Jules walked toward the kitchen, adjusting her black dress. It was concert night and Top had been transformed. The small stage in the bar had been expanded and there were already record company people in the front of house, taking pictures and changing what they didn’t like.
They treated her and the serving staff a lot like interns, ordering them all around and not caring that they had other things to do. Yes, Jules remembered this particular work style. She preferred Top, where everyone respected their fellow coworkers. Not so in her mother’s world. There was a hierarchy and it must be followed.
Not that this was precisely her mother’s world, but it was close enough.
Of course, everyone wasn’t an asshole. She’d been introduced to the singer they were featuring this evening. Her name was Emily Young and she’d been kind and very accommodating to the entire staff. Blonde and tiny and gorgeous. She was in the early stages of her career, having been plucked from a bar by one of country music’s hottest male singers, Luke Berry. The record company was sending her on tour and one of the ways they intended to roll her out was giving her small, exclusive venues to play. Tonight, Top was only open to a select crowd who would enjoy dinner service and then the concert.
Jules moved past the last of the tables, unable to get her mind off the singer. Emily Young had her whole life ahead of her, her dreams just starting to come true. What must that feel like? At her age, Jules had known she wanted to cook, but hadn’t known how she wanted to do it. There had seemed to be one and only one path ahead of her, and the expectation had been enormous.
Now that she was settled and knew exactly what she wanted, the choice had been taken away from her.
“Exciting night, huh?” a familiar voice asked.
Jules looked down and there was Suzanne. The petite brunette had a menu in front of her despite the fact that the evening’s menu was fixed.
Jules gave Suzanne a polite smile. “Yes, it is. Are you with the record company or the network?”
“Aren’t they all one and the same these days? The network Chef Taggart sometimes works for is owned by the record company that recently discovered the sweet and talented Emily Young, straight out of Bell Buckle, Tennessee. Isn’t it funny the ties we all have? We forget how small the world is and how easy it is for our lives to cross over and entwine.”
“Yes, it is.” Her mother worked for that network, though Jules hardly thought Annaliese O’Neil would care that a tiny restaurant in Dallas was hosting a singer for the night. “I hope you enjoy the show.”
“How are things with you and the handsome sous chef?” Suzanne asked, leaning forward. “I’ve been out of town for a bit, but I missed this place.” Her eyes trailed over to the bar.
Was she staring at the bodyguard? Declan Burke was going over some protocols with his fellow security for the evening. Now that she thought about it, the brunette only seemed to show up on nights when the bodyguard was here.
She felt for the man. Apparently he was having issues with cluster headaches. She’d found him lying across a table earlier, a cold cloth on his face. Now he looked like nothing was wrong, but there was a tightness to his eyes that made her wonder.
“We work quite well together,” Jules said with what she hoped was a content tone. She didn’t want to get into her fucked-up love life with a virtual stranger, but she also didn’t want to be rude to a customer.
Suzanne’s smile dimmed. “Oh, well. It’s good to have a nice working relationship. Please tell the staff that it all smells delicious. I’m looking forward to the evening.”
Something about the way she’d lost that high-wattage smile made Jules stop. Why would the woman be disappointed? She didn’t know Jules or Javier, but Jules could see plainly her answer bugged the lady.
“Can I ask why you’re interested?” She put the question in a soft tone, not wanting to offend, but her curiosity got the better of her.
“Isn’t everyone interested in love?” Suzanne asked wistfully. “I suppose not. Like I told you before, I consider myself a decent matchmaker. I would have put you with him in a heartbeat. You mesh quite well. That’s the key to a good pairing. Each partner lifts the other up. Your weaknesses would be bolstered by his strengths, and vice versa. Perhaps you’re not ready.”
“Perhaps he’s not ready,” Jules shot back, though she’d thought the same thing the day before. She wasn’t even sure why she was talking, but it seemed to come naturally around the brunette. “I thought we had an agreement but he almost immediately changed it. I think he wants me if I’m convenient.”
“Oh. That’s not good at all,” Suzanne said with a shake of her head. “It makes me sad. He struck me as a man who would be willing to go far for a woman he cared about. You know the type. They treat all women alike until they find the right one. So the first time you gave him trouble he dumped you?”
“No. He didn’t dump me. Not yet. I’m afraid he’s about to.” She’d understood why he’d left her the night before, but this morning had the definite feel of a brush-off to her. She’d called him and asked if they could go to breakfast. His phone had gone to voice mail. Instead of calling back, he’d told her via text he had to come into work early and he’d see her there.
