Baby Makes Three

“Well, from the look on Gabe’s face, I guess we still don’t have a chef,” Max said, sliding his sunglasses into the neck of his shirt.

“No,” Gabe growled. “We don’t.”

Now Max, his beloved brother, his best friend, stretched his arms over his head and laughed. “Never seen you have so much trouble, Gabe.”

“I am so glad that my whole family is getting such pleasure out of this. Need I remind you that if this doesn’t work, we’re all homeless. You should show a little concern about what’s going on.”

“It’s just a building,” Max said.

Gabe couldn’t agree less, but he kept his mouth shut. Going toe to toe with his brother, while satisfying on so many levels, wouldn’t get him a chef.

“I’m going to go make us some lunch.” Patrick stood and Max groaned. “Keep complaining and you can do it,” he said over his shoulder and disappeared into the kitchen.

“Cheese sandwiches. Again,” Max groused.

“It’s better than what we had, trust me.”

“What happened?”

“Ah, she fed us terrible food and then said I was crazy for trying to build an inn in the middle of nowhere and get a chef to come out here for little pay in a half-finished kitchen. Basically, what all the chefs have said to me.”

Gabe paused, then gathered the courage to ask the question that had been keeping him up nights.

“Do you think they’re right? Is it nuts to expect a high-caliber chef to come way out here and put their career on the line and their life on hold to see if this place takes off?”

Max tipped his head back and howled, the sound reverberating through the room, echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “Brother, I’ve been telling you this was nuts for over a year. Don’t tell me you’re starting to agree now!”

Gabe smiled. He was discouraged, sure. Tired as all hell, without a doubt. Frustrated and getting close to psychotic about his chefless state, absolutely. But his Riverview Inn was going to be a success.

He’d work himself into the hospital, into his grave to make sure of it.

He had been dreaming of this inn for ten years.

“It’s not like I’ve got no credentials.” He scowled, hating that Melissa had gotten under his skin and that he still felt the need to justify his dream. “I worked my way up to manager in the restaurant in Albany. And I owned one of the top ten restaurants in New York City for five years. I’ve had reporters and writers calling me for months wanting to do interviews. The restaurant reviewer for Bon Appetit wanted to come out and see the property before we even got started.”

“All the more reason to get yourself a great chef.”

“Who?” He rubbed his hands over his face.

“Call Alice,” Max said matter-of-factly, as though Alice was on speed dial or something.

Gabe’s heart chugged and sputtered.

He couldn’t breathe for a minute. It’d been so long since someone had said her name out loud. Alice.

“Who?” he asked through a dry throat. Gabe knew, of course. How many Alices could one guy know? But, surely his brother, his best friend, had not pulled Alice from the past and suggested she was the solution to his problems.

“Don’t be stupid.” Max slapped him on the back. “The whole idea of this place started with her—”

“No, it didn’t.” Gabe felt compelled to resist the whole suggestion. Alice had never, ever been the solution to a problem. She was the genesis of trouble, the spring from which any disaster in his life emerged.

Max shook his head and Gabe noticed the silver in his brother’s temples had spread to pepper his whole head and sprouted in his dark beard. This place was aging them both. “We open in a month and you want to act like a five-year-old?” Max asked.

“No, of course not. But my ex-wife isn’t going to help things here.”

“She’s an amazing chef.” Max licked his lips. “I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve woken up in a cold sweat thinking of that duck thing she made with the cherries.”

Gabe worried at the cut along his thumb with his other thumb and tried not to remember all the times in the past five years he’d woken in a cold sweat thinking of Alice.

“Gabe.” Max laid a hand on Gabe’s shoulder. “Be smart.”

“Last I heard she was a superstar,” Gabe said. He tried to relax the muscles of his back, his arms that had gone tight at the mention of Alice. He tried to calm his heart. “She wouldn’t be interested.”

“When was the last you heard?”

It’s not as though she’d stayed in touch after that first year when they’d divvied up all the things they’d gathered and collected—the antiques from upstate, their kitchen, their friends. “About four years ago.”

“Well, maybe she’ll know of someone. She can at least point you in the right direction.”

Gabe groaned. “I hate it when you’re right,” he muttered.

“Well, I’d think you’d be used to it by now.” Max laughed. “I think I’ll skip lunch and get back to work.” He grabbed his tool belt. “The gazebo should be done by tomorrow.”

“What’s the status on the cottages?” Gabe asked.

“You’ll have to ask Dad.” Max shrugged his broad shoulders and cinched the tool belt around his waist, over his faded and torn jeans. “As far as I know he just had some roofing and a little electrical to finish on the last one.”

Gabe’s affection and gratitude toward his brother and dad caught him right in the throat. The Riverview Inn with its cottages, stone-and-beam lodge and gazebo and walking trails and gardens had been his dream, the goal of his entire working life. But he never, ever would have been able to accomplish it without his family.

“Max, I know I don’t say it enough, but thank you. I—”

Max predictably held up a hand. “You can thank me by providing me with some decent chow. It’s not too much to ask.”

He took his sunglasses from the neck of his fleece and slid them on, looking dangerous, like the cop he’d been and not at all like the brother Gabe knew.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Max said, poised to leave. “Sheriff Ginley has got two more kids.”

“Can either of them cook?”

Max shrugged. “I think one of them got fired from McDonald’s.”

“Great, he can be our chef.”

“I don’t think Sheriff Ginley would smile upon a juvenile delinquent with such easy access to knives.”

The after-school work program for kids who got in trouble in Athens, the small town north of the inn, had been Max’s idea, but Gabe had to admit, the labor was handy, and he hoped they were doing some good for the kids. “They can help you with the grounds.”

“That’s what I figured.” Max smiled wickedly and left, his heavy-booted footsteps thudding through the nearly empty room.