Never Ever Satisfied

by Donna McDonald

  Mariah chuckled. “So will I, Brandon. So will I.”

  She was sweaty and smelled like the herbs she’d added to the sixteen pans of Chicken Marsala she’d prepped for cooking two hours ago. They were now stored in the walk-in cooler at her house waiting to be picked up. Unfortunately, pickup required her to be home to let in the chef who’d volunteered to collect them for his charity event tonight. She had two hours to meet with Mariah and navigate back to her house in early rush-hour traffic.

  Della lifted her head and sniffed. “Garlic, oregano, and the scent of good wine. That must mean Italian. Since you don’t seem drunk, I assume the wine went into the food. ”

  Trudy laughed and pushed a hand through her hair. “Good nose you have there, Dr. Livingston.”

  “I waited tables at an Italian restaurant until Mariah took pity on me and decided to start paying for my internship. You smell terrific, by the way. I’m going to have to visit one of your restaurants now to keep the cravings under control.”

  Trudy dug in her tote and pulled out a printed coupon her restaurant manager had made. “Here. Dinner for two. Invite a friend. We’re running a promo.”

  “Wow,” Della said. “Thank you so much. Dinner at one of your restaurants. This is so exciting.”

  The enthusiasm made Trudy laugh again. “Mariah still here? I’m running later than I’d hoped to be.”

  Della nodded. “She’s running late today too. Need me to walk you back?”

  Trudy shook her head. “No, I remember where it is.” She walked down the right hallway and tapped on Mariah’s semi-closed door, entering only after an invitation to do so was called out.

  “Hmm… you smell like dinner and I’m getting hungry,” Mariah said, smiling.

  Trudy laughed. “Normally I shower after cooking something so strongly flavored, but I just didn’t have time. I’m sorry if I made you wait for me.”

  Mariah shrugged. “I was working anyway. This has been a very strange week. Thanks for coming back to see me on such short notice.”

  “No problem. It sounded important,” Trudy said as she slid into the chair.

  Mariah picked up a tablet from the edge of her desk and swiped until she brought up the information. She slid it across the pristine desktop. Picking it up, Trudy studied the photo. The man was young… and oddly familiar… but she couldn’t place having seen him before.

  She glanced at Mariah then lifted the photo closer. “I feel like I know this kid.”

  Her statement had Mariah chuckling. “Kid?”

  “Yes, kid,” Trudy repeated. “How old is he? Fifteen?”

  “Of course not. No one under twenty-one is allowed in the database. He’s twenty-five,” Mariah said, grinning. “And very interested in taking you to dinner. He just wants the chance to talk to you. I wanted to explain this request in person before adding it to your profile because he’s already romantically involved with someone his own age who I believe he intends to marry.”

  “Well, the little devil,” Trudy said, chuckling over the boy’s attempt to sin. “Not that I don’t think I’m attractive for a woman over fifty, but I have looked through the younger clients in your database. I’m surprised the boy picked me for his last fling. I could be his mother.”

  Mariah shrugged. “He swears that’s not what this is. His request caught me by surprise which doesn’t happen often in my line of work. Brandon Wu was one of my first year clients and one of the most charming. I’m only telling you about his request because I can’t think of any reason not to pass his request along. However, my instinct says there’s more to his request than I’ve been able to discern, so that required me seeing you in person.”

  Trudy snorted and studied the photo harder. “Brandon Wu, huh? I don’t think he was ever in any of my cooking classes. I would have remembered this kid because he’s so good-looking. It’s his eyes, I think. I’ve always noticed the strangely different, yet utterly masculine men. Trust me, I would have noticed this guy even though he was a kid, but that still doesn’t explain him picking me.”

  “If it helps any, he’s a very smart kid—some kind of math prodigy, I think. He’s a highly paid CPA and has snagged a new promotion every six months for a couple years. This last one probably put him into six figures and I hear he’s got his eye on another.”

  “So you’re telling me the kid at least isn’t planning to stiff me with the check at dinner,” Trudy mused, searching the boy’s photo for more clues. “I can’t get past how familiar he looks. Why does he look so familiar to me?”

