by Gina Gordon
“Good evening, everyone.” He stood beside her behind the front counter, a confident, easy smile spread across his face. The group of teenagers stared back at him with awe. With a simple good evening he held them in rapt attention. He was incredible.
“Who’s your friend, Jack?” the smallest of the group asked. He wore a skullcap and a red basketball jersey—what team, Sterling had no idea.
“This is my friend, Sterling Andrews.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed. That simple gesture set off the butterflies in her stomach. “Sterling is going to cook with us.”
She tensed. “I really can’t cook.”
He leaned closer to whisper in her ear. “Neither could they.” He gestured to the kids. “Anyone can cook. All it takes is practice.”
“Oh, Jack, I…”
He crossed his arms over his chest and stared her down. “If they can do it, you can do it.”
She looked at the kids, who all had determination in their eyes. He was right. If they could do it, so could she. She stood strong and waited for her instructions.
“Can everyone say hello to Sterling?”
A round of hellos surrounded her. She shyly waved at the group.
“That’s not fair. She’s an adult,” the pudgy kid whined.
She had the overwhelming urge to stick out her tongue.
Jack laughed. “Don’t worry, Jesse. I assure you, she’s no threat.”
She’d show him just how much of a threat she could be.
“Can anyone guess what’s on the menu today by looking at the ingredients at your stations?”
“Cheese pasta,” one of them yelled.
He laughed. “Essentially, yes. It’s cheese pasta, better known as…”
“Macaroni and cheese,” Megan shouted.
He pointed at the correct answer.
“Macaroni and cheese?” Sterling asked. “I thought this was a cooking class. Don’t you just boil water and stir?”
“Not when you’re making it from scratch.”
The kids glared at her. Was she not supposed to question the teacher? She was in serious trouble. Boiling water was the extent of her culinary expertise. She was going to be upstaged by a bunch of kids.
“The first thing we’re going to do is make the base sauce. This is a sauce you can use in many recipes, a variety of different ways, and once you master it, you’ll have a ton of recipes at your fingertips. It’s called a béchamel sauce.”
Jack stepped down and walked through the rows of mini-kitchens. “Everyone put on your chef’s coats and let’s get started.”
She put on a coat he’d left for her and the kids followed suit, removing coats from their bags, all except for one—the pudgy one.
“Where’s your coat, Jesse” Jack asked.
The kid tugged down his baseball hat and refused to look him in the eye.
“Jesse?”
The kid glanced over at Megan, who was coaxing him to do something.
Jack looked between them and crossed his arms over his chest. “Did you lose your coat?”
Jesse shook his head.
“Did you forget it?”
Again, Jesse disagreed.
“Then…”
Jesse slipped something out of his bag—the coat that used to be white. Black smudges covered the fabric, and one of the arms was ripped from the seam. It had been purposely ruined. The rest of the kids sat quietly, except for Megan.
“Some assholes grabbed—”
“Language,” Jack interrupted.
Sterling smiled at his concern.
“Some jerks pushed Jesse around last week and took his coat.” Megan straightened. She was one tough little girl. “I showed up but it was too late to save the jacket.”
“Is that why you have scratches on your face?” he asked.
The girl looked at the floor.
“Fighting is not the answer.”
Megan said, “They called him Chef Fatty.”
“Megan,” Jesse yelled.
“Jesse, you can always get another coat. You don’t need to be embarrassed. And you shouldn’t be ashamed of what we do here.” Jack looked around the room, at all of the kids. “People pick on others because of their own insecurities, and maybe even jealousy. If it happens again, invite them to the program. I’ll make room.”
“But Jack—”
“No buts. Just try it.” He laid his arm around the kid’s shoulder and guided him to the back. “Come on, Jesse, let’s get you another coat.”
Sterling was…impressed. More than impressed. He would make a great father if he ever settled down and decided that’s what he wanted to do. But was that what he wanted? The media portrayed him as a commitment-phobe party animal, but that was a far cry from the man she had gotten to know.
The volume in the room grew louder as the group began their recipes. She watched in awe at the motivation and interest the group showed. Who would have thought a bunch of teenagers wanted to make a béchamel sauce?
“Sterling?” Jack whispered over her shoulder. “You don’t want a bunch of kids to beat you, do you?”
Like hell. She got right to work.
She read over the recipe and placed her utensils on the counter in a line. Although she had no idea what she was doing, at least she could organize the damn things. After turning on the stove, she placed the pot on the burner.
The chatter of the room buzzed in the background while she concentrated on her task. She measured out the ingredients as the recipe called for and cursed when the salt spilled all over the counter. Shouldn’t there be a smaller spout for measuring tiny amounts like the necessary one-third of a teaspoon? She looked up at the children. Damn! They had poured the salt into their palms and sprinkled it into the mixture. But how did they know the right amount?
When the ingredients were mixed she poured the milk into the pan. The recipe said to consistently stir the sauce. How was she supposed to do that and watch over a pot of boiling water?
