Love in the Morning (8 page)

Nona gave her a dry smile. “Sounds like it.”

Lizzy shrugged. “There were a lot of people. All the cast members and their dates and some friends of Teresa's husband. I hired waiters and I brought in a prep cook to help me out. It was a big deal.”
It's going to make your reputation, Lizzy. Everybody will know about you after this.
True enough. On both counts.

Nona picked up her cup again. “So you went ahead and made all that food?”

Lizzy nodded. “It took us a couple of days, but we got everything done in time and then we brought it to Teresa's house in Bel Air. The place was full of cameras and the television crew. We had to get set up in the kitchen and then work around all the extra people.”

“But you did it.”

She nodded again. “We did. It was tricky but we managed. Teresa gets stressed out a lot and screams at people so I spent some time calming her down.” Of course, a lot of Teresa's screaming was for the camera, but Lizzy had sort of expected that. Teresa always had been a drama queen. “We got the hors d'oeuvres served and the bartenders kept everybody drinking and it seemed to go really well.”

The waitress appeared at their table with her coffee pot. “Anybody want pie? Or maybe a cookie? We got some left from lunch.”

Nona shook her head as the waitress refilled her cup. “We're fine, thanks, Karen.” She watched the waitress work her way to the front of the café, then turned back to Lizzy. “When did it start falling apart?”

Lizzy rubbed her eyes, telling herself she wasn't developing a headache. “Well, a couple of people, some cast members, started feeling sick about midway through the party. They headed for the ladies room. And then more and more people started getting nauseous and some of them didn't make it to the restroom at all.” And the cameras had gone right on filming, as people were sick on Teresa's rug. The director was even grinning as he watched.

Nona grimaced. “I remember that. Seemed like they could have cut that part of it. I remember somebody yelling too.”

Lizzy nodded. “Teresa. She started screaming at me, claiming I'd made her guests sick.” Then the cameras zoomed in. Filming it all for posterity. Lizzy took a deep breath. “She told me to get out before I killed someone. She ran into the kitchen ahead of me and threw the food into the garbage.” All the food, along with most of Lizzy's platters. Screaming all the while. Nobody could say Teresa didn't have good breath control.

Nona's eyebrows went up. “And then?”

Lizzy shrugged. “I left. There didn't seem to be much else I could do. I paid off the waiters and the prep cook. It wasn't their fault, after all.”

Nona frowned. “Maybe it was. I mean, did they ever find out what made everybody sick?”

Lizzy shook her head. “The Board of Health investigated. They closed my kitchen for inspection, and they interviewed all the guests to see what they ate to try to figure out if they'd all eaten the same thing. But there were a lot of hors d'oeuvres and the people had eaten different combinations. There didn't seem to be any common denominator.”

Nona took a swallow of coffee. “Why didn't they just look at the food? I mean couldn't they do lab tests or something?”

Lizzy sighed. She'd asked herself the same questions. “Teresa had thrown all the leftover food away. And she ran all the plates and platters that were left through the dishwasher two or three times because she said she was afraid they might have germs.” Which made no sense unless you knew Teresa. Her grip on factual data was not firm.

Nona's eyebrows were up again. “What about your kitchen?”

Lizzy rubbed a hand across her forehead. “They didn't find anything in my kitchen. I'd already washed the pans and implements I'd used to fix the hors d'oeuvres, of course, but they checked all my supplies and they didn't find any spoiled food or anything improperly stored. Of course, I didn't have any leftovers they could check for contamination.”

Nona shrugged. “Still, seems like the fact that your kitchen was okay should have given you a clean bill of health. Who's to say it wasn't your cousin's kitchen that was the problem?”

“I don't know what happened or why.” Lizzy leaned forward, resting her chin in her hands.

“So you left LA after that? What happened to your business?”

Lizzy stared down at the table. Funny how this was the most painful part. “I lost it. My customers canceled on me. The landlord wouldn't renew my mortgage. I had to sell most of the stuff in the kitchen to pay off my debts.” Everything except the knives. A chef didn't sell her knives.

Nona frowned. “And your cousin? Did she apologize? I mean it was her fault as much as it was yours.”

Lizzy gave her a dry smile. “I haven't spoken to Teresa since then. I guess she bad-mouthed me pretty good on the show. I didn't watch.”
I couldn't watch.

