Ready To Burn (Due South Book 3) (13 page)

He squelched through the puddles to her side.

Oh.

Shit.

“Why is there a tiny camera up on that shelf?” she asked.

Busted.

***

Shaye knew goddamned well who the camera belonged to, because Due South’s kitchen was more familiar to her than her own room. The little black camera hadn’t been there last week.

And the sideways shift of Del’s eyes, the
oh, crap
pinched eyebrows, and slightly gaping mouth? Guilty.

“I can explain.” He pitched his voice low and reasonable.

Didn’t want anyone else to hear. Funny, that.

“Uh-huh. Better make it good.”

“Hell.” He raked a hand through his hair as the kitchen doors blew open, and Charlie and Lani bustled in. “It’s nothing creepy or diabolical, I promise. I’ll tell you everything after service. Will you trust me that long? Please?”

“You haven’t earned my trust.” Even though looking at him acting all sincere and not his usual cocky self, her resolve to pitch a fit until she heard a satisfactory explanation, wavered.

“No.” A direct blue gaze, uncompromising and honest. “I haven’t, and I probably don’t deserve it. But I’m asking for it. Just until we get this hiking party served.”

If he’d said he was trustworthy, she would’ve shot him down. But since he’d shown concern for Due South’s reputation, she caved.

“All right. After dinner, you’ll tell me everything.”

“Deal.” He handed her a clean dishtowel and the first aid kit. “Put the spray on. Denise should be here any minute with a change of clothes, and then you can head to your room to rest.”

She snorted. “The party of nine’s due, plus we’ve got tickets up the wazoo. I’ll finish the shift.”

“Shaye…”

The way he said her name…not as if he was about to go all alpha chef on her, but as if he cared about her wellbeing, made her insides go all warm and squishy.

Squishiness was unacceptable on the job. Mustering up some ‘tude, she angled her chin. “You ask me to trust you, well, I’m asking for you to respect me. I know what I’m capable of, and I can work. This needs to get done.”

He gave her a crooked smile. “R.E.S.P.E.C.T?”

“That’s the one.”

She flicked her fingers at him, because offering up another view of her pants shoved to her knees was also unacceptable. On her humiliation scale? An eight point five. At least she had on cute panties and not her desperate-for-washday ancient ones.

Small consolation.

But they coped. Much as it irritated her, most of the reason why they powered through the rest of service was due to Del. He’d gone out to the front of the house while she changed, apologizing to their customers and using that Westlake charm to smooth over any impatience.

Now, with the last ticket cleared, clean up began.

West swung through the doors at nine when the kitchen officially closed. “You’re done, Shaye. Head upstairs.”

She continued with her after-service routine and ignored him.

West pulled out his mobile. Tapped the screen a few times and then shoved the phone under her nose. “Glenna’s number—I have my finger on the call button, see?”

“I’ve only got another twenty or thirty minutes to go.”

She shot a glance over to Del, who stood on the other side of the kitchen, deep in conversation with Vince. No way would he get off the hook about that damn camera. She could’ve pointed the device out to West, but something held her tongue. Working with someone as closely as she’d worked with Del these last few days, and even if they were a giant pain in the behind—and they’d seen your underwear twice—you developed a sense of loyalty. Probably misplaced loyalty, but still…

“Glenna said to call if you got all belligerent and stubborn. Think this counts?”

“I’m not afraid of my mother, for goodness sake.”

“No? Well, I am. And she’ll make my life a living hell if I tell her you worked one minute after the last meal went out.” West snatched the chef’s cap from her head and dangled it out of her reach. “C’mon, Shaye-Shaye, do me a favor.”

Shaye jabbed West in the stomach until he laughed and lowered her cap. She snatched it back. “For a guy, you are unbelievably scared of my mother.”

“She’s a force to be reckoned with.”

She flicked a glance over her shoulder to Del, who was watching her and West. “All right. I’ll go and read my Kindle; I’m not a bit sleepy.”
Hint, hint
.

Del met her gaze as she walked past.
Later
, he mouthed.

With a curt nod, Shaye strode out of the kitchen and climbed the stairs, her leg and hip throbbing. Her eyes drifted shut while she rested briefly on the landing, conjuring up the image of Del’s face as he’d eased her pants over her hips. Had she really seen desire shimmer through his gaze?

She shook her head, unlocking the last door at the end of the narrow corridor and stepping inside her room. Del wouldn’t be finished downstairs for at least an hour, so after another shot of Aloe spray, she tugged on a flowing hippy skirt, which she could keep hiked up and off her skin until he arrived. Plumping up her pillows, she stretched out on her bed and switched on her Kindle.

At eleven, she gave up waiting and changed into her flannel pajama bottoms and a faded blue, gold, and maroon
Highlanders
jersey. Del was in for a rude awakening in the morning, the weasel. She eased under her duvet, thankful the scalds had transitioned from a hot throb to a light sting.

Her phone bleated to signal an incoming text. Muttering, she flung out a hand and snatched it up. An unfamiliar number appeared on the display, but she nailed the sender immediately by the message.

Can I come up?

Del was out there? Shaye carefully rolled off the bed, tiptoed to the window, and peeped through the drapes. Across the road, Del leaned against a fence post, the shine of his phone giving him a ghostly aura. In black jeans and a black tee, he blended in with the night, looking tough and big and ninja-ish enough to trip her heart into a quick-step.

She returned to her bed and picked up her phone. Whispered, “No, you can’t, I haven’t got a bra on.”

She set the phone on the nightstand, where it promptly bleated again.

I know yr awake, cupcake. Yr drapes twitched
.

