Spooning Leads to Forking (Hot in the Kitchen Book 2)

by Kilby Blades

  “Hey, D…” Her voice was high with sweeping laughter when she picked up. “What’s up? Everything okay?”

  “Uh…yeah…” he said slowly, drawing it out. “I was just gonna see whether you could take Silvio’s delivery. I’m tied up with the investigation. I can get there, but not on time.”

  “Don’t worry—I’ve got it. Shea's with me too.”

  “Oh yeah?” Dev said with more interest than he intended. He hadn’t thought Shea was working that day. And he was disappointed that he hadn’t seen her that morning around the store.

  Dev heard some chatter in the background, then Delilah spoke again,

  “Silvio says Shea’s a lot sweeter than you, and he’d prefer to work with her.”

  As soon as Delilah said it, the background erupted with Silvio’s obnoxious cackle. Dev ended the call soon after. He had choice words for Silvio, but none he wanted to say in front of Brody, let alone in front of Delilah or Shea.

  Instead, he seethed silently all the way back to town. Dev had seen neither hide nor hair of Shea for more than a week. It burned him up to know that pompous overcharging jackass, Silvio, was there with her now.

  This isn’t good, Dev thought to himself. He didn’t have time for this. Why was he getting jealous and territorial over a woman he wasn’t even dating? How did Shea Summers manage to distract him so thoroughly from life-and-death matters he needed to be fully focused on? Worse yet, why was he getting this way over a woman who seemed less and less interested in him every day, and was every bit as unavailable as Delilah had described?

  It would be one thing if other stars aligned—if either of their circumstances left room for it to turn into something long-term. As it stood, whatever happened between them could only be a temporary thing. Shea was going back to New York or to Hollywood or to wherever you went when you wanted to be a filmmaker. It wasn’t like he could marry the girl.

  His own situation was equally untenable. He would always have one foot in Sapling, but only just one. His redevelopment work rotated all over. Even if he permanently moved his home base from Oakland to Sapling, his project work would take him all over. He was wanted on projects in places like Las Vegas and Boston and New Orleans.

  Then, there was the leisure piece. When he wasn’t working projects or back in Sapling in his mountain home, he wanted time off to see the world. Dev had been all work and no play for far too long. It presented a fundamental dilemma: Dev was attracted to smart, driven women. Only, no woman with her own prospects would pack her bags and follow him wherever he went.

  “How’d it go?” Dev asked as he finally made his way into The Big Spoon. He’d used his key to let himself in the back. Silvio’s delivery truck hadn’t been parked next to the loading ramp, which was probably a good thing. Dev wasn’t exactly at his best.

  “Pretty good,” Delilah said distractedly as she continued to look between her clipboard and the new arrivals on the counter. “You just missed Silvio and Shea.”

  Dev hated his own disappointment at not getting a chance to see her. And the fact that hearing Silvio’s name next to hers irked Dev beyond reason was another bad sign. He was way too invested in a woman whose hand he’d never even held. And he needed to get a grip.

  “I feel like she’s done enough…” Dev tried out as casually as possible. “Don’t you feel bad about how many hours we’re taking of her time? I mean, after some point, doesn’t it just start being unfair?”

  Delilah got a look on her face that reproached the very idea and was soft and protective all at once. “Her being in a kitchen again…it’s giving her something back.”

  Dev didn’t know what that meant, and he didn’t expect that Delilah would tell.

  “Just don’t overwork her is all I’m saying…” Dev half-grumbled before rolling up his sleeves to help with the putting away. Obsessing over Shea Summers was making him absolutely nutty. And he had to let her go.

  19

  The Book Nook

  Shea

  “Just the gal I’ve been looking for,” Gus Krall called cheerfully from behind the register the minute Shea walked into The Nook. It was the nickname for the bookstore-slash-newsstand on the east end of Oliver Street. Gus had owned The Book Nook along with his husband, Keith for just about ten years. One or the other was always behind the counter, chatting and gabbing about the other. People in town joked about the fact that you never saw both of them at the same time.

