“But just look at them.” Russell insisted.
There was no question who “them” was.
Angelo took in the scene. Russell had friends from the dock where his sailboat was moored in Seattle at Shilshole Marina. They were mostly dressed for the Northwest in slacks and a clean shirt. They clustered together by the buffet table Angelo had spent most of last night putting together, eating the gourmet food with as much attention as they’d eat a bucket of chicken. He’d bet money they were talking about sailing. It was a topic they never tired of.
A bunch of his and Russell’s New York friends had flown out. They were dressed far more fashionably, looking dark, edgy, and wholly out of place at a Northwest wedding reception, outdoors at that, held beside a picturesque lighthouse. Clearly, in their opinions, the wedding of one of America’s wealthiest bachelors and an internationally known food-and-wine critic who was starting a cooperative of Pacific Northwest vineyards shouldn’t be in a setting more rustic than the ballroom at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
Cassidy’s friends were a daunting slice of the restaurant world, chefs and food critics. A dozen or so of the Northwest’s top vintners from Cassidy’s new Northwest Wines venture were also in attendance. It shouldn’t be surprising who Cassidy’s friends were. Still, it was his restaurant, Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth, where they’d held the rehearsal dinner and it was his buffet they were presently tasting and judging. He looked away because he couldn’t stand to watch.
No, there was no question which “them” Russell was referring to or why, as a professional photographer, he was desperate for his camera. The three women laughing together made an amazing picture.
Cassidy was right out of a magazine shoot. As a matter of fact, she soon would be. Angelo knew Russell was planning to use her in that dress for the next ad campaign for Perrin’s Glorious Garb. Not just edgy clothes, but now astonishing wedding dresses as well.
Actually he’d be an idiot if he didn’t use all three of them in exactly those getups. Perrin had also done one of her fashion-design numbers on herself and Jo Thompson. Courtesy of a dye job, Perrin’s hair matched Jo’s, a straight fall almost as black as night to the middle of their backs. Their dresses were cut from the same cloth, but that’s where the similarity ended.
Perrin’s pale skin and blue eyes were offset against the light celery-green fabric by severe lines in the dress’ tailoring that accented the slender lines of her body and revealed unexpected flashes of that creamy skin. She looked long and dangerous, like a racing sailboat or a really fine chef’s knife.
Jo’s darker skin, revealing her part-Alaskan heritage, was kissed by the gentle green curves of her dress. Each swoop and swirl accented her generous figure and the fitness he knew she earned through hard sweat at the gym. A man could become lost while navigating among those curves until there was no hope for his return.
The three women had their foreheads together and their arms around each other’s waists.
“Beauty, truth, and joy.” Josh Harper observed over Angelo’s shoulder even as Perrin burst forth with one of her bubbling laughs. The reviewer from Gourmet Week had come up between Angelo and Russell. He knew Josh from a couple of good reviews of Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth and his habit of eating at Angelo’s when he was in town, even when he wasn’t researching for a review.
“Guess it wasn’t hard to tell what was grabbing our attention.” Russell noted. “You’re good with words, Josh. Maybe you should write for a living or something.”
“Or something.” Josh sighed as he watched the three women. “There are moments when being happily married really sucks.”
“And moments when it’s absolutely awesome,” Russell took a swallow from his bottle of beer. “So what’s your excuse, Angelo?”
He tried to speak, he really did. But Jo Thompson had raised her head and was looking at him from between the other two women. Her dark eyes inspected him as only a top corporate lawyer could, slowly taking him apart like a fine chiffonade, one sliver-thin slice at a time.
Russell’s punch on his arm sent him staggering to the side. His wine, thankfully a white Oregon Viognier, spilled down the leg of his gray suit pants, and perfumed him with its warm floral components.
“Oh, c’mon, Russell!”
“Sorry buddy. I’d feel bad, but I have to go dance with the most beautiful woman here.” He finished his beer, handed Angelo the empty before going to fetch his wife. Having his hands full was the only thing that kept him from smacking the groom a good one.
