The Way to Her Heart (3 page)

“Good, actually. Maurice taught me how to deal with these bad boys. Catch.” He tossed something at her.

She barely caught it before it bonked Freddie on the nose. “It’s an artichoke.”

“Very good, Detective Abeyta. Come over here and help me.” He motioned with his head for her to join him at the counter.

“Oh, I don’t cook. And I have no earthly idea what to do with this.” She held the vegetable at arm’s length.

He laughed and took the artichoke from her. “Don’t worry. I’ll show you. I need to practice. Homework from Maurice. Then we can eat them. Go wash your hands,” he ordered, pointing in the direction of the bathroom.

She didn’t know what to say, so she meekly turned toward the bathroom she had used last time. Bernie washed with the delicately scented soap and dried her hands on the softest towel she had ever touched. The bathroom was bigger than her bedroom, not that it mattered anymore. She wandered down the hallway toward the kitchen, pausing to look at the framed photographs on the wall. There was Josh, from kindergarten to his senior picture. Sheesh, he had always been so cute. Who was the other kid?
I guess he has a brother.
There weren’t quite as many pictures of the brother, however. She stopped in front of a family picture—the mom, Claire; Josh; his younger brother; their dad. She wondered where the dad and brother had been the other night, then she remembered Claire had spoken of her husband in the past tense but hadn’t mentioned the brother. They all looked so happy, posing in front of some theme park. Bernie had never been to a theme park. They looked like the perfect family. She turned and made her way back to the kitchen.

He was stirring what smelled like onions and garlic in a skillet on the stove. He adjusted the heat and gave the pan a couple of moves like she had seen chefs on TV do. He noticed her and turned the gas off under the pan. “Okay, this one’s yours.” He gestured to a cutting board, which held an artichoke and a large knife.

She approached hesitantly. “Okay, now what?”

He showed her how to hold the knife and slice the stem and top from the vegetable and pull off the tough outer leaves. He handed her another artichoke while he dealt with his and several more, then placed them all in a steamer basket over boiling water. “I’ll whip up the dipping sauce, and then we can make a grocery list while the artichokes steam.” She wiped her hands on the towel he provided and returned to her barstool. “Here.” He placed a small plate of cookies in front of her. “To tide us over until the rest is done.” He flashed those dimples again, wreaking disaster on her equanimity.

She forced herself to look away and grabbed one of the cookies, biting into the crispy, buttery treat. It was delicious, of course, with lots of dark chocolate—her favorite—and pecans. “These are really good. Thanks.” It wouldn’t hurt to be polite since they’d be working together for the next six weeks. “Did you make them?”

He nodded as he spooned the onions and garlic into a food processor. He added something white and creamy—yogurt? Sour cream?—then topped it off with chopped parsley and a small amount of red chile powder. He pulsed the processor several times.

“You really like cooking, huh?” She thought it was unusual for a teenage boy to be into cooking, especially one so good-looking and popular.

He didn’t answer while he poured the smooth mixture into a bowl. He set it in the refrigerator and sat down across from her. “Yeah, I like cooking,” he said quietly and bit into a cookie.

“So, your dad’s a chef too? Did he teach you?”

He seemed to have trouble swallowing and took a drink before answering her. “Yeah, my dad taught me.” He cleared his throat. “Hey, let’s get started on our grocery list, okay?”

It was clear he didn’t want to talk about his dad, and Bernie realized he probably wasn’t around anymore. She knew how that felt, so she left it alone. It really wasn’t any of her business, anyway. “So, a week’s worth of groceries. Um, bread? Milk?”

He typed her suggestions on the list he had started on his laptop. “Here, check this menu I put together. If you like it, I’ve already added the necessary ingredients to our list.”

She looked over the proposed menu, her eyes nearly bugging out at the array of delicious food he had planned. “Can we afford all this?”

“Sure. There’s still some money left in our weekly food budget, so pick some things you like. What do you like for breakfast? And lunch?”