“Well, you made the right decision coming here,” Nona said flatly. “Praeger House needs you, and you're doing a great job for them. Clark must feel lucky to have you.”

As long as he doesn't know my backstory.
Lizzy took a breath. “Look, would you mind…sort of…keeping this to yourself?” She gave Nona what felt like a desperate smile.

Nona smiled back, with a lot less desperation. “I've got no reason to tell anyone. It sounds to me like you got a pretty raw deal.”

Lizzy closed her eyes for a moment. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

Nona shook her head. “The thing is, though, I'm not the only one who might recognize you. Sooner or later, Clark's likely to find out. You might want to be the one who tells him first.”

“I will,” she said slowly. “I know I have to. Just—not yet.” She felt like crossing her fingers under the table. But that was just superstition, right? Of course, maybe superstition would help. Clearly, being rational hadn't.

Chapter Eight

Clark managed to get away from the meeting of the Salt Box Merchants Association right after lunch, which was a major accomplishment, given how much some of the members liked to talk. The business meeting had run a little late after the guy from the resort, Jared something-or-other, had dropped his bombshell.

The reality show Lauren had mentioned,
Lovely Ladies of LA,
was definitely headed for Salt Box within the next few weeks. Once upon a time, this might have caused some excitement in the town since a television series shooting in Salt Box would have meant both free publicity and a little extra money spent on food and lodging for the cast and crew.

Now, after the debacle that was
Finding Mr. Right,
the announcement had produced a combination of consternation and panic. Several people had suggested ways of heading the production company off altogether. Rance Petersen, who owned the insurance agency that covered the resort, wanted someone to contact Telluride in hopes they'd be interested in seducing the production over to the other side of the Continental Divide, but Clark figured Telluride would know better.

Jared had regarded them all with a squared jaw and a gimlet gaze. After all, the resort stood to make a fair amount of pre-season money off of Fairstein Productions and its employees, and the publicity the resort had gotten out of
Finding Mr. Right
hadn't been all that bad. Jared and company didn't see any reason to be concerned over the fact that the town had been splashed across several of the less reputable tabloids.

So what if Aspen and Vail rarely showed up in
Celebrity News.

Judging from the muttering that had followed Clark out of the restaurant where the meeting had been held, the Salt Box merchants were still far from convinced that this was a good idea. But short of closing the town down for the duration of the production, he didn't know exactly what recourse they had.

Clark headed down Main toward Lodgepole, the street that fronted Praeger House. Maybe he should stop in at the kitchen to see how Lizzy was coming along with the new breakfast menu. He'd been too busy to check on it until now.

Busy. Yeah, right.

Okay, truthfully he hadn't checked on it because he wasn't sure how he felt about seeing Lizzy again. The last time they'd been out together had come a little too close to…he wasn't sure what. Whenever he was around her, his body seemed to go on hyper-alert, as if she gave off some kind of homing signal. It was unnerving, particularly since he shouldn't be thinking about her that way. She was his employee, for Pete's sake.

He turned down Aspen instead of Lodgepole, trying to give himself more time to think before he got to Praeger House and Lizzy. He glanced in the window of the Bon Ton Café as he moved down the street and saw the object of his obsession seated in a corner booth.

It took a moment for the sight to register, another moment before he realized who else was sitting in the booth with her. Nona.
What the hell?

Not that there was anything strange about Lizzy having coffee with Nona. She was free to make friends with anybody in town—it wasn't his job to keep track of who she had coffee with. Except so far as he knew, Lizzy spent most of her time in the kitchen at the hotel. He didn't think he'd ever seen her out on the street before.

And how long did you think that would last, Denham?

He started to walk on, and then paused. There was something about Nona's expression that threw him. She leaned forward, forehead furrowed, eyes narrow, for all the world like she was hearing something upsetting. Lizzy leaned forward too, staring down at the table with fierce concentration as she spoke.

What the hell were they talking about?

On an impulse, he pushed open the front door to the café, nodding to the waitress as he headed down the aisle toward the booth.

Lizzy glanced up as he approached them, her face freezing in shock.

Nona turned toward him, then frowned. “Clark. Wouldn't have expected to see you here. Weren't you at the association meeting?”

