Dine With Me

by Layla Reyne

  As did the T-shirt Clancy wore today. The hoodie he’d previously worn gone, Clancy’s tee was the same purple plaid as the others. Miller looked over his shoulder at the back and laughed out loud at the CHIEF TASTER title.

  He put Molly down and gave her a little push, sending her racing across the black-and-white checkered floor toward the farm table. Brought out from Napa, from that barely visited room in his first restaurant, it now sat in the center of the space here, surrounded by family and staff, all of them in the same purple plaid shirts. He pulled Clancy closer and buried his face in his mop of brown hair. “Thank you, for everything, especially the plaid.”

  Clancy tilted up his face. “I loved that about our trip. We couldn’t start this new adventure without an homage to our first one.”

  Fuck, what had Miller done to get so lucky? To find this man who filled every day with sun, this unabashed foodie who’d answered an ad and come into Miller’s life when he’d thought his world was destined for black. Had thought there’d be no stopping the crash landing that’d ultimately drown him. Clancy had been the parachute that’d saved him, beyond golden, helping him stay afloat in rough waters until he was ready to fly again, higher than ever.

  Doing what he loved most with the person he loved most at his side.

  Fuck Icarus.

  Clancy clamped a hand over his mouth again. Oops, had he said that out loud? “Yes, you did,” Clancy answered the unspoken question, trying to appear stern despite the twitching corners of his mouth.

  “You better worry less about his cursing,” Sam said from his spot by the front window. “And more about how to get all these people in here.” He shifted Sloan’s other ginger munchkin from one hip to the other. “The line stretches around the block.”

  Miranda approached, holding out the binder of menus from their trip three years ago. “Probably because of the write-up. Flip toward the back.”

  Miller turned through the binder pages full of their tour menus, memories he would cherish forever. After the last one, a photo of the Provision Company’s chalkboard menu that Clancy had snapped, he flipped the page and stared down at today’s front page of the Boston Globe’s Food & Dining section. He looked from Miranda to Sam to Clancy. “We’re in the Globe?” They’d had a soft opening last week for critics and reviewers, as was customary, but no industry birdies had told him there was a Globe reviewer among the guests.

  But there was the review, under a headline of “Checkmate” with a byline by the paper’s most well-known food critic. It was the article on the adjacent page, however, that made Miller’s vision wobble. There was a picture of him and Clancy on their wedding day, in the gazebo at the Ritz, the Pacific Ocean behind them, under a byline by Dr. Clancy Rhodes, with the headline, “The Experience of a Lifetime.”

  Without taking his eye off the page, Miller held out a hand and Clancy’s fingers laced through his. He skimmed the article, scary words like cancer, near-death, and lost his taste buds for over a year jumping out at him, but those terror-inducing words, and the memories that tumbled back with them, were outnumbered by the other words—fight, love, survivor, shattered expectations—and the vision of a future they carried with them. The vision they were living right this second. By the time he reached the end, Miller could hardly read for the water pooling in his eyes.

  “Turn the page,” Clancy said softly.

  Miller did, to today’s opening menu for Chess, their dream come true. He blinked back the tears and ran his finger down the menu, full of all his favorite dishes. Simple, approachable comfort food. Home for everyone, Miller most of all. “I didn’t know you were going to do this.”

  With his free hand, Clancy closed the binder and handed it off to his mom. “Because it was a surprise.”

  “You were the surprise.” He drew his husband into his arms, holding him tight. “You answered that ad and saved my life. I wouldn’t be here, this dream, this future wouldn’t have been possible, without you.”

  “I just wanted to hang out with a famous chef and eat and talk food for two weeks.” Clancy tugged at the lapels of Miller’s chef’s coat. “Turns out I found a pretty spectacular human being and husband beneath this thing too.”

  “No, baby, you’re the stunning one.” Miller hauled him in for a kiss that was not at all chaste or safe for children, and he couldn’t care less. He wanted to capture the taste of this moment, of his husband in his arms, of life on the brink of everything he wanted and everything he never thought he’d have. Judging by the cheers and applause that went up around them, no one else cared about their PDA either. The more love the better.

  They came up for air, the both of them grinning, and Miller stepped back, holding out a hand to his husband. With the other, he gestured toward the farm table where their family had gathered, all of them wearing equally big smiles. “Care to dine with me again, in our restaurant?”

  Clancy pushed his black-rimmed glasses up his nose. “As long as there’s pie.”

  “You see what I named the restaurant, right?” He gestured at the Chess name and logo hand-stitched on the pocket of his chef’s coat.

  “Is that a promise?”

  “It’s a promise.” He rubbed his thumb over Clancy’s wedding ring. “As sure as this band on your finger.”

  Clancy smiled, brighter than the summer sun reflecting off the Nantucket Sound outside. “Then yes, Chef, I’d love to dine with you, every day for the rest of our lives.”

  The future was here, now, and it’d never tasted sweeter. “Let me show you to our table.”

  * * *

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  Author Note

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, organizations, establishments or locations are intended to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. I am also not a chef; just a home cook and an avid foodie. Any errors regarding the ins-and-outs of professional kitchens and restaurants and the restaurant business are my own.

