The Chef's Cutie (The River Hill Series Book 5)

by Rebecca Norinne

  Naomi chuckled and poured herself a glass of chardonnay. “Neither had I. If you’d have asked me what I thought of them before Angelica basically forced them on me, I’d have said they were trite at best, garbage at worst, and that they sell women an unrealistic view of what romance is. I mean, not every relationship has to end with a wedding and a baby.” She crossed her arms over her chest in a defensive posture. Naomi might be outspoken about how solid her relationship with Iain Brennan was, but underneath that bravado, Lizzie could sense an aura of vulnerability, too.

  Not that she couldn’t understand why. Lizzie knew all too well how society expected women of a certain age—her age, to be exact—to be married already with two-point-five kids and a Subaru in the driveway. A white picket fence was just the icing on the cake.

  “Which is why the books we read are more inclusive than you’d have found in the past,” Jess added.

  “That’s the beauty of romance,” Angelica said as she floated into the room carrying a tray of appetizers. “Happily-ever-after comes in many forms, and the only hard and fast rule for the genre is that there is one.”

  “That sounds pretty broad.”

  “You love Jane Austen, right?” Jess asked, popping a handful of almonds into her mouth.

  Lizzie nodded. “Of course. Who doesn’t?”

  “Well there you go,” Angelica said. “What’s more romantic than Elizabeth and Darcy?”

  Lizzie chuckled. “Honestly? Darcy is kind of a jerk to Elizabeth for most of the book.”

  Naomi nodded enthusiastically. “It’s the enemies-to-lovers trope again.”

  “Hmm,” Lizzie murmured, still somewhat skeptical. She’d only agreed to attend tonight because Angelica had assured her they spent more time eating and drinking than they did actually discussing the book they were supposed to have read.

  Honestly, she’d been skeptical about the book club in general when Angelica had extended the invite. While she’d driven home from the holiday party with cheeks that ached from smiling so much, she’d been there as Mia’s caseworker. Having firmly established that Max had created a stable and loving support system for his niece, she should have turned tonight’s invitation down, but since moving to the Bay Area she’d formed zero legitimate friendships, and with the holidays looming, she was feeling more lonely than usual.

  “Speaking of romance,” Angelica said, settling down on the sofa next to Lizzie, her feet pulled up under her. “What’s up with you and Max?”

  Lizzie practically choked on her wine. Wiping a dribble of liquid from her chin, she turned wide eyes to her host. “What do you mean?”

  Angelica waved a hand airily in front of her face. “Please. I saw you eyeing that mistletoe all night.”

  Across the circle, Naomi smiled like the cat who’d caught the canary. “God, I love Christmas.”

  “You’re Jewish,” Jess drawled.

  Naomi simply shrugged her shoulders. “Give me a holiday that encourages making out with a sexy Irishman in dark corners, and I’m all for it.”

  “Eww,” Maeve laughed.

  “Oh, please,” Naomi countered. “I saw Ben pulling you into the pantry, and I know you weren’t looking for flour.”

  Maeve turned scarlet, but didn’t deny the accusation.

  “But back to Lizzie and Max,” Angelica said pointedly. “Spill the beans, woman.”

  “There’s really nothing to tell,” Lizzie demurred.

  “Been there, done that.” Maeve fluttered her fingers as the rest of the women laughed. “How long did I insist that Ben and I were simply friends?”

  Jess chuckled. “Months. Everyone saw it but you two.”

  Maeve nodded. “We wasted a lot of time fighting our attraction. I mean, we built a lovely friendship first, which I think is important, but—”

  “But Max and I aren’t even friends,” Lizzie countered, attempting to cut the conversation off at the pass before it truly got away from her. “He’s my client.”

  “And do you look at all your clients like that?” Angelica raised her eyebrow skeptically.

  Lizzie schooled her features, pasting as innocent a look as she could muster on her face. “Like what?”

  “Like you want to lick him!” Maeve and Naomi blurted in unison before erupting into peals of laughter.