Angelo stood there, empty wine glass in one hand, a drained beer bottle in the other, and a stain down his tuxedo pant that made it look as if he’d just peed himself. Like a lush on display. He shook his leg to try and shake loose the wet pant leg clinging to his skin like cold clam sauce. It didn’t work.
Then he looked up and saw that Jo was still watching him. A soft smile, the kind that came the instant before a laugh, lit her face.
Josh clapped Angelo on the shoulder as Russell and Cassidy hit the dance floor, appearing to float several feet above it in their happiness.
“Yep! Happily married has its points.” Josh was watching the newly-married couple sizzle across the dance floor.
But Angelo couldn’t stop watching Jo Thompson.
Chapter 2
“You’ve got a special at table seven,” Graziella called out as she breezed through the swinging doors into the kitchen at Angelo’s restaurant. She dumped a stack of empty bowls with a clatter in front of Marko the dishwasher.
“What kind of special?” Angelo didn’t even bother to look up from the Veal Florentine he was plating. An almost invisible shaving of truffle, followed by a fistful of fresh mozzarella and shove it under the broiler to finish.
“Wants the chef on the floor,” she had to shout a little to be heard over the typical kitchen mayhem of orders rattling back and forth and pans clattering against the stove as Manuel, the sous chef caramelized some onions in Marsala wine adding a brightness to the richer tomato overtones that generally permeated the air.
“I’m busy.” ‘Chef on the floor’ was a stupid New York thing anyway, not Seattle. Angelo grabbed the plate as his grillardin slid a medium-rare pan-seared duck breast into a nest of slivered porcini. The dark, fatty duck and the earthy umami of the butter-sautéed mushrooms filled his senses. It was one of his favorite new dishes, because of its richness in all the senses. A sprinkle of bright green chives and deeply yellow lemon zest, as much for the color as the tang. He slid it across to Graziella.
“Told her you were, but she seemed confident you wouldn’t mind,” She dressed the duck with a side of steamed baby asparagus as he pulled out the veal and then she took both out with her. “She’s a looker, if that helps.”
Angelo tossed the latest batch of pasta with tongs, and drizzled on cold-pressed olive oil. Now he had to let number seven wait. Because if he didn’t, Graziella would assume being pretty was all that was needed to get him out of his kitchen. Definitely, let her wait.
But he couldn’t. He’d been side-tracked, knocked out of the groove. The second time his garde manger had a salad ready before Angelo had prepared the plate, he gave it up and called Manuel to take his spot. Manuel might be Mexican rather than Italian, but he could turn out a hundred complex dishes each exactly to Angelo’s recipes and repeat it night after night. The perfect sous chef.
Wiping his hands on the towel dangling from his apron’s waistband and checking that there were no flour stains on his charcoal shirt, Angelo pushed through the door into the restaurant. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust from the stark white and steel of his bright kitchen to the soft ambiance of Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth.
He and Russell had redesigned the dining area like a traditional Italian kitchen. A large central fireplace. Tables in small clusters scattered about the room. No booths, but comfortable chairs, tasteful paintings and photos of Italy on the walls.
On their last trip, Russell and Cassidy had taken a number of photogr
aphs of the old Italian villages that Angelo’s mother had left before Angelo’s birth. But it lent an authentic feel to the room, photos of home. It was cozy and Angelo forced himself to slow down enough to share a friendly moment or two with some of the diners he recognized as repeats, and a few that he didn’t.
“Yes, that’s fresh basil,” as if he’d use anything else.
“I used the Pacific salmon in this Cioppino, it’s a gentler flavor than the Atlantic salmon,” and it was more popular here in Seattle even if it was a bit less authentic. It gave patrons a chance to feel slightly superior for living out here on the “wilder” west coast.
“And what can I do…” his words trailed off as he reached table seven.
Jo Thompson sat there wearing a deep yellow blouse the same tone as the wall paint, but richer, more intense. Her black hair was back in a ponytail, leaving her face and neck exposed. Her skin and eyes were lustrous in the restaurant’s soft candlelight. Her cleavage, not deeply exposed, was accented by a small dangle of gold in the shape of an orca whale on a hair-thin chain. The subtle adornment made her absolutely stunning.
