Second Thoughts: A Hot Baseball Romance (15 page)

Read on, for a sneak peek at the next Diamond Brides romance,
Third Degree
!

~~~

Sugar and spice and everything nice…

Ashley Harris slammed her meat cleaver into the chicken bones, severing the dark-meat quarter at its joint. With the efficiency of long practice, she shoved the resulting pieces to the side of her cutting board.

“Whoa!” said Dustin Parsons. “Remind me not to make
you
angry!”

“I’m not angry,” Ashley said.
Whack
. Another chicken quarter severed. “I’m working.”
Whack
.

Her fellow chef shifted his grip on his own knife, making short work of converting a yellow onion into perfect half-moons of eye-smarting crunch. “Of course,” he agreed as Ashley slammed her way through another innocent chicken leg. “You always grit your teeth when you work.”

“I’m not,”
whack
, “Gritting my teeth.”

“Ash, babe, I can hear you halfway across the kitchen.”

She paused in her chicken dissection for long enough to give Dustin a well-deserved glare. The man was absolutely unflappable. And that was a good thing, given the heat in the kitchen where they worked. Outside the restaurant, it might be a chilly November afternoon, but inside, the kitchen was already climbing toward ninety degrees—and that was before the giant pots of water were set to boil for the pasta dishes that were the mainstay at Mangia Italian Kitchen.

Ashley set her cleaver on her cutting board. “It’s November 3
rd
,” she said.

“Excellent!” Dustin crowed. “I
knew
working near the university would rub off on you! And they said you’d never master reading the calendar!”

She twisted her lips into a frown to show her dissatisfaction with her colleague’s sarcasm. “I was supposed to hear from
Wake Up Wake County
by the first.”

Dustin’s mouth framed a comical O. He could tease all he wanted, but Ashley had her heart set on competing in
Who Wears the Apron.
The most popular morning viewing in Raleigh,
Wake Up
had been promoting its first-ever cooking contest everywhere, with ads on TV and radio, even on the sides of city buses.

Dustin recovered by asking, “I thought you had a Master Plan?”

The Master Plan. She’d worked her way up through local Raleigh restaurants—busing tables in high school, working as a hostess and server in college, progressing from salad chef to line chef to head chef in the seven years since graduation. She’d planned on staying three years at Mangia, learning the ins and outs of the restaurant business, mastering recipes as the head chef while she observed all the front-of-house operations. After all, Raleigh scion Duke Throckmorton was the owner, and he believed in quality cooking; he was willing to spend money on fine ingredients, even costly out-of-season treasures like copious amounts of basil in November.

Alas, he also believed that hiring Ashley to cook in his kitchen gave him the right to put his hand on her ass every time he walked by. He brushed against her boobs, too, whenever he thought he could get away with it—the guy was oblivious to the danger of a freshly-sharpened chef’s knife. Just that evening, he’d caught her by the fry station, and she’d seriously contemplated adding his octopus hands to the neat rings of cornmeal-dusted calamari.

But that would have been a disaster, if the health inspector stopped by.

Now, she shrugged as Dustin shifted his attention from onions to mushrooms. “The Master Plan is one thing—I’ve been salting away part of my paycheck for months. But winning
Apron
would put me ahead by
years
. One hundred thousand dollars… Do you know how long it’ll take for me to save that? And a year of consulting with Gerald Brown is worth that much again.”

The famous expert on restaurant management had taught at Mid-Atlantic Culinary Institute, the cooking school where Ashley had pursued an advanced degree after college. He’d been ancient then, teaching all his classes from an armchair at the front of the room. Who knew how long the genius would remain in the business? But
Apron
promised his services for one lucky winner—for an entire twelve months.

And all she’d had to do was complete her application, double-and triple-check the forms where she listed her past experience in restaurants, provide evidence of her undergraduate degree in business management, present her course work at Mid-Atlantic. She’d drawn up a menu for a multi-course meal, focusing on traditional Southern foods that she’d spiced up with her own unique flair.

But
Wake Up
was now two days past its own deadline. Ashley was fast losing hope that she’d be one of the ten luckywomen to compete against ten men, preparing a single dish for the next round of the contest. This opportunity was going to fall apart the same way culinary school had become a disaster.

Well, not the same way. She hadn’t slept with anyone connected with
Who Wears the Apron.

She’d learned her lesson at cooking school. Then, she’d welcomed the physical attention from star chef and professor Martin Davies. Those sly touches, the unexpected encounters that heated up the walk-in freezer, the hidden caresses that led to late-night dinners, to wild nights in bed, and more…

Crap. They’d also led to her leaving Mid-Atlantic in disgrace. She never should have fallen into the habit of spending the night at Martin’s place. She never should have been caught there when the dean of students stopped by for a morning consultation on curriculum. Her dalliance with Martin had cost her a diploma, and it had changed the way she thought about all men in her life. She’d take a tumble in the sheets if she liked a guy well enough, but she wasn’t about to spend the night. Not when the cost could be so high.

If she could just launch her own restaurant, she wouldn’t have to deal with any of this crap—grabby Throckmorton, the lingering shame of Davies, the frustration of working in someone else’s kitchen, of cooking to someone else’s requirements.

“Well,” Dustin said gamely. “You don’t
know
they told the winners on time. Maybe it took them longer to review the applications than they thought it would.”

Ashley shook her head. “It’s a good thing you’re a great cook,” she said. “Because you’re a really lousy liar.”

One of the waiters spun through the kitchen’s swinging doors. “They’re heeere,” he chanted, announcing the first paying customers of the evening. Ashley turned her attention to Mangia’s traditional Italian meals, setting aside her dreams of a New Southern feast all of her own making.