  Unbidden, Lizzie’s memory flashed back to the first time she’d had that exact same thought. How many times since then had it echoed through her brain? The first time, she’d had the exquisite carbonara sauce as a scapegoat—not wanting to let good food go to waste, and all that. But now, whenever she saw Max, the first thing that inevitably sprang to mind was, I want to climb this man like a tree and lick him from head to toe.

  Startling, since she’d never before thought anything even remotely similar about any man she’d ever known. Which probably explained why at thirty-four, she was perpetually single.

  One thing she didn’t dispute about the romance novels these women loved to read so much was that passion was an essential part of any healthy relationship. And she hadn’t felt even a fraction of the passion she felt for Max for anyone. Ever. And they’d never even kissed!

  Not that they were ever going to.

  Still, she could imagine how hot it would be.

  Heck, hot didn’t begin to describe what it would be like to be with Max. It would be explosive. Incendiary. Cataclysmic.

  Just thinking about it had her growing hot under the collar—and elsewhere.

  “See, that’s what I’m talking about.” Angelica twirled her index finger in front of Lizzie’s heated face. “You’ve got it bad, girl.”

  Her shoulders slumped in on themselves. “Fine. You’re right; I do. But we can’t do anything about it. The rules are pretty clear. I could lose my license.”

  Jess swung her legs down from her chair to the floor and leaned forward, her fingers linked together between her legs. “What? Why?”

  “Yeah, why?” Maeve echoed.

  Lizzie blew out a long breath. “There’s a whole lot of legalese I won’t get into, but essentially it all boils down to it being a violation of professional ethics to engage in a sexual relationship with a client.”

  Naomi’s brows dipped into a deep vee. “But Mia’s your client; not Max.”

  “Technically, they’re both my clients.”

  “Well that sucks,” Jess mused, flopping back against the cushions.

  “Yeah …” Lizzie agreed with a sigh as she set her glass off to the side. “Even being here with you guys is walking a fine line. I should probably go.” She pushed to her feet, and reached down to gather up her purse.

  Before she’d had a chance to hoist it up onto her shoulder, the others were out of their seats, surrounding her with exclamations of disbelief and support.

  “What? No! Don’t go.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  “Please stay.”

  One by one, she took in these funny, warm, amazingly supportive woman, her chest tightening with the knowledge that she was going to miss them. Between the holiday party and tonight’s book club, realistically, she’d only known them for a handful of hours, but even in that short amount of time she’d had the sort of affirming, fulfilling conversations every woman wanted out of her friends.

  Assuming she had female friends in the first place.

  Unfortunately for Lizzie, outside of Maggie, friendships were in relatively short supply these days. Sure, she’d kept in touch with a few women she’d gone to college with via Facebook and Instagram, but it had been ages since she’d sat down with another woman and just … relaxed. Had a conversation that wasn’t about work or her boss. Frankly, it was surprising to Lizzie that this group dynamic seemed to work so well. Angelica, Naomi, Jess, and Maeve were all very different, and yet they’d formed a tight-knit circle—one they’d been willing to expand to include her.

  It both warmed her heart, and slightly broke it at the same time.

&
nbsp; She smiled wanly. “I appreciate this; really, I do. But it’s inappropriate for me to form any sort of relationship with the people in Mia and Max’s life. If we’d met under different circumstances, maybe things would be different … maybe Max and I could actually be together, and we could all be friends—”

  Angelica held up her hand. “Look. I won’t begin to say that I know what you’re dealing with, but I think I speak for all of us when I say we do know what it’s like to be conflicted about a man, and how he could ever fit into our lives. If nothing else, maybe just talking about it will help you feel better. Not to psychoanalyze you or anything, but it’s kind of obvious you’ve been keeping your feelings bottled up. The anxiety practically radiates off of you.”

  And here Lizzie thought she’d been doing an admirable job of keeping her emotions under wraps. “Is it really that obvious?”

