Hot Under Pressure (6 page)

Claire could only hope she was strong enough.

Chapter 5

Twenty-four hours after escaping his second airplane in as many weeks, it was still all Beck could do not to fall to his knees and kiss the gritty San Francisco sidewalk every time he walked outside.

The mercifully solid, right-under-his-feet, surrounded-by-clear-open-space sidewalk.

That was a feeling he never thought he’d have about coming back home, but Beck had learned not to try to predict shit like that. People reacted all kinds of crazy ways when their adrenaline was up and their defenses were down.

Take him, for example.

Beck hated airplanes. Not as much as he hated submarines, but close. They both gave him that messed-up, suffocating feeling of being an anchovy packed into a thin metal canister, barely able to move or breathe or think through the rising panic.

“You doing okay?” Winslow Jones, line cook and mother hen extraordinaire, put a concerned hand on Beck’s shoulder.

Caught between embarrassment that he’d freaked out enough lately that people were starting to notice, and gratitude for his teammate’s quiet worry, Beck blanked his tone with the ease of practice.

“Fine,” he said shortly, hoping his expression communicated both
thank you
and
drop it
. He didn’t shrug Win’s hand off his shoulder, though.

Even if Winslow Jones, with his intense enthusiasms and hyperactive kitten-on-catnip behavior, sometimes drove Beck crazy, it was nice to have buddies again, to feel like part of a team. He’d missed that since he left the Navy.

Even though this team was all about culinary battles instead of real ones, that feeling of being in it together was the same. Through the ups and downs of the Rising Star Chef competition, they had each other’s backs.

That had never been more clear than during the past week, ever since they lost the last round in a humiliating upset and only advanced to the next level of the contest by the skin of their nuts.

Beck really, really didn’t want to think about the reasons behind that epic failure in Chicago. Not when he was finally catching his balance after the turbulent flight and the shock of Skye’s demand for a divorce.

Okay, so his personal life was a train wreck. Fine. All he wanted to do was bask in his team’s win on the relay challenge, breathe in the achingly familiar breeze off of San Francisco Bay, and figure out what the fuck he’d find here at the Ferry Building Farmers’ Market to cook that would tell the judges who he was as a chef.

If he could maybe get Winslow to quit looking at him with so much freaking compassion and understanding, that would be a big bonus.

Win nodded and curled his hand into a fist, bumping Beck’s shoulder companionably. The thin, chill light of the northern California sun cast dramatic shadows on his high, brown cheekbones. “Good. Because no way can I haul your gargantuan ass up off the pavement if you faint on me, son.”

Beck grinned. He knew what to do with this. “Come on, Jones. I know you work out. How much do you bench, one-fifty? One-eighty?”

Win sniffed, tossing his close-cropped head as if to brush his nonexistent long hair out of his light green eyes. “Bitch, please. I work out to achieve the Unattainable Gay Ideal Body, not to be able to actually lift heavy shit. Although…” Pursing his lips, he made a big show of looking Beck up and down. “You’re not so far off from attaining that ideal, Mr. Universe. Where’d you get all those muscles, anyway?”

“You’re not going to tease me into squirming,” Beck told his winking teammate. “So you can quit licking your chops.”

Pretending to pout, Win’s eyes nevertheless held that sharp glint of intelligence so many people missed when they looked at the energetic, enthusiastic young chef. “You are a mystery, Henry Beck.”

Beck frowned. He wasn’t trying to be mysterious. He just didn’t like to talk about himself. Or anything, really.

He liked to cook. That was it.

“Don’t call me Henry,” Beck said, a hint of growl in his tone. He didn’t mean to be so gruff, but it was out there already, making Win’s eyes widen with surprise.

See? This was why Beck didn’t do talking. Words messed everything up.

“Sorry,” he said, before Win could make everything worse by stuttering out the apology that was already clear in his eyes. “I just … I haven’t been called that in a long time. It’s not really who I am anymore.”

Win got that all-seeing, all-knowing expression on his face again. Beck looked away, focusing on the crowds milling through the stalls piled with fresh fruits and vegetables. His mind catalogued their surroundings automatically, everything from the fanny pack–wearing tourist exclaiming over the free samples of late summer raspberries to the young woman in workout gear buying a pound of cedar-smoked salmon from the vendor on the corner.

