Taste the Heat

Also by Rachel Harris

For teen readers…

My Super Sweet Sixteenth Century

A Tale of Two Centuries

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Rachel Harris. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce,
distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary
rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at
www.entangledpublishing.com
.

Bliss is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC. For more information on our titles,
visit
www.entangledpublishing.com
.

Edited by Stacy Abrams

Cover design by Jessica Cantor

Ebook ISBN 978-1-62266-094-0

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition July 2013

The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners
of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
Styrofoam, Barbie,
Chopped
,
Clueless
, Chevy, Beetle, Altima, Harley-Davidson, Nancy Drew, Pottery Barn, Pepto-Bismol,
Coke, Jim Beam, Jack Daniel’s, Old Granddad,
American Idol
, Google, Food Network, Hershey’s, Kit-Kat, Midol, Kotex, iPad, NSYNC, “You Never
Even Called Me By My Name,”
People
, Chanel No. 5,
Iron Chef
,
Everybody Loves Raymond
, Girl Scouts, Life Saver, iPod,
Talladega Nights
, Diet Mountain Dew, Victoria’s Secret,
Pretty Woman
, “Fake I.D.,”
Footloose
, “Country Girl,” Kleenex,
The Tonight Show
, Hallmark,
Ellen
, McDonald’s, Big Mac,
The Wizard of Oz
.

To my husband, Gregg, who inspires every love story I write, and to the city and people
of the Greater New Orleans area who have inspired not only these pages, but my entire
life.

Chapter One

When the bright red and white
Taste the Heat
banner fluttered in an abrupt and unseasonable gust of wind, then collapsed onto
her head in an undignified heap, Colby Robicheaux figured it had to be an omen. Of
what, she didn’t really know. But considering the subject matter of both the banner
and
the multi-colored sign she had tripped over on her way up from the parking lot, she
had a hunch it was a cosmic premonition of something.

“Lady Irony, you have a wicked, wicked sense of humor,” she muttered, plucking the
banner for the St. Tammany Parish Firefighters’ Cajun Cook-off from her head. She
glanced back at the aforementioned sign she’d tripped over, now standing askew in
its staked position in the ground. It boasted the event’s connection to the world
famous New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival beginning the following week.

Food, music, and heritage—the trifecta so many people born and raised near New Orleans
held dear. And the very things Colby had fled from twelve years ago. Lifting her eyes
into the late May sun, she squinted and said, “Well played, Big Guy. Well played.”

A passing snort from an event-goer made her wince.
Right.
So maybe talking to herself in public wasn’t the best approach for her to prove that
their family restaurant, Robicheaux’s, was still in capable, non-crazy hands.

Forcing a casual,
sane
smile onto her face, she set the offending banner on the ground near the entrance
of LeBeaux State Park and willed her feet to step through the gate. They refused to
budge. Families and couples strolled past on their way inside, deep in conversation,
hands waving dramatically as their thick accents proclaimed
dawlin’
and
yea, you right.
Others broke out in spontaneous, carefree dance to the lively Zydeco tune carried
on the wind.

A memory of a similar beat hit Colby with the power of a hurricane-force wind. Suddenly
she was no longer outside the park but back in her childhood kitchen, stirring a pot
of gumbo as her parents danced around the butcher-block island. Her father twirled
her mother in a multi-step move, and Mom’s infectious laughter echoed off the oak
cabinets.

Not now, please not now.

Coming home was always a tug and pull—warm memories warring with apprehension. Since
she left her Las Vegas restaurant three weeks ago, Colby had yet to venture anywhere
outside their small suburban town of Magnolia Springs, population 1,100. She hadn’t
even seen anyone beyond the restaurant staff and her siblings. In hindsight, taking
a few baby steps would’ve been a much smarter move.

Colby gave herself a mental shake and firmly placed the ghosts of her past in the
locked trunk of her memory. Back where they belonged. She straightened her shoulders,
smoothed her clammy hands along the sides of her crisp linen pants, and told herself
she could do this. She
owned
this.

She took a deep breath, then another for good measure, and lifted her head and marched
herself through the wooded arch. Immediately, the sights, sounds, and smells of her
childhood engulfed her. A large stage dominated one half of the open field with the
promised Zydeco band. A woman in a brightly checkered dress sawed an accordion in
and out, and a young man in crawfish-patterned suspenders sat near the edge playing
a washboard. To the side, a mile-long line stretched before a photo booth with an
old pirogue, crab net, and fake alligator set in front of a backdrop of the swamp.
And surrounding her, encompassing the rest of the large field in a wide semi-circle,
were countless booths filled with fragrant food, each representing a different St.
Tammany parish firehouse.