“Yuri and I were hoping that you could choose dinner for us tonight.”
Angelo glanced at Yuri. He was a big man, tall and broad-shouldered. Angelo wasn’t that short, but he might not even reach this guy’s shoulder. His face was square and rugged in a way that he supposed women would find handsome, but he could never be sure with guys.
His hands were big and rough, a working man’s hands. Angelo’s animal brain flashed an image of those callused hands brushing over Jo’s beautiful skin and he felt the blood drain out of his soul.
“Of course,” his voice nearly broke, it had suddenly gone so dry. “It would be my pleasure Miss Thompson. Do the lady or the gentleman have any preferences?”
The man waved one of those hands dismissively. “Whatever you make will be fine.” His voice was deep and smooth, accented lightly with Russian heritage making it even richer.
“Jo says that your taste is impeccable and that’s good enough for me.” He rested an elbow on the table as he leaned across toward Jo. “Must say that my taste is pretty impeccable too.”
Clearly dismissed, Angelo turned for the kitchen. Once back in the world of white and noise, back where the sizzling of the deep fryer battled the dish boy for sonic ambiance, and oregano and garlic scented the air along with the undertones of port reductions, he let his hands fall to his sides.
Cook for them? Non possibile! Twice he went to step forward, but he had no idea what to make. So, he’d just make…something.
After his third attempt at a Roasted Artichoke and Venison Carpaccio Bruschetta, he had Marco send out a simple Antipasto-su-baguette. From there it went downhill. Working beside a flustered Angelo, his grillardin slid out of the groove. He ruined the last duck breast, then burned a sirloin so badly that they’d had to open the back doors and turn the fans up to full roar to avoid the charred scent reaching the dining room.
The disaster rippled through the kitchen. The friturier dropped plastic tongs into the deep-fryer, which melted and permanently merged with the fry basket before he was able to recover them. They’d be throwing that basket away. The potager grabbed the salt instead of the sugar and then knocked the last of the asparagus soup across the patissier’s station taking out a whole tray of Torte della Nonna.
Angelo considered going to apologize to the patrons at large, but couldn’t face Jo’s disappointment. Clearly she’d been intending a romantic dinner to show off her savvy in choosing his restaurant. Instead, Angelo took the coward’s way out and stayed hidden in the kitchen. Tonight, he knew, he was going to be drinking far too much wine. And with Russell in Italy, he was going to have to face tomorrow’s hangover on his own.
Jo knew she’d made a miscalculation the moment she saw Angelo’s face. Not only that, but his hands, normally so expressive, had dropped to his sides and hung there. But she didn’t know how to take it back. She should have taken Yuri anywhere in Seattle but Angelo’s restaurant.
Yuri had called, saying that he’d be in town and he’d love to take her out to dinner. She’d suggested Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth without even thinking. The food was exquisite and the atmosphere quiet but cozy. It didn’t force absolute isolation like in an American steakhouse with booths so deep and tall that you could be the only couple there. Nor the merry mayhem of the Moroccan place they gone to for Cassidy’s bachelorette party. Jo still wasn’t sure quite how Perrin had gotten Cassidy and Jo up with her to join the belly dancer, much to the entertainment of other customers.
Angelo’s offered quiet tables, the gentle strains of fine Italian singers sounding from a discrete sound system rather than an uncomfortable trio traveling from table to table. Tasteful. She liked that about his choices, his restaurant was immensely tasteful. It had seemed the perfect place to bring Yuri, especially as fine Italian dining wasn’t something easily found in Alaska.
Jo had spent a lot of time with Yuri Andreevich over the last two years working on the Alaskan fisheries lawsuit. He was one of the Russians who had immigrated to the Alaskan coast seeking the rich American life. Unlike most, he had found it. Many of his countrymen had simply traded one fishing boat for another. Yuri had used the lawsuit to leverage himself into position as a “voice of the fishermen” and proven himself to be capable and successful as such. He sounded as if he were the hero of the two-brother boats eking out a family tradition, rather than in the pay of the conglomerates launching hundreds of craft and being sued for price control by the state on behalf of the fishermen.
