Secret Sauce

by Jill Sanders

  “I thought I had imagined it,” he said as he pulled back a little and looked down into her eyes.

  “What?” she asked quietly.

  “You,” he said before dipping his head and claiming those sexy lips again. When he heard her moan, he pulled her closer until he could feel her chest rise and fall with her breath. When he finally pulled away, he couldn’t help but smile at the lost look in her eyes. He was doubly pleased to know that she no longer felt uncomfortable.

  “What do you say about getting some pizza and beer?”

  “I…” She looked around like she was trying to come up with an excuse.

  “Oh no, you don’t,” he said lightly. “No backing out now. Besides, the ladies will kill me if you don’t show up. Who else is going to talk to them while us men sit around and brag about our big win?”

  She smiled a little and nodded. “Let me just text someone first.” She pulled out her cell phone from her pocket and walked over to the window.

  “There,” she said a few seconds later, “all set.”

  They walked a few blocks to Harry’s, a place he frequented almost as much as his own place. Harry, who had been dead since the early seventies, had been replaced by his son, Carson, and Carson’s children, Bryan and Rose. When they walked through the door, Bryan smiled and waved at them, calling out, “They’re in the back.” He nodded and continued on with a large pie on his shoulder and plates in his hand.

  When they walked into the back, everyone called out and cheered. They shook Trent’s hand and punched him on the shoulder. He kissed all the women on the cheek.

  By the time they settled down, he had a beer in his hand and a slice of pie in front of him the size of his face. Smiling, he looked over at Marina and watched as she used her knife and fork to cut little pieces of out the large flat pizza slice.

  He chuckled and leaned close to her. “You’re going to have to pick it up and get those pretty hands greasy.”

  She frowned a little and then set the utensils down. “I was hoping to avoid it, but I think you’re right.” When she bit into the pizza, a slow smile formed on her lips. “Oh, this brings me back.” She nibbled on the next bite.

  “Oh?” he asked as he took a large bite of his slice then washed it down with some of the coldest beer in the city.

  She nodded her head. “Our folks would take me and Trina to Mr. Magoo’s Pizza parlor for our birthdays. We would eat pizza and play games until we were sick.”

  He smiled. “When did you stop spending birthdays at Mr. Magoo’s?”

  She smiled over at him. “I think it was Trina’s seventeenth birthday.”

  He laughed and took another sip of his beer. Even the greasy pie and cold beer couldn’t get the desire to taste her again out of his mind.

  He knew he was walking on dangerous ground. After all, he needed to find out what her game was and if someone was pulling her strings and why. But he just couldn’t get her out of his mind.

  He knew it was true that you had to keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But everything in his mind screamed that she wasn’t either of those things. She was something else, something he’d yet to discover. One thing was for sure—until he did, he was going to play it very safe around her.

  As they left the pizza place, he again tried to walk her home. She was quick to jump into a cab and leave again, but not before she promised to meet him on Thursday for coffee at the coffee shop where they had met.

  He walked back to his place and opened his computer. The morning had been too busy to do any research, so he spent the next hour or so reading through past reviews of M. Jensen’s.

  There were two reviews in the past four years for Via Dante’s place. One of them for Soupe à L’oignon and one for their Poulet Basquaise. Both of them raving reviews.

  Then he looked for any reviews for the little coffee shop, A Latte Fun. There weren’t any, nor where there any for any pizza joints or burger shops. It seemed that M. Jensen had expensive tastes.

  Then he remembered that she’d said she lived in a very small apartment with her nephew, Tommy, and wondered where her sister had gone. Maybe she’d died? He wished she’d given him her last name. He knew not everyone had their private lives available online, but over the course of the next hour, he searched the name Trina, Tommy, and Marina and went through every article that mentioned one or all three names.

  When the sun came up, he didn’t feel like he had gained any more information. Heading up to grab a few hours of sleep, he set his alarm to wake him just after the lunch rush.

  He was just a few hours into his sleep when his phone started shrilling on his nightstand. When he looked at the time, he cursed and wondered why his phone was going off. Then it started ringing again and his head cleared.