Big hands slid around her waist and a chin rested on her shoulder. She gasped, and immediately recognized Jack’s sexy scent.
“You’re trying to distract me.”
“How are we doing here?” he asked, scrutinizing her progress.
She sighed. The mixture didn’t look like the picture. “It’s a mess.”
“Looks perfect to me.”
She glanced at the workstations and caught the glare of the young girl whose eyes narrowed and one side of her lips curved up in a sneer. She was getting the stink-eye from a teenage girl. She didn’t even get evil looks from girls when she was in high school. “Does everyone have their béchamel sauce ready?” he asked as he walked away.
Five heads nodded in unison. They were beating her.
“Good. By now your water should be boiling.” He walked around the stations and peeked into each pot. “Let’s get the macaroni started.”
They all poured the bag of macaroni into the pots.
“Don’t forget to salt your water.”
Some of the kids scrambled to add the salt, and others were already on the ball. Sterling was lagging behind. Wrestling with the spout on the box, it came loose and once again, salt spilled all over her workstation. Son of a…
“We’re looking for al dente pasta,” Jack instructed. “Remember this has to go in the oven, so if you cook the pasta too much it will come out mushy and that makes for some gross mac and cheese.”
Al dente. She knew that term, yet she never managed to achieve it. Her pasta was always too hard or too soft.
“We’re using dried pasta so it should take about ten minutes. While the water is boiling, grab your ramekin. We don’t want the food to stick, so we’re going to coat the glass with some butter.”
Sterling did as instructed. She had to admit it was much easier to cook when you had your own personal chef telling you what to do, but she was still sucking. When the pasta was drained she slowly poured it into a bowl and added the béchamel.
“At this point, you
want to make sure all of the pasta is coated with the sauce. Now, if you wanted to get creative, you could start adding things to the mixture. Maybe, bacon?”
He walked around the room as he spoke watching over the children. “Pour your mixture into the ramekin. Top it with the bread crumbs. You’re going to cut off a pat of butter and break it up, leaving dollops on top of the bread crumbs around the top.”
She was impressed with herself. It looked a little…homemade, but after following Jack’s instructions, she placed her dish into the oven.
“Excellent work, everyone. That will take about twenty minutes. Let’s clean up.”
Groans filled the room. Guess these teenagers liked cooking but not the cleanup that accompanied it. This was her favorite part. She watched Jack float around the room laughing and joking with the kids, but never once offering to help. He was a hard-ass.
“I don’t see you cleaning, Sterling Andrews.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “You really are full of surprises, Jack Vaughn.”
“Impressed?” He leaned his hip against the counter.
She expected a fancy night out on the town, not an intimate glimpse into his private life. A fling didn’t usually entail revelations this big. Maybe she wasn’t the only one liking the idea of this becoming more than just casual. But she knew the score. In just over a week he’d be gone.
“Of course I’m impressed. These kids love you. They listen to you and respect you.”
“They’re great kids. Just misunderstood.” He looked around the room with a soft smile. “Emmett,” Jack pointed to the kid with the skullcap, “lives in an independent living home. He can come and go as he pleases. In another year he’ll be ready to work in a restaurant. I think Cole would be more than willing to take him on. The rest of them live with foster parents.”
“You give them jobs?”
He nodded. “When we can. That’s the whole point of this program. To not only teach them the life skill of cooking, but to equip them with some experience for securing a job in the culinary arts once they have to move out on their own. At least they’ll have a chance to support themselves.”
Every minute she spent with him impressed her more and more.
“Megan’s finally found a foster family that understands her.” He stared at the young girl who kept looking at him with stars in her eyes. “She’s been bounced around for years, every few months moved to a new family. I think this time she’s found a match.”
She knew exactly what it felt like to be overlooked, and she even had two biological parents. In her eyes that seemed not to sting so much. “Do they get adopted? Kids their age?”
His face hardened. “It’s very rare. We know the statistics. My brothers and I had lost all hope of finding a real family. Then Vivian came along.”
“Do you ever think of taking in a foster child?” She didn’t know if she had it in her to take in a teenager. She knew firsthand what a handful her own siblings could be, but they were family. She couldn’t imagine taking in a stranger. More importantly, if a woman was going to have a life with Jack Vaughn, she needed to know what was in store for her. Not that she would ever have a life with him. It was pure curiosity.
“I think about it. I feel guilty about it. But I move around too much. Foster kids need stability.” There was that guilt card. She knew all about that one.
“You shouldn’t feel guilty. You’re giving back. Just because you aren’t opening up your home doesn’t mean you’re not making a difference.”
He nodded, but she knew he didn’t take her words to heart. It was something he needed to come to terms with on his own.
The timers on the ovens went off almost simultaneously. The cooking time was up and the group spent the next forty-five minutes eating, laughing, and making fun of her inedible macaroni and cheese. Witnessing the program in action gave her a new appreciation for the work all four brothers did. They gave up their time and money to give back the same way their mother had. It was admirable. Jack was admirable. Worth so much more than he gave himself credit for.
