“She snared the biggest snapper I’ve ever seen,” Michael answered for her. “You should have seen her reel that sucker in.”
Ray gave her a squeeze that made her wince. In his sixties and retired for several years from the police force, Ray still worked out daily and had the body of a much younger man.
“Sorry, sweetie. Sometimes I squeeze too hard.”
“Tell me about it,” Lola Van Horn said, stealing Jordan from him to embrace her. “The man hasn’t learned that sometimes less is more.”
In her early seventies, Lola lived next door to Ray and shared more than cups of coffee with him.
“You didn’t say that last night, shortcake,” Ray replied, unable to conceal the mischief in his voice.
“Criminy!” Rosie LaRue said from the bed she’d share with Jordan later. “Do you really think we want to hear about what you and Lola do behind closed doors, Ray? Some of us aren’t so lucky, you know.” She fist-bumped with Jordan, then patted the bed. “Power to the sisters. Now sit and tell me how you outfished all the men, Jordan. Then let’s talk about tomorrow. I’m so excited, I probably won’t be able to sleep tonight.”
Jordan sat on the edge of the bed and scrunched her mouth in a pout. “I wish I could eat your food tomorrow instead of the fishy stuff the chefs will be cooking.”
“Oh, pooh! Just take one small taste and spread the rest around on your plate,” Victor Rodriguez said from the other side of the room. “I used to do that when the nuns tried to make me eat crap I didn’t like.”
“She can’t play with her food, Victor. Everyone will be watching her. However, as a judge, she only has to take a few sample bites of each dish, anyway,” Michael said.
“Oh, so now you talk to me?”
Michael lowered his eyes, like a preteen kid who knew he was in trouble. “I couldn’t find a minute to myself before the fishing trip, Victor, and there were no bars on my cell phone out at sea. I’ll make it up to you.”
Victor’s eyes lit up. “How?”
“With a nice dinner tonight along with your favorite drink, a chocolate martini.”
“You’re going to do that, anyway.” Victor narrowed his eyes. “Take me on the booze cruise when we get to Saint Kitts.”
“You know I’m not supposed…” Michael threw up his hands in surrender. “Ah, what the heck. Agreed. Now quit pouting.”
“You love it when I pout.”
“Geez! What part of ‘no sex talk’ did you not get? Without mentioning any names”—she poked Jordan—“some of us are flying solo on that mission.”
“Yes, dear.” Victor plopped on the bed beside Rosie and Jordan. “We are so going to have a blast. Now that we’re all finally together in one spot, you have our undivided attention, Michael. Tell us again how you managed to get all of us involved in this shindig.”
Michael sat in the chair by the window. “Jordan and I are working on the cooking competition. Ray is private security for Beau and—”
“Who?” Rosie interrupted.
“Beaumont P. Lincoln, Beau for short. He’s the founder and CEO of Sinfully Sweet.”
“I love those,” Lola chimed in, giving her almost-maroon dyed hair a flip. “I gave this one guy a tarot reading a few months back and told him his luck would change. When he won a couple of grand on a scratch-off, he came back with a box of Baileys Irish Cream Fudge from Sinfully Sweet. He said they make goodies from all kinds of liquor. My mouth is watering right now just thinking about it.”
“Cheapskate. He wins a potload of money, and all you get is candy,” Rosie said, clucking her tongue.
“Oh, but not just candy, Rosie. A person can get a real buzz by eating an entire box like I did.” She giggled. “I may have forgotten to mention the C-note he slipped me. It does pay to give good readings.” She tapped her puffy lips, compliments of a plastic surgeon she counseled once or twice a week.
“Anyway,” Michael continued, “Beau’s security guy left for Costa Rica to help his parents fight the local government and keep their property. He has no idea when he’ll be able to return, if ever. Beau didn’t think he could properly train another person in that time frame, so he talked about backing out as a judge. When I told him about Ray, he met him and was impressed. He agreed to hire him for the cruise.”