Suzanne waved a hand and Jules got another look at the mark on her wrist. A single quarter-sized round mark that had to be a brand. What was that about? “That sounds like pessimism. No one ever got what they wanted by thinking it wouldn’t happen. You should go in there and find out what he’s afraid of. Men do silly things when they’re afraid. Women, too. Foolish things they think they can’t take back. I’ve found the key to it all is to have a little faith. Nothing is taken without something being given back.”
Jules held up her prosthetic, letting go of her curiosity about the mark. “You’ll forgive me if I disagree. Well, I guess they gave me this plastic thing. Not a good trade-off in my eyes.”
“No, you’re not looking at it in the proper fashion. You were given a challenge, Juliana,” Suzanne said quietly. “That’s something a lot of people don’t get. The ones like you, the ones given a great challenge to overcome, get to truly find out what they’re made of. It’s a harsh lesson at times, but how good it must be to know that you can face it all. How confident a woman that must make you. That’s the gift.”
The gift? There had been pain and loss. No gift. She certainly wasn’t more confident.
“Tell me something, Juliana,” Suzanne said. “How are the recipes coming? The ones from your grandmother’s book.”
The words startled her for a moment. “How did you know about that?”
“You mentioned it a while back,” Suzanne replied with a smooth smile. “You said you were trying to make the recipes easier to deal with because you missed them. You wanted to substitute in easier to deal with ingredients.”
For the life of her, she couldn’t remember that conversation, but then sometimes dinner service was a whirl of activity. All the time, really. “Uhm, it’s not going well, actually. Everything I try seems a little off. I guess my grandmother knew what she was doing. I’ll miss those foods.”
“Why?”
“I can’t cook the way I used to.”
Suzanne laughed brightly and waved her hand. “Oh, is that all? Well, then you’ll find another way to cook, won’t you?” She stood up. “Never give up on your dreams. We’re lost when we give up. I think I’ll go introduce myself to Ms. Young. I suspect she’s not one to give up on her dreams, either, though I believe she left something behind in that hometown of hers. Well, I suspect he’ll show up eventually. All the good ones do.”
She watched as the singer greeted Suzanne like an old friend.
Jules turned to walk away as the door to the kitchen opened and Javier stuck his head out.
“Good, you’re here. I need you,” he said briskly.
She followed after him, the odd conversation with Suzanne playing through her head. There wasn’t time to think about it now, though.
Except she couldn’t help but think about the part where she was inconvenient. She’d been inconvenient for most of the time she’d known Javier. She’d kind of driven him crazy. He was in a bad place with his brother. She should give him some space.
Or she should figure out what her real place with him was.
The kitchen buzzed all around her, every station hopping with action, and the sweet smell of barbecue permeated the air.
“Can we talk for a minute?” Jules asked. “You never got back to me about what happened last night. Is Rafe all right?”
He stopped and turned to her, his expression softening. “I’m sorry about this morning. And last night. I got busy and I didn’t call you. That was wrong of me.”
At least he wasn’t pushing her away. “What happened?”
He moved to one of the stations that wasn’t being used. “There was another break-in. I told you about how the night of the blackout someone broke in and messed my place up. Well, it happened again. Sweetheart, Rafe is in trouble. I don’t know what kind of trouble yet, but some guys hurt him last night.”
So much shifted and slipped into place. She’d been around Rafe enough to suspect a few things about him, but she hadn’t talked to Javier because she wasn’t sure how he would take it. Now she couldn’t hold back. All the secrecy, the bouts of anger and depression, the refusal to even try to walk…it added up in her mind.
“Check his pain meds.” She hated the fact that she had to tell him this, but she’d been thinking about it a lot. “He’s far enough out from the original injury that he shouldn’t need the strong stuff.”
Javier’s face went blank. “He recently had surgery.”
“And I bet he’s taking more than the prescribed amount. Javier, I know he’s your brother and you love him, but I’ve seen this happen a lot,” she replied. “Those drugs are habit forming if you don’t carefully watch your intake. It’s best to get off them as soon as you possibly can function without them.”
“He’s not a drug addict.” Javier’s arms crossed over his chest.
Damn it, she shouldn’t have said anything, but she couldn’t stop now. She understood what he was trying to do, but Rafe’s choices were putting Javier in danger. His place had been broken into twice, and if Rafe couldn’t handle his bills, they would come after Javier. “You have to confront him about it. He’ll lie to you, but you can get him to admit it. That’s the first step.”
