One More Taste

by Melissa Cutler

  Emily took another look at Haylie as she got nearer to the arena. Her collarbones were visible, her arms thin, her face showing the strains of her home life. Emily ground her molars together, swallowing her outrage lest it trigger memories of her own screwed up childhood. She had to believe that Haylie’s job working for Knox was the first step to getting her confidence up to leave Wendell. From now on, Emily was going to bring Haylie breakfast when she brought Knox his. Not just Knox’s leftovers, as she’d done today, but dishes tailor-made for her. What kind of food helped a woman find her power? What would nourish Haylie the most?

  Chocolate. Definitely.

  Emily caught herself holding her breath as Knox and his entourage drew closer, and so she stood, shaking off her sudden bout of nerves.

  “Is this your first time seeing your man—I mean, your muse—today?” Carina teased.

  Emily refused to acknowledge the ridiculous question as anything beyond the literal. “I stopped by his office earlier with breakfast, but he wasn’t interested. He never eats breakfast beyond a protein shake, but that’s only because he doesn’t yet understand how determined I am to change his mindset. I was here at the crack of dawn stuffing sausage casings, so sooner or later, he’s getting my sausages.”

  “Wait, what?” Decker said.

  Carina hammed it up with a wink. “Just like you gave him your peaches?”

  “Tried to give him my peaches. Also, FYI, you’re driving me crazy turning everything I say into a double entendre.”

  “I can’t help it! You’re the master of them,” Carina said. “Food and sex have so much in common. Both are decadent, when done right. A feast for the senses. People hunger for both on an elemental level.”

  “You tell her, babe.”

  Carina had no idea how close to home that observation hit. But there was just one problem. “You keep attempting to elevate sex to the level of fine cuisine, when the reality is that they’re totally incomparable.” That was her story and she was sticking to it.

  “Have to agree with you on that. Totally incomparable.” Carina hoisted herself up and leaned over the rail to plant a big ol’ kiss on Decker.

  Decker tugged her shirt collar, pulling her to him for a second kiss. “You’re a sex-crazed pregnant woman, Mrs. Decker. And I love it.”

  Emily mustered a groan, though she secretly loved seeing Carina so happy. Her dating history was just as fraught with losers and disaster dates as Emily’s, if not worse.

  Granny June raced ahead of the group on her scooter, horn blaring as she hollered, “Slap my ass and call me Sally! Lookie here, it’s three of my favorite people in one place!”

  “Have I ever told you how much I love your grandma?” Decker said. “Little scared of her, too, but that’s okay.”

  “Same here,” Carina said. Emily helped her find her step down from the bleachers just as Knox and Haylie arrived behind Granny June’s scooter.

  Granny June snagged Knox’s arm and stood, five-foot-nothing of proud, beaming grandma. “Haylie and I were just giving Knox a tour of the place and introducing him around.”

  “He and Wendell are going to play golf together next week,” Haylie said.

  “Ah,” Carina said. “Lucky you,” she added to Knox, without even a hint of the derision toward Wendell that Emily knew Carina was feeling, as she always did when his name came up.

  After the requisite hugs, kisses, and handshakes all around, Decker caught Knox’s attention. “Rumor is you want to learn to fish.”

  Knox gave Emily a pointed look. “That was fast.”

  What did he expect? “The clock’s ticking. No time to waste, since you only gave me a month.”

  “Yeah, a month as my personal chef, not my activities coordinator.”

  He’d said it with light eyes, but still she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d overstepped her bounds with that one. Too late now. “I can’t cook Phantom for you if you don’t catch him.”

  “Phantom?” Carina asked. “Is that a kind of fish?”

  “It’s complicated,” Knox and Emily said in unison.

  Right on cue, Carina’s knowing smile made an appearance as she glanced between Knox and Emily. “So I’m gathering.”

  “Of course, Decker’ll teach you to fish, Knox,” Granny June said with a wave. “That’s what family’s for. And speaking of activities we can all do together as a family, Haylie, you took Knox to see the amphitheater, but did you tell him about movie night?”