  Three heads bobbed up and down as Naomi moved around the coffee table and toward Lizzie, picking up her discarded glass along the way and passing it back to her. “It should go without saying, but book club is sacred. Nothing you say outside of this circle will be repeated.”

  Jess cleared her throat. “I mean, I tell Sean everything.”

  Maeve chuckled nervously. “Um, Ben demands a full run down when I get home.”

  Lizzie turned to Angelica, who was smirking. “Noah’s the worst gossip of them all.”

  Naomi wrapped her arm around Lizzie’s shoulder and led her back to her seat. “We’ll swear them to secrecy, though.” She said it like she had every expectation the promise would be kept by everyone, even those who weren’t here, and somehow Lizzie believed her.

  Lizzie knew she should head to the door, but for the first time in years, she felt a part of something bigger than she was. She felt … like she belonged. How could she resist this kind of friendship, when it was being extended to her in spite of everything? It was reasonable to expect her not to date her clients; but surely she was allowed to have a friend or two, once in a while. So even though every part of her brain was screaming at her to get the hell out of dodge, she let herself be swept up in the warmth and acceptance these women had extended to her without expecting anything in return.

  With a weary sigh, she fell back into her seat and scanned the circle, deciding that just for tonight she’d put her career aside and just be a woman, falling for a man, who wanted advice from her girlfriends. Tomorrow she’d do the right thing for her career. Right now, though, she was doing the right thing for her soul. “I like him so much, you know? Why does he have to be so amazing?”

  9

  “You invited Lizzie to the New Year’s Eve party?” Max stared at Angelica, who smirked at him. “Are you trying to get me in trouble?”

  She waved her hand dismissively. “Relax. I invited her as my friend, not your … whatever.”

  “But—”

  “Or are you saying she’s not allowed to have friends?” She arched an eyebrow at him and he scowled back at her.

  “You’re meddling, Angelica Travis,” he accused.

  “Pretty rich, coming from you,” she shot back.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Max, you’ve meddled in all of our lives.” She held up a perfectly manicured finger. “With good results, I’ll grant you, but you’re practically a yenta.”

  “What’s a yenta?”

  She grinned at him. “You ever seen ‘Fiddler on the Roof’?” She sang a few lines. Badly. “Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match!”

  “Stop. Please.” Angelica might have been a movie star once, but musicals were definitely not her forte.

  She stuck out her tongue at him. “My point stands. You’re the king of meddlers, Max Vergaras, and you’re just mad that somebody’s doing it to you for once.”

  “I’m not mad,” he protested. “Maybe a little annoyed. Mostly worried. She could lose her license, Angelica.”

  “Then keep your hands off her, Max,” his friend said sweetly.

  Two hours later, he was resenting Angelica furiously for that little dig. Because keeping his hands off Lizzie was the hardest thing he’d ever done. She’d arrived a little late, the last member of their merry band to gather.

  Angelica’s New Year’s party was starting to become infamous. Last year, Sean and Jess had shown up to it and announced that they were married after eloping in Costa Rica. This year, they’d announced they were expecting a baby. From the looks on several faces, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. Angelica had simply rolled her eyes and reminded Jess that her bridesmaid dress had an empire waist already, and the other women had all laughed.

  Lizzie had laughed too, but it had seemed a bit … off. Max hadn’t realized he knew her well enough to know when she was faking it—and let’s head that thought off at the pass, he reminded himself. But she wasn’t her usual, cheerful self, and he thought he might not be the only one who noticed.

  Angelica and Maeve were both shooting her frequent worried glances. In Angelica’s case, they were accompanied by an occasional laser-eyed glare in his direction, which he met with a scowl of his own. He hadn’t done anything. And her hands-off ultimatum meant that he didn’t dare approach Lizzie to try to find out what was wrong either, since he wasn’t entirely sure he could stop himself from just gathering her up into his arms and kissing her worries away.

  Forcing himself not to hover, he got busy pulling another tray of canapes out of The Oakwell’s oversized pantry fridge—Angelica had added space for catering storage the year after she’d opened the place, and now events at the inn were increasingly popular. She was even planning to have her own wedding here. In fact, some of the appetizers he’d put together for the party tonight were ones he was proposing for her wedding menu; he wasn’t above killing two birds with one culinary stone.