Anything that’s not from the school cafeteria.
“I don’t know? Um, scrambled eggs?” What she wouldn’t give for a plate of fluffy eggs with ketchup slathered all over them. And cheese. Her mom used to make that for her when she was little.

He smiled at her briefly before adding extra eggs to the list. They spent a half hour polishing their list before he stood to take the artichokes out of the steamer. He placed one on a platter with a small ramekin of dipping sauce and set it on the counter between them.

She stared at the appetizer, unable to fathom how to eat it. She watched as he plucked a leaf and dipped it in the sauce, then scraped the tender meat off with his teeth. She hesitantly followed suit and was pleasantly surprised by the taste. The dip was slightly tangy with a hint of spicy heat from the chile and highlighted the mild flavor of the artichoke.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“It’s good. I’ve never tasted an artichoke before. The dip is really good.”

“Yeah? It’s my own recipe. Maurice liked it too. He made it part of the appetizer special at the restaurant.” He smiled and shrugged, seeming a bit embarrassed to be tooting his own horn.

“Hey, that’s great. Congratulations.” She liked hearing about his success, especially since he seemed so pleased by it.

“Thanks, Bernie. Hey, I meant to ask you about your name. It’s kind of unusual.”

She rolled her eyes. “Uh, yeah, to say the least. It’s short for Bernice. I was named for my grandmother. It’s only about a century out of date. I tried to go by my middle name, but it didn’t stick, so Bernie is better than nothing, I guess.”

“And your middle name is?”

“Lynn. Not great, but better than Bernie.”

“Nah. Bernie suits you somehow.” He smiled at her, flashing those lethal dimples again.

“So, what’s
your
middle name?”

“Dane. It’s a family name. It’s my grandfather’s middle name. And my dad’s.” He stared at the now-decimated artichoke for a moment. “My dad died,” he admitted quietly. “So did my little brother.”

She had figured something like that. “God. I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks. I just figured you should know since you’re stuck with me. It kind of screwed me up. But I’m better now, sort of. I won’t mess this project up for you, I promise.”

She could detect a hint of shine in his eyes, and her heart melted a little bit more. “I’m not worried. I’m pretty screwed up too. What happened? How did they die? I mean, if you don’t mind telling me…” She let her words fade as she realized he may not want to talk about it to a relative stranger.

“A car wreck. A little over a year ago. They were coming home from Caleb’s soccer game. Mom was with me at my football game. They sometimes had to split up to be at our games.” He sniffed and stood to put away the dishes. “You ready? We’d better get started on our shopping.”

He drove them to a grocery store she habitually passed on her way to Walmart. She tried not to display her utter amazement at the difference in prices as they wandered the aisles, snapping pictures on his cell phone of the items on their list. She couldn’t manage to keep up the blasé act, however, when she saw the sushi bar. There was a full-on sushi bar with a guy making all kinds of different rolls. Josh stopped to talk with the chef, asking him to demonstrate a cutting technique, which the chef seemed to enjoy. He presented them with sushi samples, which Josh wolfed down and Bernie stared at suspiciously. She’d never tasted sushi before but had heard it was raw fish. She had no intention of eating raw fish, now or ever.

“It’s not raw.” Josh leaned in to whisper in her ear, his warm breath tickling her ear, making her shiver. Could he read her mind? “You don’t want to hurt Greg’s feelings, do you?”

“His name is Greg?” she whispered back. The man was clearly Asian. She reached hesitantly toward the sushi slice. She was surprised to find she enjoyed the taste, for the most part. “Thanks,” she said to Greg, who nodded and smiled as he went back to creating more sushi rolls.

Back in Josh’s truck, she scrolled through the photos on his phone of the grocery items they had just “bought.” She checked them against the list she had on her lap. She paused when she got to a photo of his girlfriend posing with her pom-poms. She’d seen them sitting together in the cafeteria and holding hands in the hall. She was gorgeous, the kind of girl who made Bernie feel frumpy and unattractive. She quickly scrolled back to the grocery items, not wanting Josh to catch her spying on him.

“Let’s grab a bite to eat, okay? I’m starving. Do you mind?” He glanced at her quickly as he drove.