Jordan glanced at the retired cop, now grinning almost comically. She loved this man. When she’d arrived in Ranchero alone and frightened, the gods must have been watching over her, guiding her to Empire Apartments. Since it was the least shabby of the apartment complexes she could afford without searching for a roommate, she’d jumped on it.
Her salary, first for writing the personals and more recently as the culinary reporter at the Ranchero Globe, would never make her rich—in fact, it barely paid her bills—but at the time it was the only job she could find that would actually allow her to use her journalism degree from the University of Texas.
After following her boyfriend all over Texas and ending up in Dallas where he got a great job as a sports reporter for a TV station, she’d promptly been dumped for the petite weather girl who sported a humongous store-bought chest. Ironically, her ex was living her dream life (exclusive of the big-busted girlfriend, of course), which made his success even harder to stomach.
Vowing never to return home to Amarillo with her tail between her legs, Jordan had snapped up the Ranchero Globe offer and moved to the small town fifty miles northeast of the Dallas metroplex. The last thing she needed on top of her broken heart was to listen to her parents and four older brothers say “I told you so.” They’d never liked Brett in the first place and had warned her about putting her own career on the back burner while she moved all over Texas with him.
Rosie, who was like a big sister to her, lived in the apartment next door. She’d introduced herself before Jordan even had a chance to unpack her four suitcases and her goldfish, Maggie. Along with Victor and Michael, who jointly owned the building, the rest of the first-floor gang had adopted her and quickly became her second family.
Although she still dreamed about sitting in the press box at athletic events, she couldn’t complain about her job at the newspaper. When the culinary reporter broke her hip in a water-skiing accident two months after Jordan was hired, the editor had offered her the job.
There had been only one huge problem. Dwayne Egan wanted her to post gourmet food recipes twice a week in her new column. Since her skills in the kitchen were limited to frying bologna and making Pop-Tarts, she’d almost turned down the offer.
That was before Victor had come up with the brilliant idea of making up foreign names for Rosie’s recipes. Her famous pork chop casserole was now Cóte de Porc á la Cocotte. Even Egan had been amazed at the response from the local community. The recipes had quickly become the talk of the town, and she was now a household name—at least to the twenty-two thousand or so residents of Ranchero who had no idea she was clueless in the kitchen.
“Jordan?”
Victor’s voice snapped Jordan back to the present. “What?”
“You were miles away. We’re talking about our jobs.” He turned to Lola. “So what are you doing?” Victor asked.
“Reading tarot cards for the guests and teaching a class on séances.”
“Ha!” Victor blurted. “The last séance you performed nearly ended in disaster. Remember, sweetie?”
“That’s because you and Jordan’s brother popped in uninvited,” Lola fired back. “And don’t ‘sweetie’ me. I was ready to kill you that night.”
Jordan smiled at her friend who had become a second mother to her. Lola owned Lola’s Spiritual Readings in downtown Ranchero where she read tarot cards, among other psychic services, for some of the wealthiest people in the county. Standing barely five three, if that, and wearing caftans over her adorably pudgy figure, Lola loved to eat, especially the mouthwatering desserts Ray cooked up.
“I know I’m going to help with the entertainment, but what’s she doing?” Victor scooted over and put
his head on Rosie’s shoulder.
“What do I do best?”
He pursed his lips in deep thought. “Make jewelry and sell it on eBay?”
Rosie laughed. “You’re right. And I’m darn good at that, too, but I’m talking about something else. What do I do every Friday night when you guys all come over to play cards?”
“Cook?” When she nodded, he shrugged. “Cruises are famous for their great abundance of good food. Plus, there will be six chefs vying for the title of Caribbean Cook-Off Champion. No offense, darling, but why would they want you to cook?”
Rosie punched him in the arm playfully. “You have such a way with words, you clod.” She turned to Michael. “Tell your little friend what you worked out for me before I smack him upside the head.”