  “Hello?” he barked into the phone.

  “Hey, um, is this a bad time?” Ethan asked.

  “No,” he said, sitting up and rubbing his hands over his face to try and wake himself a little more. “What’s up?”

  “Well, I think I’ve found something.”

  “Hang on a second, will you? I want to go down to my computer.”

  “Sounds good. I’ve forwarded everything I’ve found to your email.”

  “Great, hang on.” He set his phone down and stood up, then cursed when he realized he’d walked out of the room without the phone. Grabbing it up, he quickly made his way downstairs. “Okay, what’s up?” he asked, opening his email.

  “As far as I can tell, M. Jensen is a woman by the name of—”

  “Marina Jenkins,” he read in Ethan’s email. It was her. He looked at the attachment and saw several grainy pictures of her entering restaurants.

  “Yeah, the kicker of it is, her sister is Caterina Jenkins.” Trent’s mind was still foggy and he couldn’t place the name. “You know, the woman who had an affair with US Congressmen Brandon Hughes.”

  Now he remembered. The woman had claimed to have had a child by the congressmen. His mind finally caught up with him. She’d talked about her sister Trina and her nephew Tommy, whom she was now living with.

  “Thanks, Ethan.” He felt a knot in his stomach.

  “Sure thing. I hate to disappoint you, but I couldn’t find any reasons for why she would try to burn you. As far as I can tell, she’s never been on the take. She lives in a hole of a place, pays her rent and taxes on time, and doesn’t even own a car. If she’s on the take, she’s hiding her money pretty well.”

  “Hmm, maybe it’s something else.” He thought about it.

  “What? Like blackmail?” Ethan asked.

  “Sure, why not. If she’s babysitting her sister’s kid…”

  “I checked into that idea myself. It was another dead end. As far as I can tell, every dime she earns is accounted for.”

  “Maybe it’s not money they are blackmailing her for.”

  After hanging up with Ethan, he spent the next hour going over Ethan’s proof and searching Marina on the internet. He found several pictures and newspaper articles about her sister, Trina. He even found a grainy photo of the sisters together.

  When he finally made it upstairs to shower, he felt exhausted and had a headache coming on. He knew he was due to work the kitchen that night and wished more than anything that he’d hired two new chefs instead of just one. He only had to fill in two nights a week, but with his extra job of playing detective, the hours were killing him.

  As he crossed the street, he thought of all he’d learned in the last few hours and wondered what he was going to do with the knowledge. He had to be careful taking his next steps with her. Should he call her? Confront her? Or should he keep playing along with her game of pretending she didn’t know exactly who he was? Maybe she didn’t?

  Walking in the back door of the restaurant, he was so preoccupied with thoughts of Marina, he almost ran right into Angie.

  “Sorry.” She grabbed hold of his arms so she wouldn’t topple over. “I guess I wasn’t looking where I was going.” She chuckled
a little.

  When he’d first hired her, Angie had been driven and focused, like someone had lit a fire under her and there was no stopping her from going in the direction she’d chosen. However, less two years later, she’d lost her focus and had started acting more like a drone. She was still one of his best assets, but the lack of spark had caused him to pass over her when choosing a head chef.

  In the five years he’d been open, he’d had seven head chefs besides himself. Out of all of them, three had been women and they’d been some of his best employees. He’d had high hopes for Angie and seeing her fall short was almost like a personal jab.

  “No problem. How was lunch shift?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Not bad. Not the best, but not bad.” She sighed. “Are you on tonight?”

  He nodded. “Oh, I was just going to grab a slice of pizza and a cold one. I thought you’d like to join me,” she said.

  A slice and beer sounded wonderful. He frowned. “Can’t.” He leaned against the door frame. “Until things start picking up around here, I’m stuck covering when I can.”

  She nodded. “How about tomorrow?”

  He sighed as an image of Marina popped into his head. “Between here and the new place, I’m keeping pretty busy…Maybe some other time?”