She hadn’t much enjoyed the ethics of the whole thing, but she’d ultimately justified it to herself that the individual fishermen’s claims were even more unfair than the conglomerates’ practices. And the fees had been astonishing which had paid off her condo and left her little excuse to complain. She’d spent two years ignoring the sharp pinch and it was now past time where she could change anything.
Yuri’s big voice was romantic, and his heavily-accented English caused several heads to turn at other tables when he first spoke. It wasn’t a booming voice, but it carried, and attracted attention. It had also worked well in interviews and, she had to admit, on the phone with her. Jo liked Yuri, and there had been a connection there. Or at least she’d thought so.
She’d been feeling lonely after the wedding. With Cassidy out of town and Perrin immersed in another of her design frenzies from which she might not emerge for days or weeks, Jo was discovering quite how pitiful her social life had become. She couldn’t even throw herself into the next lawsuit, it was only starting to trickle in. Dinner had sounded like a fun and easy answer to an otherwise quiet Thursday evening alone.
But when Angelo saw them, he had looked as if he’d been shot. She’d known he was attracted to her. It was plain to see, but his feelings had left him awkward in her presence. And, she had to admit, it had left her awkward as well. They’d danced together a few times at the wedding last weekend but he’d said little and she’d said less.
If it had been purely physical, that might have been fun as he was very nice to look at. But it wasn’t her body that he was always watching, but rather her eyes. Not a good sign. She didn’t need any attachments right now. Especially not one that would be complicated by being her best friend’s husband’s best friend.
Russell was good for Cassidy. If it had been Jo, she would have killed the man inside the first week, but he was good for Cassidy. His carefree attitude forced his wife to loosen up and relax, something she did only a tiny bit better than Jo. Jo had never “gotten the hang” of letting go. Didn’t have time for it, truth be told.
Russell’s ease, mixed with his ramrod forthrightness, made Cassidy face decisions head-on rather than sliding by them. It did make him the perfect man for her.
Angelo unbalanced Jo and so she determined it was best to simply not consider him at all. But she hadn’t meant to wound him by flaunting Yuri in his face. She was always fumbling in An
gelo’s presence and it was a feeling she wasn’t used to. And one that the confident counselor in her didn’t like at all.
“This is the Earth calling to the Jo Thompson,” Yuri sounded like a Russian flight controller with his gentle destruction of proper English syntax. “Where did you go off flying to just now?”
Jo shook her head.
He was about to press when the appetizer arrived. She took one of the tiny antipasto sandwiches to stall, not one of her usual tactics.
It was good, but nothing exceptional. She’d been here a couple of times with Cassidy and knew this was merely one of Angelo’s standard, albeit wonderful, dishes. Clearly not the exceptional food he made for friends.
She had hurt him and he was being petty and spiteful. Yet another reason not to be attracted to him. Spiteful men always became worse with time. She’d focus on Yuri, he was her date after all.
“I was just thinking about the next case I’m taking. It will be bringing me back to Alaska.” Now why had she said that? During the fisheries lawsuit, Yuri had been one of their main spokesmen. They had worked long hours together honing both the public talking points and the court messages. Jo had been very careful to make sure the relationship had remained professional. This was the first time they’d seen each other since she’d won that case.
She’d also only recently emerged from a rather intense, even by her standards, lawsuit regarding the crabbing practices along the U.S.-Canadian border, again on behalf of the larger fishing corporations. That particular suit had bankrolled her a very comfortable savings account.
As she’d dressed for dinner, Jo had been uncertain of her own feelings. So, she’d chosen attractive but conservative attire, her yellow St. John blouse buttoned fairly high, with black Donna Karan slacks and sensible heels, that sent a clear message. “I will make myself pretty, but the verdict is still out on whether or not we will be spending the night together.”
The Complete Where Dreams Page 31
