Spicing Things Up Read online

  Chapter 16

  Daphne started to turn to Patrick, hesitated, and then instead smiled at the last customer as she started toward the counter to make a purchase. “That piece is one of my favorites. I’m glad you like it.”

  She’d designed a leaf pattern with different shades of gold, red, and orange gleaming between each vein of lead. When the sun hit the beveled glass in the cut sections, the prisms split the light into a myriad of tiny rainbows.

  The woman held it like a cherished possession. “Do you make stained-glass patterns for every holiday?”

  Daphne nodded. “I design cornucopias for Thanksgiving and wreaths for winter.”

  “Do you have any in stock now?”

  “I might have a cornucopia in the back room. Let me check.”

  Patrick shifted impatiently, but Daphne left and returned shortly with the last one. She’d have to make more. She’d saved this one, intending to donate it to a raffle Grams ran every Thanksgiving to raise money for Christmas toys for the poor. This year, she’d have to donate a stained-glass wreath. She had some of those in storage at home.

  The woman smiled with satisfaction as she paid for her two purchases and left the shop. Then Daphne and Patrick were finally alone. Daphne turned the sign in her shop door to CLOSED and motioned for Patrick to join her in her workroom, where they wouldn’t be seen. She wanted to get this over with. Whatever Patrick came to tell her, she’d rather not hear it, and the sooner he left, the better. It still hurt too much to be around him. A sign of failure. Of not being worthy enough.

  She closed the workroom door, moved behind its large center table, and looked at him. Was he sorry he’d returned to his wife? Had they realized that sharing a roof and money wasn’t worth sustaining a loveless marriage? Did he want her back? I hope not. The thought whispered in her mind, tentative, but obstinate.

  A smile lifted Patrick’s lips. “I’ve missed you. I hate the idea of not having you in my life. I’ve allowed myself to hope that you’ve missed me, too. And then I realized that we could still see each other. I could drive to Mill Pond, to your house, the third Thursday night of each month.”

  Her back stiffened. Outrage clogged her throat. She stared at him. “Isn’t that the night your wife drives to her friend’s house to play bridge and spends the night?”

  His smile widened. “Exactly.”

  “You’re asking me to be your whore?”

  He blinked, surprised. “Of course not. I’m asking you to be my lover.”

  “Same thing.” She didn’t recognize her voice. It sounded cold and brittle. It reminded her of his wife’s tone.

  Patrick’s brows furrowed in a disapproving scowl. “Really, Daphne, we enjoyed each other’s company so much before, why not keep doing it? I could bring a sumptuous supper and wine. We could listen to classical music together and then make love. Why deprive ourselves?”

  “You went back to your wife. You’re a married man.”

  “I was married before.”

  “You were separated, filed for divorce.”

  “But married.”

  “It’s different, and you know it. You made a choice. You didn’t choose me.”

  “I’m staying with my wife for practical reasons,” he argued. “I’d see you because we’re so right together.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Do you love me?”

  She’d caught him off guard. He glanced at the tools that she used for cutting glass and making designs. They were arranged on a narrow, side table on the far wall. She waited, and finally he said, “Do you love me?”

  “I thought I did. Not anymore.” She spoke the truth, but it surprised her.

  “I see, and does that have anything to do with the man who kissed your nose and has a date with you this evening?” His tone changed. “You certainly didn’t waste any time replacing me.”

  He sounded put out. Too bad for him. “Tyne? He’s my upstairs neighbor.” She was about to say that he felt sorry for her and was trying to keep her occupied, but changed her mind. Instead, she shrugged her shoulders. “The minute you dumped me, he started dropping in more often.” Patrick didn’t need to know that it was to check on her, nothing more.

  Patrick wrinkled his nose. “He smelled like garlic.”

  “You noticed?” Daphne smiled. “He’s a chef. He’s traveled most of the world to perfect his cuisine.”

  Patrick’s lips thinned into a tight line. “Then you two have little in common. You won’t eat food that’s seasoned with anything more exotic than salt and pepper.”

  “I do now. Tyne’s tempted me to try a lot of new things.”

