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There were apparently no easy topics on this Monday morning. “I…don’t know. Nothing, really, other than I’ve been blocking out all the feelings for two days, just trying to get through without losing it. Crashing intohim… It’s like it hit the release valve or something.”
“If I remember right, he broke your heart,” Rosy said, her voice brimming with compassion.
“We were young. I was naive. On the scale of life, it wasn’t a big deal.”
Which was a lie, but it was ancient history.
Rosy didn’t hesitate a second before saying, “I remember we all thought he was on the verge of proposing to you.”
I pressed my lips together and figured this intuitive woman could see through me, so I might as well just level with her and get back to my inn checklist. “I thought he was too.” I flashed a smile. “See? Naive. And seventeen years ago.”
“It looked like whatever was there seventeen years ago might still be there today.”
I forced a little laugh. “He’s still good-looking. I’ll give you that, but that’s all it was. My life is in California now, not Tennessee.”
She raised a questioning brow. “I don’t know if you’ve heard my history, but I grew up in California, went to college there. My girlfriends and I took a VW Bus cross-country just before finishing grad school. I had every intention of going back, but then I met Tom McNamara at a music festival, fell in love, and here I still am, nearly forty years later.”
“That’s sweet,” I said, because it was, but it was her story, not mine. “My story’s the opposite. I left Dragonfly Lake to get away from the guy. I have no interest in getting him back.”
With a shrug I hoped was conspiratorial rather than a blow-off, I opened the door, picked up the bags, and set off through the light rain to find Halstead to deliver his requests.
I could feel Rosy watching me, probably putting way too much thought into the Cash thing. There wasn’t a Cash thing, truly. I’d just been stunned to run smack into him of all people. I’d forget all about it within five minutes of returning to my to-do list if only we stopped talking about him.
I was overwhelmed by everything I needed to get done in the next week. I barely had bandwidth to pee, let alone plan a funeral and update the inn and find the perfect person to run it. The sooner I could get everything here in Dragonfly Lake handled, the sooner I could get back to my career.
The last thing I had room for was mooning over Cash Henry. And yet, as I went in the east-wing door of the inn, I couldn’t get the image of his rugged face and compassionate eyes out of my damn mind.
Chapter4
Cash
Family meal was new at Henry’s.
I’d finally convinced Seth to close down at three thirty each day for dinner prep, and that included one of the kitchen staff cooking a meal for the rest of us to share before reopening at five.
Seth had cringed at losing a little income for that hour and a half. I’d argued it would foster camaraderie. The reasoning that had finally convinced my business-freak brother, though, was that it would help retain employees in an industry where turnover was high. We were two weeks into it, and though we were still adjusting to the new rhythm, family meal was turning out to be a positive thirty to forty-five minutes that built up morale and allowed the staff to get to know each other even better. And my staff had been cooking up some damn good food. It had quickly become one of the best parts of the day for me.
Today, however, it’d been a struggle to get through. My mind was stuck in other places.
The session with Kennedy and her food photographer had been a success, according to Kennedy, who was without question an expert at marketing. The posts we ended up with looked tantalizing, and her copy was scores above our usual attempts, but in my mind, the only way to gauge success would be to wait and see whether we were selected to be on the show. It could be weeks before we knew anything.
My sous chef, Zinnia York, sidled up next to me as I triple-checked Mead’s mise en place work. He’d been with Henry’s for less than a year and had happened upon this job, with no chef training, but I’d liked his attitude and his work ethic, so I’d given him a chance. So far, I didn’t regret it. I still checked his work and in fact checked everything that went out of the kitchen when I was here, which was almost always.
“Jelena rocked the chevapcici, don’t you think?” Zinnia asked as she kept a watchful eye on tonight’s staff. She was my right hand and fully capable of running a service without me. I’d allowed it from time to time, but generally I was here for most lunches and dinners. Not because I didn’t trust her but because I burned to be here.
“If we ever decide to serve Serbian food, she’s got us covered,” I said. “That spread was unforgettable.”
“Ajvar, she called it. I could eat that on her flatbread every day.”
Mead, who’d been chopping more onions, went into the walk-in for something, and Zinnia took that opportunity to butt into my business.
“What’s wrong today, Cash? You seem uptight, like beyond all levels of Cash Henry uptight. Our social media posts for the show look amazing. You’ve never made prettier plates in your life, so what’s up?”
I might’ve grunted—definitely shrugged—as I spun around to the meat station to see how Perry was doing. She was, of course, on top of things, as I’d come to expect. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t keep checking. It wasmylast name on the sign. My full name on the door as head chef.
There were people who believed I didn’t measure up simply because my grandmother had handed this place over to my brothers and me. People who believed I didn’t deserve it. Seth said it was all in my head and had accused me many times of wasting mental energy on something that was pointless, but I wasn’t about to let my guard down. Being featured onSmall Town Smorgasbordwould be a big step forward in my credibility.
And yet Zinnia was spot fucking on. I was uptight even now, when we’d done everything we could for the time being, and my tension had little to do with the pursuit of national TV coverage.
