She glanced down at her completely inappropriate footwear: flip-flops. Even if it came to that, in flip-flops she couldn’t exactly walk to Hobbit Households to see her parents.
This was her first time ever knowingly being outside North America, which should give her a thrill, but instead her heart stretched out with longing for the heat and twang of Texas.
She passed a pair of women drinking coffee in an airport café. One sipped and the other said, “If I call him, am I going to look like a stage-five clinger?”
Everyone around her was speaking English, but this accent couldn’t penetrate her eardrum. The sensation reminded her of the year in high school when she’d been assigned to watch that Shakespeare play and write a paper on it, and she’d had to re-watch the movie six times and turn on the closed captioning before she could make heads or tails of the dialogue.
English, but not. Everything pummeled her. She wandered vaguely toward baggage claim, hoping for perhaps an internet café or a complimentary phone-charging station.
“Piper! Piper!” A woman’s voice called her name, a voice she’d recognize anywhere. “You made it.”
In two shakes, Mom’s arms enfolded her, pressing her close in soft warmth, smelling of fresh-baked cookies splashed with vanilla. Piper hadn’t felt her mother’s arms around her in seven months, and it was like she was suddenly home, no matter what hemisphere they stood in now. Piper was so grateful they hadn’t seen her in handcuffs, that they’d come a little later in the process of her shaming.
“Hey, sweetie.” Dad pulled her out of Mom’s embrace and took his turn. His hair was curlier than she remembered it being in the past. Had he gotten a perm? “We’ve sure missed you. Here, we brought you this. In case you needed it to leave the airport.” He pulled out a large certificate, and Piper saw in no time what it was: her New Zealand birth certificate. Her adrenaline spiked.
“Dad!”
“What? What’s wrong?”
Piper blinked a moment, too dismayed to speak, but then decided it didn’t matter anyway. The damage was done, and it wasn’t worth arguing about now.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
“Too bad you couldn’t bring that husband of yours,” Dad said. “Good chap, that Zach. He called and let us know you were on your way.”
Even if he was a much heftier version of himself, and had affected a costuming combination of short pants and a striped waistcoat topped with a green blazer that Piper could never approve, he would always be Dad: chuckling, smiling, letting the day take him where it may.
“Zach let you know I was coming?” Piper recalled that he’d been in touch with Dad once before, to ask for her hand in marriage. What a caring gesture! She’d considered insisting on an annulment, to free Zach from the albatross she’d become, but maybe she shouldn’t.
She was so confused. She loved him, he loved her, she was a felon…in another country…
“That’s a nice young man. So much better than the last several guys you dated. Pew-ee.” He smelled of bacon and lamb chops, a combination of which Piper could approve. Her stomach snarled. If there was one thing she knew she could count on at Hobbit Households, it was the ready availability of food, even if she ended up having to cook it all herself for every member of the colony. “We’re glad you married him and not that steroid addict we keep seeing all over YouTube in the MMA videos we watch.”
Piper stalled. There were so many things about her parents she could never predict; toss this one on the mountainous pile. Outside in the chill of the day, they climbed into what Piper could only term a hobbit-mobile and weaved their way out of the parking lot.
“Yes, he seems real sweet, hon.” Mom took off her scratchy brown cardigan and put it around Piper’s shoulders. She hugged it close. It smelled like Mom. “It was nice of him to call and let us know you were coming.”
“Did he tell you it was to stay?”
“No. In fact, he said we ought to enjoy you as much as we can because he’d be bringing you home soon. Now, that’s love.”
The word sent a pang through her. She’d read about star-crossed lovers. Did this situation make her and Zach fit that definition? Texas Star-crossed. Great, now she was getting punchy from being jet-lagged.
“Now, then.” Mom clapped and rubbed her hands together as if her next statement were the most exciting thing all year. “Shall we go home? I want you to get a nice, hot bath and a good sleep, because we have a surprise job for you starting tomorrow.”
Uh, Piper doubted it would come as any surprise.
