A Cowboy in the Kitchen

by Meg Maxwell

  Annabel had told his parents how sorry she was for their loss, glanced at West with such sorrow, then she’d gotten on her bike and raced away. Later that night, after the last of the relatives had left, West had come downstairs for a cold drink when he overheard his mother crying again and his father comforting her. The sound of his mother crying was like a slam in his gut, and West had stood there, frozen, his head hung, wishing he could go in and say the right thing, but he’d known, he’d always known, that he wasn’t “living up to their expectations” and he’d be no comfort, that the wrong Montgomery brother was gone. Then he’d heard his mother say Annabel’s name and he strained to hear.

  Did you see West and Annabel come out of the barn together? his mother was saying. She had hay in her hair. Hopefully her grandmother will have the sense to tell Annabel to stay away from West. I hear she has a scholarship to culinary school in Dallas. I’d hate for her to give up her future.

  West had gone rigid. He’d waited for his father’s response, for some kind of defense, but his dad had said, She won’t give that up to stay in Blue Gulch.

  Plenty of girls give up their dreams for handsome boys they’re in love with, his mother had said. Annabel has her whole life ahead of her, and West will be here, doing what? Odd jobs. New girlfriend every weekend. I love West, but he’s...who he is.

  Who he is... His heart in his throat, he’d crept back upstairs, lying awake for a long, long time, tears streaming down his face. He’d lost his brother. His parents thought he was nothing. And now he had to lose Annabel—to save her...from himself. His mother was right. Annabel was a good girl, straight A’s, helped out her grandmother by working in the family restaurant every day after school as a cook’s assistant and sometimes as a waitress when someone called in sick. And West was the troublemaker in the black leather jacket, calls to his parents from the principal about fights he got into with jerk jocks who thought they could say anything they wanted about anyone. And yeah, since barely graduating, he worked for room and board at a big spread on the outskirts of town, thinking he might want to be a rancher, breed cattle, raise horses. His dad was a mechanic who’d tried his hand at starting a small ranch on their property and hadn’t done well, so his father had figured West would fail at that life too. But West wasn’t like Garrett, who’d joined the military and planned to become a police officer, a trajectory his parents could be proud of.

  Back then he’d lain awake for hours, vowing to avoid Annabel Hurley so that he wouldn’t screw up her life. In the barn, she’d taken off her sweater, let him touch her breasts in the lacy white bra, and kissed him deeper and deeper, driving him wild until he’d stopped things, afraid to go too far and take advantage of the situation.

  So yeah, she liked him. That had been clear. Liked him enough to give up her scholarship and Dallas? Maybe. So he’d made the decision to avoid her from that moment on, let her go have her great life with a better guy than him.

  And when Lorna Dunkin had told him the next day that she knew exactly how to make him forget his grief for a little while, looking him up and down and whispering in his ear, he took her to the flat-topped boulder where he often saw Annabel picking herbs for her grandmother, and he let Lorna help him forget everything—losing his brother, his parents’ disappointment in him, his disappointment in himself and giving up Annabel for her own damned good. At some point, he’d heard the crack of a twig and he knew it was her, knew that she saw, and the footsteps running away let him know he’d achieved his goal.

  Some damned victory.

  Except about six weeks later, Lorna had shown him a white stick that looked like a thermometer with a pink plus sign in a tiny window and said she wanted a big wedding.

  Lucy had made everything he’d given up worth it. But those times when he’d be stacking hay or training a horse, he’d think of Annabel’s beautiful face, those round dark brown eyes, full of trust, of feeling, and he’d feel like the scum of the earth. He’d hurt her, no doubt. But hadn’t she gone off to Dallas to the fancy cooking school? Hadn’t he stepped out of her way? He’d heard she had a condo in a swanky apartment building near Reunion Tower. That she was a chef at a Michelin-starred American fusion restaurant, whatever that meant. She probably had a serious boyfriend in a fancy suit.