The kids eventually filed out one by one, each making an effort to say an individual good-bye to Jack. Even Sterling got a couple of hugs.
As soon as the last kid shuffled out, Jack asked, “Are you ready for the second part of our date?”
Her stomach danced with excitement. “Let me guess, back on the motorcycle? To drive to a hot-air balloon? That will take us to a spaceship?”
Jack shook his head, laughing at her.
“Hah, no.” He grinned. “Come on. I want to show you something.” Jack wrapped his arm around her waist. “You were right about the motorcycle though. Ready to get back on?”
She sighed. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
She had no idea what kind of surprise Jack had in store for her, and when they parked a fair distance from a set of buildings, she became even more confused.
These weren’t just any old buildings, they were apartment buildings—more specifically, ones that she recognized as low-income units subsidized by the government for people on assistance.
“What are we doing here?” Night had fallen and their surroundings were illuminated by the streetlights overhead.
“This is where I came from.” He removed his helmet and put it between his stomach and the bike. She followed his lead.
Cars were parked in front of the building entrances, music blaring from inside. Kids played on a playground in the middle of the complex, laughing and just…being kids.
Where he came from? She didn’t understand. “You lived here?”
“I never knew who my dad was. I lived here with my mom and my grandmother. My grandmother raised me. My mom was too busy partying and doing drugs to pay attention.”
She didn’t pretend that the life of a foster child was easy, but she never thought the man she was with now could have ever endured such a horrible childhood.
“My grandmother died when I was ten and a week later, my mom dropped me off with Children’s Aid and never came back. Until…” He paused, taking a deep breath. This was intimate information. Even more intimate than his relationship with the kids from the program. And somehow, she didn’t think he divulged it to any of the random women he’d been known to date.
“You don’t have to tell me all this.”
“I know.” He turned his body around as best he could to look at her. “I want to tell you. I want someone in this world to know me. Not Jack the Madewood brother, but Jack who comes from the ghetto.”
Her heart swelled. Sterling nodded and leaned forward, wrapping her arms around him. She wanted him to know she cared. That for the next few minutes, he was safe.
“My mother showed up again when I was seventeen when she figured out Vivian had taken me in. She was still using. Still broken. I got her into rehab. She even finished the program. I lent her some cash to start a new future.”
Why did Sterling have the sinking feeling this story didn’t end with a happily ever after?
“I never saw her again. She took the check and ran.”
Her stomach churned. She knew exactly how he felt. Having the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally take advantage. They had both been betrayed. But he didn’t need to know about her trouble. He had enough on his plate.
“Vivian took me in when I was fourteen.” He paused, no doubt memories of the wonderful woman flashing in his mind. “I thought it was odd that a single woman with a shitload of money wanted a fourteen-year-old boy. What she wanted with four teenage boys.”
He probably wasn’t the only one with that question.
“We all treaded lightly, even Neil, Finn, and Cole, who had already been with Vivian for quite a few months. We knew she was the real deal when Neil turned eighteen and she asked him to stay even though he was officially out of the system. When Finn realized she wanted to keep us forever, he wanted to change his name. He wanted to be a Madewood. But she wouldn’t allow it.”
“Why was that
?”
“She wanted us to keep our names, to remember who we were, where we came from. That no matter where the future may take us, our pasts—no matter how bleak—were a part of us and would shape us as men.”
“She was a smart woman.”
He nodded and held out his hand. “So this is where I came from. I don’t really remember much before I ended up in foster care. Not sure if that’s my brain trying to protect me from bad memories, or if I was just too young.”
“Probably a little of both.” Unfortunately, Sterling didn’t have that luxury. She remembered every infested apartment, every crappy car, every angry landlord banging on the front door. Still, she was relieved to know Jack had been spared so much of the grief she’d lived through as a teen.
“So every once in a while I drive out here and remind myself how lucky I am. How grateful I am that a woman like Vivian was brought into my life.”
“You are lucky.” She squeezed him tighter.
He leaned his head back and rested it on her shoulder. “Sometimes it feels like the cord tying me to the universe has been cut and I’m spinning out of control with no end in sight. I miss her so much.”
Those were heavy words for a man like him to utter. A man who had expectations put on him. Who had a legacy to contribute to.
She had no experience with death. Although she had wanted to off her parents on more than one occasion over the years, they were still very much alive…and bleeding her dry.
She kissed the side of his head. “You’re special, Jack. You’re an accomplished chef and entrepreneur; you help out your family when they need it. And you’re continuing your mother’s work.” His idea to move forward with the foundation was a wonderful way of soothing his guilt.
“I just don’t want who I am to overshadow the good that my family can do. Maybe I shouldn’t be the face of the foundation.”
His aversion to being in the spotlight made sense. He’d been burned by gossip vultures looking for the next scandal.
“Once people realize what the foundation is all about, you won’t matter.” She smiled. “You’re not all that.”
His body shook with a light laugh. “All this work, and then I’ll be gone. Leaving it all behind.”
