Summer Desserts

by Nora Roberts

  As her nerves began to calm, Summer straightened away from the wall. She’d handled herself well, she’d made herself clear and she’d walked out on him. All in all, a successful morning. She pressed a hand against her stomach where a few muscles were still jumping. Damn it, things would be simpler if she didn’t want him so badly.

  When the doors slid open she stepped out, then wound her way around to the kitchen. In the prelunch bustle, she went unnoticed. She approved of the noise. A quiet kitchen to Summer meant there was no communication. Without that, there was no cooperation. For a moment, she stood just inside the doorway to watch.

  She approved of the smells. It was a mixture of lunchtime aromas over the still-lingering odors of breakfast. Bacon, sausage and coffee. She caught the scent of baking chicken, of grilled meat, of cakes fresh from the oven. Narrowing her eyes, she envisioned the room as it would be in a short time. Made to her order. Better, Summer decided with a nod.

  “Ms. Lyndon.”

  Distracted, she frowned up at a big man in white apron and cap. “Yes?”

  “I’m Max.” His chest expanded, his voice stiffened. “Head chef.”

  Ego in danger, she thought as she extended a hand. “How do you do, Max. I missed you when I was in last week.”

  “Mr. Cocharan has instructed me to give you full cooperation during this—transition period.”

  Marvelous, she thought with an inward moan. Resentment in a kitchen was as difficult to deal with as a deflated soufflé. Left to herself, she might have been able to keep injured feelings to a minimum, but the damage had already been done. She made a mental note to give Blake her opinion of his tact and diplomacy.

  “Well, Max, I’d like to go over the proposed structural changes with you, since you know the routine here better than anyone else.”

  “Structural changes?” he repeated. His full, round face flushed. The moustache over his mouth quivered. She caught the gleam of a single gold tooth. “In my kitchen?”

  My kitchen, Summer mentally corrected, but smiled. “I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the improvements—and the new equipment. You must have found it frustrating trying to create something special with outdated appliances.”

  “This oven,” he said and gestured dramatically toward it, “this range—both have been here since I began at Cocharan. We are none of us outdated.”

  So much for cooperation, Summer thought wryly. If it was too late for a friendly transition of authority, she’d have to go with the coup. “We’ll be receiving three new ovens,” she began briskly. “Two gas, one electric. The electric will be used exclusively for desserts and pastries. This counter,” she continued, walking toward it without looking back to see if Max was following, “will be removed and the ranges I specified built into a new counter—butcher block. The grill remains. There’ll be an island here to provide more working area and to make use of what is now essentially wasted space.”

  “There is no wasted space in my kitchen.”

  Summer turned and aimed her haughtiest stare. “That isn’t a matter for debate. Creativity will be the first priority of this kitchen, efficiency the second. We’ll be expected to produce quality meals during the remodeling—difficult but not impossible if everyone makes the necessary adjustments. In the meantime, you and I will go over the current menu with an eye toward adding excitement and flair to what is now pedestrian.”

  She heard him suck in his breath but continued before he could rage. “Mr. Cocharan contracted me to turn this restaurant into the finest establishment in the city. I fully intend to do just that. Now I’d like to observe the staff in lunch preparations.” Unzipping her leather folder, Summer pulled out a note pad and pen. Without another word she began walking through the busy kitchen.

  The staff, she decided after a few moments, was well trained and more orderly than many. Credit Max. Cleanliness was obviously a first priority. Another point for Max. She watched a cook expertly bone a chicken. Not bad, Summer decided. The grill was sizzling, pots steaming. Lifting a lid, she ladeled out a small portion of the soup du jour. She sampled it, holding the taste on her tongue a moment.

  “Basil,” she said simply, then walked away. Another cook drew apple pies from an oven. The scent was strong and wholesome. Good, she mused, but any experienced grandmother could do the same. What was needed was some pizzazz. People would come to this restaurant for what they wouldn’t get at home. Charlottes, Clafouti, flambées.