  “I’m sure he tempts lots of women.” Patrick couldn’t hide a sneer.

  “Probably, but he doesn’t talk about himself very much.”

  Patrick snorted. “I doubt he has much to say. Where has he traveled to? Canada and Mexico?”

  Daphne had never realized what a snob Patrick was. And how condescending. She said the countries as she counted them off on her fingers. “Italy, Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, Thailand . . .”

  Patrick interrupted. “It must be nice to have parents who can send you anywhere.”

  “Did I imply that? His parents are rich, but he didn’t use their money. He cooked his way from one place to another. He wanted to learn the local cuisines.”

  “And now he’s in Mill Pond, and he’s found a lonely, lovesick woman to entertain himself with. He’s a pro at a lot of things, isn’t he?”

  That stung, but it ticked her off, too. “In case you haven’t noticed, women flock to Tyne. He doesn’t have to look for one.” She motioned to the clock on the wall. “These are my business hours. I have to open the shop again. Your offer doesn’t appeal to me, but I wish you the best with your wife.”

  Shoulders stiff, he left the shop, and Daphne turned the door’s sign to OPEN. People who’d passed it by returned. She stayed busy until closing time. Then she locked the door, returned to her workroom, out of sight, and called Tyne.

  When he answered, she tried to keep her voice light, but she wasn’t that good at hiding what she felt. “I called to thank you for your display in my shop. It was for Patrick’s benefit, and it worked.”

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Patrick has a bit of a cruel streak, but I’ll be fine. I don’t know if you were sincere or not when you invited me for supper, but I’m going to my parents’ house tonight. They’re leaving Mill Pond for a vacation on Monday, so they won’t be happy if I don’t show up.”

  “No parents when they leave on Monday?”

  A warning bell alerted her to trouble. There was something about his tone. Had she made a mistake telling him? She hurried to say, “I have lots of orders to work on. I won’t have time to miss them.”

  Tyne laughed. “Life isn’t all work, no play, Daphne. I have plans for you.”

  “Plans?” What did that mean? But then she remembered that she worked days and he worked most nights. Their schedules would keep them apart.

  “You’re mine on Sunday and Monday nights.”

  “Harley’s Halloween party isn’t this Sunday. It’s the next one.”

  “I know, and you’re going with me.”

  “I can’t do that.” There’d be lots of people, lots of noise.

  “It’s not good to sit and twiddle your thumbs. I’ll think of something for us to do. You’ll have to drop in at the inn for supper a few nights, and you like motorcycles, don’t you?”

  “Motorcycles?” Her voice squeaked. “No, I can’t.”

  Another laugh. “Sure you can. Gotta go.” And he hung up. Again. Drat the man!

  But a tiny voice, somewhere deep inside her, began to hum. A motorcycle would scare her half to death, but time spent with Tyne might be just what she needed right now.

  Chapter 17

  Tyne stared at his cell phone. What had he been thinking? What the hell was he going to do with Daphne two nights in a row? Relief wriggled through him. F
rom the sound of it, she hadn’t gone back to the professor. He should have asked how things went between them. What had that jerk come to talk to her about? He’d do that the next time he saw her.

  He turned off the heat for the tarragon butter he’d drizzle over the grilled swordfish, then began to dish up the food. The guests would crowd into the dining room soon. He finished his side of burnt carrots with goat cheese and arugula.

  When he remembered Daphne’s reaction to a motorcycle ride, he grinned. You’d think he’d invited her to ride bulls with him at a rodeo. Damn, she lived a sheltered life. What was she afraid of? Almost everything. It was time for that to change.

  He removed Paula’s pan-fried veal chops with lemon, sage, and mascarpone from the oven. Howard, the evening kitchen helper, carried it to the dining room. Tyne had made parslied potatoes as a side to mop up all of the sauce. And he’d added roasted tomatoes with bread crumbs for variety.

