by Meg Benjamin
Darcy blinked. “Are you? That’s great.” Her expression shifted out of disgruntled for the first time since Andy had entered the kitchen. “When?”
Andy blew out a breath. “I’m not exactly sure. Maybe next week when things settle down a little.” She held out her left hand a little shyly. She’d thought about wearing the ring on a chain around her neck until the cook-off was over, but she couldn’t bear to take it off.
Darcy stepped forward, taking her hand so that she could see the ring more clearly. She whistled softly. “That’s some rock.”
Andy’s cheeks flushed warm. “It’s a family ring. From his great aunt.”
Darcy grinned. “Cool. You guys are good together.” Her smile dimmed slightly.
“So what’s up with you and the King?” Andy asked before she could pull all the way back into her shell.
Darcy shrugged. “Got me. Something, I guess. But I’m not sure what. I’m not used to this.”
Andy frowned. “Used to what?”
“I don’t know… Relationships, I guess.” Darcy drew quote signs in the air. “I’m not used to long-term.”
“And this is long-term?” Andy asked carefully.
“Maybe. It could be, I guess. Potentially.” Darcy grimaced. “Like I said, I’m no good with this.”
Andy pushed herself to her feet. “Come on to the fairgrounds. Have a few beers. Maybe everything will seem clearer if you do.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged again. “I suppose it can’t hurt. Let’s get the cobblers out of the oven. Then I’ll be good to go.”
Darcy stared around the county fairgrounds in wonder. The open field had been transformed into a small city of booths, some with brightly colored canopies and flags, most with printed signs across the front. Barbecue Raiders, BBQ Bombers, Original Banzai Barbecue, Bone Merchants, Hog Heaven, Pig Stickers. The names went on and on, each row of booths a small street of barbecue brag.
She followed Andy down one of the rows, feeling a quick burst of adrenaline. Competition. Yeah, she could do this. She did this all the time.
Chico and Harris were sprawled on a couple of patio lounges behind their counter. A three-foot-long purple-and-gold banner was draped across the front: Barbecue Royale.
Darcy frowned. “When did we get a name?”
“His idea.” Harris nodded in Chico’s general direction. “Like it?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Andy pulled up a folding chair, smiling at Chico. “I think it’s great. Not too obnoxious, not too demure.”
Chico snorted. “Nobody has ever called me demure in my entire life, Ms. Wells.”
Somewhere a few booths down from them, a radio blared salsa. A man in an apron and a chef’s hat began to dance energetically in the aisle with a woman in cutoffs and a halter top. They were joined almost immediately by other couples from other booths.
“Hey, y’all want to try this?” someone called. A man stepped up in front of the booth with an aluminum pitcher. “Best damn margaritas in the place.”
“Watch it there, Hoffman. I’ll match mine against yours any day.” A man in a Hawaiian shirt a couple of booths over brandished a ladle above a plastic food container.
“Texas tea, baby,” somebody yelled. “Beats your poor-ass margaritas all to hell.”
“Fightin’ words, Sandoz.” The first man shook his head. “Now y’all are going to have to put your tea where your mouth is. Or your mouth where your tea is.”
Laughter sounded up and down the row. Darcy raised an eyebrow as the margarita purveyor moved on. “Somebody started early.”
Chico shrugged. “Party time. Probably best to stick to beer, though, and keep some limits on that. There’s a long night ahead of us.”
“So what’s the schedule?” Harris roused himself to gaze around the booth. “I’m thinking the briskets go on around midnight or so. Fire should be about right by then.”
Chico nodded. “I’ll put the pork on at four or five tomorrow morning. It won’t hurt anything if it sits in the smoker a little longer.”
“It’ll get better if it does.” Harris pushed off the lounge to his feet, watching the dancing couples a few feet away. “So Darcy and I can take the first shift. Then you and Andy can pick up around three. Sound right?”