  With Lucy lying on her stomach on the living room rug with her coloring book, Daisy half snoozing nearby, West opened the folder of recipes Annabel had given him. Breakfast was written in red marker on the tab in her neat script. He found the one for French toast, and set to work, cracking eggs, melting butter in the pan, getting out the bread. Soon enough he had four slices of French toast cooking, eyeholes cut out for blueberries and a mouth cut out for strawberry slices for Lucy’s portion. Smelled pretty darned good too.

  He thought about all those women coming by, in the first couple of months after Lorna died, with casseroles and offers to cook for him. There’d been innuendo and flat-out invitations. More than a few times he’d taken up those invitations, needing to forget, to be taken out of himself. And more than a few times he’d failed Lucy. One time he’d been in a woman’s bed when he was supposed to pick up Lucy early from school for a dentist appointment, but the woman had made him forget himself so well he forgot his own daughter. Another time Lucy had been calling him over and over on the phone from Lorna’s parents’ house, where she was sleeping over, to tell him she lost a tooth, her first, but he’d shut the ringer so no one could interrupt him while a stranger with big breasts was naked beside him.

  The next morning, the look of absolute disdain and disappointment on Raina Dunkin’s face had said it all. A father, especially a widowed father, needs to be reachable at all times, West, she’d practically spit at him. But it was the look on Lucy’s face, with one of her bottom front teeth gone, the where were you, Daddy? I tried to call you like one million times that had made him vow that was it. No more women. No more whiskey. No more hiding from his life. He’d focus on his daughter.

  So beautiful women with long red hair and dark brown eyes, who made him want to rip off their loose jeans and white button-down shirts, women like Annabel Hurley, just couldn’t go around casually touching his hand while slicing mushrooms.

  “Daddy, I think Daisy ate my silver crayon,” Lucy called from the living room. “She’s choking!”

  West rushed into the living room, where Daisy was sputtering a bit, trying to get something out of her mouth and pushing on her teeth with her paw.

  “Daddy, is Daisy okay?” Lucy asked, hazel eyes worried.

  “Well, let’s see if we can help her,” he said, kneeling beside Daisy and opening the beagle’s mouth, where half a crayon was wedged in her back teeth. “Daisy, that couldn’t possibly have tasted good,” he said, shaking his head and trying to pop up the flattened, bitten crayon. Finally out it came. As the smell of something burning wafted into the living room, Daisy stood up and spit out the other half of the crayon.

  Damn it, the French toast! It would be burned to a crisp by now.

  The doorbell rang just as West was rushing back into the kitchen, so he quickly shut off the burner, then noticed he’d left the bag of bread too close to the burner; part of it started to cinder. He threw that in the sink and stood there for a moment, hands braced on the counter, wishing his headache away.

  “Daddy, the doorbell rang again,” Lucy called out just as the smoke alarm started blaring.

  “Lucy, it’s Nana and Pop-Pop,” he heard Raina’s shrill voice call out. “Come open the door, sweetheart.”

  Oh, hell.

  He quickly tried to fan the smoke from the alarm with a magazine, then hurried into the living room, where Raina and Landon glared at him.

  “What is that burning smell?” Raina said, barreling in and heading for the kitchen. West could hear her shoving up the kitchen window, and in a few moments, the alarm stopped its beeping. Raina was back in the living room in seconds
, holding the charred bag of bread. “Blackened bread is in a pan on the stove. This burned bag was in the sink, and the kitchen is all smoky, which can seriously hurt developing lungs. God, West.”

  “We had a mergency with Daisy because she ate my crayon,” Lucy said, holding up the flattened sliver for her nana.

  “Even the dog isn’t safe in this house,” Landon said, shaking his silver-gray head at West as he took the crayon from Lucy. “I’ll make sure this ends up in the garbage so there isn’t another ‘mergency.’”

  “I heard Lucy was at the doctor today,” Raina said as she went over to Lucy to examine her leg. She peeled back the bandage and added her own head shake at the nasty cut. He watched Raina’s gaze take in Lucy’s torn purple leggings, the scrape on her arm, the knot clumping together a cluster of ringlets on the left side of her head, the dirt smudge on her cheek.

  “I fell out of the tree today,” Lucy said proudly, sticking out her injured leg.

