by Tami Lund
“Would you have never gone to Louisiana in the first place?”
“Yes,” he said vehemently, because if he had not gone to that stupid interview, none of this would have ever happened. Emily Kate would still be safe, in her own hometown, running her restaurant, with absolutely no fear of someone blowing up her car or trying to kill her.
She turned back to the canvas. “Go back to your life here in Detroit, and leave me alone. I will stay here for as long as Jack tells me to, and then I will resume my life. In the meantime, I don’t want anything to do with you.”
That hurt. A lot. “Why not?”
She held the paintbrush, poised to touch the canvas, and then she dropped her arm to her side and shook her head. “Because I’m not what you want, and I’m tired of holding out hope.”
“I do want you.” How could she say that, after everything they’d experienced together? Short period of time it may have been, but they’d certainly used the time to their advantage. He couldn’t imagine ever being attracted to another woman, not for the rest of his life.
“But you don’t want everything I represent. You want the notoriety you think you can only get by running a restaurant here.”
“That’s not true,” he insisted. “It doesn’t have to be Detroit.”
He could tell it was the wrong thing to say, just like telling her he wished he’d never gone to Louisiana in the first place. Damn, he had become an expert at inserting his foot into his mouth. A week ago, he could say or do no wrong when Emily Kate was around. Now he could do no right.
“But not in Uncertain,” she said, her voice full of sadness. He wanted to close the space between them, pull her into his arms, and promise her the world. Her world. With him in it. Before he could work up the nerve to do so, she spoke again.
“Go do it, Connor. Go chase your dreams. I promise to be a good girl and do as I’m told.” She turned her back and began painting with precise strokes. “Thank you for the studio.”
His heart swelled with hope at her words of gratitude, until she said, “Close the door on your way out, please.”
He left the room, disgusted with her, with his sister, with himself. Why the hell was everyone so damn determined he should continue to seek his future here in Detroit? He thought he was ready to let go of his original goals and give Louisiana Kitchen—and Emily Kate—a shot. Now he second-guessed himself.
He’d had this dream of being executive chef in Oliver’s restaurant for so long, he wasn’t sure he could refocus his life. The time he spent at Emily Kate’s restaurant had been great—the time he spent with her had been fantastic. He was even man enough to admit his sister was probably right—he was in love with Emily Kate.
But he never stopped thinking about his dreams. And his dreams lay in Detroit.
Or so everyone around him kept insisting.
Connor drained his drink and placed the empty glass on the counter. “I’m going out, Margie,” he called to his sister, who was still sitting out on the deck.
“Your escort’s name is Greg,” she said cheerfully.
“My escort?”
Margie stepped inside and nodded. “Yep. He’s sitting in that old beige car out front. Undercover detective from the local police department. On loan to the FBI, apparently, until this case is closed.”
Connor scowled. “I don’t need a babysitter.”
Marjory grabbed his arm, her face etched with concern. “It’s you they’re after, Connor. Don’t be stupid. You’ve made plenty enough stupid mistakes lately. Don’t make another with your own life.”
He jerked his arm from her grasp. “Fine. Just take care of Emily Kate, okay?” He left the house, headed to the car at the curb, and tapped on the roof.
The dark haired, dark complexioned man who sat in the driver’s seat looked up from his phone.
“Yeah?” He had a Midwestern accent that told Connor he was probably native to the Detroit area.
“I’m Connor Rikeland.”
“Yeah, I know.”
A man of few words, but Connor was used to that after spending time with Jack and his partner.
“I have to go run an errand. I understand you have to babysit me.”
The cop cracked a smile at that one. “I’m Greg. And I’m a hell of an overpriced babysitter.”
“That’s okay. I’m pretty annoying to babysit. People tend to get shot at or blown up when they hang out with me.”
“Sounds exciting.” He pocketed his phone. “Get in.”
“This is it?” Greg asked when they stepped off the elevator and walked into the lobby at Oliver’s Restaurant. “A restaurant? Why this one?”