Darcy stared at him. He hadn’t talked to her about taking a shift. She’d assumed she’d spend the night in her own bed, trying to figure some things out. She opened her mouth to comment, but Chico beat her to it.
“Sounds good to me. Come on, Ms. Wells, let’s get some sleep while we can.” He grabbed Andy by the hand, towing her toward the dancing couples.
Darcy watched them go, narrowing her eyes. “That was a set-up, right?”
Harris shrugged. “He wanted to take her back home. I guess they had a big day. Who was I to argue?”
“So what do we do now?”
He gestured toward the lounge chair Chico had just vacated. “Have a seat for the time being. Maybe have a dance or two. And have a beer. We need to add wood to the fires every hour or so, but that’s about it as far as our immediate responsibilities go. Sit down. Relax. Enjoy. Let the good times roll!”
His lips edged into one of those grins that made her heart speed up. Good thing the lounge was handy. She flopped down beside him. “So all of these guys currently getting shit-faced are going to be cooking ’cue in a few hours?”
He nodded. “Which I figure gives us at least a slight advantage, seeing as how I’m sticking to beer and not much of that. Doing ’cue while shit-faced is never a good idea.”
“So what do we do while we wait—since we can’t drink?”
Harris’s grin widened.
“Forget it. Way too many people around.” To say nothing of too many emotional complications around.
“Why, Ms. Darcy, whatever were you thinking of?” He pushed himself to his feet, extending his hand. “I believe this dance is ours.”
Somewhere down the line of booths the music had shifted from salsa to something smoother and slower. She halfway recognized the song from one of MG’s shows—Carrie Rodriguez, but she didn’t know the name.
She slid into his arms, and he moved her expertly around the small space in front of the booth. All around them people were dancing, couples and singles. Even a few kids.
He was, in fact, very good. Her feet followed his almost effortlessly, one hand pressed lightly against her back, the other holding tight to her hand. After a moment, he pulled her closer, their bodies pressed together so that his thighs moved against hers.
“Going for a dip,” he murmured in her ear. “Get ready.”
He bent her back over his arm, his body leaning across hers. She caught her breath.
The music moved toward its close, but Harris held her tight for a moment longer, staring down into her eyes. After a moment, he let her up again. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
“The dance. Being here. The whole bit.”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” she said slowly. And at that moment, she absolutely meant it, no matter what came next.
“Y’all with Chico Rodriguez?” The man’s voice was slightly slurred, as if he was working on keeping his tongue from getting tangled.
Darcy turned. He looked to be maybe as tall as she was, but he was definitely about a hundred pounds heavier, most of it in his gut. He wore a black T-shirt with “Burke’s Barbecue Bandits” printed across the front, and he carried one of the cups that the Texas Tea guy had been handing out, probably not his first.
Harris’s eyebrows went up, but he kept a thin smile. “Chico Burnside is part of our team,” he said in a level voice.
“We’re gonna whip y’all’s butts.” The Barbecue Bandit grinned at him woozily. “Lew Burke’s gonna put a hurt on you.”
“Yeah?” Harris wasn’t smiling anymore.
A man from one of the other booths stepped next to him, shaking his head. “Shoney, you’re plastered. If you expect to beat anybody tomorrow, you’d better sober
up before you take over the smoker.”
“We gonna beat your ass too,” the Bandit snarled. “Y’all’s fuckin’ ribs don’t stand a chance.”
“Go back to your booth, Shoney,” another man cut in. “You and Burke can strut around all you want tomorrow, but right now you need to put your head in a bucket.”
The Bandit turned back toward the other end of the row, slouching a little dangerously. “Gonna beat y’all. All of you. Nobody beats the Bandits.” He swayed back toward the other rows, ignoring the grimaces that followed him.
“Somebody should beat those assholes,” the man at the next booth muttered. “Just on general principles.”
Harris shrugged. “Maybe somebody will.”
“Come on, everybody, gotta finish up this round of Margaritas before the evening ends.” A man in a Hawaiian shirt raised his ladle. “Party on, I say, party on.”
