Fortune's Just Desserts (5 page)

 

Wendy walked back to the dining area, smiling to herself.

She was wearing down Marcos, she could feel it. He wasn't nearly as terse as he had been when she'd first come to work here.

Moreover, working at the restaurant had turned out to be more fun than she'd expected it to be. She liked the people, liked the energy she felt when they were busy.

And when the doors were closed and the kitchen staff was getting ready for the evening shift, it was even better. She'd made a discovery the second week she was here that she'd been heretofore unaware of. She discovered that she liked to cook, something she'd never had a need to do before. Growing up, there'd been a cook, Elise, who'd made all their meals. Wendy hadn't even been allowed to stay in the kitchen when the woman was working. Elise had claimed it threw her off.

Enrique, the main chef at Red, had allowed her to dabble a little and had given her a few basic pointers, encouraging her to experiment and to trust her instincts.

Trust her instincts.

Now, there was something no one had ever said to her before. Probably because no one thought she had any instincts to speak of.

That was part of the reason she liked being here. The people who worked at Red treated her like a
regular person. They saw her as Wendy the waitress, not as Wendy the heiress, and they treated her accordingly.

Except for Marcos Mendoza. Despite her enthusiasm on the job, he clearly thought she was spoiled and incapable of doing an honest day's work.

It would be her pleasure to prove him wrong.

E
very day Red closed its doors at two and opened them again at five. The hours between lunch and dinner afforded the staff time to clean up from the first service and prepare for the second. While it was not a time to kick back, the stress level was notably reduced and conversations of no particular consequence drifted through the air.

Three-thirty would usually find Marcos making his way into the kitchen to check on the progress of the dinner preparations. As with any good restaurant, Red had several items on the menu that never changed, long-standing customers favorites. There were people who frequented Red specifically to
order these items. Changing them would upset the clientele.

But it was also a given that if Red was to continue to thrive and grow, the menu had to keep evolving. And that meant trying out different dishes, all in keeping with the Tex-Mex flavor that Red was known for.

So, new dishes were periodically given a trial run to see how the patrons responded to them. Things that worked or secured a devoted following remained on the menu. Things that didn't were removed.

Marcos supervised the menu, but its creation and content were all up to Enrique Montoya, a somewhat temperamental but highly regarded chef who Marcos had managed to lure away from Etienne's, a pricey and popular restaurant in San Antonio.

From the very beginning, the staff, Marcos had noted, would tiptoe around the chef each morning until they could ascertain what kind of a mood Enrique was in. If he was in a genial, friendly mood, the staff relaxed and work flowed. But if the chef was quiet, speaking only in clipped, two- to three-word sentences, everyone was subdued, doing their best to be silent and not set off the somewhat volatile man.

Sometime within the first couple of weeks that he had become saddled with Wendy, it had occurred to Marcos that the chef, whom both his aunt and uncle regarded as a wonderful addition to their restaurant,
would ultimately be the perfect solution to his Wendy Fortune problem.

It was only a matter of time before she would subject the renowned chef to her endless chatter and drive him crazy, Marcos thought. When that happened, he was fairly certain that Enrique would demand that a choice be made—either Wendy would have to go or he would.

And that, Marcos thought cheerfully, would be no contest.

So he waited.

And hoped.

And, one fateful April afternoon when he walked into the kitchen to check on the menu, for a brief shining moment Marcos thought that he was finally going to get his wish.

The kitchen was partially empty. A couple of the assistant cooks as well as the dishwasher—a man, not a machine, because his aunt and uncle believed in hiring as many people as they could while still making a reasonable profit—were in the immediate vicinity.

As was Wendy.

Rather than working in the dining room or on the patio doing some last-minute set up for dinner, Wendy was standing in front of one of the industrial gas stoves. Her back was to him and at first Marcos couldn't make out what had caught her attention.

Crossing over to the massive stove, he circum
vented it partway until he could see exactly what the woman was up to.

The burner's blue flame was licking the bottom of the three-quart cast iron pot that she was working with. Plumes of steam were rising up from the pot and she was vigorously stirring its contents.

She seemed oblivious to his presence, although he did see the corners of her mouth curve ever so slightly. For a moment, he just stared at her, at her mouth. And then he roused himself, refocusing his mind.

“What are you doing?” he asked her evenly.

