Southern Comforts

“The wife was looking for funding for a summer camp.” He took a sip of his wine. “She invited me to lunch to tap me for a donation.”

That didn’t sound so bad. “Good cause?”

He snorted. “Cheerleading camp.”

“For underprivileged children?”

“Not in her world. I should have known she’d try something.”

The mushrooms sizzled as they hit the sauté pan. “Why would you think that?”

“Everyone wants something—usually it’s money.”

What kind of world did he live in? “That can’t always be true.”

“Always.”

“Do people ask you for money often?” she asked.

He pulled salad dressing from the fridge and set it on the table. “All the time. When I first got here, it was an investment banker and a biotech opportunity.”

She chuckled. “That’s sounds like a joke.”

“Not when he was looking for ten million dollars.”

Her spoon clanged in her saucepan. “Holy cow. You have that kind of money?” she blurted out.

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

“Throw some of it my way,” she said under her breath. They could finish off Fitzgerald House and put in gold-plated faucets.

His back stiffened.

She hadn’t meant for him to hear her.

“Does this happen to your whole family?”

“Mostly to me and my dad, but my mother has her own charities.”

Abby asked about his family, and they sipped wine as she finished preparing dinner.

“You’ve seen me with my family. How is yours different?” she asked, wondering whether money changed things there, too.

He didn’t answer. Maybe she’d overstepped the boundaries of their relationship. “Forget I asked.”

He held up a hand. “No, I was thinking about your question.”

She flipped the mushrooms while waiting for his response.

“You and your sisters are close.” He nodded. “You have each other’s backs.”

“Of course.”

“There’s no ‘of course’ about that kind of loyalty. You have something special. Something I admire.”

“And your family isn’t like that?” How sad.

He lifted his glass for another sip of wine, but the glass was empty, and he set it down. “No. Maybe it’s because I only have a younger sister, but she’s not someone I would trust with anything important. I keep waiting for her to grow up but it hasn’t happened yet. I love them, but family for family’s sake isn’t that important to me.”

“I’m sorry.” Family was everything to her.

“I don’t know any different.” He rubbed his face, looking more tired than when he’d come in. “From what I’ve seen, you and your sisters are very lucky. It’s nice to see your family working together.”

She wanted to see him smile again and didn’t know how to make that happen. Eating seemed to make him happy. “Dinner’s ready.”

He leaned down to the beef tenderloin resting on the counter and inhaled. “My mouth is watering.”

She sliced the beef and added the mushrooms to the plates. Then she drizzled them both with the sauce she’d thickened. Roasted potatoes and green beans flanked the meat.

Gray waited through her prayer, his knife and fork already in hand.

“When I went to New York, this used to be my favorite meal,” Gray said. He took a bite. “Wow, it tastes just like it.”

“Maurice’s, right?” Maurice. The man who used me, made me believe I would be his partner in both the restaurant and his life, and then cheated on me.

“How did you know?”

“I was his sous chef.” She twisted her bare ring finger on her left hand.

“You lived in New York?”

“That’s where I went to culinary school.” Where she’d fallen in love. Where she’d been betrayed. “I worked at a couple of different restaurants before Maurice hired me.”

“I remember reading something in the menu.” She could almost see him processing the information. “They were rated, right?”

“Rising star the first year I was there.” Her work, her food, her cooking.

“What’s the scale?”

“Michelin ranks restaurants on a one to three scale. There aren’t a lot of three-star ratings. Rising star means that the restaurant has potential for a star in the future.” Would Gray laugh if she told him she wanted to run her own restaurant and earn a rating higher than that snake, Maurice?

“You’re an incredible chef. Why did you leave?”

Abby had crawled back home to lick her wounds after Maurice’s betrayal, but she couldn’t tell Gray that. “My great aunt has rheumatoid arthritis. About three years ago, Aunt CeCe needed more help. We’re the only family she has. Mamma’s in Atlanta with her now. My sisters and I took over running Fitzgerald House.”

Her vision of becoming the next Cat Cora on Iron Chef had evaporated. All her energy was focused on the B and B. She would bring Fitzgerald House back to its former glory and fix the financial problems Papa had landed them in. Then she would build Southern Comforts, her own restaurant.

“Well, I’m certainly benefiting from your expertise,” Gray said. “You’re an artist.”