∞∞∞
Monday morning before eight, Zach stood at the back door of Du Jour, knocking. He hadn’t been able to get in touch with Mitzi via her phone all weekend, and this was his only hope left.
The door flung open, and Mitzi let him in, two freckles touching in the worry-crease between her brows.
“Whoa. Zach. Are you all right?” Mitzi looked out the door behind where he’d stood. “Where’s Pipe—?” Her shoulders fell. “Don’t tell me. No. Say it isn’t—”
“I’m so sorry, Mitzi. I tried all weekend to call you.”
“My phone fell into a pot of broth on Friday, and it’s still not fixed.” Mitzi shook her head and bit her nails. “I can’t believe it. I should have come to the hearing, but Du Jour…” Someone had had to run the restaurant, obviously. “I guess I just thought if Piper was leaving she would come to say good-bye.”
“No one got to say good-bye.” Zach described the dramatic exit. Replaying the sight of her made the words lodge in his throat a moment, but he cleared it and was able to talk. “What will you do about the restaurant?” Piper would want to know. “How did you manage on Friday?”
Mitzi didn’t answer. She just stood there looking crushed.
The back door swung open, and in walked a somewhat familiar-looking man. His arms were laden with groceries.
“I cooked Friday.” The man set the groceries on the counter, and Zach tried to place him, but to no avail. “It was all my fault, so it was the least I could do.”
All this guy’s fault? How could it possibly…
“Zach, this is Ignatius. I mean, Steve LaPray.”
Steve wiped his palms on his pants and then extended a hand to shake Zach’s. “Nice to meet you. I take it you’re Piper’s husband. What news?”
Zach recounted the bad news, again. Each retelling made him more numb.
“You’re telling me she’s gone? For how long?”
That Zach didn’t know. “Until I can figure out a way to bring her back.”
Steve leaned his head back and put both hands over his eyes, like a man in abject misery.
“I can’t apologize enough for this. I’m so sorry.” He righted his head and took his hands down. Looking back and forth between Mitzi and Zach, he said, “I will atone for this. I cooked for Du Jour Friday, I’ll cook again today. See,” he indicated the groceries. “I even came prepared. I’m no Piper Travis, but I will do my best to replicate her skill until she returns.”
Mitzi gave a half-scoff. “Piper is good, no question. But let’s recall that you’re Steve LaPray.”
Suddenly, the name clicked into place in Zach’s mind. Steve LaPray was only the most famous and important chef in San Antonio. So caught up in Piper’s deportation drama, Zach hadn’t been in the mindset to make the connection before, but he did now.
“I’m glad you’re here. She will take great comfort in that.” Zach gave a half-smile at the cold comfort offered. However, another thing bugged him. “But I fail to see how any of this could be your fault.”
Mitzi and Steve exchanged glances. Mitzi spoke. “Didn’t Piper tell you about the Texas Star?”
“That she’d wanted it, and that they didn’t give it to her, even though it was the day she made those magical tacos that turned everyone on staff at my law firm into whimpering puppies. If I ever meet the nimrod who denied Piper Quinn Travis of her dream, I’ll give him a piece of my…”
Suddenly, Zach stopp
ed.
“It was you.” Bitterness rose up in him. His hand itched, and he flexed it into a fist and out flat again several times.
“It isn’t what you think.” Steve lifted a hand to counter Zach’s rising fury. “I had eaten here a dozen times, and I was all set to give the Star. The Texas Star was my brainchild in the first place, you know.”
This did not fully appease Zach. He flexed his hand again. Anybody who doused the hopes of a perfectly sweet girl with talent the level of Piper Quinn Travis deserved a punch in the gut.
“Hear me out. I can see you’re mad, and I don’t blame you, man.”
Zach pressed his lips together and reminded himself to breathe. “Fine. Go on.”
Steve exhaled and said, “I’d been dating Mitzi, but we never told each other what our jobs were. We met online, and I even went under another name. You can’t imagine how hard it is to meet a sincere woman when you have a job situation like mine.” Steve LaPray was to San Antonio what Emeril was to New Orleans, so it did make sense. Except Steve was a lot younger, and single. He’d been named most eligible bachelor at one point by the San Antonio society pages. Libby brought that to Zach’s attention once, when she was telling him it should be him.