  “I have no idea, Trudy. Any interest in having dinner with him?” Mariah asked.

  Trudy recalled her stare down with Jack and the uber sweet way they’d talked to each other on the evening news show. That momentary peace between them had made her far more nervous than their yelling ever had.

  It also hadn’t helped that Jack stared at her mouth every time she spoke. Being exposed to that stare for a solid hour once a week for three months was starting to sound like a very bad idea for her peace of mind.

  She needed to put some insulation between her and Jack. Maybe the kid would be a good start.

  “So just dinner,” Trudy repeated. “Would this ‘just dinner’ thing fulfill the dating obligation Georgia tricked me into doing for you?”

  Mariah wrinkled her nose at the blunt accusation. She hadn’t tricked any of her mother’s friends, had she? She braved Trudy’s piercing gaze and nodded. “Technically, it would dissolve my financial investment completely since you didn’t use my stylist or image consultant.”

  “Great. In that case, count me in for dinner. The mysterious Brandon Wu sounds like the perfect date,” Trudy said.

  “You don’t have to be sarcastic. I know he’s not perfect for you, but Brandon is a terrific guy. I’m sure you’ll have a good time,” Mariah teased.

  Trudy chuckled. “Oh honey, that wasn’t sarcasm. I was just trying not to swear about all this dating stuff. I will never underestimate Georgia Bates again.” A genuine smile lifted her mouth when Mariah laughed.

  “Okay. I get that you only did this for Mom. Want a coffee date first to see if you’re cool with dinner?” Mariah took the tablet when Trudy handed it back.

  Trudy shook her head at the question. “No, just set up dinner. Just make sure I can drive myself there and back.”

  “I always advise that for first dates,” Mariah confided. “For both clients, actually. It’s a graceful way to escape a bad decision.”

  “You don’t have to tell me about bad decisions,” Trudy declared. “I’m still paying for one I made fifteen years ago.”

  Chapter Six

  “We have a special show planned for you today, and a special guest chef to help us celebrate. Please give a warm welcome to Cincinnati’s favorite hometown girl, Chef Trudy Baker.”

  Trudy rolled her eyes at Jack’s kitschy introduction because everyone could tell someone had scripted it for him. Smiling, she walked out to his kitchen with the sound of applause echoing behind her. Part of it was canned, but some was the live audience they had hand selected carefully for the show. No crazies were allowed today. Well, no crazies except her and Jack. Two eccentric chefs were bad enough.

  Amid the clapping noise, Jack gripped her shoulders and pulled her to him for a hug. The faint smell of Bay Rum and Peppercorns had her leaning closer. He stiffened in surprise as her cheek brushed his. He was only a few inches taller than her. If she kissed his cheek, she’d leave a big red lip print on him that he’d end up wearing until first break. The idea was so tempting that it made her smile.

  “Thanks for coming on the show,” Jack said as he backed away, his voice gruff with the effort to be courteous. While giving his usual opening spiel, he pulled an apron on over his clothes and deftly tied it in the back.

  His efforts to stay cool in her presence made Trudy laugh and her smile beamed out into the audience. She could see the curiosity on their faces. She turned reluctantly to face her host. “Thanks for inviting
me, Chef Dozen. What are we baking today?”

  Trudy kept grinning as Jack huffed quietly, his head turned away from the mic as he got control. Clever man to keep his disgust of her to himself, but that wasn’t going to win him audience points with her fans.

  “Today we’re going to be making southern biscuits, the kind your mother’s mother used to make for dinner,” Jack declared in his TV voice.

  Feeling contrary over the attitude rolling off him, Trudy frowned at the bread board Jack had pulled from under the counter. She watched him sift nearly a full inch of flour on it while extolling the virtues of homemade bread. She wrinkled her nose because she could smell the additives in the flour.

  “My maternal grandmother was German. She made schweinebraten and potato balls for dinner. I learned my biscuit recipe from a neighbor who moved to Cincinnati from Atlanta. Did your grandmother really teach you to use self-rising flour? Won’t that make the bread tough?”