  Judging by Haylie’s sheepish grin, she had not. “I forgot. On the first and last Wednesday of every month, we hold a movie night for the guests in the amphitheater.”

  Granny June looped her arm around Knox’s. “We’re showing Miracle on 34th Street at the end of this month.”

  “Isn’t it a little early for Christmas movies?” Knox asked.

  Granny June waved away the critique. “Not at Briscoe Ranch. We kick off the holiday cheer in October and keep it going for three months. The more I think about movie night, the more I must insist you join us for it. It’s the best way for you to see what we’re all about here at Briscoe Ranch, and the guests love it when members of the Briscoe family put in an appearance. We’re like celebrities around here. It’s so fun! Sometimes, families from Dulcet come to watch the movies or participate in our activities along with the guests. It’s great community outreach and it makes our guests happy, so it’s a win for everyone.”

  Decker tipped his hat at Granny June. “Great idea. If Carina hasn’t popped, then we’ll try our best to make it.”

  “Me and Wendell, too. I mean, if he doesn’t have to work,” Haylie said.

  Knox demurred. “You know, it sounds great, but uh … Emily had had a point earlier. I only gave her four weeks for this personal chef challenge, so it wouldn’t be fair for me to deprive her of any opportunities.”

  “Agreed. Thank you,” Emily said. Movie Night was nice and all, unless a person happened to be an introvert with a strong aversion to crowds and who was presently in the midst of a time-consuming culinary challenge.

  “Oh, pish. You young people and your excuses. Ain’t nobody knows how to have a good time anymore. Going to bed early, staying in to watch television. It’s a shame. We’re raising a generation of fuddy-duddies. Emily can just as easily pack your dinner up in a picnic basket. You can eat it during the movie. Lots of folks do that, too. In fact, our family restaurant, Texas Table, offers a family style to-go meal for those attending the movie. Right, Emily? You can pack up his dinner. Maybe you can join us, too. It’s been too long.”

  “I’m very busy,” Emily said meekly. Going against Granny June was definitely not a strong suit of hers.

  Granny June whipped out her smartphone and started typing.

  Carina cast a worried look at Granny June. “What are you doing, Granny?”

  Granny June ducked her head and typed even faster. “There. It’s on our Facebook page now. ‘Next Sunday in the Turtle Doves Amphitheater at the showing of Miracle on 34th Street, meet our award-winning chef Emily Ford and the rest of the Briscoe family, including the newest executive on our team, Knox Briscoe.’”

  Knox tried valiantly to hide a wince.

  Granny June’s face shone with delight. “Oh, look at that. We’re already getting likes and comments on the post. You can’t disappoint our guests, Knox. You either, Emily. You’re both on the hook now. Together.”

  Emily was impressed how Knox managed to turn his wince into a smile. She, on the other hand, was still recovering from the shock that she’d been unwittingly roped into yet another of Granny June’s matchmaking schemes. Like moths to a flame. “Subterfuge,” Emily muttered under her breath. “Unbelievable.”

  Before Emily could recover her wits, Granny June pulled her close, with one arm around her and the other around Knox. “By golly, it’s a date.”

  Chapter Eight

  “I’m not self-sabotaging. I’m not self-sabotaging. I’m not…”

  Emily had chanted that mantra du
ring most of the hundred-plus mile drive to the small town of Hutchins, Texas, on this brisk, but sunny Sunday morning. If only chanting something made it true. But all Emily could hear was Carina’s voice in her head, reminding her that this was the most important month of her life, so she’d better not screw it up by making dumb-ass choices. Not exactly Carina’s words, but close enough.

  She ran a finger along the conservative neckline of her charcoal gray knit dress, ruing the fact that nothing was quite so unbecoming as stress sweat. All she’d wanted to do was swap recipes over the phone with Knox’s mother, Linda. That in itself was crossing a professional line, since she’d contacted Linda Briscoe on Saturday afternoon without Knox’s permission. It hadn’t taken much sleuthing to locate her. Her address was plainly written on the envelopes of the old letters and cards Granny June had presented to Knox and his sister, which now sat on the desk in Knox’s den. It also hadn’t taken much for Emily to rationalize the decision because the payoff would be worth it if she could wow Knox by presenting him with her take on his favorite childhood dishes. Or, better yet, his father’s favorite foods. After all, what was a little line crossing when Emily’s career was at stake?

