The Lost Recipe for Happiness (17 page)

“I have been waiting,” he said, in a voice that had the thick gold depth of buckwheat honey, almost too strong for pleasure. A woman collected it by the banks of the Rio Grande, and called it Pancho Villa honey because it was so strong.

Elena hesitated.

Beyond the windows, snow fell in thick, cottony flakes. Elena wore a long gown that buttoned up the front. The fire crackled, smelling of sap and pine and smoke. The warmth burned the front of her and left her back chilled. Always the way with a fire.

He held out his hand. “Come sit with me,” he said.

“What are you doing here?”

“Sometimes, they let us come when you need us.” He began to brush her hair. It sparked static.

“Do I need you?”

“Yes, Elena, I think you do.” He bent and kissed the back of her neck. “I’m here to protect you.”

“Protect me from who?”

He ran his hands through her hair. “From everything. Within and without.”

Elena knew it was a dream, but as she leaned backward, she could feel the warmth and solidness of him. “You don’t feel like a ghost.”

He laughed. And what a sound that was, the low hoarseness. She’d forgotten the loose depth of his chuckle. It brought tears to her eyes. “A ghost wouldn’t do you much good, would it?” he said.

She tumbled into his arms and let him lie her down on the floor.

“You look so beautiful,” she whispered, touching his thick black hair, long by today’s standards, but not by those old days’. It was cool and heavy against her fingertips, and an odd, sharp pang touched her. Was he real, not a dream?

“I’m not a dream,” he said raggedly, bending down to kiss her. His mouth was a shock, remembered and not. Familiar and yet new.

She opened her eyes, suddenly afraid. Afraid she would see his skull or his bones or nothing at all.

But there was his brow, smooth and brown; there was his hair, black and satiny, falling against her cheek. There were his lips. She had forgotten so much!
So
much!

Fear and erotic longing rose in her, a sob. He kissed her throat, tears in his eyes falling on her chin, and lower, kissed her chest and her breasts, her belly, then shifted in the way of a dream and they were joined, joined and rocking. Hard. He touched the places that ached, smoothed his palms over the irritated nerves, his penis filling up the empty place, rubbing her higher and higher. Hard. She came, arching against him, moaning into his mouth, taking both his orgasm and his tongue with a ferocity that seemed it could be heard into Montana.

And then she slept.

Hard.

TWENTY-ONE

B
ANANA AND
C
HOCOLATE
C
HIP
P
ANCAKES

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 T sugar

2 tsp baking powder

¹
/
₄
tsp salt

1 egg, beaten

1 cup milk

2 T melted butter

2 large bananas, cut into slices

Broken pieces of chocolate or chocolate chips

Combine the dry ingredients in one bowl. In another bowl, mix egg, milk, and butter, then stir wet and dry together quickly until blended, about 10–12 firm strokes. Do not over-mix, or pancakes will be tough. The batter should be slightly lumpy.

To cook pancakes, an electric skillet or large cast-iron pan will yield the best results. Heat the pan until it’s hot enough that water will dance on it, then grease it lightly and pour batter by
¹
/
₂
-cup measures onto the pan. Cover each pancake with a few slices of banana and chocolate, let bake until dry open holes appear on the pancakes, then flip. Serve with butter and syrup of your choice.

TWENTY-TWO

B
efore she opened an eye, Elena felt the heaviness of too much drink. Dry mouth. Raw throat from sitting around with Ivan smoking, and from the harsh gold of tequila. Tight band of discomfort over her eyebrows.

What had she been thinking? Tequila shots?

Soft light bumped against her eyelids, and she cautiously opened one, a little disoriented. Her vision fell on a small square of a window, one in a series marching around the curved wall in a little row like square portholes. Through it she could see, perfectly framed, a long-needled pine tree with a fresh dusting of snow. The sun was shining. Snow glittered.

She rolled over, testing her memory of the night before to be sure there was nothing too awful in there. A blur of Julian sucking her fingers. The sensation of having had sex—but surely not!

No, no. She clearly remembered telling him to go, shutting the door against him, taking a shower and climbing the stairs to the loft where she now slept. Naked.

And she’d dreamed of Edwin again. Dreamed of having sex with him.

She started when she shifted and there was Isobel, sitting cross-legged on the bed, her feet bare. “You scared me!” she said, blinking. Her sister didn’t look the same, somehow. It took a moment to realize what it was—Isobel’s freckles, the beautiful spice on her skin, were faded. When she spoke, her voice was thin, as if it was coming from a faraway place.

“You need to go see Hector’s sister,” Isobel said. She looked worried. “There’s something wrong.”

“Hector from the kitchen?”

Isobel nodded. “Soon,” she said. And then, “Portia likes banana and chocolate pancakes.”

Elena dozed slightly, waking when she felt Isobel lie down beside her, brushing her hair.
“H’ita,”
Isobel said, “you have to let go.”