  “Oh, I can see that,” Raina said, shooting a death stare at West. “Lucy, can you go play in your room?” she added through gritted teeth. “Grandpa and I need to talk to your father.”

  When Lucy left, Raina lowered her voice. “You leave me no choice, West. We’ve given you a year to get your act together. But you’re unfit to parent Lucy alone. Landon and I will be filing for custody. This was the final straw.” She held up a hand. “Don’t bother to defend yourself,” she said, and then they swept out.

  West dropped down on the sofa, his head in his hands. No one was taking his daughter away from him. But how would he fight the Dunkins when a lot of circumstantial evidence said he wasn’t exactly father of the year?

  “Daddy, is the French toast ready? I’m starving,” Lucy said as she burst out of her room. “Hey, where’s Nana and Pop-Pop?” she asked, looking around.

  Keep it together for Lucy, he ordered himself. The Dunkins aren’t taking your girl away. They can’t. He’d figure it out, he’d fight them, he’d...do whatever he had to do.

  He sucked in a breath and let it out. “They had to get home. You know what, Lucy? Even Daisy wouldn’t eat the burned French toast. How about dinner at Hurley’s, just the two of us? Go wash your hands, sweetcakes.”

  As Lucy grinned and ran to wash up, West felt a slow snake of cold fear slither up his spine. Could the Dunkins prove he was unfit? He was a better father now than he was in the terrible first month after Lorna’s death, when Lucy didn’t quite understand where her mother was, but had two sets of doting grandparents. He’d let them do what he should have done—been there for his daughter. Then his parents moved away...and he’d lost them too—permanently. Instead of focusing on being a good dad to Lucy, he’d drank too much and spent too many nights with women, trying to make himself forget who and what he was. A man very much alone who had no idea how to be a good father.

  He would not lose his daughter. No matter what he had to do.

  Chapter Three

  According to Clementine, at 6:30 p.m., prime dinnertime, every table at Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen should be taken, a line of folks waiting on the porch, where waiters would circulate with complimentary sweet tea and Gram’s beloved smoked and spiced nuts. Now, at that exact hour, she and Clementine glanced around the dining room, Annabel worrying her lower lip and Clementine furious.

  “This is how everyone supports Gram after fifty years? By staying home because she’s ill and not doing the cooking?” Clementine asked, shaking her head.

  “Well, Gram is Gram,” Annabel said, watching through the back window as Olivia Piedmont and her husband craned their necks into the kitchen, saw Gram’s assistant cook, Hattie, and her helper, Harold, and then pointed across the street to the Sau Lin’s Chinese Noodle Shop. Not that Annabel wanted to take business away from Sau Lin’s, which had been around a long time too, but Hattie had been cooking beside Gram for thirty years. And now here was Annabel, who’d learned to shred chicken and create a killer barbecue sauce by the time she was eight.

  Five of the fifteen tables were taken. Five. And when Lindy, one of the waitresses, rolled out the dessert cart to tables two and four, only one person ordered a piece of the special chocolate fudge pie.

  Every day that continued like this meant Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen would be in big trouble within two months. Tonight, after the cooking lesson, Annabel would spend some time coming up with an idea to bring in business. That was the constant talk at staff meetings at the three restaurants where Annabel had worked in Dallas—everything was about retaining patrons and bringing in new ones. But here in Blue Gulch, there wasn’t exactly the same competition to study as there had been in Dallas. If people quit Hurley’s because the best cook in the world was no longer doing the cooking, all the initiative in Texas wouldn’t help.

  Annabel would just have to up her game and try, try, try. A menu board listing the delectable specials outside. A Facebook page with photos that would have mouths watering. A new children’s corner with games and toys and mats and maybe Annabel could hire a sitter for the section. She felt a little better already.

  Except when Danielle Tolliver and her Tuesday night book club meeting got up to leave, Annabel overheard Danielle whisper to one of the women that the chicken-fried steak’s gravy just wasn’t the same.

  Annabel had made that gravy. Maybe it had too much Dallas in it, not enough Blue Gulch. She had to remember she was home now, that people like old-fashioned, good food, not newfangled spices in thinner sauce. No one was counting fat grams at Hurley’s.

