before I can start again.”
She held up one finger as she pulled out the phone. “Hold that thought. We haven’t finished this conversation.” She connected the call and paced toward the end of the room and the door to her tiny office. “Hello?”
Casey turned back to his cleanup, with Sylvia’s low-voiced conversation as a soundtrack. He poked at the duck’s charred skin. If only he hadn’t gotten so impatient. If he’d just let it roast at the right temperature for that stupidly long time, he’d be finished by now and on his way to confront Dev. Instead, he had the whole mess to do over, probably to fail again, and the idea of all the waste made his stomach cramp.
Hmmm…
Val had told Casey that some of the food they used for the animals at the shelter was duck-based. He had no idea whether that meant duck-based kibble or actual duck, but it wouldn’t hurt to check. This could be just the ticket for obligate carnivores.
If Casey couldn’t manage edible people food, maybe he could serve up treats to Home’s animal population. After all, somebody should benefit from all this effort.
As he was packing the duck for transport, Sylvia’s voice rose.
“Nazariy, you guaranteed I’d have those black truffles by tomorrow. My lesson depends on them.”
The combination of that name—Nazariy—and black truffles caught Casey’s ear. Sylvia had to be talking to Nazariy Sobol, who ran Sobol Food Traders in New Jersey. Casey left the half-wrapped duck and inched closer. Yeah, maybe it was rude to eavesdrop on Sylvia’s conversation, but the seed of an idea was taking root.
He peeked into the office. Sylvia was squinting up at the ceiling, phone pressed to her ear with one hand and the other hand gripping her hair so tightly it had to be painful.
“This is insupportable. I pay your ridiculous surcharges specifically so I can get the ingredients I require. How you can sell my order out from under me—”
Casey could hear Nazariy’s harsh squawks, although they were noise, not actual words. Judging by the way Sylvia’s brows snapped down, whatever he was saying wasn’t welcome news.
“No, I will not pay extra. I’m already paying extra.” Her expression turned bleak as the squawking went on, and she let the phone drift down to her lap.
Casey reached out and took it gently, cutting off Nazariy mid-squawk. “That was the guy from Sobol Food Traders, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “It’s days like this that make me wish I hadn’t quit drinking. Which, according to Nazariy, nobody in the industry believes, anyway.”
“My dad had trouble with him all the time.” He took her elbow and led her back to his pristine station. “Sit down and I’ll make you a cup of that cardamom tea you like.”
“Thank you, dear, but you needn’t go to the trouble.”
“It’s no trouble to help a friend.” He switched on the electric kettle and retrieved two very large mugs from Peach’s cupboard. As the water boiled, he sat down facing her. “Was he very horrible to you?”
She laughed weakly. “Other than selling those black truffles for your Beef Wellington to that new bistro in Soho and insinuating that I wouldn’t be hiding out in the backwoods of Vermont if I were sober, nothing out of the ordinary.”
“What a dickhead.” He winced. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. He is, without a doubt, a huge dickhead.”
Even though the water hadn’t boiled, Casey rose and shuffled to the counter. He stared down at the blue lights on the kettle’s power base. “It’s my fault.”
“How did you reach that astonishing conclusion?”
He bit his lip as he filled two tea balls with the cardamom tea and dropped them in the mugs. “How can it not be?”
“Casey—”
“Those black truffles were for me, just like all the other rare ingredients you’ve had to buy.” The kettle beeped, and he poured water over the tea. “If it weren’t for my lessons, for Dad’s stupidly fancy recipes, you wouldn’t have to deal with Nazariy.”
She sighed as he passed her the steaming cup. “If it wasn’t him, it would be someone else. None of my old suppliers are quite as eager to keep me happy as they were when I still had influence.”