~~~

Six hours later, Ashley was finally sitting on one of the high barstools at the counter that passed for a table in her own apartment’s kitchen. She’d poured herself a glass of pinot noir and flipped through her mail, which consisted entirely of paper flyers that the mailman shoved into her mailbox. Shaking her head at the ads for products she’d never use, she reached for her laptop.

Sure, she hadn’t had any email when she got home. But that had been fifteen minutes ago. Anything could have come in since then.

There was a message waiting. A message with impossible good news.

She blinked hard and read the words again. Another gulp of pinot, a hard shake of her head. The email stayed the same.

“Congratulations!
Wake Up Wake County
is inviting you to Round 2 of
Who Wears the Apron
!”

Ashley glanced at the time on her phone. It was well after midnight. Too late to call any civilized friend. Well, Dustin wasn’t civilized. She punched his number and waited for his weary answer.

“I could have sworn we just said goodbye half an hour ago.”

She laughed. “And I could have sworn you were wide awake, sitting with your feet up on the coffee table, even though you know Sheila would be furious if she was up too. You’re drinking a Blue Moon, and you’re watching porn on your computer.”

“Ah, friendship,” Dustin said. “You know me so well. What’s up?”

“Listen to this: ‘You are one of ten women competing in our contest, which will air in a series of special segments on our usual morning television show. You have been randomly assigned to present your first dish, which can be any course from any menu, to our judges on Friday, November 14. On that date, our judges will also announce the five men and five women who will move on to Round 3. Please see the attached document for all rules and regulations related to
Who Wears the Apron
! Congratulations and good luck!’”

“Holy shit!”

“Hush!” she said. “If you wake Sheila now, she’ll really be pissed.”

“She’ll be thrilled she gets to share your news!”

“Yeah, right.”

“Seriously, Ash. That’s great! What are you going to make for Round 2?”

And that was the hundred-thousand dollar question, wasn’t it? What
was
she going to cook? “Any suggestions?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t bother to stifle his yawn “I’ll have about a dozen for you. Tomorrow, when I see you at work.”

“Okay,” she said. “Be that way.”

“You’re not going to sleep, are you?”

She was already opening up the vast collection of recipes on her computer. “Of course I’m going to sleep. It’s late, and work was exhausting!”

“Don’t try to con a conner. You’ll be up all night, and you’ll be a bitch at work tomorrow.”