  “Uh-oh. What’d I do wrong?” Shea quipped. Keith and Gus had kept her deep in writing craft books since her first week in town.

  “More like, what did you do right? Keith won’t stop getting lunch takeout for the fish and chips. Every night I come home, it smells like malt vinegar.”

  Shea smiled conspiratorially. “All you gotta do is put a little bit of baking powder and vinegar into the batter.”

  “Oh no, honey…Daddy doesn’t cook. We’re gonna keep gettin’ it from the Spoon.”

  Shea let out a little laugh and gave a small wave before breezing toward the back. Kendrick’s library held more volumes than she could ever want to read, but Shea liked a good magazine. It wasn’t natural, reading The Times Sunday Magazine or Vogue online. She was busy trying to recall whether another issue of Vanity Fair was due out then, when something hit her the second she turned the corner. Or, was it she who hit something en route to the magazine aisle? The something turned out to be a someone—solid and soft all at the same time. The someone’s hands were warm and he smelled all citrus and cedar fantastic—kind of like Dev.

  “Easy, tiger.”

  Shea would recognize Dev’s baritone anywhere, though it took her a moment to step back, get her balance and let her brain catch up to whatever had just happened. He cuffed his big hands around her upper arms, steadying her. Though his words had been delivered with humor and their bump had been minor, his eyes washed over her face thoroughly and with a bit of concern.

  “Sorry,” she managed dazedly. Being around him still gave her that stupid, speechless, swoony sort of thing. It was all compounded by the fact that she hadn’t seen him in days. She’d tried to convince herself it was a good thing—maybe even divine providence to keep her out of the shit. The truth was, she’d missed seeing his handsome face.

  “Here…let me.” It wasn’t until he let go of her and bent to one knee that she realized she’d dropped her purse onto the floor. Things must have been knocked out of his hands as well, as her purse was now surrounded by a halo of magazines. Men’s Health, Entrepreneur, and Mother Jones, were all among his wares. Shea dropped down to help as well. Upon closer inspection, Dev also held two outdoor magazines.

  “You like to hike?”

  She paused long enough to pick up his copy of Colorado Trails, an issue she’d already bought the week before.

  “The forest is what I missed the most about this place.”

  Shea had cobbled pieces of his story together from whatever Trudy and Delilah had said, but she’d never asked him directly about himself.

  “You were in San Francisco, right?”

  “For fifteen years,” he confirmed as they both rose slowly back up to their feet, him handing Shea her purse and Shea handing back the rest of his magazines.

  “I take it you’ve been to Yosemite?” Shea asked, a bit of excitement coming over her as it did every time she recalled the iconic trips from her youth.

  “Yeah, a few times.” Dev chuckled and said it in a way Shea could tell was an understatement. Then he did that thing where he seemed to study her in the most flattering and appreciative of ways, before saying, “Yosemite is one of the most magical places on earth.”

  “When I was a teenager…” Shea felt the heat creep into her cheeks as she was pulled into the thrall of his intense gaze. “My grandpa would take me there, usually in the summer, but this one time, he made a fuss about me coming out in February.”

  Dev’s eyebrows shot up. “You’ve seen the firefall?”

  Shea nodded in recalled awe as her
mind’s eye remembered the scene. At that time of year, Horsetail Falls lit up with the setting sun at a precise time of day. It was called the “firefall” because the fall of the snowmelt looked like cascading fire.

  “It was unbelievable,” Shea breathed. “I’ve always wanted to go back.”

  “I’m jealous,” Dev replied. “The only two times I managed to get camp site reservations in February, it turned out to be a dry year. Weak falls because of the drought.”

  Shea fought against the crazy words that tried to push their way out—words like, “I’d go there with you,” or, “we should try to catch it some time,” not just because it was preposterous to casually suggest an out-of-state date that was five months and twelve-hundred miles away. Because finding any excuse to spend more time in his orbit disobeyed her primary mission: Operation Stay-the-Hell-Away-from-Dev.

