Baby Makes Three

Patrick stepped to the side of Melissa and held out his arm toward the kitchen as though he were ushering her toward dinner, rather than away from a job interview she’d bombed.

Gabe sat with a smile. Dad was going to handle this one. Great. Because I am out of niceties.

“Tell me, Melissa, how did you get that tofu to stay together like that? In a tidy little bundle,” Patrick asked as they walked toward the kitchen.

Melissa blushed and launched into a speech on the magic of toothpicks.

God save me from novice chefs.

The swinging door to the kitchen swung open, revealing his nowhere-near-completed kitchen, and then swung shut behind his father giving the oblivious woman the heave-ho.

Gotta hand it to the guy, sixty-seven years old and he still has it.

Silence filled the room, from the cathedral ceiling to the fresh pine wood floors. The table and two chairs sat like an island in the middle of the vast, sunsplashed room.

He felt as though he was in the eye of the storm. If he left this room he’d be buffeted, torn apart by gale-force winds, deadlines, loose ends and a chefless kitchen.

“You’re too nice,” Patrick said, stepping back into the room.

“You told me to always be polite to women,” Gabe said.

“Not when they are trying to poison you.”

Patrick lowered himself into the chair he’d vacated and crossed his arms over his flannelcovered barrel chest. “She was worse than the other five chefs you’ve talked to.”

The seaweed-wrapped tofu on his plate seemed to mock Gabe, so he threw his napkin over it and pushed it away. At loose ends, he crossed his arms behind his head and stared out his wall of windows at his view of the Hudson River Valley.

The view was stunning. Gorgeous. Greens and grays and clouds like angels filling the slate-blue sky. He banked on that view to bring in the guests to his Riverview Inn, but he’d been hoping for a little more from the kitchen.

The Hudson River snaked its way through the corner of his property, and out the window, he could see the skeleton frame of the elaborate gazebo being built. The elaborate gazebo where, in two and a half months, there was going to be a very important wedding.

The mother of the bride had called out of the blue three days ago, needing an emergency site and had found him on the Web. And she’d been e-mailing every day to talk about the menu and he’d managed to put her off, telling her he needed guest numbers before he could put together a menu and a budget.

If they lost that wedding…well, he’d have to hope there was a manager’s job open at McDonald’s or that he could sell enough of his blood, or hair, or semen or whatever it took to get him out of the black hole of debt he’d be in.

All of the building was going according to plan. There had been a minor glitch with the plumber, however Max, his brother and begrudging but incredibly skilled general contractor, had sorted it out early and they were right back on track.

“Getting the chef was supposed to be the easy part, wasn’t it?” Patrick asked. “I thought you had those hotshot friends of yours in New York City.”

Gabe rolled his eyes at his father. Anyone who didn’t know the difference between a fuse box and a circuit breaker was a hotshot to him. And it wasn’t a compliment.

“They decided to stay in New York City,” he said. All three of his top choices, which had forced him into this hideous interview process.

Fifteen years in the restaurant business working his way up from waiter to bartender to sommelier. He had been the manager of the best restaurant in Albany for four years and finally owner of his own Zagat-rated bar and grill in Manhattan for the past five years and this is what he’d come to.

Seaweed-wrapped tofu.

“I can’t believe this is so hard,” he muttered.

Patrick grinned.

“I open in a month and I’ve got no chef. No kitchen staff whatsoever.”

Patrick chuckled.

“What the hell are you laughing at, Dad? I’m in serious trouble here.”

“Your mother would say this—”

Icy anger exploded in his exhausted brain. “What is this recent fascination with Mom? She’s been gone for years, I don’t care what she’d say.”

His cruel words echoed through the empty room. He rubbed his face, weary and ashamed of himself. “I’m sorry, Dad. I’ve got so much going on, I just don’t want—”

“I understand, son.” The heavy clap of his father’s hand on his shoulder nearly had him crumbling into a heap. “But not everything can be charmed or finessed. Sometimes it takes work—”

“I work.” Again, anger rose to the surface. “I work hard, Dad.”

“Oh, son.” Patrick’s voice was rough. “I know you do. But you’ve worked hard at making it all look easy. I’ve never seen a construction job go as smooth as this one has. You’ve got every lawyer, teamster and backhoe operator eating out of the palm of your hand.”

“You think that’s easy?” Gabe arched an eyebrow at his father.

“I know better than that. I’ve watched you work that gray in your hair and I’ve watched you work through the night for this place and I’m proud of you.”

Oh, Jesus, he was going to cry in his seaweed.

“But sometimes you have to make hard choices. Swallow your pride and beg and compromise and ask for favors. You have to fight, which is something you don’t like to do.”

That was true, he couldn’t actually say he fought for things. Fighting implied arguments and standoffs and a possibility of losing.

Losing wasn’t really his style.

He worked hard, he made the right contacts, he treated his friends well and his rivals better. He ensured things would go his way—which was a far cry from having them fall in his lap. But it was also a far cry from compromising or swallowing his pride or fighting.

The very idea gave Gabe the chills.

“You saying I should fight for Melissa?” He jerked his head at the door the vegan chef had left through.

“No.” Patrick’s bushy eyebrows lifted. “God, no. But I’m saying you should fight for the right chef.”

“What’re we fighting for?” Max, Gabe’s older brother stomped into the room, brushing sawdust from the chest and arms of his navy fleece onto the floor. “Did I miss lunch?”

“Not really,” Patrick said. “And we haven’t actually started any fight, so cool your jets.”

Max pulled one of the chairs from the stacks on tables in the corner, unclipped his tool belt and slung it over the back of the chair before sitting.

As the family expert on fighting, Max had made battles his life mission. And not just physically, though the bend in his nose attested to a few bar brawls and the scar on his neck from a bullet that got too close told the truth better than this new version of his brother, who, since being shot, acted as though he’d never relished a good confrontation.

Yep, Max knew how to fight, for all the good it did him.