  “My maternal grandmother was Chinese,” Jack spat out in irritation, his mic picking up his anger over having to match her confession. “She taught me to make duck dumplings with plum sauce. You, Chef Baker, taught me to make biscuits this way.”

  Trudy stepped back from the counter appalled at the accusation. “I most certainly did not.”

  “Yes. Yes, you did,” Jack insisted, pulling out a clear bowl and the bag of flour from under the counter. He kept the back of it turned to the camera so they wouldn’t be unfairly advertising the brand.

  Trudy waved a hand at his supplies. “Jack, I have never made biscuits the way you’re doing. I use plain flour and about a third of what you have on your bread board to roll them out.”

  Jack stopped his preparations and turned to stare. “Chef Baker, are you actually challenging my recipe?”

  Trudy narrowed her eyes. In chef terms, challenging a recipe was a great insult. It was like calling someone a liar. “If you’re intending to use self-rising flour to make your biscuits, I see no other choice. Too bad we aren’t doing a biscuit bake-off. I’d show you a much better way to make them.”

  “Yes. Too bad,” Jack repeated dryly.

  While they glared at each other, the audience suddenly went wild with clapping. Hers and Jack’s head both jerked as two show technicians walked out with a second bread board and supplies, while a third tech busied herself tying a large white apron over her suit. Trudy looked down and fingered the large screen printed Baker’s Dozen logo now across her ample breasts.

  The apron technician went to Jack. Trudy didn’t hear what she said to him, but she saw Jack’s glare as he resentfully removed his show logo apron. When the apron skirmish was finished, both she and Jack were wearing the segment title across their fronts. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw their director rolling his arm in the air to get moving.

  Since all Jack was doing was glaring at her, Trudy leaned forward until her face was inches from his. “I have only one thing to say to your biscuit challenge, Chef Dozen. Game. On,” Trudy said loudly into her mic, both of them jumping when the audience erupted into yet another round of wild applause.

  Then thankfully they cut to a freaking commercial.

  Trudy turned away and glared at the producer who was standing in the wings smiling. Luke gave her a thumbs up sign. They were doing a live show and the bastard had obviously set them up. “Not cool, Luke… not cool at all.”

  She turned back to Jack and put her hand over her mic. “Cover yours,” she ordered.

  Jack narrowed his gaze, but did as she asked. “Was it your idea or Luke’s to piss me off and get me to challenge your recipe?” Trudy demanded.

  “Just what are you implying?”

  Trudy narrowed her eyes as Jack took several steps backwards, looking like she’d punched him. She held up a hand signaling peace. “Never mind. The look on your face just answered my question. Luke used our natural animosity against us.”

  Jack’s disgusted and furious gaze went directly to Luke. If looks could kill, Luke would be dead. So much for his calm cook show host.

  “We’re back in three, two, one…” the director yelled.

  Trudy moved to the second bread board now placed strategically on the counter. A frowning Jack stepped forward to his. When they were live once more, she looked at him. “So we’re doing a biscuit bake-off now?” she asked as innocently as she could.

  Jack nodded and glared. “No chef would turn down such a challenge.” He pointed to her stuff. “Start talking and catch up. I’m ready to add liquid.”

  Trudy pointed her finger at him. “You have no right to call me bossy ever again.”

  When the audience laughed at her comment, Jack reluctantly grinned and shrugged. He looked like he had the first time she’d ever seen him. The knot of worry that he’d continue to hate her partially unwound inside her. It was the first time Jack had shown her that he had a sense of humor at all.

  Mixing the dough on autopilot, Trudy launched quickly into the merits of adding in the leavening ingredients independent of the flour because you could adjust the amounts based on humidity and what type of oven you were using.

  “Never mind that you could eat biscuits twenty minutes sooner if you lowered your flour standards just a little,” Jack interjected, pinching his fingers together until they were barely apart.

  Trudy chuckled at his defense. “How low are your baking standards, Chef Dozen?”

  Jack lifted his chin at the question. “Depends on who I’m feeding. I cook for ten teenage boys on a regular basis. They don’t have the patience to wait for me to do cooking math on everything I make. Cooking for them has taught me to appreciate preparation speed in a whole new way.”