  She nodded and then continued to walk out the back door. He turned the corner into the kitchen just as a loud crash sounded as someone dropped a whole stack of plates. He groaned out loud, knowing that it was going to be a very long night.

  “What do you mean, you quit?” She could hear the stress in Reggie’s voice.

  “I didn’t say I was quitting, I said that I would quit if you didn’t give me some time off this next week.” She stood her ground. After all, she knew how to handle getting time off from her boss. Reggie was the kind of man who was all bark, especially when it came to her.

  She could hear him sigh into the phone, but she also heard his back molars grind as he thought about it.

  “Why does it have to be this week?” he asked.

  “I’ve told you. Tommy’s school is going to Boston for a field trip and I’d like to go with them.”

  “Fine, but I expect you to have this week’s articles in my email before you leave.”

  She started to say thank you, but he interrupted.

  “And I expect the following week’s the day you get back.”

  She frowned a little. If she had to write up next week’s articles as well as this week’s, that would mean that she would have to drag her ancient laptop with her and find some time to work in the hotel while helping chaperone a dozen kids under the age of eight. But she’d been through worse.

  “Deal.”

  When she hung up a few minutes later, she smiled as she dialed Miss Keith’s cell number to let her know that she could make the trip.

  She was very excited about the trip. She hadn’t been to Boston for almost eight years.

  After talking to Miss Keith, who had insisted she call her Rebecca, she walked into Tommy’s room and told him the good news. He jumped up and down on his bed.

  “I think this calls for ice cream,” he said as his eyes grew. He had a handful of weapons in his arsenal, and sad eyes was the A bomb of them all.

  “Maybe,” she started, and then held up her hand to stop him from begging. “But after dinner.”

  He let out a quick whoop and jumped off the bed.

  “Can we have pizza?” he asked as he hugged her leg.

  “Noooo,” she laughed. “Not if you want ice cream afterwards. You might even have to eat Brussels sprouts and spinach.” She grabbed him when he groaned, and then she started tickling him.

  He giggled and screamed, “Yuck, I hate Brussels sprouts,” at the top of his lungs.

  When she picked him up, she noticed how much bigger he was than the first time she’d held him. The kid was growing up too fast, and Trina was missing a lot of it.

  She always grew sad when she thought of her sister not being there for her son, so she quickly tickled his belly, which made him giggle, causing all her sadness to disappear.

  After their pizza and ice cream, Tommy fell asleep in her lap as they watched his nightly half an hour of television.

  Carrying him to his room, she decided she would wake him up a few minutes early in the morning so he could shower; he was too tired for his bath this evening.

  Just as she walked into her living room, her phone rang. When she answered, there was heavy breathing again. This was the fifth call this week, and she was just about to hang it up when she heard a low voice. “Stay away from him.”

  She shivered then hung up the phone quickly and decided to change her number first thing in the morning.

  When she’d just settled back down in front of the set to watch the news, her cell phone rang. Her heart skipped a few beats until she saw Trent’s name on the screen. Taking a few breaths, she answered.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi.” Just hearing his voice made her breathing hitch. “I’m not interrupting you, am I?”

  “No.” She smiled and sank back into the couch, trying not to imagine him in his sweat shorts with no shirt on, sweaty and sexy as sin.

  “Good. I was hoping I would catch you. I only have a few minutes, but I was hoping that you’d like to do dinner again this Friday.”

  She frowned. “I can’t.” She listened for the awkward silence.

  “Got a hot date?” he joked, winning points from her.

  “No, I’d have a hot date Friday if I was saying ‘yes.’” She smiled when she heard him chuckle. “I’m chaperoning my nephew’s field trip to Boston. We leave in two days and won’t be back until Tuesday.”

  “Wow, you are gutsier than I thought.”

  She chuckled.

  “Can I see you before you go?”

  Her smile fell away and the familiar flutter was back in her stomach. “I’d like that.”

  “What are you doing now?”

  “Watching the news.”

  “If you tell me where you live, I can be there in two minutes.” His voice grew soft.