  But she couldn’t quite figure out a way to rationalize her split-second decision to accept Linda’s invitation to join her at Father of Light Lutheran Church the next morning. Emily had done a lot of things in the name of culinary excellence, but attending church was a first. True, Linda had refused to share any personal details about Knox over the phone, insisting Emily join her for Sunday worship. Emily couldn’t decide if Linda had insisted because she was lonely, or because bringing a newcomer to church might make her look good to her fellow congregants. Or maybe she just wanted to double-check Emily’s standing with God before revealing the secret ingredients in her barbecue sauce recipe.

  Regardless of the reason behind the offer, Emily had agreed to Linda’s terms because she couldn’t shake the notion that the more she’d gotten to know what made Knox tick, the better her meals had become and the more impressed he was. Carina’s assertion that Knox was Emily’s muse had been a tough pill to swallow, but she’d been right. He was. And now it was time to take that inspiration to the next level.

  Unfortunately, the more Emily considered how many lines she was crossing, the more certain she was that Knox was going to be royally pissed when he found out. She wasn’t sure there was a meal profound enough to assuage him. She swallowed hard. Guess she’d find out.

  The charming, two-story brick and light blue house that Knox had grown up in sat in the middle of a long, unassuming residential street and was easily the nicest and most well kept on the block. The front yard was impeccably landscaped with a lush green lawn and perfectly trimmed hedges. Little touches of whimsy were everywhere Emily looked, from an autumn-themed flag showing a pumpkin pie declaring Pie Season!, to a family of painted wooden rabbits staged in the flowerbeds beneath the front windows, and a painted wooden sign near the front door reading Frog parking only. All others will be toad.

  Despite Emily’s nerves, she had to smile at that. Maybe Shayla got her love of groan-worthy puns from her mom.

  The front door opened before Emily could ring the bell. Linda Briscoe met her on the front steps with a bright wide smile and open arms. She wore a busy orange Halloween sweater featuring pumpkin buttons, dangling crow-shaped beads, and felt applique scarecrows, but it somehow seemed to go perfectly with her petite, slim figure, short, salt-and-pepper hair, and upbeat energy that reminded Emily very much of Granny June.

  Emily stuck out her hand in greeting. “Linda? I’m Emily.”

  Linda threw her arms around Emily and gave a hearty squeeze. “It’s so good to meet Knox’s girl!”

  “Thank you. But, like I said on the phone, I’m his personal chef, not his—”

  “If you say so, dear.” The next thing Emily knew, Linda had pushed a Bible into her hands. “Off we go. I’ll drive. It’s been ages since I’ve gotten to shuttle a young person around. My kids insist on driving me everywhere. It’s so obnoxious! As if I’m senile. You wait here. I’ll lock up and open the garage.”

  Before Granny June’s injuries in the chapel fire the year before, she’d always insisted on driving Emily around, too. The last of Emily’s misgivings about meeting up with Knox’s mother on the sly evaporated. This was bound to be a great, if hair-raising, adventure. Not more than a couple of minutes later, Emily buckled into the passenger seat of Linda’s newer model hybrid hatchback.

  Linda put on a pair oversized, round-framed sunglasses and backed out of the garage, pumping the brakes too hard and way too much. Emily braced her hands and tried to hold her neck steady so she didn’t get whiplash. No doubt about it, this was going to be a wild ride, the kind of hair-raising, pedal-to-the-metal ride that Granny June used to take her on in her tricked-out golf cart.

  “Okay, here we go. Now, look over there at Glenda’s house as we pass,” Linda said, gesturing to a small, yellow-trimmed house on the right as they crawled down the street at a solid fifteen miles per hour. The car drifted right, as though pulled by Linda’s attention. “It looks like her oranges are almost ripe. Last winter, I helped her pick them and we managed okay for two old ladies, but let me tell you, the juicing was another—”

  Emily glanced straight ahead in time to see Linda’s car nearly bumping the curb and headed straight for a parked car. “Watch that car!”