  Acknowledgments

  I am a foodie, I make no secret of this. From my grandmother’s table to Michelin-starred restaurants, I have eaten and loved it all. This book is my love letter—to the family recipes that I carry into my own home kitchen, and to the countless chefs, kitchens and waitstaffs who have opened their doors and put their own stories, in the form of amazing dishes and dining experiences, onto the table in front me. And to the chefs, like Grant Achatz, Sean Brock, and so many others, who battle through adversity to bring us their talent, you are an inspiration and heroes. It’d be impossible to thank everyone else who has inspired my love of food and this book, but to Larry, Lauren, Moira, Michael, Melody, David, Violaine and my husband, I owe a special thanks. I would not be where I am, this book would not be possible, without you.

  Special thanks as well to my agent, Laura Bradford, for keeping this book on our to-do list (foodies unite!), to Angela, Deb and the entire Carina team who jumped on board and made the book of my heart a reality, to Kristi for helping me find the right starting place, to Leslie for keeping my author life in order, to Judith for the continued PR support, and to my beta readers—Leslie, Kim, Allison, Erin, Lisa, Anna, Alice, Eva and Annabeth—who went through a lot with this book, including boxes of Kleenex and supersized grocery bills. I promise to treat you all to dinner!

  Finally, readers, thanks for taking a chance on this somewhat different novel for me. You knew I loved food, but did you know I loved it this much? I hope you enjoyed it and that you fell in love with Miller and Clancy along the way too. Your
continued support and enthusiasm mean the world. Thank you!

  About the Author

  Author Layla Reyne was raised in North Carolina and now calls San Francisco home. She enjoys weaving her bicoastal experiences into her stories, along with adrenaline-fueled suspense and heart pounding romance. When she’s not writing stories to excite her readers, she downloads too many books, watches too much television and cooks too much food with her scientist husband, much to the delight of their smushed-face, leftover-loving dogs. Layla is a member of Romance Writers of America and its Kiss of Death and Rainbow Romance Writers chapters. She is a 2019 RWA® RITA® Award Finalist in Contemporary Romance (Mid-Length) and 2016 RWA® Golden Heart® Award Finalist in Romantic Suspense.

  You can find Layla at www.laylareyne.com, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest as @laylareyne, and in her reader group on Facebook—Layla’s Lushes (www.Facebook.com/groups/laylaslushes).

  Enjoy this excerpt from Imperial Stout

  available now from Carina Press and Layla Reyne.

  It’s a good thing Assistant US Attorney Dominic Price co-owns a brewery. He could use a cold one. Nic’s star witness has just been kidnapped, his joint operation with the FBI is in jeopardy, his father’s shady past is catching up with him and the hot new special agent in San Francisco is the kind of distraction best handled with a stiff drink.

  One kiss.

  One drunken, ill-advised kiss was going to ruin this entire fucking operation.

  Because Nic was two seconds away from charging out of the surveillance van and telling the man he’d kissed to stand the fuck down. Nic’s reputation as the calm, cool prosecutor would be shattered. Never mind that doing so would likely kill any chance of a second kiss. A second one would be even more ill-advised than the first. Didn’t mean he wanted it any less.

  He also didn’t want Agent Cameron Byrne to die.

  And if Nic’s reputation went up in flames to save the Assistant Special Agent in Charge, then so be it. It was all going to hell these days anyway. Botching a takedown of one of the most wanted heist crews in operation would be icing on the cake.

  But at least Cam would be alive.

  Inside the surveillance van, Nic ripped off his suit coat, rolled up his shirtsleeves, and had his hand over his sidearm, ready to draw and move, when static crackled from the speakers in the wall of monitors.

  Cam’s Boston brogue followed. “Alpha team on the move.”

  Too late.

  Fuck.

  “Copy that, ASAC,” replied Agent Lauren Hall, who was running Comm from inside the van with him. “Beta, Charlie, report.”

  “Beta team in position.”

  “Charlie team in position.”

  Beta team was on the roof of the luxury apartment building, right above the target penthouse, while Charlie team was a floor below. Cam and his assault team, kitted out in tactical gear, were moving up the interior stairwell, the camera attached to Cam’s helmet giving Nic and Lauren a bird’s-eye view of their ascent.

  Nic should be with them, should be leading them. An ex-SEAL, he had the training, even if he had spent the past fifteen years in a courtroom. Not to mention this was his case—a joint task force between his US Attorney’s office and the FBI’s San Francisco field office. But Cam had pulled rank and sidelined him.

  “Enough, Dominic!” Cam had shouted sometime around the tenth or so round of their argument over who would take lead. “I catch the criminals; you lock ’em up. End of fucking story.” Technically, Cam had been right.

  Didn’t make Nic’s suddenly parched mouth any easier to tolerate right now.

  “Alpha team in position,” Cam reported, voice quieter as they stood by the stairwell door outside the penthouse apartment.

  “Alpha, Comm,” Beta radioed. “Movement to the south.”

  “Hostiles?” Cam barked back.