November was always gorgeous in San Francisco, the last gasp of warmth before winter rolled over the city. Despite everything, Beck was glad the producers of the Rising Star Chef competition had set the final round of the contest here.

Like a sucker, Beck let his gaze expand across the Bay, sharpening on the dingy gray outline of office towers and apartment buildings that formed the Oakland skyline. It looked better, cleaner, from this distance, with the fog over the water softening its hard edges.

“What’s over there?” Win asked, hooking one sneaker-clad foot on the lowest rung of the railing running around the Ferry Plaza. Unable to keep still, as usual, he proceeded to climb the guard fence as if it were a set of monkey bars, completely heedless of the drop into the choppy, dirty waters below him.

“Oakland.” Beck kept a surreptitious hand out to spot Win, ready to grab him by the seat of his pants if it looked like he was about to go tumbling into the drink. “If you fall in, I’m not diving in after you.”

“Pssh. I won’t fall. I have the balance of a jungle cat. Rowr.”

Hovering behind Winslow—
Who’s the mother hen now?
Beck asked himself with a twist of the mouth—he wondered where the hell the rest of the team was.

This was why single-minded focus won the day. Because once you started letting other things—sex, relationships, love—into your head, it messed you up until you couldn’t even remember a simple meeting time.

Case in point: Danny Lunden, their team’s pastry chef, was probably off with the woman who ran the RSC, Eva Jansen. Their combustible relationship had definitely contributed to the failure of the Chicago round, but sadly Beck couldn’t lay the whole entire fiasco at their feet.

Danny wasn’t the only one who’d been off his game.

Danny’s brother, Max Lunden, and childhood best friend, Jules Cavanaugh—who were, incidentally, all over each other and upping the soap opera quotient of the team by about a thousand—were another spanking new couple.

Add to that the fact that Max and Danny’s father, Gus, was recovering from heart problems bad enough to land him in the hospital, and you had a team with more than a few distractions pulling their attention off the ultimate prize.

They were supposed to be meeting up first thing this morning to get their shopping done fast and head back to the competition kitchen for prep. But here it was, edging on toward nine o’clock, and no lovebirds.

Beck tightened his jaw and controlled his impatience. There was nothing to do but wait. And be glad he’d kept himself free of emotional entanglements and the mushy brain function they caused.

“So are you worried about competing against your estranged wife?”

Beck shot Winslow a quick look, but Win’s head was ducked against his chest as he maneuvered his skinny, wiry body up to sit on the top railing.

“No. It’ll be fine.”
Please God, keep Winslow from apologizing again for that clusterfuck last week.

There was a pause while Win wiggled his way upright and twined his feet under the bottom railing for balance. His light brown skin didn’t really show a blush, but Beck was willing to bet the kid’s cheeks were flaming hot under that sprinkling of dark freckles. “Okay, good.”

Silence stretched between them for a long moment, broken only by the hoarse squawk of foraging seagulls and the cheerful clatter of produce vendors and shoppers behind them.

Win clearly still felt bad about the part he’d played in the whole world finding out about Beck’s past. But Beck didn’t hold a grudge. It wasn’t Win’s fault, and Beck recognized the signs of an impending shame spiral. He needed a distraction before Winslow had them both rehashing past events that couldn’t be changed.

Nodding at the hazy Oakland skyline across the water, Beck said, “That’s where I grew up.”

Giving a start of shock, Winslow nearly toppled off the railing. Eyes wide, arms pinwheeling, he grabbed for Beck’s arm.

“You what? You’re from here? I can’t believe you didn’t say anything.”

“I’m saying something now.”

Win’s eyes went from round as dinner plates to cat-eye slits. “Yeah, you are. Offering up tidbits about your childhood to try and stop me from gossiping about you and digging into your mysterious past?”

This time, Beck did shrug free of Winslow’s hand. “Fuck off, kid. There’s nothing mysterious about me. Nothing interesting, either. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

Winslow threw up his hands in exasperation and nearly fell off the railing again. “Nothing mysterious? You’re nothing
but
mystery. You got hired on at Lunden’s Tavern, what, six months ago? And shit,
Henry
, I only found out your first name, like, last week! You don’t talk. No one knows shit about you. You’re all tall, dark, and mean looking, but you’re not mean, so what the hell? And you cook fish like you grew up … living on the ocean.” Win twisted his torso to get a better look at the strip of Oakland shore that jutted out into the bay. “Huh.”