“Mmm,” Elena said, remembering the dream of Edwin, the feeling of him around her. She kept her eyes closed as Isobel gentled her hair, easing away the headache. There had never been anyone like Isobel in her life, the giggle, the zest, the joy in living. It seemed somehow right that Isobel’s light could not be so easily extinguished as by simply dying. The mighty vividness of her couldn’t help but go on. “I will,” she said, and drifted off again. When she next awoke, Isobel was gone, and for a moment, Elena was terrified. She sat up straight in bed. “Isobel?” she cried.

Her sister spoke from a post by the window, her back to Elena. “Go fix the pancakes,” she said.

Elena felt the almost-loss in her throat, tears in her eyes. “Don’t go yet, okay?”

Isobel turned, and Elena felt a tear spill out of her eye. “Go cook,” Isobel said gently. “I’m here.”

Julian was making a pot of coffee, with deep morning sunlight falling liquid over his shoulders, when Alvin trotted into the room. The dog paused to be sure Julian noticed him, then headed for the glass doors. Julian let him out, and waited as Alvin watered the scrub by a tree. Steam rose from the snow.

It was a brilliant day, the sky so blue it provided an absurdly vivid backdrop for the snow. By nightfall this snow would be gone, given that sunshine, but it wouldn’t be long before it covered the slopes that were the town’s lifeblood.

The dog came back to the door and Julian let him in, patting the silky head. He really was the softest damned dog. “I bet you’re hungry.”

Alvin waved his tail and accepted a bowl of food, and some water, but after a sip, he was plainly still waiting for something else. He sat politely by the counter, chest up, polite eyes boring into him. “What?” Julian asked.

The tail swept the floor. His mouth opened slightly, showing the purple tongue.

“Oh, I know.” Julian said. “You want your girl, don’t you?”

He panted.

“Let me just make a cup of coffee and I’ll take you up to her.”

“Dad,” came Portia’s voice, “he’s a dog. He doesn’t speak English.”

Curses,
Julian thought, aware that he’d had some vaguely shady thoughts about
how
to wake Elena. “Hey, kiddo.”

She slumped at the counter on a stool, wearing pink flannel pajama bottoms and a giant T-shirt. Her hair sparkled in the sunny kitchen like silver floss. “Hi. I’m hungry.”

“You? Hungry?”

She yawned. “It’s Saturday. I’m tired of not eating all the time. Maybe I’ll go for a run later or something. You have to have energy to run.”

He nodded, wondering what he could fix for breakfast. He didn’t want to go into town, but was there anything here worth cooking? “Frozen waffles?”

“Packed
with transfats and white flour, dude.”

“Oh. Sorry. Hmmm.” The coffee stopped gurgling and he poured two cups.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “I don’t drink coffee.”

“One’s for Elena,” he said without thinking.

A deep pause. “She spent the night here?”

“Not like that.” He turned around and looked at her. “She’s in the guest room.”

She raised her hands, palms open. “None of my business.”

“It is your business, actually. You live here, too, you know. I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable, Portia.”

She stared at him for a minute, a thousand small betrayals swimming over the surface of her irises. It shamed him. “Really?”

He nodded. “Really.”

“Okay—here’s the truth: it’s weird when your parents have a boyfriend or girlfriend over.”

“She’s not my girlfriend. She’s my chef.”

“I get it,” Portia said.

“Hello—I’m warning you that I’m here,” Elena said from the doorway.

Alvin wiggled happily toward her, head down, body arched, looking like a comma. He shimmied into her legs and Elena chuckled, a low earthy sound, and she knelt, or kind of crumpled, to kiss him and hug him, rubbing him all over.

“That was awful,” she said in a ragged voice. “I missed you so much.” She held Alvin’s muzzle and kissed the velvety snout, then between his eyes, and Alvin made a low, pleased noise. Licked her nose very politely.

Julian wished to be a dog. Her fine hair was loose on her shoulders, long and pale. For the first time, he noticed a thin, faint scar edging from the top of her shirt, along her collarbone. Inexplicably, the sight made him think of his mother.

After a minute, she stood up, and Julian saw the swollen eyes, the extreme paleness. “You all right?” he asked.

“More or less,” she said with a tilted grin that made her look about sixteen. “I’d kill somebody for that coffee in your hand.”

“It’s all yours,” he said. “Cream and sugar, as I recall.”

“Bueno.”
She looked at Portia. “He was sleeping on your pillows when I got here, and he wouldn’t come with me. You’re a real dog charmer, aren’t you?”

“But look how happy he is to see you now!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Elena said. Alvin dashed into the great room, grabbed his crocodile, and brought it back to her, his head and tail high and happy. Elena grabbed it and yanked, letting him play tug-of-war for a minute before she took it away and tossed it toward the hallway. He danced toward it, and leapt on it as if it were a live thing.

Julian watched her with a sense of airlessness, feeling stricken, starving, yearning, and for no earthly reason. Her hair, stick straight and too fine to be particularly alluring, was combed, but hardly styled. She looked a little hungover, and she wore the same clothes she had on last night.

And he really would have liked kissing her good morning.

Elena sat across from Portia. “How was he last night? He seems very happy. Did you guys have fun?”

“We did.” She grinned. “He is such a good dog!”

