by Meg Benjamin
One of those connections, her fiancé Joe LeBlanc, sat at one of the front tables, applauding lustily. Chico felt a little like snarling all of a sudden. Every fucking person comes with an attachment these days.
He hadn’t called Andy Wells, although he had called his brother Art to make sure he’d helped her with the car. Talking to Art had given him the perfect reason to call Andy and check up on her, but he hadn’t. Yet.
He could always invite her to the Faro on one of the nights like this one when they had a band playing in the beer garden. Of course, he’d be working, but he could talk to her on and off when he didn’t have to keep an eye on the crowd. He paused, considering his working clothes—leather vest, black T-shirt and jeans, bandana around his forehead, biker boots. Yeah, she’d really dig that. Probably take one look and head off toward the other end of Main. Maybe he’d just forget the whole thing.
“She really rocks, doesn’t she?”
Chico started. He hadn’t realized Clem Rodriguez was standing at his elbow. Clearly, he was losing the kind of focus he needed for the job. “MG? Yeah, she’s class.”
Clem ran the kitchen at the Faro and did a superb job of it. She was, in Chico’s opinion, one of the main reasons they’d started pulling in regular Konigsburgers rather than the drinkers and bar brawlers that had been the Faro’s main customers in the past. Now she grinned at Joe LeBlanc, an old friend and rival chef. “He’s a happy man.”
“Yep.” Chico frowned as he tried to figure out how to segue into a topic he’d been meaning to bring up with her. “Did you see the write-up about the Fourth of July cook-off in the Zeitung?”
She shrugged. “You mean the barbecue thing? Yeah, I saw it.”
He paused, waiting for her to go on, then frowned again when she didn’t. “So?”
“So what? I don’t do barbecue.”
He narrowed his eyes. This was going to be harder than he’d thought. “There’ll be a lot of people in town for the Fourth—the competition should draw the crowds.”
“And a lot of them will show up here for lunch with air conditioning.”
“Clem…”
“No, Chico. You cannot talk me into this—don’t even try. Sanctioned barbecue competitions like this one are a bitch. They’ve got all these categories and all these arcane rules that can get you disqualified if you don’t get it just right. Plus, like I said, I don’t do barbecue. It’s like cooking chili around here. Too many people think they know how to do it, and too many people are ready to tell you why the way you do it is all wrong. There’s no upside.” She folded her arms across her chest, giving him her own narrow-eyed look.
“You do good chili.”
“I do great chili,” she corrected. “If this were a chili cook-off, I’d be the first to enter. But I know my limitations. I’m not doing barbecue.”
He sighed. “It would be good publicity.”
“It would be good publicity if we won. We wouldn’t. And we’re not doing barbecue here as long as I’m cook. You want a new cook? Go look for one.” She raised her chin combatively.
He sighed again. Clem was one of the few people who knew he was part owner. She also knew damn well they’d never look for a new cook as long as she was happy in her kitchen. She was as much a part of the Faro as he was. “Of course I don’t want a new cook, damn it. I know as well as you do you’re the reason people show up here to eat our food. And for the record, I wasn’t challenging you. I just wanted your opinion.”
The corners of her mouth edged up in a sly grin. “My opinion is if you want to enter the damn contest, you should do it. I’ve had your cabrito. And your carne asada. It kicks ass.”
Chico shifted his shoulders, his jaw clenching. “I’m no pit master.”
Clem shook her head in exasperation. “Sure you are. More than a lot of those assholes who serve dried out brisket and beans and call it art. But the thing is, barbecue takes a lot of time and effort and I’m not interested in doing it. Okay?”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“Good.” She patted his elbow, then turned to the crowd. “I’m going to go let Joe buy me a beer. Talk to you later.”
Chico managed not to sigh again. Obviously, he hadn’t thought the whole barbecue thing through. Clem did the best bar food in the state, but barbecue wasn’t bar food. Still, he’d figured that anybody who could turn out chili like hers would be able to whip up a few racks of ribs that would ring bells from Konigsburg to Austin.