He nodded absently, watching Lizzy's expression move from shock to blankness. Whatever she'd been saying to Nona, she wasn't about to share it with him. “I was there. We just got out.”

Lizzy slid to the end of her seat, giving Nona a smile of breathtaking insincerity. “Well, I've got muffins to make. Good talking to you Nona.”

She started to open her purse, but Nona shook her head. “Don't bother. It's my treat. I asked you here, remember?”

Lizzy gave her a smile that was a little more real. “I remember. Thanks. Next time on me.”

Nona smiled back. “Next time.”

Lizzy gave Clark a quick nod, then headed swiftly toward the door.

He resisted the impulse to watch her walk away.
Totally inappropriate.

Nona didn't look too surprised when he dropped into the seat opposite her that Lizzy had just vacated. “So what was that all about?”

Nona narrowed her eyes again. “Can't I have coffee with your cook, Clark? Why does it have to be about anything?”

He considered all the possible ways he could answer that question.
Because you looked so serious? Because I didn't know Lizzy had any friends in town? Because Lizzy is hiding something and I need to know what it is?

None of those questions was likely to get him the right answer—and some were likely to get him a dressing down. “You can have coffee with anybody you want, Nona. I just didn't realize you knew Lizzy outside of the Blarney Stone.”

Nona shrugged. “That girl needs to get out more. She's spending too much time hiding away in that kitchen.”

“She spends as much time there as she wants. Nobody's forcing her to devote herself to Praeger House.” He gave Nona a long look. “Is there something I should know about her, Nona? Something she's not passing on?”

Nona suddenly looked like she'd bitten into something sour. “Now what kind of friend would I be if I talked about Lizzy behind her back? Especially to her boss? Has she done a good job for you?”

He nodded. “She's done a great job. Clarice let things slide. Lizzy's got it back on track.”

“Well, then, there you go.” Nona gathered up her purse and the check. “Why would you ask for more than that? She does the job you hired her to do and she does it better than you hoped. Seems to me that should be enough.” She stepped down from the booth and headed up the aisle toward the cashier without a backward glance.

Clark watched her go, tapping his fingers absentmindedly on the table. She had a point. Lizzy had gone way beyond expectations with her job. She was supposed to be putting together a new menu that might get them a Best of the Box award. She had the kitchen running like a smooth machine, turning out first-rate food that was building their rep around town.

All of that should have been more than enough.

He wasn't sure why it wasn't. Maybe because he was afraid that something could happen to undermine the restaurant and, by extension, Praeger House. Maybe because people with secrets always annoyed him, particularly when those secrets were at his expense.

Maybe because his interest in Lizzy had already moved beyond the employer/employee stage.

He sighed, tapping his fingers again. Whatever was going on with Lizzy, he needed to know about it. And if he couldn't get the information from Nona, he'd have to try getting it from Lizzy herself.

Which might be kind of interesting in the end.

*****

Lizzy headed straight for the kitchen as soon as she managed to get away from the café. She figured she shouldn't run as long as she was within the café's sightlines, but as soon as she turned the corner, she broke into a trot, then a lope. She was late. She'd left Desi alone too long. She should hurry. She should also put as much space between herself and Clark as she could as quickly as she could. Something about his expression made her want to duck—and her kitchen was the nearest place she could hide.

She stumbled into Praeger House, gasping for breath. Desi turned to stare, his expression shifting from annoyed to concerned. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. Resting her hands on her knees until she could finally breathe close to normally. “Sorry I took so long. I had to talk to somebody.”
Had to
being the operative phrase here.

Desi shrugged. Clearly, he was ready to get going. “I got the zucchini all done, and I put together the dry stuff and the wet stuff. So what do I do now?”

“Add the zucchini to the wet ingredients, then fold everything together. We'll bake up half of the batter for sale out in the case now. Are the muffin pans all greased and ready?”

He nodded. “Yeah, everything's set.”

“Okay, as soon as you've got it all folded together, start putting the batter into the pans. Bake them at three fifty for a half hour or so, just like the carrot ones.”

She hung up her new jacket on the rack at the door, then turned back to the pantry, pulling out the ingredients for the bran muffins as Desi worked in the background. This batter she would let sit in the walk-in overnight, so that she could bake the bran muffins tomorrow, along with the blueberry.