Reading the menus posted beside the closest ones, it appeared as though they all sold
jambalaya and gumbo by the Styrofoam bowlful, along with each fire station’s own unique
Taste the Heat twist, such as
fiery
fried jalapeno peppers, habanero nachos, and at least a dozen different forms of
chili, each declaring their own to be the parish’s absolute best.

The punch of spicy cayenne and fried okra assaulted Colby’s senses, and the fresh
onslaught was simply too much. She clamped her stinging eyes shut. She couldn’t tell
if the turbulent sensations rolling through her stomach were from anxiety, regret,
or extreme nausea—but there was a very good chance she was about to be sick.

Oh, please God, don’t let me puke in public.

She could just hear the news report now.
Big city chef returns home and tosses her cookies at local heroes’ feet. Full report
at ten.

She bet that would get customers filling their tables.

“Colby Robicheaux?”

At the soft inquiry, Colby’s eyes snapped open. “Ah, yes?”

The older woman standing in front of her nodded, causing her thick bob of salt-and-pepper
hair to swing around her shoulders. “Thought so,” she said, offering her hand in greeting.
“I’m Mary Lemoine, co-organizer of today’s event.”

“Oh, yes. Pleased to meet you, Ms. Lemoine.” She took the woman’s cool hand in her
own, grateful for the diversion from the emotional roller coaster, and discreetly
compared her pressed linen suit with Mary’s dark jeans and event T-shirt combo. She
was starting to get the impression she was a tad overdressed. “Was it my Yankee attire
that gave me away?”

Mary laughed, a free and open sound that instantly put her at ease. “Not at all. When
your brother said you’d be stepping in as judge, I looked you up on the Internet,”
she confided. “Quite the impressive resume you have there. But I’d have recognized
you even if I hadn’t seen your picture on that fancy restaurant website of yours.
You’re just the spitting image of your daddy, aren’t ya?”

A vision of a man beaming with pride as she created recipes beside him, while other
girls her age were off playing with Barbies, flashed in her mind. It used to be that
hearing people say that very thing delighted Colby like nothing else.

But those days came to an abrupt end twelve years ago.

“Here, let me show you to the judge’s table.” Mary gave her a sympathetic smile and
motioned toward the open field, and Colby fell in step beside her. As they walked,
she willed away the hurt and anger roiling inside. She knew Mary meant well, but she
probably assumed Colby was upset over her father’s recent passing and had no idea
the real reason Colby was upset. No one did, not even her own siblings. And Colby
intended to keep it that way.

As they cut a path through the sizable turnout, Mary filled her in on the details
of the new venture. Colby had to admit she was impressed. All the proceeds from today’s
ticket and food sales went toward the St. Tammany Parish Adopt-a-Family program, an
initiative co-sponsored by the local fire stations that helped people in need of clothing
and basic necessities.

To help raise the needed money, event organizers had pulled out all the stops. A slew
of bands were scheduled to entertain the crowd. There was face painting, a bounce
house, a huge inflatable slide, and what appeared to be a wildly popular Dunk-a-Fireman
booth. But the true highlight of the day, the reason she was there, was the Taste
the Heat
cook-off featuring three of the area’s self-declared best culinary captains.

Colby listened to Mary go on about all the wonderful things the firefighters were
doing for the local community, and found herself looking forward to the dishes the
captains had created. Not so much tasting them, but rewarding them for their efforts.
Moreover, she was thrilled to discover the painful thoughts of her past diminishing
as the minutes ticked by.

Hell, she even caught herself nodding her head in time with the band’s familiar beat.

Maybe today wouldn’t suck so badly after all. And if today went well, then maybe everything
would go well. Maybe it would be sooner, rather than later, that she’d get the family
restaurant running smoothly, her siblings on solid footing, and herself back to her
own life in Vegas.

With the table in view, Mary left to attend to a last-minute microphone issue and
Colby made her way solo across the uneven ground. Watching her step, and not the path
ahead of her, she was jolted when a preteen ball of hair plowed into her.

“Whoa, you okay there?” she asked, grasping the girl by the shoulders to steady them
both.

“Yeah.” The young girl flipped her blond ponytail, revealing an adorable face and
bright smile. “Sorry about that. We’re playing Kiss and Catch,” she explained, eyes
leaving Colby’s to focus on the crowd around them. “Well, the girls are playing Kiss
and Catch. The boys are just running.”

