Delicious

by Susan Mallery

  What the hell was going on? Penny pregnant? He knew she’d always wanted kids—she’d made that clear enough times. But now?

  He saw his brother behind the bar and waved him over. Reid spoke to one of the women serving with him, then walked out and joined Cal.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  Instead of answering, Cal led the way to Reid’s office. He pushed inside, then closed the door when his brother had entered.

  “You knew about the baby,” he said, making the words a statement instead of a question.

  Reid looked amazingly unconcerned. “So she finally told you, huh? I warned her you wouldn’t take it well. Looks like I wasn’t wrong.”

  “Not take it well? You’re right. I didn’t. What the hell happened? Did you encourage this?”

  Reid frowned. “Hey, slow down. Why does it matter to you that Penny’s pregnant? You let her go a long time ago.”

  “That has nothing to do with this.” He didn’t care who his ex-wife slept with, or what she did with her personal life. He was just furious that she would go and get herself pregnant.

  Reid leaned against the edge of his messy desk. “Look, it’s no big deal. Penny’s been thinking about having a baby for a long time. She’s always wanted a family.”

  Cal knew exactly just how long she’d been thinking about it. He didn’t even have to close his eyes to see her curled up next to him on the sofa, her hand on his thigh as she leaned close and whispered, “Let’s try again, Cal. Let’s have a baby.”

  “She hit thirty and realized she’d better get going,” Reid continued.

  Cal grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “Is it you? Did you sleep with her?”

  His normally laid-back brother instantly stiffened. Reid’s hand covered his own in a grip that both punished and threatened.

  “I’m going to give you ten seconds to take that back, then I’m going to wipe the floor with you,” Reid growled.

  “What makes you think you could?”

  The two men glared at each other. Reid backed off first. He released Cal and raised both hands in the air.

  “No one slept with Penny,” Reid said. “It wasn’t like that.”

  Cal released him. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s no guy. Penny went to a sperm bank. You know, one from column A, one from column B. She picked the sperm out of a computer list. Crazy if you ask me, but she didn’t.” Reid poked him in the chest. “Why didn’t Penny tell you about the in vitro fertilization herself?”

  Cal shrugged.

  Reid poked him again. “You didn’t give her a chance, did you? You jumped to conclusions. Dammit, Cal, why do you always think the worst of people?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Sure. You’re a regular ray of sunshine. You have to trust people to do the right thing. Penny would never get involved with a guy who would abandon a child, okay?”

  Cal took a step back. He didn’t know what to say to his brother. Somehow Reid had gotten right to the heart of the matter. That’s what Cal couldn’t deal with—the thought of a man walking out on his own child. Because an adult would have choices—choices he hadn’t had at seventeen.

  “You’re right,” Cal said. “Good point. I, ah…thanks for explaining things.”

  His brother leaned back against the desk again and folded his arms over his chest. “You’re pretty screwed up, you know that?”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “We all are. Thanks to Gloria.” Reid shook his head. “That bitch. The things she made us do. Always threatening us. So many damn secrets.” He looked at Cal. “Penny wants this baby. She’ll be a good mom.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “Isn’t it? Are you all jacked up because of Lindsey?”

  Cal stared at his brother, unable to believe what he’d just heard.

  “You know?” he asked, his voice harsh with shock.

  Reid nodded.

  It had been seventeen years and Cal had never discussed his daughter with anyone in his family. Gloria had known—she always knew everything. While his high school girlfriend had been content to give the child up for adoption, Cal had wanted more for his daughter. He’d wanted to take care of her himself. But he’d been a senior in high school, with no way to support a kid, let alone raise one.

  Then Gloria had offered. Cal could keep his child, but she, Gloria, would raise the infant.

  Every fiber of his being had rebelled against that. She’d forced his hand and he’d given in to the idea of adoption.

  He still remembered signing the papers. How wrong everything had felt. He’d been a few weeks shy of his eighteenth birthday—too old to cry. But he’d wanted to. He’d wanted to take the baby and run. Only the kindness of the adopting couple had allowed him to give Lindsey away.

  “How did you find out about her?” Cal asked. “No one knew.”

  “Maybe no one was supposed to, but Walker and I both did. We heard you arguing with Gloria about it. I don’t think Dani knows. She was pretty young.”

  “You never said anything.”

  “Why would we? It was your decision. Walker and I talked about what we would do if it was us. We agreed we both would have given up the kid without a second thought.”

  “Easy to say when it hasn’t happened to you.”

  “Maybe.” Reid shrugged. “Then it was done and we figured it was your secret to keep. If you wanted to talk, you knew where to find us.”

  Reid seemed casual enough, but Cal wondered if there was more to it. A sense of betrayal that he hadn’t trusted his brothers with a decision that big.

  “I was the oldest,” he said awkwardly.

  “Right. Set a good example. Don’t tell your younger brothers you knocked up your girlfriend. We got that. We both became poster guys for safe sex. Don’t worry, big brother. Your experience served us well.”

  Cal supposed that was something.

  “How old is she now? Fifteen? Sixteen?” Reid asked.