Wendy slanted an amused glance in his direction. “I guess I'm not doing it right if you have to ask.” She flashed a completely unselfconscious smile at him and announced, “I'm cooking.”

He frowned. Since she'd come to work at Red, he'd been frowning more than he ever had before in his life. “I can see that.”

Her expression was nothing if not total innocence. It almost drew him in. “Then why did you ask?”

Mentally, he counted to ten, found it wasn't high enough to calm him down, so he counted another ten before speaking.

“There seems to be some confusion here. You were hired to wait on tables. Waitresses do not take it upon themselves to mess around in the kitchen. It's not part of their job description,” he ended sharply.

Wendy listened to him patiently, waiting for him
to finally stop. When he did, she told him, “I'm on my break.”

How the hell was that an excuse? “That still doesn't give you the right to run amok in Enrique's kitchen. If he saw you—” Marcos did his best to make it sound like a warning and not reveal that he was hoping for a confrontation.

“But I do see her,” Enrique said, coming out of the huge freezer carrying a vat of cream ready to be whipped. Surprised, Marcos whirled around to look at the man just in time to see him set the vat down on the counter. “I am the one who told her she could experiment.” Coming around to Wendy's side, Enrique paused to taste a sample of the chicken dish she was working on. Looking pleased, he took another taste, and then a third. Retiring the spoon to the side, the chef nodded his head in approval. “It is good.” He eyed her for a moment. “Are you sure you never cooked before?”

“Perfectly sure,” Wendy answered, pride shining in her eyes. She wasn't accustomed to
real
compliments. “Elise, our cook, wouldn't let me anywhere
near
the kitchen.”

The hard-boiled, temperamental chef looked at the man who had hired him away from what Enrique considered to be the finest restaurant in San Antonio. “I congratulate you, Marcos. She is a natural.”

Yeah, a natural at being a pain in the butt.

There was absolutely no reason to congratulate
him, Marcos thought. To offer condolences, maybe, but not to congratulate him.

He needed to set the chef straight.

“Can I have a word, Enrique?” Marcos requested, motioning the shorter man to the side, away from the others. Away from Wendy.

“Of course.” Enrique paused long enough to place his hands on Wendy's shoulders, giving them what amounted to a little bonding squeeze. “Keep up the good work, Wendy. Next I want you to try your hand at desserts. Something special,” he emphasized.

Turning around, the chef focused his attention on Marcos. Enrique joined the manager in an alcove created by a wall and the side of one of the stoves.

“What seems to be the problem?” Enrique wanted to know. The tone of his voice said that he didn't appreciate having his routine interrupted.

Knowing that, Marcos wasted no time and got right to the point. “Since when do you take one of the staff under your wing?” he asked.

It went against everything he had ever heard and observed about the chef. The man was not known for being charitable or warm and toasty.

Until now.

“I've told everyone that you're not to be disturbed,” Marcos told the chef. “And that they should respect your wishes to keep a quiet kitchen if that was the way you wanted it.”

Enrique inclined his head. He wasn't oblivious to
the conditions at work. “And I appreciate that,” he told Marcos.

Marcos noticed that, even as he spoke, the chef was looking across the room, watching what Wendy was doing. Watching perhaps a little
too
closely.

Which made him think of something else.

“Enrique, is there something going on that I should know about?” Marcos asked.

“Only that you are wasting a gifted person, making her carry heavy trays around. For all her inexperience, the young lady has taken to cooking faster than anyone I have ever known, with the exception of myself, of course,” Enrique qualified.

“Now, she is not going to be as good as I am—there is room for only one Enrique.” If it was possible to say something so self-promoting without sounding pompous, the man had somehow managed to carry it off. “But she is still going to be very, very good. I would pay closer attention to her gifts if I were you.” And then the older man paused. “But I think you may already be doing that, yes?”

Marcos squared his shoulders, his posture growing more rigid. “I'm not sure I know what you're talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do,” Enrique contradicted with a knowing smile. “Which is why this whole thing confuses me. You are being very hard on her. Why is that, Marcos?”

He would think that would be self-evident. “I'm just trying to get a full day's work out of her.”

“In half the time?” Enrique challenged, then held up his hands as if he was pushing away an invisible wall. “You do not owe me an explanation,” he assured the restaurant manager. “But I think that you might owe one to yourself.” When Marcos looked at him quizzically, he clarified. “Examine
why
you are being so hard on her, Marcos. This is not like you.”