“And?”
“And so I knew I was dating the owner of a restaurant, but I didn’t know Mitzi owned Du Jour. Not at first. Not until after I’d eaten here a dozen times and deemed it my favorite lunch spot in the city. I planned on not only giving Du Jour the Texas Star, I wanted to recognize the chef in some other way, once I found out only one chef ran the place, and that she was young and basically a cooking prodigy. She reminded me of myself before the accident, and I wanted to give her the recognition she deserved. Young chefs rarely receive that.”
Accident? The question must have shown on Zach’s face because Mitzi jumped in.
“Steve had been a chef for five years when he was in a terrible car accident. He broke his spine. Since then, he’s been unable to work full time in a kitchen, as you might imagine.”
“All the spongy chef mats in the world won’t let me stand and cook for more than a couple of hours at a time. So, I had to change career directions.”
Zach hadn’t known that. He did know Steve LaPray was on television, had his own show, and wrote several food columns. It made sense he would be a judge for the Texas Star.
“I teamed up with Texas Foodie Magazine to create the Texas Star to recognize new restaurants. Recently, after tasting Piper’s cooking, I decided I wanted to collaborate with other magazines nationwide to recognize the best young chefs in America. I’d invited them to come along to eat the day I was supposedly judging Du Jour for the first time, although I’d already made up my mind about how stellar it was.”
“But then you denied her the Star.” Zach felt his voice turn into Hill Country limestone.
“Not me. I recommended that Texax Foodie Magazine award the star, but then…”
Mitzi grimaced. “Then it came out that he was dating me.” She leaped toward Zach and put a hand on his arm. “I swear, I didn’t realize the connection, not when it started. I promise.”
“A hyper-sensitive young staffer at the magazine mentioned this in layout meeting the next day, and management decided it would look bad.” He shot a miserable look at Mitzi. “Like I say, it was all my fault. I should have sent another judge from TFM. I could have done it. All I was thinking about was showing my friends from the other food magazines across the nation how good Piper’s food was—and looking forward to eating it again myself.”
Mitzi looked defeated. “I did my best to make it easier on Piper. I asked Ignatius, I mean Steve, to reschedule their originally requested meal service from while you were on your honeymoon to Monday.” She sent a side-glance at Steve. “I think he respected the word honeymoon.”
“When a man is looking forward to one of his own, he holds them sacred for other people.”
Mitzi’s eyes lit a fraction, but Steve still looked dejected. “I’m sorry, Zach. Like I said, this was all my fault, and I’ll repair it as best I can. The other magazine food critics adored her food. They agreed that her tacos were, as you said, magical. If she were still in the country, we were planning to have a special awards ceremony naming her America’s Top Young Chef in its inaugural presentation.”
“If only she were here,” Mitzi sighed. “She deserves it. Really she does. She’s not just an exceptional chef; she’s an exceptional person.” Mitzi swiped at tears, and Zach shouldn’t have noticed because he felt his own nose start to run and a tear welling.
He sniffed them back.
“It’s America’s loss,” Steve said.
It’s my loss.
Zach thanked them and left. He had to bring her back. She deserved all this and more.
∞∞∞
Piper stood under the low, rounded ceiling in front of the faux iron stove. In truth, it was a high-end appliance with eight burners and the best gas flame she’d ever cooked on in any commercial kitchen, but it was made to look rustic with a pot-belly and ornately designed iron handles on the oven door. The refrigerator was similarly disguised as being some kind of vintage ice box, when in reality it had serious cooling power and shelving capacity. Cooking for Hobbit Households wasn’t the drudge she’d expected. Sure, she’d had to cook several meals a day, which amounted to cooking all day long, but at least it kept her mind occupied and prevented her from wallowing, as she would have otherwise.