  Trudy rolled her wet dough out on the floured surface. “Ten teenage boys? Got a secret family hiding somewhere?”

  Jack shrugged again, frowning because the boy’s home was something he never talked about on the air. He mixed and quickly dumped his own dough out on his bread board. Kneading it three times, he quickly pressed it out into a nearly perfect circle. He cut out a dozen biscuits and put them on his baking sheet.

  His lack of being able to safely answer was causing dead air. She’d left him no choice but to admit the truth. “I foster a local boy’s home. It’s not something I talk about much. I cook for them a couple times a week.”

  Trudy’s hands paused their kneading. It took an act of will to make them go again. Did Luke know this about Jack? Was that what Jack had done with the finder’s fee she’d forfeited?

  “Well, ten boys certainly explains the self-rising flour you tried to blame on me.”

  “Oh, I still say I learned my recipe from you,” Jack insisted.

  Trudy held out a dough covered hand, pointing her finger at him again. “I promise you did not. Now hand me the biscuit cutter please. They didn’t give me one.”

  Jack picked up the cutter and scooted over next to her. “You’re too slow and meticulous. Let me cut for you. We need to put both pans in the oven at the same time and before the next break. You can clean up your hands while I finish.”

  Any other time Trudy would have rebelled verbally over being given orders, but it was Jack’s show after all. She swept a magnanimous hand to the board where her dough rested.

  While Jack rapidly cut her biscuits out, she picked up the bottom of his fancy new segment apron and starting wiping the dough off her hands with it. She pulled up and held it high enough for the audience to see what she was doing. When they laughed at her mischievous action, she smiled and winked at them.

  Trudy snickered when Jack looked down at his now soiled apron, looked back up at her, and yet somehow never missed cutting out a single biscuit. He lined them up on the extra bread pan in less than a minute while the live audience continued to laugh at them both.

  “Okay, they’re ready. Come back at the end of the show and we’ll compare sizes,” he ordered, saying nothing about what she’d done to his apron.

  Trudy grinned and wiggled her now semi-clean fingers in the air. �
�What do I get if my biscuits are bigger than yours, Chef Dozen?”

  “You get to come back on the show next week,” Jack said automatically, suddenly unable to look away from her red-lipped smile and wicked eyes. It was the effect she’d always had on him.

  “And if your biscuits are bigger than mine, are you going to punish me?” Trudy taunted.

  “Yes, I am. I’ll show you up again next week and continue to make you admit my recipes are better,” Jack bragged.

  Trudy turned to the audience. “I don’t know if I like that deal. Does it seem fair to you?”

  The audience yelled back “no”, but they also laughed and clapped. Finally, the director yelled for the cameras to cut away for the next commercial break.

  Trudy patted Jack’s shoulder in support and walked out of the set towards Luke who took off the moment he saw her heading his way.

  “Trudy,” Jack called. She turned back, her eyes full of vengeful purpose. Determination was a very sexy look for her, but Jack was glad her anger wasn’t aimed at him for once. He almost felt sorry for Luke—almost. “Thanks for keeping a cool head. I appreciate it.”

  Something shifted inside him when her face softened. She lifted a hand and waved. He should have been mad at Luke for setting them up, but the audience was animated and he knew that was a response he rarely got on his own.

  When Trudy moved on in search of her prey, all Jack could think about was the bad-ass woman he’d once fallen in love with had either mellowed quite a bit in fifteen years… or he’d never really known her softer side.

  He was going to have to pursue her again. It was either that or go crazy. He wanted desperately to find out what she was like now, and if her kiss could still affect him as much as it once had.

  Pathetic as it was, he hadn’t had a moment’s real rest since they’d argued in Luke’s office.

  “Where’s Jellica this morning?” Trudy asked. She was tired, cranky, and needed about fifteen cups of coffee.

  It had been impossible to sleep last night because all she could think about was the stupid cooking show and how nice Jack had been to her. She wasn’t used to nice from Jack. She was used to his venom. She was used to him hating her. For many years, his hate of her had kept things very simple and emotionally distant. It had also justified staying out of his life.