And entering the barbecue cook-off himself, either as her assistant or her teammate, would have been a sure way to cure his boredom.
He didn’t do ribs himself. Pork loin was more like it. And cabrito. His carne asada was more grill than barbecue. Still, she was right—his carne was not to be sneezed at. Then again, he had no intention of entering a barbecue cook-off on his own. Barbecue cook-offs were team events, and he wanted to go for the pro division where the stakes were higher. Entering as an amateur backyard chef would be like playing Whiffle ball.
On stage, MG was finishing her first set. He’d switch on the recorded music for twenty minutes or so while she took her break. Normally, he’d have to keep an eye on the beer garden gate to the parking lot to make sure nobody sneaked in, but there was no cover for MG’s show so he didn’t have to worry about it. He did a quick survey of the crowd anyway, checking for anybody underage who might have slid under Tom’s radar.
And stopped. Cold. Andy Wells was sitting by herself at a table in the corner, sipping a beer.
Andy took another swallow of her beer, wishing she’d gone for wine instead. It was probably really good beer, but it was mostly wasted on her. Still, it was a hot night and the beer cooled her throat.
She took another covert glance around the beer garden, trying not to stare at Chico Burnside. She knew MG Carmody—knew her slightly, anyway. MG had sung at the last library fundraiser, which Andy had helped to organize. It seemed only fitting to come to the Faro and hear her sing tonight.
Which was pretty much a total crock, as Andy knew only too well. Hearing MG Carmody was just an excuse to get inside the Faro and take another long look at Chico Burnside.
She glanced his way now, then dropped her gaze again quickly when he turned in her direction. If he’d looked the way he did now when he’d approached her on that back road outside Oltdorf, she’d have locked herself in her car. The leather vest, the black T-shirt, the bandana—everything seemed designed to underline his size. His chest bulged with muscle, his arms seemed ready to burst through his shirt sleeves, even his jeans strained against his massive thighs.
She felt her cheeks warm slightly. She wasn’t usually the kind of woman who noticed a man’s massive thighs. On the other hand, most of the men she knew couldn’t be described as massive in any respect.
Chico Burnside was a very formidable man. And about as far from Andy’s usual run of dates as it was possible to get.
And since when does he fall into the date category? What makes you think he’d want to date you anyway?
She didn’t have any reason to think so, but she had to admit she did. Or anyway, she hoped he wanted to. She’d been considering the whole Chico Burnside question for a couple of days, ever since his brother Art had taken her to her car, gotten it going and told her to bring it in for a tune-up, all while regaling her with a series of fairly hair-raising anecdotes about Chico’s career at the Faro. Apparently he’d helped Tom Ames clean the place up and get it running, sustaining at least one concussion from a beer bottle in the process. Art made him sound like the toughest and smartest man in Konigsburg. And Andy was half inclined to believe it, even allowing for brotherly exaggeration.
Which was largely why she was there at the Faro sipping a beer she normally wouldn’t have ordered and trying to figure out a way to approach Chico Burnside without coming off as either desperate or nuts. At the very least, she wanted another conversation with him, preferably one that lasted longer than the previous one had. Maybe she’d find out they had nothing
in common and just let the whole thing go.
Or maybe she wouldn’t. She was definitely hoping she wouldn’t. These days her life seemed sort of, well, routine. Chico, on the other hand, seemed anything but routine.
A few moments later, he dropped into the chair beside her, his expression carefully blank. “Evening. I didn’t see you come in. Art take care of your car okay?”
She nodded. “Absolutely. He was great. He sold me a new battery, and he’s going to check everything out next week.” A long moment yawned between them. She willed herself not to fill it with words.
He raised an eyebrow. “So—first time at the Faro?”
She nodded again. “First time since the Wine and Food Festival. I never sat outside before. It’s nice.”