Connor paused, gathering his determination. “I used to work here. Everybody keeps advising me to go back.”
“Damn, it would take me three paychecks to afford this place. Why’d you leave?”
Connor stared at the gilded gold sign, the name OLIVER’S in scrolled font. “I was chasing a dream.”
“Did you find it?”
He shifted his gaze to a small group of patrons in their suit coats and dresses, trying to close business deals or secure second dates. Forget golf courses. Everybody in Detroit knew Oliver’s was the place to be if you wanted to see and be seen.
“I think so,” he replied before he led Greg to the hostess stand, where Jasmine stood, ready to greet them.
An hour later, Greg leaned against the wall in the kitchen and watched as Connor donned a crisp white chef’s coat and placed a tall, white chef’s hat on his head.
“The owner really doesn’t like you, does he?” he remarked as Connor buttoned his coat.
“Nope.”
“That Jasmine is pretty hot though.”
Connor shrugged. “She’s okay.”
“Okay? She was all over you like a fur coat. I’ve never had a woman drool over me like that.”
Connor grimaced. Unfortunately, she wasn’t the woman he wanted to drool over him. “Hit on her,” he suggested. “Pretend like we’re buds. Maybe it will work.”
Greg glanced over his shoulder at the door leading into the restaurant proper. “I might just do that.” Then he turned back to Connor. “So what now?”
Connor took a deep breath. “Now, we cook.”
Chapter 17
“Come in.”
The door to Emily Kate’s new makeshift studio opened, and Marjory let out a low, drawn out whistle.
“Wow. You’ve been busy.”
She’d propped paintings everywhere. Paintings of crawfish and egrets and scenes from the Louisiana bayou. There were Mardi Gras scenes and swamp scenes and several paintings of Louisiana Kitchen, many depicting family gatherings or fast-paced days at the restaurant. Emily Kate had indeed been busy.
“Feel better yet?” Marjory asked, amusement lacing her words.
Emily Kate smiled and pushed an errant curl out of her face. “A little,” she admitted. “But I’m still worried.”
“About?”
Emily Kate shrugged. “Everything. My cat. My restaurant. My brother. His partner. Connor.” It wasn’t even hard to admit that she was worried about Connor. As she’d painted to her heart’s content over the course of the last two days, she’d come to the realization she was in love with the man. She painted and recalled the way he’d won over the Henrys and then proceeded to take over the kitchen at her restaurant and had clearly loved every minute of it. She swept broad strokes over the canvas, thinking about their light flirtation at the bar later that same evening, his reassurance that he would not allow things to get weird between them.
Curled up on the couch, flipping through cookbooks and discussing ideas for the menu at Louisiana Kitchen. The morning she’d woken up to find him repairing the stairs without having been asked. His decadent chocolate cake and how thrilled he’d been over her reaction.
The fact that he’d rushed to her side when she and Cullen had been injured. And then had insisted she come to Detroit for her own protection. And he’d arranged for this stud
io, knowing she would need the stress relief, the outlet for her frustration.
For better or worse, regardless of his feelings or his plans, she’d managed to fall head over heels, completely and unequivocally in love with Connor Rikeland.
Unfortunately, she had yet to determine exactly what to do with this knowledge. Tell him? Offer to move to Detroit? If only it were so easy.
“Are you interested in seeing a part of Connor’s life before he met you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Why don’t you take a break and get cleaned up? I’ll take you out to dinner.”
• • •
Oliver’s was located in a the middle of a hotbed of restaurant and club activity in downtown Detroit. On any given night, there was typically a line out the door, and reservations were made weeks in advance.
The front of the high rise in which the restaurant was located was gilded gold and shining wood. Giant pots flanked the main entrance and were overflowing with greenery and mounds of purple and gold pansies. Red velvet roping helped to manage the crowd gathered on the sidewalk.