  “Too bad,” Shea commiserated. “I hope you get there one day.”

  Dev nodded toward his armful of magazines and held up his copy of Colorado Trails. “You hike around here?”

  “Mostly in the forest around my house. I did a few from a book I found on state park trails.”

  “You ought to go to Bison’s Bluff. You’ve never seen anything like the view of the valley at sunrise. You won’t find that one in any book.”

  Take me one day, Shea’s heart instructed her to beg. She managed to keep herself quiet. But if he came out and offered, she couldn’t say what she would do. Shea knew what was good for her—knew what was smart, but some part of her couldn’t shake her other instinct, the part of her gut that told her to trust him.

  “Thanks for the tip,” Shea said finally, mustering her friendliest smile.

  “You ought to get someone to show it to you. Not Delilah. She’s allergic to nature.”

  “Yeah…” Shea was a bit deflated. “I definitely should.”

  There was something conflicted about Dev’s returning smile.

  Probably pity, Shea thought.

  “Well…happy reading!” she said, motioning to his magazines, trying to sound more friendly and upbeat than lame. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

  For the briefest of moments, Dev looked like he wanted to say something other than goodbye. But he didn’t.

  “Yeah. Happy reading to you, too.”

  With that, Dev gave her a final, wan smile and walked around the corner where they hadn’t seen one another coming, shedding his citrus/cedar scent as he walked by. Shea stood, dazed, for a good minute, half-listening for more chatter—pleasantries between Dev and Gus. Only, they spoke in hushed tones and the small snippets that Shea did manage to catch all related to the explosions at the mills.

  Snap out of it, some part of her brain told her then. Her body kicked into gear. She was still so discombobulated from her encounter with Dev, she forgot to studiously ignore that month’s issue of The Cress when she reached the magazine aisle. Even armchair foodies appreciated America’s most respected culinary magazine—part lifestyle magazine, part culture icon and even part recipe guide. It was a love letter to American food culture and a gateway to its haute cuisine.

  The problem was, it still hurt Shea to look—still hurt a little to think about all she’d left behind. Because parts of it had been better than good. Some part of her feared that every bit of progress she’d made would disappear the second she picked up a copy of The Cress.

  Fully intending to walk clean past it, right to the beauty magazines and entertainment rags—to glossy-paged volumes that promised her flat abs, shiny hair and younger-looking skin—Shea’s blood ran cold at the sight of a headline she had to blink three times to believe:

  WHERE IN THE WORLD IS KENT?

  Her purse, too-recently knocked out of her hands, dropped on the floor again, this time from the involuntary slacking of her arms. When they found their strength again, she picked up a copy of the issue with a shaking hand. The cover showed a collage of foods on a color spectrum that ranged from red, to pink, to orange, arranged in a question mark on a backdrop of pure white.

  All of it was symbolic. The deep-pickled ginger, salmon nigiri, and gunkon maki topped with trout roe were all an homage to Kent’s known affinity for sushi. Foods like light blood oranges, butternut squash, and carrot halwa finished off the design. Shea didn’t know how long she had been staring, only that she couldn’t bring herself to open the cover, and that her body didn’t seem to be able to move.

  “Dropped your purse…” Gus’s voice startled her so badly, she nearly jumped out of her skin. Like Dev, he bent to pick it up. Shea took the proffered bag, but Gus must’ve noticed her hand shaking.

  “Hey, you eat anything today? You look like Keith when his sugar’s low. Want me to get you some juice or something?”

  “I’m fine,” Shea replied too quickly. “What I mean is…” Shea corrected herself. “I’ve been so excited to get this issue. A friend of mine is featured in the magazine.”

  It was the quickest lie Shea could think up. As the words escaped her mouth, she also realized it was the best. It gave her an excuse to do what she did next. Because this magazine absolutely could not be in circulation. Not in Sapling. Not within a hundred miles of Sapling. Not anywhere she might be.