Dammit, the man had eagle eyes. She wanted to know why Del put a camera in her kitchen, but she didn’t want to deal with him tonight. Dealing with him meant getting dressed again—and
hell, no
to talking to him in her baggy sleep pants and her dad’s old rugby shirt. Small mercies she couldn’t see her reflection in the room’s wall mirror. Her hair, after reclining on pillows for a few hours and out of its usual neat plait, would be horrific. Think electrified
Cousin Itt
.

Her phone stayed silent. She whooped out a sigh. He’d given up.

A soft knock sounded on her door. Ohmygawd—of course he hadn’t given up. He was a damned Westlake male.

Her gaze skipped to the laundry sorter in the corner. Could she do a reverse Houdini trick and wriggle into her bra? The knock came again, this time louder and accompanied by Del’s deep voice saying, “Shaye. I know you’re awake.”

Crapola!

Shaye hot-footed it across the floor, wincing as her sore leg rubbed against her pajama bottoms. No time to change unless she made him wait another five minutes—so she yanked open the door far enough to hiss, “Go away!”

“You need an explanation.”

She caught a glimpse of tanned forearm braced on the frame, the dark and dangerous bulk of him blocking the light behind. Ah—
nope
—a horny woman who hadn’t had sex in oh,
thirteen months
needed to keep that kind of temptation in the hallway.

Shaye got the door three quarters shut before a large hand shot out, forcing it to a halt. Keeping her crazy hair and unfettered boobs tucked out of sight, she swallowed a snarl. “It can wait until tomorrow. It’s after eleven.”

“Worried you’ll turn into a pumpkin?”

She shoved the cool wood, but nothing budged. While the man might’ve lost some weight, he sure hadn’t lost any muscle.

“Or am I keeping you from fantasizing about one of your book boyfriends?”

Hah
! The only man she’d fantasized about in the last five days was him, and that wasn’t something she cared to joke about.

A floorboard creaked from the room next door. Fudge. Short of causing a scene, she didn’t have a choice.

“Five minutes. And the lights stay off.”

The pressure from the other side abated, and she opened the door wide.

He slipped into her room like an inky shadow, accompanied by a low-pitched chuckle. “You do seem like a lights-off kind of girl.”

“Oh, shut up.” She stomped over and sat on the bed.

“Are you always this cranky when you’re entertaining men in your bedroom?” He continued past her and yanked open the drapes.

The streetlight outside lit up her room, highlighting kitten-print flannel and wild-child hair. The look every woman aspired to when “entertaining a man”. Although she
wasn’t
entertaining Del.

“Four minutes, thirty seconds,” she said.

With his back to the light, his expression was obscured, but she sensed he studied her every movement. Could he see her nipples hardening under her loose top? She crossed her arms, just in case.

Del slouched down, propping his butt on the narrow windowsill and crossing his ankles. “The camera is to record footage for a reality TV series audition.”

An audition tape? As in, people would see her and Vince and—holy crap! “You are not using that footage of me from tonight!”

“No.” A lot of humor in that one word. “Pinky swear.” He held up a hand and wiggled his little finger.

“Why should I believe you?”

“You think I’m such a bastard I’d let that incident go public?”

She narrowed her eyes. “You recorded us without our knowledge.”

His shoulders rolled forward. “If the staff knew a camera was recording, you’d all be delivering Oscar-worthy performances. I only needed a couple minutes footage of the kitchen in full swing.”

“So what is this TV series?”

“
Ward on Fire
. It’s Ethan Ward’s baby.”

“
The
Ethan Ward from
Ward’s
?” The gorgeous celebrity chef owner of three Michelin starred restaurants.

“Yeah. Him.”

Del’s voice was as bland as boiled white rice, but something about the way he’d said Ethan’s name nettled the hairs on her nape. “You’re auditioning? Why?”

“The winner gets to work for six months in his London restaurant. After the trial period, if the winner makes the grade, he or she will become head chef of another
Ward
’s restaurant scheduled to open in Chicago next year.”

“That’s an amazing opportunity.”

“Yup.”

“Does West know? Your father?”

Del’s head lowered, and his fingers, down beside his hips on the windowsill, drummed a quick tattoo.

“No. I haven’t told anyone else. Look—” He pushed away from the sill and sat on the bed with her.

The mattress dipped, forcing her to uncross her arms to steady herself. Without staff buzzing around and the buffer of work, she was once again uber-aware of him. And there she sat, next to a man who stirred her feverishly hot, naked apart from her pajamas and tee shirt.

Nake-ed
.

She needed to stop acting like an awkward teenager who’d brought her first boyfriend home to an empty house. The fluttery feeling in her stomach was purely one-sided.

“Ethan’s already started filming,” Del said. “The producers agreed to let me send in a last-minute audition.”

“You’d be a wildcard entrant.”

“I might not even make it past the audition.”

“But if you do?”

Del grinned at her. “Ethan and his crew will fly here later this month.”

Ethan Ward, coming to Stewart Island? Working in her kitchen?

Excitement and pure nerves flooded her system. “This would bring in some amazing publicity for Due South—for Oban, too.”

“Exactly. But I’ve no idea how West and Bill will react.”

“Ah.” She could almost guarantee West would be all for it. Bill, on the other hand, didn’t like change.

From beneath the initial excitement, a dark thought rose. “What kind of reality series is
Ward On Fire
? A look at up-and-coming chefs in their fabulous restaurants, or…?”

Del’s spine straightened and his hands, loosely relaxed on his thighs, turned to clenched fists.

“Or,” he said simply. “The show’s premise is so unoriginal it’d be laughed out of the studio if it wasn’t Ethan’s idea. It centers on head chefs of failing restaurants in interesting locations. The producers promise the owner they’ll replace the contestant with one of Ethan’s hand-picked chefs, should the contestant make it to the finals. Then, with Ethan’s wisdom and British charisma, he saves the day and the restaurant.”