  “Seventeen. She’s a senior in high school.”

  “You keep in touch with the family?”

  “With the parents. They send me pictures and letters a couple of times a year. Lindsey knows she’s adopted, but isn’t interested in her birth parents.” Not that her birth mother cared. Alison had given birth, graduated and moved back east. Cal had never heard from her again and suspected she had no interest in the child she’d given away.

  “I always felt bad,” Reid said. “You didn’t want to let her go.”

  Now it was Cal’s turn to shrug. “I didn’t know how I could take care of her.”

  “You did the right thing. You always do. It was a hell of a characteristic to have thrown in my face over and over again.”

  “Thanks for not holding it against me.”

  “No problem. But here’s the thing. Maybe it’s time to do the right thing for Penny. She didn’t get pregnant just to mess with your mind.”

  “I’m sure she sees that as a fun bonus.”

  “Maybe. But she wants this baby. You should respect that and get off her ass about it.”

  His brother had a point. “I’ll think about it.”

  “You do that. Want a beer?”

  “No, thanks. I need to get back to the restaurant.”

  He made a fist. Reid did the same, then they banged them together.

  “Hang in there, big brother,” Reid said. “This isn’t your kid. You don’t have to sweat what goes on this time.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Cal walked out of the office and headed for the front door. When the valet had retrieved his car, Cal drove back toward the restaurant.

  Too much had happened too fast, he thought. Penny being pregnant. Learning that Reid and Walker knew about his daughter.

  He remembered the fights he and Gloria had had back then. How he’d screamed at her with all the fury of a seventeen-year-old being denied something precious. It was amazing everyone in the neighborhood hadn’t heard.
But his brothers hadn’t said anything. They’d waited for him to go to them, and he never had.

  He should have. They would have understood. Especially three and a half years ago when his marriage had been unraveling. Penny had been pressuring him to emotionally engage, to have a baby with her, to be in their marriage. He’d been holding her as far away as he could while he dealt with the horror of knowing his only daughter had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

  For three months he’d waited to hear what would happen. Lindsey’s adoptive parents had kept him informed at every stage of her treatment. He remembered the agony of not knowing if the chemo would work. Wondering if his daughter was going to live or die and then the joy when Lindsey had beaten the disease.

  Should he have told Penny about her? At the time he’d known he couldn’t. She would never have understood how he could care so much about a child he had with someone else and yet be unwilling to have a baby with her. He hadn’t known how to explain he was afraid of losing Lindsey all over again.

  So she’d pushed for more and he’d retreated until eventually she’d walked out. Her leaving had seemed like the best thing for both of them.

  He entered the restaurant and spoke with his assistant manager, then he walked to the kitchen. As always, the level of noise filled his head with shouts, the hiss of the steamer, the roar of the grill.

  “Three more salmon,” one of the waiters called as he put down a tray. “The lady wants to know what you put in the sauce.”

  Penny looked up, saw him and turned her attention to the waiter. “Sorry, it’s a secret. But I promise if I ever publish a cookbook, I’ll put the recipe in the first chapter.”

  When the waiter left, Penny glanced at Cal. “You left during dinner.”

  “I know.”

  Her expression told him not to do it again, but she didn’t say the words. Penny was too good for that. She wouldn’t chew his ass in front of her staff.

  But she wanted to and under the circumstances, he couldn’t blame her.

  “We need to talk,” he told her. “Around ten?”

  “Sure. I’ll be the one in the chef’s coat.”

  BY NINE-FIFTEEN, things had quieted down. They’d worked through all their reservations and there were a few empty tables in the dining room. Cal retreated to his office to catch up on paperwork before his meeting with Penny. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say to her. He wanted to apologize for overreacting, but he couldn’t tell her about Lindsey. Not when she’d just told him she was pregnant. He wanted to make things right with her before he dropped that bombshell.

  He sat at his desk, but instead of turning on his computer, he leaned back in his chair and remembered the first time Penny had told him she was pregnant. Neither of them had planned for it. Sometimes birth control failed.

  He’d been stunned—first by complete happiness and then by guilt. Because he would get to keep this child. He would experience everything he’d missed with Lindsey. What if he loved his child with Penny more than Lindsey?

  He hadn’t known where to get answers to his questions, or who to trust with his confusion. So he hadn’t said anything. Eventually Penny had noticed that as time went on, he seemed less and less thrilled. She couldn’t understand why he’d held back. But then she’d never held back in her life.

  “Knock, knock.”

  Cal turned and saw Gloria standing in the doorway to his office. He held in a groan. Yeah, right, because he needed more stress in his day.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” he told his grandmother.

  Gloria swept into the small space and claimed the only other chair. “I don’t know why you think I spend my life micromanaging. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m just here because I want to see my grandson. Is there anything wrong with that?”

  There wouldn’t be, if he believed her. But he didn’t. Gloria always had a purpose and a motive.

  “Fine,” he said. “If this is strictly a social visit, then you won’t have anything to say about the restaurant.”

  She pressed her lips together. “I did notice a few things.”

  He stared at her. She exhaled slowly.