“You’re determined to turn my life into an episode of
Law & Order
. I hate to break it to you, Detective, but I didn’t learn to cook growing up in Oakland.”

Beck could only imagine the crap he would’ve taken if he’d shown any interest in something like that, back then.

Interest flared in Win’s eyes as he swiveled back around. “No? Then where—?” But he closed his eyes, squeezed them tightly shut, and stopped himself. “Okay. Forget I even started this convo. I promised myself after everything that went down in Chicago, I’d quit snooping. Curiosity isn’t going to get the best of this cat again, no sir. You got secrets? Keep ’em.”

Beck let an arched brow speak for him.

“No, I mean it, man,” Winslow said, hopping down from the railing, finally, and giving Beck an earnest look. “I should’ve been cool and just let you tell us your story in your own time.”

The kid was trying so hard. Beck wanted to meet him halfway. Struggling for a moment, he came up with, “Thanks. That would be nice.” And watched the light die out of Win’s eyes as he deflated a little and turned away, like a puppy who’d been smacked on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.

Damn it.

“It never bothered me that you wanted to know more about my past,” Beck offered. “Because I knew, even if I didn’t tell you, it wouldn’t make any real difference.”

Win frowned as he started back toward the cluster of food stalls. “What do you mean?”

What the hell? Might as well go all the way. “It didn’t matter to you, not for real. You were curious, you made up stories about me—yeah, I knew about that. And for the record, I was never in prison, I’m not in the Witness Protection Program, and I’m not the missing son of some Balkan royal family.”

“Oh man,” Win whimpered, covering his face with one dramatic hand. “I need some coffee.” Splaying his fingers, he peered at Beck. “That didn’t bug the crap out of you?”

Beck shrugged. “You treated me the same, no matter what crazy story you believed that week. All of you, Gus and Nina, Danny and Jules, even Max when he came home—you accepted me for who I am now. The past is over and gone; it’s done. That’s why I don’t talk about it. And in spite of the stories, I know you don’t really care one way or the other. I’m just Beck, fish cook, to you. And I like that. Before Lunden’s Tavern, I never really had that.”

He flashed on an image of the restaurant that first day, when he came in to interview with Nina Lunden. Max and Danny’s smiling, sharp-eyed mom was the first person Beck ever met who made him feel at ease from the get-go. He imagined that was how most people felt about coming home.

Dropping his hand, Winslow blinked up at him. “Wow. I think that’s the most I ever heard you say at one time.”

“Yeah, well, don’t get used to it. I’m not going to start wanting to have regular gab fests or anything.”

“Aw. And here I was hoping we could have a sleepover and braid each other’s hair.” Win bounced up on his heels, hooking his hands in the front pockets of his low-hanging jeans. “No, man. You go on and work that strong, silent shit. Somebody on this team has to be better at listening than talking.”

Beck smiled, because there it was again, that casual, complete acceptance the Lunden’s Tavern team tossed around like it was nothing.

But to him, it was everything, and he’d do whatever he could to repay them for it.

Winslow smiled back and offered his fist for a bump. “We’re cool, man. And I was serious about that coffee. You want? There’s a place inside the terminal that’s supposed to be killer.”

“No, thanks,” Beck said. “But you go ahead. I’ll stay out here and wait for everyone else. If we get too spread out, we’ll never find each other again, and I think we should do a quick tactical before we start shopping.”

With a wave and a head bop, Winslow melted into the crowd, and Beck turned his attention back to surveying the market itself, scanning for a glimpse of his other teammates.

Standing head and shoulders above most of the sea of people milling around him, Beck crossed his arms and tried not to notice the wide berth the other shoppers gave him. When he caught himself scowling and ducking his head to let his chin-length hair swing across and hide his face, he jammed his hands into his pockets and moved out of the flow of foot traffic.

The market was a riot of color and life, scraggly-bearded organic farmer hippies in ripped tank tops rubbing shoulders with young mothers in yoga pants pushing strollers. An arriving ferry pulled in to the dock around the back corner of the building, disgorging a group of up-and-coming urban professionals in slim-cut suits, on their way from their homes in the ’burbs to jobs in the city.