She mentally sorted the cash in her wallet and hoped he didn’t plan to stop somewhere expensive, but feared he didn’t know how to eat cheap. “Um, sure. Yeah, that sounds good.” She would order the cheapest thing possible and claim she wasn’t hungry.

Fifteen minutes later, he pulled the Ford F-150 into the parking lot of an obviously upscale restaurant in the Nob Hill neighborhood of Albuquerque, and Bernie’s heart sank. As he turned off the ignition, he reached over and touched her arm lightly. “Let me come around and open your door, okay? It’s important to me. My mom raised me to be a gentleman.”

She stared at him with wide eyes and nodded dumbly. She’d had no idea he would be so charming.

He opened her door and held out his hand to help her out of the big truck. His hand was warm and slightly rough and entirely too wonderful. She forced herself to remember the picture of his girlfriend and reminded herself she was not a poacher. She was surprised when he led her past the front door to a side entrance that led to the kitchen.

“This is our restaurant.” He smiled at her questioning look. “Best food in town. Come on.”

They were greeted cheerily by the kitchen staff, and Josh introduced her to Maurice, the head chef. He looked to be around forty and was handsome in his white chef’s jacket. It surprised her when he grabbed her shoulders and kissed both her cheeks.

Josh laughed as he showed her to a table in the back of the kitchen. “Sorry about that. He’s very, um, friendly. He’s a great guy, though. You don’t mind eating here in the kitchen, do you?”

“No, not at all. I’m not dressed for a place like this.”

“You’d be surprised. People wear all sorts of stuff to eat here.” At her questioning look, he explained. “I usually cook, but when we’re short on waitstaff, I fill in. Maurice, what’s the special tonight?”

“Fresh salmon in parchment paper with a champagne dill reduction. You better try it, Josh.”

“How does that sound?” he asked her.

It sounded pricey. “Oh, I don’t want, um, I’ll just have a salad. A small one.”

He looked at her for a long moment, concern on his features. “Hey, you know you don’t have to pay, don’t you? We own this place. I probably eat more meals here than at home. Okay?”

She nodded, completely embarrassed, but glad he seemed to understand her dilemma. “Okay, yeah. Salmon sounds great.” Another food she’d never tasted. Her mom’s culinary exertions were limited to things that came out of a box, and that was before her dad had gone away and her mother had become entrenched in drugs and alcohol. Now there were no culinary efforts.

Josh disappeared for a few minutes and returned with salads and bread, as well as a pitcher of iced tea. They chatted amiably while they enjoyed their first course. When Bernie dropped her usual guard, she was able to hold an intelligent conversation. Josh was fun and easy to talk to, and she was surprised to find they had a lot in common. Well, maybe not in their life circumstances, but they had a lot of the same opinions.

Maurice brought their main courses, standing by the table as they took their first tastes. Bernie watched Josh to see how he dealt with the paper-wrapped fish.

“This is great, Maurice! Are a lot of people ordering it?”

“It’s doing pretty well,” he answered, vainly trying to hide his proud smile. “What do you think, little missy?”

Bernie didn’t know how she felt about being called that, but Maurice seemed so nice, she didn’t say anything about it. She took a bite, enjoying the delicate flavors and the moist fish. “Wow, this is really good. Thanks. I’ve never had salmon before. I like it.”

“You’ve never had salmon? How is that possible?” Josh asked.

She shrugged. “My mom doesn’t cook much.” Slight understatement.

They rounded out the meal with crème brûlée, which instantly became Bernie’s new favorite thing. Josh showed her how to hold the butane torch above the surface of the dessert until it was a beautiful golden brown and let her do the second one. She didn’t know how to eat it but copied Josh, breaking through the crispy caramelized sugar to the creamy custard. She hoped she didn’t groan aloud in ecstasy, but the amused smile on his face made her think she might have.

Later that night, huddled in the backseat of her car, wishing she had another blanket, she pondered the events of the afternoon and evening. She very much feared she was in trouble regarding the status of her heart as it related to Josh Harris. He was nothing like she’d expected.