  “I won’t mention them. Although why you don’t want constructive criticism is beyond me. I would think you would want the restaurant to be the best it can be.”

  “Nice try, but I’m not biting.”

  “Oh, all right.” She shrugged out of her coat. “I just wanted to let you know that Daniel quit.”

  He stared at her. “Who’s Daniel?”

  “Daniel Langstrom. The president of the company. Honestly, Callister, can’t you even pretend interest? He wouldn’t say why he left. It’s very inconvenient. He’s the third one to leave in fifteen months. The executive searches are very expensive. Not to mention time-consuming. One would think the search firms could bring better candidates.”

  “The search firms aren’t the problem, Gloria,” Cal said. “You are. You’re hell to work for.”

  Gloria stiffened. “I beg your pardon. You can’t talk to me like that. It’s rude and vulgar.”

  “Maybe, but it’s true. You add new intensity to the term micromanage. You’ve never met an order you didn’t want to tweak or change or countermand. You get in the way, you change your mind fifteen times a day and you make everyone around you wish they were dead.”

  She paled. “That’s not true.”

  “Haven’t you noticed how difficult it is for you to keep an executive assistant, let alone a company president? You drove me away years ago. Reid and Walker never even bothered to try. You need to back off or there won’t be anyone left at the company.”

  “That’s ridiculous. You’re exaggerating. Regardless, I want you to take over the job as president.”

  He would rather be shark bait. “No, thanks. I have a job.”

  “At that coffeehouse.” She made it sound as if he sold acid milkshakes to children.

  “You got it. I like it there, Gloria. I’m proud of what I do.” He stopped, reminding himself he was never going to convince her.

  “This is your heritage,” she said. “You’re a Buchanan.”

  “Not interested. No one is, except Dani. God knows why you haven’t been able to scare her off, but she’s still hanging on. Give her a shot.”

  Gloria sniffed. “That’s impossible. She’s not one of us. Not a Buchanan. She is her mother’s daughter and I will never forgive her for that.”

  “My mother had an affair nearly thirty years ago. You need to let it go.”

  “Never.” Gloria’s eyes blazed with anger. “She betrayed my son. Don’t you care that she made a fool of your father?”

  He wasn’t happy about it, but he found it hard to get worked up about it after all this time. “Move on,” he said. “Mom and Dad are dead.”

  “But the proof of your mother’s affair lives on.”

  “You might want to enter this century,” he said. “Dani is your granddaughter.”

  “Never. She’s nothing. I allow her to believe she’s a Buchanan as a kindness.”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  When he’d graduated from college, Gloria had told him the truth—a twisted sort of present. She’d used the information to blackmail him into going into the family business.

  He hadn’t wanted to be part of the empire, but she’d threatened to tell Dani she wasn’t really one of them. He’d taken that first job at Burger Heaven to make sure his sister didn’t know the truth.

  Gloria glared at him. “I have been a part of this family since I was eighteen years old. I have sweated blood so that you could have this legacy. I’m the reason this family has wealth.”

  “We would have been a whole lot better off if you’d simply let it go.”

  She stood. “You may not care about family, but I do. Your mother destroyed my son with her lies and her deceit.”

  “None of which is Dani’s fault. She’s the only one who gives a damn about the company. She’s paid
her dues. She’s good at her job. So cut her a break. Move her up the food chain. Let her prove herself at Buchanan’s, or here.”

  “Never.”

  Cal felt like punching something, but he’d put his fist through a wall once and it hadn’t been a smart idea. “I should tell her myself,” he said, more to himself than Gloria.

  “But you won’t.” His grandmother resumed her seat. “You would never hurt your sister like that.”

  She was right. He wouldn’t knowingly hurt Dani. Although he was starting to wonder if not telling her was causing a different kind of pain.

  “On a different subject, did you know your executive chef is pregnant?”

  He swore. How had she found that out? Less surprising was her need to make trouble.

  “Of course,” he said, not mentioning he’d only been told that day.

  “Oh.” Gloria sounded disappointed. “Do you know who the father is?”

  “Why does that matter?”

  “She’s not right for you, Callister. I always thought so. I thought you’d seen it, as well.”

  “My personal life isn’t your business.”

  Her small eyes zeroed in on his. He knew she was wondering if he was telling her to back off because there was something between him and Penny or just on general principle.

  “You never liked her,” he said. “Was it something specific about Penny or the fact that you didn’t get to handpick my wife?”

  “I’m sure I would have done a better job than you did.”

  That was it. Old lady or not, he’d had enough of her. He stood.

  “It’s time for you to go.”

  She collected her coat and rose. “Think about the president’s job,” she said. “It’s an excellent opportunity.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “But, Callister…”

  He walked her to the hallway, then firmly closed the door in her face.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PENNY SET OUT HER MEAL in a corner table of the dining room. The kitchen cleanup was nearly finished and while she was tired and ready to head home to bed, she was starving.

  At first she’d been so angry at Cal for walking out at the start of dinner, she hadn’t been able to think about eating. Then she’d gotten busy and then the evening had been over. So she planned to make up for lost time.