There was no need for self-examination, Marcos thought. “I'll tell you why I'm leaning on her.” He deliberately avoided saying that he was being hard on her. He wasn't chaining the woman to the wall. She was free to leave anytime she wanted. And personally, he was rooting for that. “I don't like people who think they deserve a free ride just because they happen to be rich, or related to someone who's rich.”

Enrique looked unconvinced, as if he knew there was more to it than just that. “I think you are being unfair. But that is between you and your conscience.” The chef drew in a breath, as if preparing to terminate this little sidebar of a meeting. “Now, if you have nothing else to share with me, I have a student waiting,” he said glibly, gesturing toward Wendy.

He turned his back on Marcos and crossed back to the stove and Wendy. “All right,” Enrique said in a cheerful voice, a tone that no one in the kitchen could recall ever having heard from him before, “let me see what you have managed to come up with.”

Marcos turned on his heel and left the kitchen.

Needing to clear his head, he kept on going until he reached the front doors. He pushed them open and went outside. Maybe some fresh air would help.

It didn't.

The thoughts that were ambushing him inside the kitchen did the same when he was outside. He couldn't seem to shake them or leave them behind.

Terrific, he thought darkly.

Frustrated, Marcos dragged his hand through his hair. Just what kind of power did this flighty girl have over people? He'd never seen Enrique so docile, so friendly before.

The thing about the chef was that he was equally surly to everyone, making no distinction between people who struggled to hold body and soul together and those who were comfortable or even wealthy. Just what was there about Wendy Fortune that made everyone else respond to her positively?

Everyone but him, anyway.

And why, he wondered, reflecting on what Enrique had said to him, did she keep getting under his skin? It went beyond what he'd referred to as her air of entitlement.

Marcos found himself growing unduly agitated every time he heard the first strains of that smoother-than-molasses Southern drawl.

Marcos frowned.

He didn't like what Enrique had implied. He'd always thought of himself as being hardworking and,
above all, fair. Maybe he was too much of the former and not enough of the latter with Wendy.

That was another thing to hold against her, he suddenly realized. Ever since she'd shown up, he found himself second-guessing himself and overanalyzing his every move. Wendy Fortune had definitely shaken up his world—and he didn't like it.

The wind picked up, making the newly sprouted leaves on the trees rustle madly.

One thing was for damn sure, he wasn't going to solve anything out here, engaged in a mental Ping-Pong game with himself.

Blowing out a frustrated breath, he pulled open the massive front door. Avoiding the kitchen—and the sight of Wendy—Marcos went straight to his office and closed the door.

It was only when he started crossing to his desk that he noticed it.

A tall, slender crystal parfait glass delicately set on a dessert plate, an extra-long spoon placed invitingly beside it. Some sort of light, creamy white confection was inside the glass, topped off with a fluffy cloud of whipped cream.

A peace offering of some sort from Enrique?

He didn't think that an apology was part of the man's makeup—he doubted that the man had ever so much as once entertained the idea that he might be even marginally wrong about
anything
—but maybe this was the chef's way of doing it.

Pulling out his chair, Marcos sat down and then
looked at the parfait glass. More specifically, the dessert within the parfait glass. Cool and tall, it was a thing of beauty, a feast for the eye.

Now, he thought, let's see if it's a feast for the mouth, as well.

He drew the parfait glass close to him, sank the spoon in through the whipped cream and scooped up a taste of the concoction beneath it.

Marcos's eyes fluttered shut, an automatic response to the pleasure that permeated through his entire mouth as the flavors registered with his taste buds.

It was light, tantalizing and possibly one of the best things he'd sampled in a long time.

Intrigued, Marcos attempted to identify the different components that stirred his palate.

Was that a hint of rum accenting the vanilla, or the other way around? He was pretty certain that there was rice involved, somehow mimicking the texture of ice cream.

All in all, he found the experience incredibly enjoyable. So enjoyable that he took another taste, and then another.

Before he realized it, the parfait glass was empty and he was craving more.

This definitely belonged on the menu, he thought. Tonight, if they had enough of the ingredients to produce this on a large scale. If not, then tomorrow night for sure.

It needed a name, he thought, wondering if
Enrique had come up with one. Most likely, knowing the man, he had. Marcos had never known the chef to be unprepared in any department.