  Nic scanned the monitors. Where the fuck had they come from? The entire two-block radius around the building had been cordoned off and all the surrounding Financial District buildings cleared. Relatively painlessly at the ass-crack-of-dawn on a Saturday morning, this area of downtown San Francisco predominately offices. Had the feds missed something or someone on their checks?

  Typing fast and furious, Lauren tapped into a security feed on the opposite side of the apartment building. One of the wall monitors flickered, changing its vantage point. She glanced up from her laptop, relaying, “Two masked individuals carrying assault rifles.”

  The dryness crept down Nic’s throat, memories of heat and sand and blood at the edge of his consciousness. Always associated with combat, always there when he was worried, and right now, with new armed players on the scene, his worry for Cam and the teams was magnified.

  “Approaching south stairwell,” Lauren said. “Ninety seconds until they reach your position, Alpha.”

  “Part of the crew?” Cam said.

  Nic swallowed, forcing saliva into his mouth, uttering a single word. “No.”

  He’d investigated this crew for over a year. He knew every detail of every member—height, build, weapon of choice, how they moved—and these two were no one he’d studied. “Third-party rip-off,” he surmised.

  “Charlie team, move to intercept,” Cam ordered. “Alpha team moving on primary. Priority one, victim rescue. Two, secure the target. Three, apprehend suspects.”

  The target was a portable voice-activated safe containing priceless Serbian artifacts for a museum exhibit next weekend: millions in jewels, historical texts and sheet music, and textiles that had been rescued from war-torn Kosovo two decades ago. The victims were a Serbian dignitary and his wife whose voices were required to open said safe. They’d only just arrived in town last night, the artifacts and their safe not yet moved to the museum’s secure cage.

  “Suspect Monroe is not to be harmed,” Nic reminded him. Abigail Monroe was their confidential informant inside the crew.

  “Roger that,” Cam replied. “On my count...”

  Cam got as far as “two” before a hail of gunfire erupted.

  Everywhere.

  Inside the target apartment, on the floor below, and outside the surveillance van. Shots pinged the metal grill and raced up the hood toward the windshield.

  And inside Nic, fear and worry exploded—heat everywhere—before his military training kicked in and his emotions morphed into action. He was fine, he wasn’t in the desert, he’d been trained in urban combat, and fuck it, he needed to protect his position. Once that was done, he’d help Cam whether the bullheaded ASAC wanted him to or not.

  “Go, go, go!” Cam shouted, dispensing with quiet.

  In Nic’s ear, heavy boots pounded up metal stairs, doors slammed open, and gunfire continued to pop, shattering what sounded like wood and glass. Nic’s balance wavered, whether from the strangled shouts in his ear, from a similar clenching of his chest, or from the sway of the van under assault, he couldn’t say.

  Lauren’s shout of “Comm under fire!” snapped him out of it.

  And back to the on-monitor view from Cam’s helmet cam, which abruptly wobbled, the agent’s step faltering.

  “Boston, go!” Nic yelled. “I got this.”

  “Beta, secure Comm. Charlie, intercept third party, back up Alpha. Go!” Cam said, before charging out of the stairwell with his team.

  Nic tore his gaze from Cam’s screen and focused on the others, searching for the shooter who’d paused firing on the van. “Sweep the area,” he told Lauren, as he mentally rewound and counted the previous shots. He needed to know how long the next barrage would go on before he could make a move.

  Her glittery nails flew across the keyboard, new angles and views of the surrounding Financial District blocks appearing on the monitors.

  A bright glare on one screen nearly blinded him.

  “Stop, there!”

  Early
morning sunlight bounced off glass—a sniper’s scope—on the second story of the under-construction building across the street.

  Nic reached for his sidearm, then thinking better of it, grabbed a rifle and scope out of the van’s cage. Darting to the front, he crouched between the seats, behind the dash, as bullets slammed again into the windshield. Cracks snaked across the outside but the reinforced glass continued to hold. Assured of its strength, Nic lifted his head and peered through the scope, spying the shooter’s nest. “Lauren!” he shouted back into the van, as he attached the scope to the rifle. “Tell Beta team to lay down cover.”

  Lauren relayed the order, and suppressive fire sprayed from the roof of the apartment building. Nic shoved open the driver-side door and rolled out of the van, using the door as a shield. Shots pinged the outside while Beta team’s answering fire whizzed overhead. He counted the sniper’s shots as he lowered the window.

  Reload in three, two, one... Another break in the fire.

  Fist raised, he signaled Beta team to hold and rose, bracing his rifle on the window ledge and lining up his shot. At the first glimmer of sunlight on the shooter’s scope, Nic fired, unleashing a full mag into the nest.

  Weapon emptied, he crouched behind the door and waited. No return fire came.

  “You’re clear,” Lauren confirmed after several seconds. “No sign of movement.”

  Standing, Nic tossed the rifle on the driver’s seat and drew his pistol. “I’m going after the shooter.”

  He was halfway across the street when “Alpha team. Agent down! Civilian down!” echoed through the van’s open window. “Radio for EMS!”

  Cam.

  Nic’s already racing heart sped with another burst of fear-soaked adrenaline. He hung a U-turn and sprinted for the apartment building.