  “I…” She didn’t know what to say. Could she trust someone with her secrets? Her mind was screaming that he knew too much already, that she should keep this one more detail from him. At least for now. “How about coffee tomorrow morning?”

  “That can work.” He sounded more lighthearted. “So your work just lets you take off like that?”

  “My boss was understanding.” She smiled and tucked her feet under her.

  “So, I was thinking you should bring the kid to our next game.”

  “He’d like that. When’s your next game?”

  “Saturday, but since you’ll be out of town, you’ll miss that one. We have one the following Thursday night.”

  “We’ll see,” she said, biting her lip.

  “I have to go.” She heard a phone ring. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  After hanging up, she couldn’t stop smiling. She thought she wouldn’t be able to fall sleep, but when she finally made it to her room, she drifted off as soon as her head hit the pillow.

  She dreamed about Trent kissing her in a grassy field. His lips felt warm over hers as his hands traveled over her shoulders. As in many of her dreams, she blinked and was whisked away to another place where they lay in the warm sun along soft white sand. Their clothes disappeared as his hands traveled over her skin. He kissed her until she felt like she was spinning. He looked down at her and said her name, but instead of his sexy deep voice, she heard Tommy’s soft little voice repeat her name over and over.

  Opening her eyes, she looked up just in time to see Tommy lean over her and puke all over her comforter.

  “Oh, baby.” She pushed the soaked blanket away and carried him to the bathroom just in time for him to get sick again, this time in the toilet.

  When she felt his forehead, she discovered that he had a slight fever. Pulling off his soaked pajamas, she ran a warm bath for him. Deciding they cou
ld both use some cleaning, she sat down in the tub with him and held him as he moaned with discomfort. When she finally pulled them out of the cool water, she poured a little Children’s Tylenol for him. He sat on the couch as she changed her sheets and threw the soiled ones in the wash.

  When she walked back into the living room, he was fast asleep. She carried him to her bed and snuggled down next to him, and tried to fall asleep through the worry.

  By morning, she knew that he was in no condition to go to school. She texted Trent that she would have to cancel and no sooner had she hit send, her phone rang in her hands.

  “What’s wrong?” He sounded concerned.

  “Nothing, Tommy’s just got a touch of the flu. I want to stick close to him this morning.” She smiled over at the small bundle wrapped up on the couch, watching cartoons.

  “Let me come over. I know a great chicken soup recipe that cures all.”

  She felt bad for canceling and had really looked forward to seeing Trent before leaving for Boston, but she just didn’t know if she could trust him.

  “No, really. Thank you, anyway. I think we’ll just curl up and watch cartoons. Thank you for the thought, though.”

  She listened to the silence for a while. “Okay, but if you need anything let me know.”

  She sighed with relief. “I will.”

  After getting Tommy to nibble on some dry toast, she settled down with him to watch the cartoon channel. When he fell asleep in her arms just around noon, she carried him back to his bed and decided she’d try to get some work done.

  Flipping open her laptop, she glanced at the mirror above her desk and was thankful she had declined having Trent over. There were dark circles under her eyes, and her dark hair was in tangles. Even her short spiky bangs stood up on one side. She was a mess. It would have taken at least an hour to make herself look presentable, and she didn’t want to spare that time with Tommy.

  How had the kid become the most important thing in her life? She’d hardly seen him the first six years of his life. Her sister had lived just north of Boston in a small one-bedroom apartment. She’d hidden her pregnancy from everyone, including her only sister. After Marina had moved to New York, she and Trina had just gone separate ways. Marina had strived to make something of herself, to prove to her family that she was worthy. Trina, on the other hand, had taken a turn towards the wild. She’d spent most of her nights partying in Boston’s clubs, drinking and probably doing drugs. When Trina had showed up a year before she finally left Tommy with her, Marina had been shocked to find out that she had a nephew at all, let alone a five-year-old one. Even their parents hadn’t known they were grandparents. It had shocked them all. Less than a year later, right after Tommy’s sixth birthday, Marina had opened the newspaper and was shocked to discover a picture of her sister with a US Congressmen.