She laughed. “But you’ll love me anyway.”

Dustin agreed and signed off, and she dove into her files, trying to find the one dish that would guarantee her victory in Round 2.

~~~

Josh Cantor brought his grandmother a fresh old-fashioned. “You know, Angel, some people would say it’s too early to be drinking.”

She plucked the orange slice from the rim of the glass and ate the juicy triangles of fruit before she used the rind to point at him. “And
some
would say you’re too young to be correcting your elders. I waited until 5:00 yesterday.”

She probably hadn’t. Angel wasn’t remembering things very well these days. At least not the things she didn’t want to remember.

Josh folded himself onto the rattan loveseat. He was sweating like he’d just finished a full workout in the gym at Rockets Field, even though it was the first week of November. His grandmother insisted on outfitting her deck with massive space heaters, the sort that should have been used on a restaurant patio. Angel had lived in Raleigh her entire life, but she still refused to admit that North Carolina experienced winter weather. In fact, Angel refused to admit anything that didn’t agree with her view of right and wrong—a view that was increasingly narrow as she grew more frail.

He passed his grandmother a cut-glass plate with the deep-fried olives he’d made for her that morning. “Can I get you anything?” he asked. “A napkin? Something else to snack on?”

Angel cocked her head. With her outrageous flowered scarf wrapped around her forehead, she looked like a pirate with a passion for poppies. “I’ve got a napkin from the first three times you asked, boy. And I don’t need you to fatten me up with anything else. Are you going to ask me for a favor, or just wait for me to doze off so you can
take
what you want?”

Angel always could see right through him. He looked at his scuffed shoes and wiped his palms against his jeans. Christ. Alzheimer’s or no, she was going to toss him out on his ass if he didn’t man up. He looked her right in the eye and said, “Angel, I want your recipe book.”

He didn’t just want it. He
needed
it. He’d gotten the email yesterday—he was one of ten men selected for
Who Wears the Apron
. The contest couldn’t come at a better time—November was the off-season so he had time to compete, time to fight for the hundred-grand purse and a consultant who could help him turn his dream of a successful investment gig into a reality. But all the time in the world was nothing, if he didn’t have Angel’s recipes to back up his bid for success.

“What are
you
going to do with a bunch of tidewater receipts?” She plunged her thumb and forefinger into her drink and pulled out the first of the three cherries Josh had given her.

“Use them for my restaurant,” he mumbled.

“What’s that?” She put down her glass and eyed him like a fox considering a chicken dinner. “I could have sworn you just said you wanted to use Cantor family recipes for that money pit you’re planning.”

“It’s not a money pit!”

“How much have you sunk into it so far?”

Shit. He was going to lose this argument. But he didn’t have any other option, so he said, “It wasn’t my fault the lease fell through.”

“On how many places?”

God, he should have waited until she had a couple more drinks in her. Maybe an entire bottle of whiskey. “Three, Angel. But there were circumstances beyond my control.” He could recite all the details for her, explain why it was so goddamn hard to set up a restaurant while he was busy with his real job.

But Angel had never followed baseball a day in her life. She didn’t care that he was a Gold Glove third baseman for a team that had missed the playoffs by one game. She didn’t give a damn about his batting average or his on-base percentage. In fact, Angel only cared about one thing, and he was a little surprised she hadn’t mentioned it yet.

“Just like it wasn’t your fault that nice girl broke up with you over the summer. You told me she was the one, Josh. You said you were going to marry her.”

Ding, ding, ding! “Perfect, Angel. I thought we might actually talk for five minutes before you got around to that.”

“I thought you might actually follow through on a promise that you made me! You’re turning thirty on March1
st
. Your father was married on his twenty-first birthday!”

And dead by his fortieth.

But Josh wasn’t cruel enough to say that out loud. Sure, he’d lied to Angel about Shelby. He’d made things sound a lot more serious than they were. What the hell else was he going to say?
She’s moved on to a hockey player now. She’s only turned on by cock in a uniform, Angel. If she can’t screw in a locker room, she can’t come.