He glanced around as if he’d never considered the possibility. “Yeah. Most nights.”
“I met MG a few weeks ago. I wanted to hear her sing.” She licked her lips. It wasn’t like she really needed to explain why she was there.
He nodded. “She’s good and getting better. Another few months and she’ll probably be too expensive for us.”
Andy frowned. “I never thought about that. How much do people get paid to sing here?”
He shrugged. “It varies, depending on how well known they are, how likely to pull in an audience. When she started here, MG got paid with crowd donations. Now she gets a flat fee. When she gets big enough, we’ll start charging a cover and she’ll get a percent of that.”
“And you figure all of that out?”
He shrugged again. “Tom and I work on it together, but yeah, I can usually tell who’s going to draw and how much.”
“Oh,” she said and stopped again. Do not babble. “It seems like a fun thing to do, working with people like MG.”
“It is. Mostly. Some of the acts aren’t as easy to tolerate, but MG’s okay. She deserves the kind of following she’s getting.”
Andy nodded, trying desperately to think of something else to talk about, absurdly afraid that he might decide to head back to his spot on the wall if she couldn’t come up with anything interesting. “Art said you helped fix this place up, back when Tom Ames first opened.”
His brows came together in a frown, which significantly upped his terrifying quotient. She didn’t really want to know what he looked like when he scowled. “I got in early with the Faro. Tom needed help. I needed something to do. It worked out.”
She smiled a little tentatively. “But you like it here.”
“I do. It’s turned into something good.”
She nodded. “It has. I remember it back in the old days. My mom used to cross the street so we wouldn’t walk in front of it when we went to the library.”
“Us too.” He shook his head. “My pop told us he’d skin us alive if he caught us within a hundred yards of the place.” He grinned suddenly, his teeth white against the dark moustache and goatee.
The grin didn’t exactly transform his face, but it made it…interesting. Andy felt a sudden tension in her midsection that hadn’t been there before. Interesting is right.
“So what do you do for the TCEQ?” he asked, leaning his forearms on the table.
She sighed. “A little of everything these days. We’re really short handed. When you found me that night I was collecting water samples to take them back to the lab so we could analyze them to make sure they weren’t contaminated.”
“Do you do the analysis too?”
She shook her head. “Once upon a time I was in the lab. Now I’m more an administrator.”
His brows came together again. “You’re a scientist?”
All of a sudden she heard her ex-husband’s voice in her memory. Oh yeah, my wife, great little scientist. Her shoulders tensed again. “Yeah, I’m a chemist. Only now I do most of my work on a computer.”
He looked at her again for another long moment, then the grin was back. “Cool. I liked chemistry back in school.”
“Lots of boys do.” She shrugged. “Blowing things up, I guess.”
His grin widened. “There is that. What did you like about it?”
She leaned back in her chair, considering. “I like the way you can take things apart into their basic pieces. And then predict what will happen when you put them back together. Plus with environmental science you’re always dealing with the question of what’s going on and why.” She let herself grin again. “And sometimes I get to blow things up.”
“Very cool.” He watched her for a long moment, his eyes dark in the twilight of the beer garden.
Andy felt that flutter around her midsection again. Maybe it was time for a strategic retreat. “I guess I’d better head home. I’ve got to drive to Austin tomorrow.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Did you drive here?”
She shook her head. “I walked. It’s a nice night.”
His eyes stayed narrow. “This may be Konigsburg, but it’s still not a great place for a woman to go walking around by herself at night.”
She shifted her shoulders, feeling a slight pinch of uneasiness. “I’ve been walking around Konigsburg for a long time. Ever since I could walk, in fact. I’ll be fine.”
“Can you wait fifteen minutes?”
“I guess so.” She arched an eyebrow. “Why?”
“In fifteen minutes MG will be into her next set and I can get Tom to keep an eye on things for a while. I’ll walk you home.”