“He doesn’t need steps,” Javier said stubbornly.
“Babying him isn’t going to help.” She’d seen too many good men and women go wrong because their family wouldn’t accept what the problem was. She got it. She did. It was hard to send a child/sibling/parent off to war only to have them come home to face something even worse than losing a limb.
“Babying him?” Javier practically shouted the question. “How the fuck can you say that? He lost both his legs.”
She lowered her tone. “A lot of people lost pieces of themselves. Sebastian lost both legs, too. How long was it before he was walking? Rafe should be walking by now. He isn’t because he doesn’t want to, likely because he’s addicted to his pain meds and they dull every single sense he has.”
He frowned at her. “You don’t know him. Rafe wouldn’t do that.”
“You know he’s been abusing alcohol,” she pointed out. She wasn’t sure why he was being so resistant. It was obvious to her Rafe needed help, and it wouldn’t come in the form of pretending everything was okay. “How is this different? And it explains why you’ve had bad dudes at your apartment. They were looking for money or product.”
His jaw went tight. “Like I said, you don’t know anything about my brother. He wouldn’t do that to me. Now, on to the reason I called you back here. I need someone cutting veg. Use the new cutting board and I’ll get you a proper knife. I need a medium chop on those onions.”
She stopped, surprised at the command coming from him. And the nature of the command. She glanced at the cutting board like it was a snake that would bite her if she let it. “I’m the hostess, Javier. Or have you forgotten that? I don’t work in the kitchen.”
“Drake has the flu and Ben’s father had a heart attack. Chef gave him the night off. I had to shift everyone around. I need my line chefs working on the dishes,” he said brusquely. “You’re the only one with experience.”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
Javier’s dark eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me you don’t know how to? Because you’re a trained cook. You might not have graduated from a famous culinary academy, but you’re trying to tell me your mother didn’t even teach you knife skills?”
“I did her mis en place for years. Of course I know how to dice an onion,” she replied tightly, well aware every eye was on them.
“Then get to it. Like I said, I need a medium chop. It shouldn’t be hard. I’m not asking for brunoise. I need that bag cut within the next…” He looked over to Jaylen’s section. “How soon you need the onions?”
“I need to start in twenty, Chef,” Jaylen replied with a sheepish look her way.
“You have twenty minutes.” He turned to walk back to his station.
She reached out for him. “I can’t, Javi. Have you noticed that this hand no longer works? It’s not there so I can’t use it.”
“Then use your other hand, damn it. That one still works fine.” He walked over to the cutting board. It had been sitting there for days, taunting her. He pulled out an onion and placed it on the board. He pointedly placed his right arm behind his back and used his left hand to cut the onion in two. Within seconds he had that sucker peeled and he placed it on the spikes to keep it still. He eased the chef knife sideways, cutting from the top to the bottom, and then brought it down from the outside in to dice.
He was fluid and graceful. He was quick. He’d done it all with one hand, and not his dominant one.
She felt her skin flush with embarrassment. “How long did you practice that? Trying to show up the new chef? Or is this performance all for me?”
He stared at her, a look that could have frozen water. “This is about you wasting your talent smiling at people and making sure they know where to sit. You’ve worked in kitchens all your life. You know that everyone throws in when we need it. Are you going to do what I asked or should I call Ally in here? She doesn’t have your experience, but she knows how to fucking try.”
“I’ll get her.” And then she just might walk out of here. He was an asshole and she should have seen it from the beginning.
“So I shouldn’t baby Rafe, but it’s okay to baby you,” he said, his voice low.
She turned on him. “I was unaware you were babying me at all.”
His eyes closed briefly. “Jules, this is stupid. You can do this. You’re trying to find any way to make your life happen except to do the actual work you need to do to be who you want to be.”
The actual work had been thousands of hours spent toiling beside her mother, learning knife techniques when she was a kid. She’d given half her life to this fucking profession and it was all blown to hell because she’d needed to get away from her mom, to prove to herself that she could be independent. The last thing she needed was some man to tell her what to do.
Not only had Javier been manipulating her, he’d put her on display, berating her in front of everyone.
Of course, she’d also told him his brother was an addict in front of everyone. Maybe he thought it was good payback.
“Fuck you, Javier.” She turned and walked out.
And immediately ran into Chef. Sean Taggart was standing there, leading someone into the kitchen.
From the looks on their faces, they’d heard everything.
Jules stared at the woman she’d been fairly certain she wouldn’t see again. “Hi, Mom.”