  Paula and Ian had asked him to be a friend to Daphne, so that she’d have a shoulder to cry on. But he’d taken it a step farther. He’d signed himself up to be her social director, too. He did enjoy spending time with her, though. And he was pretty sure Shadow had to be missing him by now. That was one cute cat! He enjoyed jostling Daphne out of her comfort zone, but his brother, Holden, would say that was due to his perverse nature. It was true. He did love a challenge.

  Daphne was beautiful in a classy, understated way with her thick, wavy, light-brown hair, hazel eyes, and willowy figure. Tyne could understand why Chase had a thing for her a while back. Her skin glowed like fine porcelain.

  Tyne removed the tossed greens from the refrigerator and added black olives, anchovies, and feta to the other ingredients for his Greek salad. Tonight, he’d added pickled beets for fun.

  He frowned, his thoughts returning to Daphne. Maybe Paula was right. Maybe he was spending time with too many happy couples, and it was warping the way he viewed things. Normally, he wouldn’t have even noticed Daphne. She was too subtle. But hell, everyone he spent time with in Mill Pond had already said their I do’s. The only guy who still hung out with his buddies was Jason Baxter, and he was an idiot. He’d gotten Jodi pregnant, and they were living together, but Jason still acted like he was single.

  “Maybe when Jodi has her baby, he’ll change,” Ian had said. “Holding your kid in your arms changes everything.”

  For Ian, sure. Ian couldn’t wait until Drew was born. Ian was an upstanding family man. Tyne doubted fatherhood would affect Jason, but for Jodi’s sake, he hoped the baby would make some difference. Tyne remembered when Ian had handed him Drew to hold. He’d tried to finagle a way out of it, but once that baby looked up at him, all serious and concentrating on his features, he’d felt a direct hit to his gut. And the kid wasn’t even his.

  Was he getting too settled in Mill Pond? Or had he reached a different stage of life? He’d passed thirty, and most people his age were married with kids. He’d focused on his career and traveling. They’d focused on meeting and settling down. He thought about starting a new restaurant. They thought about paying their mortgage and signing up their kids to be in sports.

  The doors to the dining room opened and closed. The buffet groaned with food. Guests flooded to the square tables and lined up to fill their plates. Gratefully, Tyne pushed Daphne out of his mind. He needed to concentrate on his job.

  But the night flew by, and it ended sooner than usual. When he locked the kitchen doors behind him, he wasn’t ready to go home. A good book waited for him there, but he was too restless to concentrate. Someone had mentioned that there was a football game on TV. He couldn’t miss that, so he jumped in his Jeep and drove to Chase’s bar. Would it be different if he had someone waiting for him at home? Where had that thought come from? Ian couldn’t wait to drive home to Tessa and Drew, though. Paula got antsy to see Chase, Aiden, and Bailey. Even Cody, a senior in high school, couldn’t wait to hang up his dishtowel and drive to his girlfriend Lexy’s house.

  Tyne shook his head. Nope, not for him. He still had more mountains to climb, more things to achieve. When he walked into the bar, he started for an empty stool and then realized that Miriam sat, hunched over a drink, a dozen stools down. An aura of stay the hell away from me circled her. Well, that wouldn’t do. He dropped down next to her.

  She glowered at him in a sideways glare—almost eye-level, she was so tall. Her thin, pointy elbows rested on the bar, and her dark, corkscrew curls stood askew. Miriam must have repeatedly raked her hands through them. Her generous mouth turned down at the corners.

  He had to give her credit. She had that schoolteacher thing going for her, could look more intimidating than most. Not enough to get rid of him, but it probably worked on the majority of people. He motioned to Chase for his favorite beer and turned to look at her. “Drinking away your sorrows, huh? If you need a ride home, you can count on me.”

  Another glare. “I know my limits.”

  “Which gin ‘n tonic are you on?”

  “Only my second, and I’m sipping.” She nodded to Chase when he brought Tyne’s beer. “Ask him. I’m not drowning myself in alcohol.”

  Chase leveled a look her way. “Something’s eating at her, but she shooed me away when I offered a shoulder to cry on.”

  “Is that so?” Tyne got comfortable and settled in. “So what’s the deal? Why are you here?”