  Deep breath taken, Annabel was about to head back into the kitchen when she froze, her heart speeding up, unable to take her eyes off the man who’d just walked through the door of the restaurant. West Montgomery. He held his little girl’s hand. Clementine walked over with a smile and led them to a table overlooking the hill out back with its wildflowers.

  Annabel should go over and say hello and thank him—he must have gotten up early and silently gone to work on the Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen sign, because the sign was freshly painted and the loose cobblestones fixed. A man of his word. Instead she waved, then scurried into the kitchen, her reaction to the sight of West, the gorgeousness of him, scaring the bejesus out of her.

  Hattie was on the grill, her assistant, elderly Harold, on sides and salads. Annabel was helping both of them and in charge of sauces and kitchen management, and was trying her best to become a better baker. When Clementine came with the Montgomery order—roast beef po’boy for West and a children’s mac and cheese for Lucy—Hattie was so busy with a special-ordered fish that Annabel took care of West’s and Lucy’s orders.

  She was making their dinner. Which felt very...domestic. A fantasy poked in her head about what it would be like to live with West and Lucy. A thought she forced out of her head. West had hurt her so bad seven years ago that she wasn’t sure she’d ever let herself fall in love again. Granted, he’d been a grieving mess that night and she shouldn’t blame him too harshly, but she couldn’t help it. He’d put a halt to things with her, then had been doing the same things with Lorna Dunkin out in the open, not caring if she saw them or not.

  That was who West was; she had to remember that. People always showed you who they were loud and clear, right? That was what Gram always said. So why did West not seem like a thoughtless jerk? She peered through the little window on the door to the dining room and caught West helping Lucy color on her children’s place mat. That wasn’t a sign of a jerk.

  She thought of herself at eighteen, alone and lonely and out of her element in Dallas, trying so hard to fit in and eventually succeeding while feeling...empty. Now she was back home where she belonged and she wasn’t about to let herself want West Montgomery again. No matter how many cobblestones he fixed or how many times he played thumb war with his daughter at Annabel’s favorite table in Hurley’s. No matter how much she wanted to join them.

  Th
e moment she peered out the window into the dining room, West happened to see her and waved her over. She was covered in gravy stains and had flour in her hair, but such was the life of a cook.

  She weaved her way through the tables, smiling at the Henry family, catching one of the waiters’ eyes to refill water on table three, and stopped in front of West and his daughter’s table.

  She kneeled down beside Lucy. “Hi, I’m Annabel Hurley. I’m one of the cooks here. I hope you liked your macaroni and cheese.” Considering there was only a scrape of cheese left in the bowl, she felt safe putting the girl on the spot.

  “It was really good,” Lucy said. “We were going to have French toast, but it burned because Daisy ate my crayon.”

  “Long story,” West said, ruffling his daughter’s hair. “Want to split a piece of chocolate layer cake?” he asked Lucy. “That looks amazing,” he added, upping his chin at the delectable dessert heading over to another table.

  “Yes!” Lucy said. “With whipped cream and a cherry on top.”

  “She wants everything to be like a sundae,” West pointed out.

  Annabel smiled at the adorable girl. “How would you like to come into the kitchen and help me make your sundae cake?”

  The girl slid out of her chair. “Yes!”

  Lucy slid her hand into hers, the sweet gesture poking at her heart. West glanced at their hands and smiled at Annabel, following them into the kitchen.

  After introductions to Hattie and Harold, Annabel led Lucy to the dessert table, holding three chocolate layer cakes, four kinds of pie and a big plate of butter cookies. Annabel sliced a piece of cake, then brought Lucy over to the walk-in refrigerator, where the girl spun around with her mouth open.

  “I’m in a refrigerator!” she exclaimed.

  Annabel laughed and pointed out the tub of whipped cream, which she put in Lucy’s outstretched hands, and then they headed back to the dessert table. Annabel handed her a scoop, and Lucy dug in and released a perfect mound of whipped cream on the cake. “Now for the cherry so it’s a real cake sundae.” Annabel held out a basket of cherries.