Colby laughed aloud. Some things never changed. When
she
was a preteen, the kissing variation of tag was more popular with the girls, too.
A wide smile broke across her face as she remembered chasing her brother’s best friend
Jason across this very park during a particular crawfish festival. And the one time
he let her catch him.

The young girl spied and then took off toward a young boy with marked intensity, tossing
a smile over her shoulder. Taking her seat behind the judge’s table, Colby watched
the next generation of crushes, her smile growing wistful at the boy’s halfhearted
attempts at escape. Perhaps for the young girl, her crush wouldn’t be as unrequited
as Colby’s had been.

…

Good food and even better people. Those were only two of the reasons Captain Jason
Landry loved living in New Orleans, but they happened to be his favorite. And on days
like today when the hellish humidity wasn’t killing you, the beer was flowing and
plentiful, and the sound of music and laughter surrounded him, he couldn’t think of
any place else he’d rather live.

“Now see,
that’s
a woman for you.”

He screwed the cap back on his half-empty water bottle and shook his head with a grin.
So far, in just the few short hours they’d been at Taste the Heat today, his fellow
captain Gavin Morris had made similar comments about at least a dozen different women—although
he had to admit, the man did have impeccable taste.

Once upon a time, Jason had been right in the thick of it with him. Carving his way
through the dating scene and leaving a trail of satisfied women in his wake. But those
days were long gone. Lately, any free time he had that wasn’t spent working at the
station or teaching classes at the gym he owned was filled with reading books about
prepubescent hormones, shaving legs, and PMS. Not that he was complaining. Not really.
He loved Emma, and he wouldn’t trade the experience of raising his daughter for anything
in the world. But being a single dad didn’t exactly leave a lot of time for enjoying
beautiful women.

And that was a damn shame.

On stage, the band ended their set and Mary Lemoine grabbed the microphone to announce
that the cook-off would begin in a few short minutes. Good thing, too, because the
warming trays they’d set up to keep their dishes hot weren’t doing that great of a
job.

“Yeah, she’s super fine,” Gavin said, still eyeing the woman in question.

The hungry crowd surged toward their end of the open field and Jason leaned forward
to give his prize-winning crawfish étouffée a stir. “Oh yeah? And what’s so special
about this one?”

Gavin elbowed him in the side. “Why don’t you take a look for yourself.”

Jason re-covered the pot and glanced in the direction his friend lifted his chin toward.
It took a moment for the crowd to settle and his view of Gavin’s future conquest to
clear, but when it did, only two words came to mind. “Hot damn.”

Gavin chuckled under his breath. “My thoughts exactly.” He rested his hip against
the table and said, “And I’ve got just what she’s looking for.”

Jason chuckled. “She’s way out of your league.”

Looking back at the brunette stunner, Jason admitted she was out of his league, too.
The woman was five-alarm gorgeous. Her long dark hair hung loose around her shoulders,
and her pouty lips were lifted in a contemplative smile. She bit the edge of a polished
fingernail, lost in thought, and the effect was like a punch to his gut.

When was the last time he’d had such a visceral reaction to the simple sight of a
woman? His fingers actually itched with the desire to wrap her hair around his palm.
He bit his lip, wondering if her mouth tasted half as good as it looked.

He’d definitely been out of the scene too long.

Jason cleared his throat. “She’s sitting in the judge’s seat.”

“And your point is?”

“My point is that if she’s turned on by food, then you’re shit out of luck.” Pulling
his attention away from the hot judge, he shot his friend a smirk. “Because my dish
is gonna kick your ass.”

Gavin scoffed. “In your dreams, fire boy.” He pointed at the pot before him. “It so
happens that my crab bisque is known for melting the panties off women.” Then he grinned
and gave the judge’s table a pointed look. “But today, I’ll settle for it working
its magic on one in particular.”

Jason’s eyes snapped back to the brunette. That was all the prompting his imagination
needed to fire up a vision of the kind of panties the woman had on—silk black thong,
if he had to guess—and all the creative ways he’d like to remove them. With his teeth.

Yep, definitely been too long.

“Captains, are you ready?”

Mary’s animated inquiry burst through the portable microphone, knocking the image
out of his head. He quickly shifted his attention to the crowd, skin hot, knowing
his eleven-year-old daughter was somewhere watching. A familiar whistle came from
the far edge of the crowd and Jason followed the sound, smiling when he found Emma.
Blond hair up in its trademark ponytail, legs folded like a pretzel in his black and
gold lawn chair, she held a handmade sign declaring
Étouffée Rocks…and So Does My Dad.
Laughing, he sent her a thumbs up.