  The structural changes came from her practical side, but the menu—the menu stemmed from her creativity, which was always paramount.

  As she surveyed the kitchen, the staff, drew in the smells, absorbed the sounds, Summer felt the first real stirrings of excitement. She would do it, and she would do it for her own satisfaction just as much as in answer to Blake’s challenge. When she was finished, this kitchen would bear her mark. It would be different entirely from jetting from one place to the next to create a single memorable dish. This would have continuity, stability. A year from now, five years from now, this kitchen would still retain her touch, her influence.

  The thought pleased her more than she’d expected. She’d never looked for continuity, only the flash of an individual triumph. And wouldn’t she be behind the scenes here? She might be in the kitchen in Milan or Athens, but the guests in the dining room knew who was preparing the Charlotte Royal. Clients wouldn’t come into the restaurant anticipating a Summer Lyndon dessert, but a Cocharan Hotel meal.

  Even as she mulled the thought over in her mind, she found it didn’t matter. Why, she was still unsure. For now, she only knew the pleasurable excitement of planning. Think about it later, she advised herself as she made a final note. There were months to worry about consequences, reasons, pitfalls. She wanted to begin, get elbow deep in a project she now, for whatever reason, considered peculiarly her own.

  Slipping her folder under her arm, she walked out. She couldn’t wait to start working on menus.

  Chapter Six

  Russian Beluga Malasol Caviar—that should be available from lunch to late-night dining. All night through room service.

  Summer made another scrawled note. During the past two weeks, she’d changed the projected menu a dozen times. After one abortive session with Max, she’d opted to go solo on the task. She knew the ambience she wanted to create, and how to do so through food.

  To save herself time, she’d set up a small office in a storage room off the kitchen. There, she could oversee the staff and the beginnings of the remodeling while having enough privacy to work on what was now her pet project.

  Avoiding Blake had been easy because she’d kept herself so thoroughly busy. And it appeared he was just as involved in some complicated corporate deal. Buying out another hotel chain, if rumor were fact. Summer had little interest in that, for her concentration focused on items like medallions of veal in champagne sauce.

  As long as the remodeling was going on, the staff remained in a constant state of panic or near panic. She’d come to accept that. Most of the kitchens she’d worked in were full of the tension and terror only a cook would understand. Perhaps it was that creative tension, and the terror of failure, that helped form the best meals.

  For the most part, she left the staff supervision to Max. She interfered with the routine he’d established as little as possible, incorporating the changes she’d initiated unobtrusively. She’d learned the qualities of diplomacy and power from her father. If it placated Max at all, it wasn’t apparent in his attitude toward Summer. That remained icily polite. Summer shrugged this off and concentrated on perfecting the entrées her kitchen would offer.

  Calf’s Liver Berlinoise. An excellent entrée, not as popular certainly as a broiled filet or prime rib, but excellent. As long as she didn’t have to eat it, Summer thought with a smirk as she noted it down.

  Once she’d organized the meat and poultry, she’d put her mind to the seafood. And naturally there had to be a cold buffet available twenty-four hours a day through room serv
ice. That was something else to work out. Soups, appetizers, salads—all of those had to be considered, decided on and confirmed before she began on the desserts. And at the moment, she’d have traded any of the elegant offerings jotted down in front of her for a cheeseburger on a sesame seed bun and a bag of chips.

  “So this is where you’ve been hiding.” Blake leaned against the doorway. He’d just completed a grueling four-hour meeting and had fully intended to go up to his suite for a long shower and a quiet, solitary meal. Instead, he’d found himself heading for the kitchen, and Summer.

  She looked as she had the first time he’d seen her—her hair down, her feet bare. On the table in front of her were reams of scrawled-on paper and a half-empty glass of diluted soda. Behind her, boxes were stacked, sacks piled. The room smelled faintly of pine cleaner and cardboard. In her own way, she looked competent and completely in charge.

