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“Soup too?” I asked, noticing a steaming Styrofoam cup with a lid.
“We don’t do a lot of soup in the summer, but the weather today called for a summer minestrone.”
I picked up the sandwich and took a bite. The flavors came together to nearly make my eyes tear up again. It was that good.
“You’re not eating?” I asked when I’d swallowed the first bite, then quickly took another.
“We have a staff meal before the dinner shift.”
“So you’re the chef, huh?” Another bit of gossip I’d inadvertently gathered on a trip home, after Guinevere Henry had turned her restaurant over to her grandsons. I’d told myself none of Cash’s news was relevant to me anymore, but with a town like this, you could never avoid hearing bits here and there.
“I am.”
“I knew you liked helping your grandmother when you were really young, but I didn’t see this coming.”
“It wasn’t my lifelong plan, but the first one didn’t pan out.”
“Baseball,” I said unnecessarily. I hadn’t met him until after that dream had crashed and burned. “So how did you get from the Navy to cooking? Someone had to cook when your grandma was ready to retire and you stepped up?”
An expression flashed across his face, something I couldn’t read, but it wasn’t a happy one. Closer to a cringe.
“Did I say something wrong?” I asked.
“You made the assumption a lot of locals make. That my grandma decided to call it quits, so I picked up the apron and started cooking.” His jaw ticked, and I waited for him to say more, because surely there was more. He didn’t, though.
“No?” I prompted.
Cash straightened. “I went into the Navy not knowing what I wanted to do, in the service or with my life.”
“I remember.”
We’d talked for long hours about the decision. I’d planned to stand by him regardless. I could be a military wife. I could do the long periods without him, as long as I knew he was coming home to me.
Or so I’d thought.
“I was a culinary specialist, maybe because I mentioned working with my grandma as a kid. I don’t know. It wasn’t a dream job, and most guys in Culinary hated it, but it sparked something in me. After my four years were up, I came home and enrolled in culinary school.”
“You figured out your new plan.”
His answer was a single nod, and I was starting to get the message loud and clear that this was a sensitive issue.
“So culinary school and then what?” I asked, trying to figure out what I was missing.
“I worked in kitchens in Nashville for a few years under some damn good chefs. When my grandma was ready to retire, she offered up Henry’s to my siblings and me. Holden, Seth, and I took her up on it.”
“Not Hayden?”
“She’d earned a degree in design and was following that path.”
“So the three of you took over the family restaurant.” I loved that they’d kept it in the family.
Though I hadn’t eaten there often, Cash had brought me carryout frequently—back when he’d first figured out regular mealtimes weren’t my strong point. I myself wasn’t good in the kitchen and had relied on things like microwave popcorn, frozen pizza, and toaster waffles to keep my mom and myself fed. She’d preferred to drink her calories, and I’d tried to keep food in her stomach, thinking it would help soak up the alcohol. Her palate had been like a three-year-old’s, though, and I’d taken the path of least resistance to get her to eat.
“Seth runs the business end. Holden was our front-of-house manager until he left to open Rusty Anchor Brewing, and I took over the kitchen. We did a major overhaul of the building, doubling the size of the kitchen, and updated the rest of the place.”
“So people think you just inherited and assume you didn’t earn your chef chops?” I asked.
He blew out a breath. “In a nutshell. It’s stupid to let it bother me. I know what I’ve been through. I know I’m a damn good chef who held my own in two of the best restaurants in Nashville.” He shook his head as though frustrated with himself.