Her shoulders tensed again. “You don’t need to do that.”
“Probably not. I want to, though.” He gave her another of those slow grins that seemed to transform his expression from daunting to sort of, well, less daunting.
“Okay.” Andy hoped her voice didn’t sound as breathy as she was afraid it did. Chico Burnside was formidable in a whole lot of ways.
Chico wondered if he should take Andy’s hand. The street was dark, but not that dark, given that there were streetlights at either end. The sidewalk was in good shape. He didn’t see any obstacles he’d have to help her around. If he took her hand, he wouldn’t have any convenient excuse to explain it—other than the fact that he wanted to touch her. He wasn’t sure how she’d feel about that.
You won’t know until you try. True. But if he tried too soon, he might screw things up for the future.
He gritted his teeth, knowing it was at least dark enough to keep her from seeing his jaw go rigid. He wasn’t exactly a Don Juan, but he’d never had much trouble with women before. He wasn’t sure why he was having so much trouble now.
Except, of course, that she was Andy Wells, chemist. And he was Chico Burnside, bouncer and sometime music promoter. If it weren’t dark and the streets weren’t deserted, they’d probably be drawing an audience on every front porch between the Faro and Andy’s house.
A porch light gleamed at the house he remembered was hers. Maybe five minutes more and they’d be there. And he couldn’t think of a blessed thing to say.
“Is that your family house?” he asked a little desperately.
She glanced at him, smiling. “Sort of. It’s my gram’s house. She left it to me when she died.”
“You still have family here?”
“A brother and sister-in-law. He’s a dentist. Eddie Wells.”
He nodded. “I’ve heard of him.” Three more minutes. He could see her porch steps now. “So you live here and work in Austin?”
“There’s a regional office in Spicewood. That’s where I work.”
“Better than the city, I guess.”
“Definitely. I only hope they don’t decide to close it to save money.”
Two minutes, tops. Maybe one.
Andy’s steps slowed and she started to turn up the walk toward her house. “Well…”
“Would you like to go out sometime?” he blurted. “With me?”
With you? Who else would you be asking for? Jesus, he sounded like a first class dork.
She paused for a moment, and he knew with absolute certainty that she was going to say no. Her eyes would get th
at sympathetic look that women got when they were trying to let you down easy. He hated that look. Jesus, he hated that look.
“Sure.”
He almost checked to make sure she was actually talking to him. Sure. That meant yes, right? He breathed out a long sigh. “I work Fridays and Saturdays, but Thursday’s usually a slow night. Would that be okay for you?”
She nodded a little jerkily. “Sure. Thursday’s fine. What time?”
What time? He hadn’t even figured out what they were going to do yet. “Seven?”
“Okay. I’ll see you then, I guess.”
“Right.” He blew out a breath. Time to go. Definitely time to go.
Andy stared at him for a long moment, then leaned forward quickly and took his hand. Warm lips brushed across his cheek. She smiled up at him, a brief flash in the darkened street. “’Night, Chico.” She turned and trotted up the steps to her front porch.
He watched until she was inside the house, then turned back down the street toward the Faro, letting his lips slide into an idiot grin. Well, all right then.
Chapter Five
Cautiously, Darcy guided her SUV down the slope toward the river. She’d gotten the King’s address from Joe, but he hadn’t told her just how far back in the hills she’d have to travel to find the place. Maybe he didn’t know himself. Given that the King seemed to live on the backside of beyond, maybe his location was supposed to be as mysterious and special as his brisket.
Darcy grimaced. She wasn’t even working with him yet and already she was making sarcastic cracks. Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea after all.
Willows and cypresses arched gracefully over the banks of the river as she reached the crossing. The King’s barbecue truck was parked beside the road—maybe because he couldn’t get it across the bridge.
The road curved over a low wooden structure without side rails that looked barely wide enough for a Model-T. She took a deep breath and guided her SUV across the center, her tires bumping on the planks.