  “Want some help?” It was Ben, leaning against the door of the pantry.

  “Sure. But don’t pretend you’re not just here for the figs with goat cheese.”

  “You know me too well,” his best friend said.

  Max handed him the platter, and he snagged a fig from the edge and popped it into his mouth. “Hey,” Ben said around the mouthful of cheesy goodness. “Are you okay?”

  “Of course I am.” Max shut the door of the refrigerator with more force than he intended, and it promptly bounced back open. “Dammit.”

  “Max.”

  “What?” he snapped as he closed the fridge again, more carefully this time. “I’m fine. Can’t imagine what you’re asking about.”

  It was a futile endeavor to try to fool Ben. They’d been friends since elementary school, and Max had spent more time with Ben’s family than he had with his own. After his and Isabel’s parents had died, Ben’s mom had taken them even further under her wing. He still exchanged holiday cards with her every year. Ten years ago she’d started including a chatty family newsletter detailing all the various ways her children were exceptional human beings. Last year, when Ben had lost his job and had moved into the apartment over Max’s garage while he got his life back on track, Max had cheekily signed his own card ‘Love, Max and Ben.’ This year, Ben’s mom’s newsletter had been mostly full of news about Maeve, and Max had laughed out loud when he read it. Mrs. Worthington might love Ben’s girlfriend even more than she loved her own son.

  “Do you remember when you had that talk with me?” Ben asked.

  “Can you be more specific?” He’d had a lot of talks with Ben, starting with serious debate over the possession of an aging soccer ball, through discussion of college courses and the various girls that might be met therein, all the way up through—

  “The one where you warned me to get my shit together about Maeve.”

  “Ah, yeah. That one.”

  “Yeah. That one.” Ben leaned toward him, the platter of figs between them. “Listen. Maeve says that Lizzie has been hanging out with the girls a lot. None of them are blind, you know. They all know which way the wind is blowing, so to speak.”

  “There�
��s no wind,” Max grumbled. “Weather here all perfectly sunny and clear.”

  “You can’t bullshit a bullshitter, Max.” Ben had been a highly successful corporate attorney before he moved to River Hill, making a name for himself in some very high-powered courtroom cases. Now, he had his own practice, his clients primarily the small businesses that made up River Hill’s town square and commercial district—Max included. But he still had all the instincts that had brought him to the top of the heap. “You and Lizzie have something going on, and it’s getting messy.”

  “I can’t,” Max said. “She can’t. We can’t. I could lose Mia. She could lose her job. You’re right, it’s messy.”

  “Then, if you will pardon the repetition, get your shit together.” Ben frowned. “You’re either in or you’re out, and it isn’t fair to her to keep this longing gaze from across the room thing going.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Trust me, you are.”

  “I’m trying not to.”

  Ben balanced the platter of figs on one hand and freed the other one to poke him in the chest. “Try harder. That girl is a ball of stress, and if any of it is your fault, you’re going to hate yourself as much as everyone else will hate you.” He was speaking from experience, Max knew.

  “I’ll figure something out,” he said. “Take those figs to the dining room before you eat them all.”

  Ben defiantly popped another tasty morsel into his mouth, eyeballing Max until he shoved the other man out the door with a reluctant laugh.

  They rejoined the crowd, finding Angelica reigning supreme with wedding details while the TV on the wall showed a view of crowds in various cities waiting for the final midnight countdown, complete with musical performances in freezing outdoor arenas and shivering hosts wrapped in fuzzy coats pretending to be happy about it. Thank goodness they were in California. And indoors.

  Max let his gaze roam the room, watching his friends with their partners. How had he managed to be the only single one? It was an increasingly unpleasant sensation, and it wasn’t helped by the fact that the person he most wanted to remedy the situation with sat on the couch with the fakest smile he’d ever seen plastered across her beautiful face.