The festivities went on for a few more hours, well after midnight. Some of the contestants had trailers parked at the edge of the fairgrounds where they could stumble off and sleep once the combination of margaritas, Texas tea, and Lone Star became too much for them. Darcy noticed each of the teams had left at least one person behind to watch the smokers, but even those people frequently seemed a little the worse for wear. She could hear some mighty snores from some of the booths.
Harris pulled their lounges back to the rear of the booth, near the smokers, after he’d put the briskets on the grill. The smell of slowly burning wood and smoking meat infused the air: oak, hickory, mesquite. From somewhere farther away she could hear the occasional pop of firecrackers going off, reminding her that it was the Fourth of July.
Harris leaned back in his lounge, gazing up at the darkened sky. “Texas,” he murmured. “Gotta love it. Or else.”
“It’s an experience, that’s for sure.” She closed her eyes, feeling a warm night breeze slide across her skin. After a moment, his hand closed around hers.
“What do you want, Darcy?” he said softly. “Long-term, that is? Any plans?”
Her heart thumped heavily as she took a careful breath. “The only plans I’ve got right now are to be the sous chef at the Rose. And win this friggin’ cook-off.”
“But long-term?” he prodded gently.
She sighed. “I don’t know. Be a head chef somewhere maybe. Maybe have my own place. I haven’t thought much about it lately.” Lately. She’d thought about it pretty constantly when she’d first gotten to Konigsburg. She wasn’t sure when that had changed. If it had changed. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you want your own place, your own barbecue restaurant?”
He blew out a long breath. “All I’ve got time for right now is getting the business I have up and running again.”
“But long-term?”
“Long-term, I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I can do the truck on my own. And the catering too, as long as it’s just meat. A restaurant means hiring people. Managing shit. I’d want to be out back running the smokers.”
“It’s not bad,” she said slowly. “I run the kitchen at the Rose when Joe’s not there. We’ve got a manager for the dining room, Kit Avrogado, but we handle the kitchen. I’ve already picked up a lot about the nuts and bolts of running the place just from being there.”
Harris sighed. “Maybe I’ll hire you as a consultant. You can get everything set up for me.”
Darcy snorted. “Consultants are bullshit. You need somebody who’s there twenty-four seven. And it helps if it’s somebody who gives a damn whether the place makes it or not. A lot of consultants are just in it until you open, then they pack up and hit the road.”
“So maybe I’ll hire you away from the Rose.” He rubbed his thumb across her palm, slowly, back and forth, a ribbon of heat against her skin.
Her throat tightened. “You can’t afford me,” she whispered.
“Sure I can. I’ll pay you in ’cue and loving. How can you pass that up?”
She glanced at him quickly. He was smiling, but there was something behind it. Hell, what do I do now?
She licked her lips. “’Cue and loving? Sounds like a plan.”
“I’m not kidding, Darcy,” he said slowly. “Which is rare, believe me. But this time it’s true. I’m not kidding.”
She exhaled a long, shuddering breath. “I don’t… What does that mean?”
“It means I love you, toots. What did you think it meant?” His hand closed more firmly on hers.
She took another deep breath. Suddenly her chest felt way too tight. For a scary moment she thought she might pass out. Terrific. Love means being unconscious.
“Darce?” He sounded concerned. “I didn’t mean to give you a panic attack. Just relax, okay?”
“How can I relax?” she said through gritted teeth. “You said you love me. Nobody has ever said that before. Hell, I’ve never said that before.”
He paused. “Are you saying it now?”
Oh god, oh god, oh god. “Yeah. Okay. Yes. I’m saying it now.”
There was another long pause. “It might be nice if you actually said it, you know.”
She took another deep breath, then blew it out. “I love you.”
He narrowed his eyes. “That sounds like you’re in pain.”
“I am in pain,” she muttered. “I’m scared to death.”
“Come here.” He held out his arms to her. After a moment, she pushed herself to her feet, then dropped onto the lounge chair with him, feeling his arms close tight around her shoulders.