  She locked gazes with him. “If I’d have called Daphne, she’d have come to hold my hand, but she’s at her parents’ tonight, and I didn’t want to bother her. I don’t intend to spill my guts to anyone else.”

  An unsubtle clue for him to get lost. Except he wasn’t going to. “Did your longtime, secret lover break up with you?”

  She grunted. “You know better.”

  “We can play a round of twenty questions, or you can tell me. You look like you need a friend.”

  “You’re not my friend.”

  “Yet. I can feel the bonds forming.”

  She closed her eyes. Her lips moved as if she were silently counting to ten. “You don’t care about boundaries, do you?”

  “Nope, you’ve got me there. I’m a man of few social graces, for sure, and I’m in no hurry. I can wait till you’re ready to talk.”

  The words spilled out in a rush. “One of my students tried to kill herself today.” She looked surprised at herself and took another sip of her drink.

  He reached for his beer. Damn, that was heavier than he’d expected. “She’s just a kid, right? How big can her problems be?”

  Miriam rolled her eyes. He probably deserved that. He’d worked with teenagers in different kitchens, and he liked them, but other than that, he didn’t know much about them. When he was that age, he’d been a real pill. He was lucky some teacher or adult hadn’t murdered him before he reached twenty.

  Miriam turned to face him. “Everything’s blown out of proportion to teenagers. No one’s felt pain like they do. No one suffers, laughs, excels like they do. Everything revolves around them, the good and the bad.”

  He frowned. “And they don’t see anything as temporary? They haven’t heard the words This, too, shall pass?”

  Miriam drained the last of her gin and tonic, then motioned to Chase for a beer. “This girl was quiet, held everything in. I knew that, but I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t see how much she was suffering under the surface. I can usually tell.”

  Tyne gave a low whistle, impressed. “You must really pay attention to each student.”

  “I do. I usually see some clue, some change in behavior. Not this time.” Her hand went through her curls again, making them stand on end. She could double for Medusa.

  “If the girl was quiet and never got in trouble, what could be so bad she couldn’t face it?” Teachers had threatened to flunk Tyne, not because he got Fs, but because he “didn’t work up to his potential.” How many times had he heard that? His parents had threatened to disown him on more than one occasion. But that was their problem, not his. “Was she pregnant?”r />
  “Lord, no! She never fit in, didn’t have any friends. The other kids teased her. Self-esteem’s fragile at seventeen.”

  “Her parents should have taught her martial arts.”

  Miriam shook her head. “Not everyone’s a fighter, like you. Someday, the kids who tormented her will read her name in the newspapers for some big achievement or award. She’s a brain. Persistent and creative, but no one values that much in high school. She’ll grow into herself.”

  “Since she’ll live.” Tyne took another draw on his beer. “She will live, right? No permanent damage?”

  “She’s going to be okay. Hopefully, she’ll learn from this, grow stronger. If I have anything to do with it, this will be a wake-up call.”

  He studied Miriam. “You’re one hell of a teacher.”

  “I like to think so.” Her shoulders relaxed. She picked up her beer mug to clink it against Tyne’s. “I feel better now. I’m talked out. Thanks.”

  “That’s what friends do.”

  She snorted. “We’re friends now?”

  “Why not? What’s not to like about me?”

  She laughed. “You won’t win any modesty contests. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Modesty’s overrated. I don’t believe in tooting your horn, but I don’t believe in hiding your talents under a rock either.”

  She gave him a sharp look. “I like you.”

  “I like you, too. You okay now?”

  She nodded. “You can’t win ’em all. I do the best I can with what I’ve got.”

  They sat there, side by side, and watched the football game while they finished their beers. They made small talk between plays while Miriam drank two glasses of water and Tyne drained a second mug. “Are you safe to drive home?” he asked when Miriam pushed to her feet.

  “I’m in good shape. You?”

  “Ready to go home.” Tyne motioned to Chase and paid for him and Miriam and then walked her to her car. “When are you going to go visit her?”

  “Once she gets out of the hospital. She has good parents. She needs to know there are other people who care about her, too.”