“There’s a nightclub as well as Oliver’s in this building,” Marjory explained. “Come on.” She walked up to a woman with professionally styled, multihued hair who wore an evening gown and guarded the entrance. After a brief exchange, Marjory and Emily Kate were ushered into an elevator that rode to the top floor of the twenty-two-story building.
When they stepped into the lobby of the restaurant, Emily Kate froze. “Louisiana Kitchen doesn’t even compare,” she said, a note of misery in her voice.
“I’ve never been to Louisiana Kitchen, so I can’t really say. But I can tell you that no matter how pretty the outside, it’s the chef making the food that counts,” Marjory pointed out, and then she grabbed Emily Kate’s hand and tugged her toward the hostess stand.
“Hey, Jasmine,” Marjory said.
“Marjory!” the hostess squealed, and she teetered over on impossibly high stiletto heels to air kiss the woman on each cheek.
“You think we can get a table?”
“Of course,” Jasmine said immediately. “Since you’re practically family and all.” She winked broadly.
As they followed the hostess into the restaurant, Emily Kate whispered, “Did we get in because of Connor?”
Marjory laughed. “Nope. I’m a professional photographer. Oliver’s is one of my clients.”
Jasmine turned around and said, “It’s a good thing Connor came back. Otherwise, Uncle Oliver was about to start blaming your pictures for the lower sales.”
“He knows darn well my pictures are great,” Marjory replied.
As Jasmine led them through the restaurant, they passed a table located directly in front of the door to the kitchen. Emily Kate focused on the door, behind which she assumed Connor was working, but apparently Marjory had her eye somewhere else.
“Hey, Greg,” she said with a wide smile.
The man looked up from his phone. “Hey, Marjory, Emily Kate.”
Their bodyguard was an attractive man, probably in his early thirties, with a perpetually tanned complexion, dark hair, and dark eyes. Emily Kate suspected Marjory had a crush on the police detective. She noticed he tended to watch Marjory more than he watched her, but other than that, he’d exhibited no signs of reciprocating the other woman’s feelings.
“Can we join you?” Marjory asked.
He shrugged and indicated the three empty chairs at his table. “Sure. Everyone else here says this is the worst table in the place, but it’s the closest they’ll let me be to my job.” He nodded at the door to the kitchen.
The women slid into their seats, and Jasmine excused herself to return to her duties in the lobby. “Connor said Oliver won’t let you in the kitchen,” Marjory said sympathetically.
Greg nodded. “Your brother,” he said, nodding at Emily Kate, “keeps me apprised of the situation. If I get word the casino boss has sent someone up this way, you better believe my ass will be parked in that kitchen.”
“I guess they haven’t arrested anyone yet, have they?” Emily Kate asked. She didn’t presume to think Jack would alert her before he alerted her bodyguard.
“Jack says the casino boss is being unusually quiet, for the moment.”
A waitress appeared at his elbow. Marjory and Emily Kate each ordered a glass of wine. Greg asked for a refill on his water.
“Connor seems to have brought the crowds back,” Marjory commented as she read the menu.
“He makes good food,” Greg replied. “The pecan-encrusted catfish is weirdly delicious.”
“He makes pecan-crusted catfish? Here?” Emily Kate stared at the detective, struggling to comprehend what he said.
Greg shrugged. “Yesterday he made jambalaya. Said it was a secret recipe straight from the swamps of northeast Texas.”
“Jambalaya?” Her head was spinning. Connor had come back to Detroit, back to a clearly high-end restaurant, and he was using recipes from her kitchen?
They ordered dinner, and as they ate their salad course, Connor stepped out of the kitchen. He wore a black chef’s coat with a matching hat and a pair of chef’s pants with fleur-de-lis scribbled on them. She’d never seen Connor in chef’s pants before. He tended to wear jeans or shorts when he worked at the Louisiana Kitchen. For some reason, the image he portrayed struck her funny bone, and she found herself laughing, even though the situation was anything but laughable.