“No reason to be scared, Darce,” he murmured. “It won’t hurt. I promise.”
It already hurts. But she didn’t say it. Instead, she sank deeper into his arms, closing her eyes tight. If this was a dream, maybe she’d wake up happy.
The few lights along the row of booths cast the rear area into deeper shadow, something for which Harris was now profoundly grateful. No way was he letting this moment pass without sealing the deal. Come morning, he wanted Darcy to remember not only that he’d said he loved her but that they’d made passionate love on a lawn chair.
Assuming they didn’t have an equipment failure somewhere along the way. He was fairly sure his own equipment wouldn’t fail, but he didn’t have as much faith in the chair.
He undid the tie at the top of Darcy’s halter, one of the few fashion designs he could thoroughly approve of. Her breasts spilled free, soft and warm in his hands. He leaned forward slightly, taking a nipple into his mouth and sucking it gently.
Darcy sighed above him, moving to straddle his hips and sliding her hands beneath his shirt. He let her pull off the shirt, dropping it somewhere behind the lounge. Meanwhile he managed to find the zipper at the front of her shorts, pulling it down and then sliding his hands underneath to cup her buttocks. She placed her hands on either side of his head and pressed her mouth to his.
Heat moved through his body again, and he slid his hands to the small of her back. She tasted warm and sweet with a slight tang of hops. He let her tongue plunge deep alongside his, then touched his lips to her throat, running the tip of his tongue along the warm thread of her pulse.
Darcy sighed again and lifted her hips slightly as he pulled her shorts and panties down her legs. “You think this lounge-thing can hold us?” she murmured.
“Sure.” In fact, he wasn’t sure at all, but no way was he going to stop. Whatever happened, happened. He pulled down his zipper, letting his erection brush against her. “You’re in charge here, sweetheart.”
She took hold of his shaft, guiding the head inside her body, then moved her hips slowly, pulling him in deep. Her hands shifted to his shoulders, propping herself up as she stared down at him. Her face was dim in the shadows but he could see the fierce light in her eyes, or anyway he told himself he could.
And then she began to move.
His body seemed to narrow to a single point, the jolt of desire running from spine to cock. His throat tightened with the need to groan.
�
�Don’t you dare,” she whispered raggedly. “Don’t you dare make a sound.”
The lounge was making enough sounds for both of them at that point, creaking each time they moved. Maybe they were far enough back that nobody would notice. He didn’t much care if they did.
He moved his hand from her hip to the place where her thighs met. If he was going to suffer in silence, so would she. He brushed his thumb across their joining, then rubbed across her clit, watching her eyelids flutter as she moved. “God,” she panted. “Oh my god.”
“Let it go, babe, let it go.” But he could feel his own release speeding up his spine, his thighs tensing around her. He allowed himself a low groan, then plunged deeper inside her, holding on to her hips for balance.
Above him, Darcy jerked upright, then braced her hands on his chest, gasping. Her hips slapped against him as the lounge shuddered beneath them. Five more minutes. Just stay up for five more minutes, damn it.
He thrust harder, feeling the final surge of heat as he finished. And then she collapsed on top of him, her breath warm against the side of his throat. He brought his hand to her hair, stroking gently, kissing her forehead. “Okay. It’s okay.”
“More than that, I’d say.” She settled farther into his arms, making the lounge creak loudly again. “This thing is going to give out.”
“Not for a few more minutes. With any luck.”
He ran his hands down her back, feeling the smooth bumps of her spine. In the distance the radio was still playing softly, Patsy Cline in the warm darkness.
Darcy sighed and settled against him, her breath soft against his cheek. He could smell wood smoke and summer, with maybe a slight whiff of black powder from the firecrackers that still erupted every now and then.
He leaned back, staring at the night sky above them, illuminated here and there with the security lights set up along the rows. The air had a faint haze of smoke.
He frowned. A faint haze of smoke?
He half sat up, peering down the row.