  “Oops.” Linda jerked the wheel left to avoid the car, though she managed to tap mirrors with it. Not that she seemed concerned. “As I was saying…”

  Rattling off her story, barely pausing for breath, Linda rolled them down the street, hugging the gutter, and occasionally swerving to avoid parked cars and trashcans. Emily hugged the Bible she’d been entrusted with, lest she be tempted to take over steering the car as they crawled down street after street, barely pushing twenty miles per hour.

  When they’d arrived at the Father of Light Lutheran Church parking lot, nearly twenty minutes later, the numerous horn honks they’d received echoed in one of Emily’s ears and Linda’s non-stop storytelling in her other. On Linda’s fifth attempt to straighten the car in a parking spot, Emily realized that she’d dug nail marks into the leather cover of the Bible. She rubbed the leather, trying to work out the impressions. As she stepped from the car, she realized both her legs had fallen asleep, probably due to the sheer effort it’d taken not to stretch her foot across the cab and stomp down on the gas pedal herself. Linda Briscoe was a crazy driver, indeed. Crazy slow with a fondness for listing right.

  And she’d gabbed the entire drive, from the story of juicing oranges to remarking about birds she’d seen in her backyard and the rising costs at her favorite deli and so much minutiae that it seemed as though she needed to voice the words that had been building inside her for so long, waiting for a sympathetic ear to share them all with. As though she’d invited Emily to church not because she was trying to save her soul or make her jump through hoops, but because under all her unbridled zest for life, Linda was lonely.

  And while Emily didn’t mind being that sympathetic ear—as long as eventually the conversation turned to Knox’s childhood and his father, and both their favorite foods—it was a relief to enter the church’s courtyard. Not only because they were out of the car with their lives and limbs intact, but because she could simply stand there, smiling, while Linda introduced her around and gushed about Emily and Linda’s children to her friends. Even if Linda kept calling her Knox’s girl. Even if she kept fabricating half-truths about what a big shot chef Emily was. If that’s what the lonely, effervescent Linda needed to tell herself and her friends, then so be it. At this point, Emily was just along for the ride, so to speak.

  Once the service got started, Emily relaxed back into the wooden pew next to Linda, the Bible still in her arms. Emily had grown up attending a see-and-be-seen upscale church in Chicago with her parents, and so she’d always equated it with the lies of wealth that masked her family’s dysfun
ction. The concept of a Heavenly Father reminded her too starkly of her own father who had damaged her beyond repair and the mother who’d warped the idea of forgiveness into a justification for staying married to the monster, keeping both her and her daughter in harm’s way. Redemption, that grand Christian concept, had been a dream Emily had prayed for as a child—her father redeemed, reborn a good man through Emily’s and her mother’s and God’s forgiveness. It’d taken a lot of pain and years for her to realize that the Holy directive to turn the other cheek didn’t mean she had to be a punching bag for the Devil.

  She heard the words of the sermon, songs, and prayers differently today. She could hear the hope and the sense of peace in those around her. The sense of trying to be good people and lift themselves out of the darkness in their lives. Like Emily had, and like she was still striving to do. After the final hymn, the pastor directed the congregation to bow their heads. Linda took Emily’s hand in her bony one and they bowed their heads together. For the first time since she’d been sixteen and on the street, Emily prayed. The last time she’d prayed, it’d been for food, and for a warm, dry place to sleep.

  It worked then, didn’t it? The cynic inside her wanted to scream no. But that would be a lie. She had found shelter and food, not always right away, but it’d happened. And then, not too many years later, she’d found Briscoe Ranch and the place of peace and love she’d always longed for.

  Her prayer today wasn’t so different from that last one. She prayed for Knox to give her the restaurant, for a chance to stay at Briscoe Ranch among her chosen family. Tears crowded her eyes, though she couldn’t quite fathom why she felt so humbled and raw.