  “Not hiding,” she corrected. “Working.” Tired, she thought. He looked tired. It showed around the eyes. “Been busy? We haven’t seen you down here for the past couple of weeks.”

  “Busy enough.” Stepping inside, he began to poke through her notes.

  “Wheeling and dealing from what I hear.” She leaned back, realizing all at once that her back ached. “Taking over the Hamilton chain.”

  He glanced up, then shrugged and looked back at her notes again. “It’s a possibility.”

  “Discreet.” She smiled, wishing she weren’t quite so glad to see him again. “Well, while you’ve been playing Monopoly, I’ve been dealing with more intimate matters.” When he glanced at her again, with his brow raised exactly as she’d expected it to be, she laughed. “Food, Blake, is the most basic and personal of desires, no matter what anyone might say to the contrary. For many, eating is a ritual experienced three times a day. It’s a chef’s job to make each experience memorable.”

  “For you, eating’s a jaunt through adolescence.”

  “As I said,” Summer continued mildly, “food is very personal.”

  “Agreed.” After another glance around the room, he looked back at her. “Summer, it’s not necessary for you to work in a storage room. It’s a simple matter to set you up in a suite.”

  She pushed through the papers, looking for her list on poultry. “This is convenient to the kitchen.”

  “There’s not even a window. The place is packed with boxes.”

  “No distractions.” She shrugged. “If I’d wanted a suite, I’d have asked for one. For the moment, this suits me.” And it’s several hundred feet away from you, she added silently. “Since you’re here, you might want to see what I’ve been doing.”

  He lifted a sheet of paper that listed appetizers. “Coquilles St. Jacques, Escargots Bourguignonne, Pâté de Campagne. Is it too personal a question to ask if you ever eat what you recommend?”

  “From time to time, if I trust the chef. You’ll see, if you go more thoroughly through my notes, that I want to offer a more sophisticated menu, because the American palate is becoming more sophisticated.”

  Blake smiled at the term American, and the way she said it, before he sat across from her. “Is it?”

  “It’s been a slow process,” she said dryly. “Today, you can find a good food processor in almost every kitchen. With one, and a competent cookbook, even you could make an acceptable mousse.”

  “Amazing.”

  “Therefore,” she continued, ignoring him, “to lure people into a restaurant where they’ll pay, and pay well to be fed, you have to offer them the superb. A few blocks down the street, they can get a wholesome, filling meal for a fraction of what they’ll pay in the Cocharan House.” Summer folded her hands and rested her chin on them. “So you have to give them a very special ambience, incomparable service and exquisite food.” She picked up her soda and sipped. “Personally, I’d rather pick up a take-out pizza and eat it at home, but…” She shrugged.

  Blake scanned the next sheet. “Because you like pizza, or you like being alone?”

  “Both. Now—”

  “Do you stay out of restaurants because you spend so much time in a kitchen behind them or because you simply don’t like being in a group?”

  She opened her mouth to answer and found she didn’t know. Uncomfortable, she toyed with her soda. “You’re getting more personal, and off the point.”

  “I don’t think so. You’re telling me we have to appeal to people who’re becoming sophisticated enough to make dishes that were once almost exclusively professionally prepared, as well as draw in clientele who might prefer a quick, less expensive meal around the corner. You, due to your profession and your taste, fall into both categories. What would a restaurant have to offer not only to bring you in, but to make you want to come back?”

  A logical question. Summer frowned at it. She hated logical questions because they left you no choice but to answer. “Privacy,” she answered at length. “It isn’t an easy thing to accomplish in a restaurant, and of course, not everyone looks for it. Many go out to eat to see and be seen. Some, like myself, prefer at least the illusion of solitude. To accomplish both, you have to have a certain number of tables situated in such a way that they seem removed from the rest.”

  “Easily enough done with the right lighting, a clever arrangement of foliage.”

  “The key words are right and clever.”

  “And privacy is your prerequisite in choosing a restaurant.”

  “I don’t generally eat in them,” Summer said with a restless movement of her shoulders. “But if I do, privacy ranks equally with atmosphere, food and service.”