This way, she had a chance to stretch her creativity. In the past four days as their cooking slave, more or less, she’d made more than lunch, which had been her one focus for the past year. Making breakfast—deep-fried French toast one day, strawberries and clotted cream another—and dinner—ox tail soup with mint leaves and coriander, root vegetable medley with beef roulade, and even Texas barbecue—had stretched her inventiveness, reminding her why she loved cooking. It was endlessly creative, and the immersion in the work even relaxed her.
“Piper,” a man’s voice said, leaning into her kitchen. She turned and saw Mayor Ebbles’s son, Archie. “I just want to say, elevensies was the best thing I’ve eaten in months, or possibly ever.”
Piper looked back down at the roux she was stirring. She couldn’t let the white sauce get lumps, or else the biscuits and gravy she planned to serve for tea-time at four would fail.
“I’m glad you liked the jasmine tea and shortbread biscuits.”
“Liked them!” Archie stepped full into the room, of which he occupied a considerable portion. “I am in ecstasies over them.”
A sinking dread filled Piper. He wasn’t going to say anything…unwelcome, was he? Piper shut off the heat under the gravy.
“In fact,” he took a step closer, his eyes blinking at a rate of at least a hundred times a minute, which was maybe his idea of flirting. Piper stepped back again, her hip pressing hard against the knobs on the stove. This room wasn’t big enough for the both of them and Archie’s ecstasies. She instinctively lifted the wire whisk from the roux, as though the hot liquid dripping from it might serve as a defense.
“In fact, I would like to ask you…”
Oh, dear. “No, Archie.” Her heart hammered. She couldn’t hurt her parents’ social standing in the shire or whatever, but she also wouldn’t do anything to hurt Zach. Or herself. “I’m married.”
“Married. Oh, I know all that. Your husband called and asked Dad’s permission.”
He had? Oh, mercy. Piper’s heart rate scaled down a degree. “Then what do you want to ask?”
“If you’ll make that shortbread, plus some of those strawberries and clotted cream for my wedding.” His wedding! “I’m marrying the daughter of the mayor of Hobbit Hinterlands next month. She asked me to plan the menu if I tasted something good cooked up by one of our guest chefs.”
Guest chefs. Oh.
“I’d…” Piper faltered at the thought of being here in this kitchen cooking seven meals a day for over a month. It was one thing to be creative for
a week or so, but she’d also like to see the sun eventually. “…be honored.”
It was all she could say, and Archie’s face took on a broad, beaming quality. “I’m so grateful. Emmalina will be thrilled.”
His happiness infected her for a moment. She wouldn’t have denied a jolly young man that bliss for all the new copper bakeware in the world.
Archie made a Jabba the Hutt-style exit, and Piper went back to her biscuits and gravy, maybe forever. She wished she dared respond to Zach’s several messages, but the memory of his face when he learned she’d been using forged documents and had committed felonies prevented her from doing so. She couldn’t bear to hear that he didn’t want her anymore, when he was the only thing she would ever want again.
She stared at her phone, turning it on. Maybe just one call.
A message blinked—but not from Zach this time. It was from Mitzi instead.
Hey, Piper. Don’t worry. I’m holding down the fort until you get back. You ARE coming back. Meanwhile, don’t worry about Du Jour. We have an able sub, the only one I could dream could begin to fill your shoes: Steve LaPray.
Steve LaPray! He was cooking at Du Jour?
Once her customers had tasted Steve LaPray’s cooking, they’d never be interested in Piper’s again.
Beneath the text was a picture of Teacup, perched in Libby’s arms. They both looked happy. Wow. Piper didn’t need to go back. Du Jour, and Teacup, and Zach’s family, and Zach would all be fine, going on with life, without her.
∞∞∞
Late Monday afternoon, the hallways of Crockett, Bowie, and Houston looked dimmer than usual. A rainstorm outside blackened the windows, one of the heavy monsoon rains San Antonio got coming up from the Gulf in early July. He hadn’t been here for the past week, too busy working every possible angle for getting Piper back, and it all seemed strange and unfamiliar in this light.
Illegally Wedded Page 38