  “You gonna buy it, then?” Gus wanted to know, sporting a conspiratorial smile that showed he was buying Shea’s story.

  “Better than that,” Shea proclaimed, finding her voice once more. “I’m gonna buy them all…”

  “What would you do if I told you I had a secret?”

  Shea didn’t bother to waste time on a formal greeting. It had taken all her courage to even make the call. Her hands had barely stopped shaking since she’d carried two heavy bags with every copy of The Cress to her car.

  “I’d say everyone has secrets,” Kendrick’s voice was groggy. Fuck. She’d awakened him from sleep.

  She had spent the three hours since getting home reading and rereading the special issue about Kent. The main article had only taken ten minutes—twenty, if you counted the fact that she’d read it twice. The rest of the issue featured reprints of her thirty most memorable restaurant reviews, then tributes to Kent’s contributions to the culinary world from famous chefs.

  “This one’s a big one,” Shea warned, a bit nauseous now and regretting the wine Carrie had insisted she drink while Carrie had tried to talk her down.

  The article had been one thing. Everything else was another—“everything else” being what she’d found when she’d done a Google search on the phrase “Where is Kent?” Everything from heartfelt concern to conspiracy theories abounded. And it wasn’t just speculation from fans. People claiming to be insiders had also weighed in: staff at iconic restaurants, bigwig culinary bloggers—even a few other food critics. It seemed a podcast had even gone into production, its raison d’être to be to prove that Kent’s disappearance was a hoax.

  “Are you in danger?” Kendrick asked. The shuffle of bed coverings could be heard.

  Was she? Shea didn’t really know. Did she think a deranged fan who wished she’d resume her column would kidnap her, take her to restaurants and force her to review food? All of this—every piece of it—was deranged. When people who didn’t know you were doxing you—gleefully searching for personal details you’d deliberately kept private—that sure felt like being under attack. It made her even more uneasy about being up on Elk Mountain in her big house all alone. It also called into question Tasha’s theories about Keenan’s spying attempts. If zealous fans were looking for her, the hacking attempts on her email might not have been him.

  “I’m Kent.” When he didn’t answer, she clarified. “…as in, Kent, the food critic. The one who published his final column a week before I left New York.”

  “For real?” Kendrick sounded a lot more awake. “And that happened, like, right under my nose?”

  “All my friends were kind of part of it. All those times we met up for dinner, but I wanted to pick the place and I always insisted on ordering, like, a million things�
��”

  “Damn, girl…” Kendrick trailed off, still sounding surprised. “I thought you just liked to eat.”

  “I need your help,” Shea repeated, trying to get him focused. “I know you’re, like, this computer genius…and I don’t know the technical terms for anything that you do, but I’m really hoping you’ll work some of your data privacy magic on me.”

  Kendrick had made his millions from selling anti-spyware technology that changed the data security game. He’d once confessed after a few drinks that he’d been approached by every major government agency to come and hack for them. As far as cyber-security geeks went, Kendrick was like their king.

  “Shea.” She heard a refrigerator open and close, then the suck and pop of an old-style glass bottle being opened. “I can’t work anything if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on.”

  She’d bet money Kendrick was drinking a short-neck, cane sugar Coke. In the midst of this madness, she was buoyed by evidence of an old habit of his that had remained unchanged.

  “Look,” Shea finally relented. “The plan was to leave Kent behind. I said goodbye and walked away. Like, no contact with my fans or my editor or anybody. I have no idea how anyone’s tracing me. The computer I used for all that stuff is in New York. But some of the theories about where I am…they’re getting warm.”

  What she couldn’t tell him was that the cyberstalking could have been any combination of fans and Keenan’s people and that the stakes were high for her to not be found. Telling him that might mean telling him she was not only freeloading, but harboring a ton of not-quite-stolen money in his house.

  “What do you need me to do? You want me to find people who are looking into you and throw them off the scent?”

  “No.” That was exactly the sort of thing that would lead Kendrick straight to Keenan. And if Kendrick could even do that, it was creepy as hell.