Mixing up muffin batter was actually therapeutic, which she'd sort of expected. Once Desi had finished the zucchini muffins and cleaned up his side of the table, she let him go. He'd been coming in early that week, getting set up for breakfast, so he could afford to head off by late afternoon.

Lizzy stayed in the kitchen by herself, doing prep work that wasn't really necessary. She wasn't sure why she didn't want to go back to her room. Maybe she wanted to reassure herself that the kitchen was where she belonged. Still. Or maybe she just couldn't take the risk of running into Clark.

Would Nona tell him? Did he know about LA by now?
On the one hand, Nona had pretty much promised to keep quiet about her problems. But it was one thing to promise something when it was just the two of them, and another thing to do it when the real subject of that promise was standing there staring at you with those weird-ass hazel eyes of his.

I didn't do anything wrong. The Board of Health cleared my kitchen.
Actually, they'd simply decided they couldn't reach any conclusions about the source of the problem. And that Lizzy's kitchen was apparently within code.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement. In fact, not enough of an endorsement to keep most of her customers from dropping her like a hot beignet.

Around seven, she made herself a sandwich, eating in the corner of the kitchen at what passed for her desk. The mock-up of the new breakfast menus lay on top of a pile of papers in front of her. Not many changes overall, but the ones she'd come up with could make a big difference in the way people looked at the Praeger House dining room. Assuming she got a chance to try them out. Assuming Clark didn't send her on her way tomorrow. Or tonight.

The kitchen door whooshed open behind her and she turned to see Clark stepping into the room. Of course he was there. She should have been expecting him. The tension in Lizzy's shoulders crawled down her spine, her hands immediately closing into fists on the desk in front of her. This could be it—she hoped he'd at least give her severance pay before he told her to get out.

“Evening,” she said, wondering if her voice sounded as tense to him as it did to her.

He nodded at her. “Hi. I didn't know if you'd still be here.”

She shrugged. “Just finishing up.”
And hiding from you. But that's probably obvious.

He pulled up one of the stools from the prep table, resting a boot on the lowest rung, the other leg straight in front of him. With his flannel shirt and khakis, he looked like something out of a Ralph Lauren catalogue. “Thought I'd see how the menu's coming.”

The relief that flooded her body felt like a warm wave. Her lips stretched up into a grin that wasn't entirely voluntary. “It's coming along really well. Would you like to look over what I've got so far?”

He nodded. “Sure.”

She rifled through the papers on the desk, then handed him two sheets. “That's for three or four days, assuming we keep the omelet station and the things we're already doing, like the muffins.”

He gave her a dry smile. “We're keeping the muffins. Trust me.” He turned his attention to the menus, glancing through them with a slight frown.

“Breakfast tacos?”

Lizzy shrugged. “I know they're not big here in Colorado, but they're really big in other parts of the country. And they're easier to eat than burritos.”

“We'd make tacos up in advance?” He was still frowning.

“Not really.” She leaned forward in her chair. “We could have a taco bar with scrambled eggs, bacon, potatoes, beans, maybe some chorizo, and fresh salsa and cheese. The tortillas would be next to the bar in a warmer—if we keep them warm the cheese should melt on top.”

He was still frowning. “Sounds like a lot of food out there. What if they don't like it?”

“I guarantee they'll like some of it,” she said. “It's what we have out every day, more or less. We'd just put it in a different context with the tortillas. And the fresh salsa. Everybody likes salsa on their eggs, even if they don't put the eggs in a tortilla. We can do something similar with breakfast sandwiches—bagels instead of tortillas, bacon, eggs, cream cheese, maybe sliced ham or smoked fish.”

He shrugged. “Okay, sounds interesting anyway. What else you got?” He flipped to the next page. “Sausage and biscuits?”

She nodded. “It's more risky, I know. People who are on low carb or low fat diets won't touch it. But it's popular with the carbo loaders. And we could always do grits.” She narrowed her eyes, thinking. “Maybe with sausage or bacon. Shrimp would probably be too expensive.”

He shook his head. “Shrimp would definitely be too expensive. Let's hold off on the sausage and biscuits for now. It sounds better for winter anyway. The corned beef hash looks good, though.”