“I couldn’t stand not waking up to him this morning, so I had your dad come get me from the restaurant and then you guys looked so peaceful, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“That was nice. Thanks.” She frowned. “There were some fireworks, though, and he totally freaked out. Does he always do that?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s absolutely petrified of thunder, fireworks, anything like that. I tried drugs but they don’t really help.”

“Poor baby.” Portia rubbed Alvin’s back. “I’ll do some research, ask around, see if there’s something to do for it.”

“I’d be so grateful if you found something to help him.” Elena put her cup down. “Now. How about if I make breakfast to thank you both?”

“You don’t have to wait on us, Elena,” Julian said.

Elena inclined her head. “You don’t actually know how to cook anything, do you?”

“Uh—”

“He offered frozen waffles,” Portia said.

“Ugh!” Elena rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m
starving,”
she said. “And I am—as you may remember—a spectacular cook.”

He smiled. So did Portia.

Elena narrowed her eyes, as if she were reading something written on the air. She peered at Portia carefully, and Julian swore he again saw that odd bend of the air around her, a shimmer of heat or light or something. “Let’s see—you are a pancake girl, aren’t you? Is it…nuts…no, bananas. Banana and—is it chocolate?”

Portia’s mouth dropped. “How did you know that?”

Elena raised her eyebrows ruefully. “Well, here’s the deal—it’s kind of magic.” She grinned, and for the first time, Julian noticed that she had a great dimple deep in her right cheek. “I can smell things sometimes, like an aroma of cooking food. I smelled latkes around your dad, and bananas around you.”

Portia looked wary. “Are you making that up?”

“No. I know how it sounds.” She took a sip of coffee, raised a hand as if swearing before a jury. “I swear it’s true.”

“That’s weird,” Portia said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “But kind of cool.”

Elena nodded. “So, banana pancakes?”

“Sounds great.” She swirled off the stool. “I’m going to go brush my teeth.”

Elena smiled after her, an expression of softness around her eyes. After a moment, she stood and looked around. “Where is everything? I see bananas. Any chance there are chocolate chips or bittersweet chocolate or something in here?”

Julian wiggled his brows and reached into his stash in the cupboard. “How about Dove chocolate?” he asked, bringing out a bag of small bars.

“That will do very nicely.” She put them on the counter next to a bowl she found, and opened drawers, cupboards, familiarizing herself with the kitchen. “Hmmm. I don’t see measuring spoons.”

Something was different about her this morning, and Julian finally put his finger on it. “You’re not limping.”

She scowled. “Do I limp a lot? Ivan said that last night, too. I wasn’t aware of it.”

“Not really. Just a little, when you’re tired or something. Still”—he inclined his head frankly—“you’re moving a lot more freely than usual.”

“That’s the tequila. If I wanted to be a drunk, I’d never have any pain at all.”

“Speaking of drunks, how was Ivan last night?”

“Fine.” She pulled open a drawer and crowed, pulling out a set of measuring spoons and cups. “He wasn’t drinking the way I expected. Maybe he’s turned over a new leaf.”

“Was that a test?”

She met his eyes. “Partly. Mainly, it was just to show the kitchen I’m in charge.”

He nodded. “How’d you do?”

“I won. And we cooked for a good portion of the kitchens in town, so the respect ratio will be high.”

“Excellent.”

“Hand me the flour,” she said, pointing, and he passed it over. “And now we have our big week, huh?”

“Yeah. How are you feeling about it?”

“Good, honestly. We’re going to have a tamale party tomorrow, making tons of them. And Mia was getting on a plane the last time I spoke to her, so Patrick should be bringing her here any time.”

“Good.”

“The staff tasting is tomorrow night, your party is Thursday, right?—we need to hammer down that menu, by the way—and the soft opening is Saturday.

“Pretty exciting.”

She touched her lower ribs. Smiled up at him. “It is.”

Her cell phone rang on the counter and she frowned at it. “Do you mind? It’s Patrick. He went to get Mia.”

“Go ahead.”

Her body angled away, and Julian stood up, walked to the window to give her some privacy. The new snow made the air so bright and clean it was like a glass of fresh cold water. He crossed his arms, thinking of Portia’s resistance to skiing, wondering how to get around it. Maybe they could go snowshoeing, get her feeling excited about it all again.

When did the tide turn toward such skinniness, anyway? It seemed to him that there used to be lots of lean, lanky girls, but also girls with lush breasts and lots of gorgeous ass, and still others with the supple squareness of athletes.

Then one day, they all showed up to casting calls looking like coat hangers.

Behind him, Elena said, “It’s your call, Patrick. I trust your judgment.”

He turned. His gaze caught on the white skin over her collarbone, on the line of her throat. Traveled over her delicate wrists and battered hands, and her breasts, too, more evident here than at the restaurant, where she camouflaged her body beneath chef’s coats or loose T-shirts. Very nice breasts, full and natural.

Her mouth was tight when she hung up the phone.

“Problem?” he asked.

“Mia’s not coming. She’s in love and her man doesn’t want her to leave. So, I’m without a pastry chef. Patrick is going to see if he can find anyone appropriate in Denver. He has some connections.”