Michael shook his head. “That’s my baby. He opens his mouth, and his foot pops right into it.” He walked closer to the bed. “Just so you know, my boss and Dwayne Egan, Jordan’s boss, thought it would add a nice touch if they made some of Jordan’s recipes available for people to sample. Since Jordan will be busy with the contest—not to mention no one in their right mind would eat anything she cooks—my boss insisted I hire Rosie after I gave him a taste of one of her casseroles. They turned one of the smaller restaurants on board into what they’re calling Ranchero Globe’s Kitchen Kupboard. It will be open only for lunch and only to the people who are part of the KTLK group, the twenty-five tasters chosen from a lottery, and, of course, the judges and all of us.”
“So, I guess since most of the recipes Jordan prints are right out of Rosie’s cookbook, our own Friday-night chef will be running the restaurant?” Victor asked.
“You got it,” Michael said “Now Rosie is a head chef for a week.”
Jordan reached over and high-fived her friend. “At least I’ll eat well at lunch.”
“Dinner won’t be so bad, Jordan. I’ll sneak some leftovers to our room if you absolutely hate what the chefs cook,” Rosie said.
“Oh, I’ll hate the food, for sure, especially the first night.” Jordan shook her head. “Any fish that doesn’t include beer, batter, and frying is not my idea of tasty.”
Michael laughed. “Tomorrow’s Greased Lightning Elimination Round may not be that bad, Jordan. The chefs will only have thirty minutes to prepare their dish, and like I said earlier, you only have to take one or two bites of each. We can sneak up to the poolside grill later on for chili dogs and fries.”
“Why do they even need to cook tomorrow? I thought you said one of them was already knocked out of the competition today. Wasn’t that the whole purpose of the elimination round?” Ray asked.
“Eliminating one wasn’t the only reason for the first leg of the competition. The five remaining contestants will still be graded on this round, with that score added to their final tally.” Michael tsked. “The injured guy was the frontrunner. Too bad he got hurt.”
“Don’t you mean skewered?” Jordan asked. “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find out it wasn’t an accident.”
“I know,” Michael agreed. “Casey and Stefano clearly have a history, and not in a good way.”
“Okay, then,” Victor said, apparently bored with the conversation. “I’m ready for that chocolate martini.”
“Me, too,” Rosie said, jumping up from the bed. “But make mine and Jordan’s an appletini.”
“Not for me. I’m strictly a margarita girl, Rosie. An appletini would probably send me to the hospital with a massive migraine.”
As she said it, Jordan couldn’t help thinking about Stefano and wondering if he was still in the emergency room. Despite his cockiness, in both the culinary and the womanizing departments, he would’ve added a certain element of entertainment to the competition. After her encounter with him on the boat, she’d even imagined him including “special” brownies on his menu.
Now, he’d have to stand on the sidelines and watch, assuming he even came on the cruise. And all because of a careless accident.
Careless accident or carefully planned sabotage?
Jordan sighed. She’d probably never really know.
“Holy crap! Look at the size of that thing,” Victor exclaimed. “Hope everyone brought their cell phones, or we’re gonna spend half the time looking for each other on that monster ship.”
Rosie cocked an eyebrow. “Do you really think you’re going to get a signal out in the middle of the ocean?”
Victor slapped his head. “Oh, yeah! What was I thinking?”
“Actually, my little honey is right. You can get a signal out at sea, but the roaming charges are astronomical and aren’t included in the deal we got,” Michael explained before pointing to a door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. “Come on, guys. We’re boarding over there ahead of the rest of the guests.” He led the way in that direction.
After boarding, they walked down a long hallway to a room filled with all the people Jordan had met on the fishing boat and several others she didn’t recognize. There they began the tedious paperwork required for checkin.
“Here’s the girl who caught the biggest fish yesterday.”
Jordan recognized Wayne Francis walking toward her.
“Too bad you aren’t competing, Jordan,” Michael’s boss continued. “That snapper would have given you an automatic ten-point advantage today.”
“I’m cooking it, instead,” Casey said. “You’re going to love my Snapper à la Caribbean.”
“Love to hate it, you mean.”
They all turned to see Stefano saunter in, his right thumb heavily bandaged.
“Bet you thought you’d seen the last of me, huh, Casey?”
“One could only hope, Stefano,” she responded, not even trying to hide the venom in her voice. “Now I can beat you fair and square.”