  “Why?”

  She began to push the papers together on her desk and stack them. “That’s definitely a personal question.”

  “Yes.” He covered her hands with one of his to still them. “Why?”

  She stared at him a moment, certain she wouldn’t answer. Then she found herself drawn by the quiet look and the gentle touch. “I suppose it stems back to eating in so many restaurants as a child. And I suppose one of the reasons I first became interested in cooking was as a defense against the interminable ritual of eating out. My mother was—is—of the type who goes out to see and be seen. My father often considered eating out a business. So much of my parents’ lives, and therefore mine, was public. I simply prefer my own way.”

  Now that he was touching her, he wanted more. Now that he was learning of her, he wanted all. He should have known better than to believe it would be otherwise. He’d nearly convinced himself that he had his feelings for her under control. But now, sitting in the cramped storage room with kitchen sounds just outside the door, he wanted her as much—more—than ever.

  “I wouldn’t consider you an introvert, or a recluse.”

  “No.” She didn’t even notice that she’d laced her fingers with his. There was something so comfortable, so right about the gesture. “I simply like to keep my private life just that. Mine and private.”

  “Yet, in your field, you’re quite a celebrity.” He shifted and under the table his leg brushed against hers. He felt the warmth glow through him and the need double.

  Without thinking, she moved her leg so that it brushed his again. The muscles in her thighs loosened. “Perhaps. Or you might say my desserts are celebrities.”

  Blake lifted their joined hands and studied them. Hers was shades lighter than his, inches smaller and more narrow. She wore a sapphire, oval, deeply blue in an ornate antique setting that made her fingers look that much more elegant. “Is that what you want?”

  She moistened her lips, because when his eyes came back to hers they were intense and as darkly blue as the stone on her hand. “I want to be successful. I want to be considered the very best at what I do.”

  “Nothing more?”

  “No, nothing.” Why was she breathless? she asked herself frantically. Young girls got breathless—or romantics. She was neither.

  “When you have that?” Blake rose, drawing her to her feet without effort. “What else?”


  Because they were standing, she had to angle her head to keep her eyes level with his. “It’s enough.” As she said it, Summer had her first doubts of the truth of that statement. “What about you?” she countered. “Aren’t you looking for success—more success? The finest hotels, the finest restaurants.”

  “I’m a businessman.” Slowly, he walked around the table until nothing separated them. Their hands were still joined. “I have a standard to maintain or improve. I’m also a man.” He reached for her hair, then let it flow through his fingers. “And there’re things other than account books I think about.”

  They were close now. Her body brushed his and caused her skin to hum. She forgot all the rules she’d set out for both of them and reached up to touch his cheek. “What else do you think about?”

  “You.” His hand was at her waist, then sliding gently up her back as he drew her closer. “I think very much about you, and this.”

  Lips touched—softly. Eyes remained open and aware. Pulses throbbed. Desire tugged.

  Lips parted—slowly. A look said everything there was to say. Pulses hammered. Desire tore free.

  She was in his arms, clinging, greedy, burning. Every hour of the past two weeks, all the work, the planning, the rules, melted away under a blaze of passion. If she sensed impatience in him, it only matched her own. The kiss was hard, long, desperate. Body strained against body in exquisite torment.

  Tighter. Whether she said the word aloud or merely thought it, he seemed to understand. His arms curved around her, crushing her to him as she wanted to be. She felt the lines and planes of his body mold to hers even as his mouth molded to hers, and somehow she seemed softer than she’d ever imagined herself to be.

  Feminine, sultry, delicate, passionate. Was it possible to be all at once? The need grew and expanded—for him—for a taste and touch she’d found nowhere else. The sound she made against his lips came as much from confusion as from pleasure.

  Good God, how could a woman take him so far with only a kiss? He was already more than half-mad for her. Control was losing its meaning in a need that was much more imperative. Her skin would slide like silk under his hands—he knew it. He had to feel it.