• • •
The first thing Connor saw when he pushed through the swinging doors to make his obligatory rounds was Greg, his trusty sidekick for the last two days. He and Greg had become quite friendly, which was a nice change of pace compared to Emily Kate’s brother, who, according to Greg, still despised him.
“What did you do to that guy?” Greg asked just last night as they headed back to Marjory’s house after Connor worked his first full day back at Oliver’s.
“Slept with his sister.”
“Suppose I can see that,” Greg admitted.
“You have a sister?”
“Three of them.”
Connor whistled. “That’s a lot of guys to hate over the years.”
Greg shrugged. “Not really. They’re all older than me. I haven’t had much say in their love lives.”
Tonight, Greg was attended by two females, his sister and ... He wiped his face with a towel and hurried over to the table.
“Emily Kate,” he blurted.
“Hi, Connor,” his sister said. He heard the sarcasm in her voice but ignored it. Emily Kate was at Oliver’s. And she was laughing. That had to mean something. After two days of ignoring him, even though they shared an 1,800-square-foot house, it had to.
“Hi, Connor,” she said, sounding as shy as she had that first evening when he had been intent upon coaxing her into bed. The night his entire life changed.
“What do you think?” he asked, waving his hand as if to encompass the entire restaurant.
She looked around at the sleek interior and nodded. “It’s nice. Way more elegant than Louisiana Kitchen.”
Connor shook his head. “It’s just a veneer,” he insisted. “Any good restaurant is about the chef—and the owner,” he added quickly.
She smiled, and he blew out a breath of relief. He caught the look Marjory and Greg exchanged, but he pretended otherwise.
“Are you stuck here until closing?” Marjory asked.
“Don’t have to be. The dinner rush should be over in about an hour. If you guys can hang out, I can head home with you.” He sounded hopeful, probably even desperate, but he didn’t care. Emily Kate was at Oliver’s, and he’d take that as a good sign. Since they’d arrived in Detroit, she’d hardly said three words to him, save that moment when she informed him she no longer wanted anything to do with him. Now, it seemed, she was finally thawing.
He hoped.
• • •
They ate dinner and lingered over another glass of wine for dessert. As the dinner crowd began to s
lowly thin, Marjory suggested they could head home soon.
“I’ll go get Connor,” Greg said, clearly relishing the idea of invading Oliver’s kitchen. He was not disappointed. The sound of Oliver shouting at him reverberated throughout the restaurant.
“He apparently has a sadistic side,” Marjory commented. She looked as if she liked the idea of getting to know that part of Greg’s personality. Emily Kate considered telling the other woman the detective did not appear to have any interest in her whatsoever, but she decided against it. Was it really fair to dash her hopes so soon? Who knew—Greg could come around. Eventually.
Connor and Greg pushed through the swinging doors a few minutes later. “Ready?” Connor sounded as eager as he had earlier in the evening. She gave him a nervous smile.
Emily Kate, for her part, was just happy to be with Connor again. She had no idea how their future would unfold—if it would even be a future that was intertwined—but she knew one thing for certain: she wanted to spend the night sharing a bed with Connor. And she had no intention of sleep as the primary activity.
When their group reached the front door of the house, Greg took the key from Marjory’s hand, opened the door, and stepped inside first. Emily Kate knew he didn’t really expect anything to go wrong tonight. The most recent text from Jack had been frustrating, but not much different from all the others:
Still nothing. He isn’t making a move. Yet.
Emily Kate tentatively reached out and touched Connor’s arm when he held the door and indicated she should step inside before him. He offered her favorite lopsided smile.
And then she heard a voice she did not recognize, and Greg responding, “Who the hell are you?”
Chapter 18
“Oh look, a double date.”
The man was seated on a chair in the darkened living room, facing the door. He had clearly been waiting for their return. His dark hair was slicked away from his face, and bushy black brows overshadowed dark, intense eyes. A manicured, gray-speckled goatee outlined his mouth. His suit was impeccable. The gun in his hand gleamed, despite the low light.