Stefano’s grin didn’t come close to buffering the threat in his voice. “Over my dead body.”
CHAPTER 3
“Now, now, folks. Save the aggression for those great seafood dishes you’ll be cooking tonight.” Wayne turned to Stefano. “The hospital cleared you for kitchen duty?”
Stefano huffed and held up his bandaged hand. “It’ll take more than a lame attempt like this to stop me from winning that half-a-million-dollar contract.”
“Bring it on,” Casey fired back before walking away, leaving Stefano to fume alone.
Jordan made eye contact with Rosie and hitched her brows before mouthing, My money’s on the girl.
Rosie mouthed back, You’re on.
“Hey, Jordan, they need you over here,” Michael called from the other side of the room.
She picked up her tote bag and headed that way. Halfway there, she stopped suddenly, her attention diverted to the woman standing in the doorway. At about five-foot-eight, she had the most gorgeous spiked, chestnut-colored hair Jordan had ever seen. And it definitely wasn’t the end result of a Supercuts visit. The newcomer walked over to Wayne and shook his hand.
By this time, everyone in the room had stopped to stare. Mindlessly, Jordan touched the unmanageable, curly red locks she’d been gifted with at birth—according to her mother—and was so caught up in hair envy, she didn’t realize Michael was speaking to her until he poked her in the side.
“Did you hear me, Jordan?”
She pulled her eyes away from the woman, aware that her mouth was still hanging open. “Who is that?”
“Emily Thorpe. She’s the one who put this entire competition together and worked it out with my boss to be a sponsor. She’s easy on the eyes, all right.”
“Easy on the eyes is not the way I’d describe her,” Lola said, moving next to them with Rosie, Ray, and Victor a step behind. “Ray would call her a stunner.”
“I’ll say,” Ray chimed in before Lola playfully slapped his head.
“I get to call her that. You don’t.”
“You have to admit, dear, she could stop a train at a hundred yards,” he added, further tempting disapproval from his lady. “I can’t wait to see her in a bikini.”
&nb
sp; “You old codger. You can’t even keep up with Lola,” Rosie deadpanned.
Ray laughed. “No, but it’s fun trying.” He grabbed both Lola’s and Rosie’s arms and entwined them with his. “Come on, gals, let’s finish the paperwork so we can get a look at the upper decks. They tell me there are four pools and six different Jacuzzi tubs.”
“Seven,” Victor said, following the others.
The group stopped to stare at him.
“What? My back’s been giving me problems, so I checked.”
“You guys go on. I need to steal Jordan for a minute.” Michael nudged her toward the new arrival.
The woman smiled as they approached. “Hello, Michael. It’s good to see you again.” She turned to Jordan. “And who is your lady friend?”
“Emily, this is Jordan McAllister from the Ranchero Globe. She’ll be judging the competition along with Beau.”
Emily studied Jordan for a few seconds before commenting, “I’d pay a lot of money to have hair like yours, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t look nearly as good on me as it does on you.”
Jordan felt the color creep up her cheeks. Seriously? This woman wants to trade hair? How fast can you say ‘abracadabra’?
“I have to trick my beautician into working on this mop.”
Emily chuckled. “I like your style, Jordan. I think you and I will be great friends before the week is out.” She turned when Michael’s boss called her name. “Gotta run, but I’m sure I’ll catch up with you later.”
Even from the back, the woman was stunning, Jordan thought as she watched her walk away. “Wow!”
“I know. She’s a knockout,” Michael said. “And she seems to have taken a liking to you.”
“Is she a chef?”
Michael looked at her in disbelief. “You don’t know who she is?”
“Should I? Is she famous?”
“Ah, yeah. She owns ETI in New York City, and from what I understand, she’s rolling in dough.”
“I’ve never heard of ETI.”
“That’s because you’ve never wanted to be a model or an actress. Entertainment and Talent Incorporated. She’s a lawyer and has a client list that would make the Academy Awards seem like a party with her peeps.”
Murder for the Halibut Page 3
