Chapter 22

Chapter Twenty-Two

“ I s it always this bad?” Sophie seemed exhausted.

“One, yes, and two, you don’t have to do this. You’re a sixteen-year-old kid. In school, you don’t have to help so much. I will understand. I will.”

Nathan held his hands up in sheer exasperation. “The cooking will always be here. The kitchen will always be here and it is open for you. You don’t have to work yourself to the bone. That’s my job.”

She was a sweetheart and passionate, the good Lord knew, but it was the holidays, which meant finals. And projects. And parties. And dates and sleigh rides and carriage rides in all of this strange nonsense that these people who were now home from the rodeo decided to do.

He’d dealt with Halloween. He’d struggled with the week of anniversary. He’d coped with the lead-up to Thanksgiving, and then the sheer involved, unadulterated hell that was Thanksgiving, which he had never personally experienced before because chefs took Thanksgiving off. And now? It was the holidays.

And Nanette had announced her retirement.

So he was going to have a stroke. But that did not mitigate the fact that Sophie was a teenager who needed to do teenage things. Like go and find a girlfriend and dance around and stuff whatever girls did.

He didn’t remember being sixteen. He needed to talk to Charlie. Charlie could speak to her.

Actually, Ames was her Cousin Uncle Father. Ames could do it, he was the live-in.

Okay, that wasn’t fair. Ames had never treated him like the live-in. It was really something evil and mean to think when he was feeling all aggravated. Thank God he never said it out loud.

“I know, I know Chef. I’m just—I feel bad. You have so much to do.” Sophie gave him a very earnest look, pushing her hair back behind her ear.

“I do. And this is really not my shtick. But that’s okay. I’m thinking about doing some sort of a plated dinner around Christmas, and then I’m going to take a month off. And everyone can starve.”

That kind of thing he said out loud.

“You’re a dork.” She grinned at him. “I do kind of have plans for tonight. Uncle Ames said that it was cool. But I want to make sure you didn’t need me.”

“I don’t need you tonight. Tonight I’m going to go home and I’m going to let your Uncle Ames order us a pizza. Is it a good date?”

“It’s less a date and more just plans. We’re gonna go ice skating. In Santa Fe there’s a place. There’s a bunch of us. And we’re going to go.”

“I think that sounds amazing. Did your Uncle Ames give you some money?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I’ve got cash, and I’ve got a cute sweater, and there’s a cute girl.”

“Now that is what I wanted to hear.” He winked at her, and she giggled, and then his damn phone buzzed.

“Hold on.” He answered the phone. “Hey, Kase, what’s up?”

“You have a visitor.”

“Who?” No one visited him.

“Says his name is Dan.”

“Do not let him any farther in the property. I’ll be right there.” Nathan hung up the phone and gave Sophie his most serious expression, one reserved for raw chicken and car accidents. “I need you to lock up here and then I need you to call your Uncle Ames and tell him that Dan showed up. He’ll know what that means.”

“You mean the evil ex Dan?” she asked, eyes wide and lips parted with shock.

“Yeah.” God, she heard everything. “I mean, I—I don’t want—I’m going to make him go, okay? But let your Uncle Ames know.”

“I’m on it.” She pulled out her phone. “I’m on it. You—he’s not gonna hurt you.”

Nathan let one of his eyebrows rise all the way up to his hairline. “Excuse me, I am the chef. I will cut him to ribbons, serve him to the dogs, and no one will even miss him.”

“Oh, cool. Be careful. Call me if you need to. I’m here for you.”

Jesus Christ, that was the sweetest little girl on earth, and he loved her more than was reasonable.

“Thanks, kiddo, I know you have my back.” Then he headed off to the office.

Nathan seethed the whole way, his face hot, his hands clenched. How dare Dan show up here? Hell, how had Dan known where he was? Whoever had ratted him out wasn’t getting cookies from him this Christmas.

He slammed into the ranch house through the kitchen, making Nanette and Mrs. Chiara jump.

“Sorry, ladies. Where is he?”

Nanette’s face crumpled in sympathy. “He’s in the formal living room.”

He chuffed out a laugh. He’d learned that the formal living room, which he’d been swept through that first day on the way to Kase’s office, was where the family kept people they had no intention of sharing their house with.

A space to put people in their place, so to speak.

He stopped outside the door, taking a deep breath. Calm. Centered.

He was not going to pop anyone in the nose or start screaming like a banshee when he walked through the door.

In. Out.

Okay, he was ready.

Dan was sitting there, big as you please, wearing a turtleneck and the sports jacket he always called the man’s management tuxedo.

Once upon a time that would have been sexy. Now it was just irritating.

He strode over, skirting the edge of the room. He wasn’t even giving Dan a chance to stand and get close. “What do you want?”

“Nathan, baby, you look…”

“What do you want?” He wasn’t talking to this son of a bitch. He wasn’t dealing with this son of a bitch. He wasn’t doing anything here.

“I’ve been talking to some investors. It’s important that you listen to me here. We can get the restaurant going again. I know a lot of people who want to do this. I know how to do it this time.”

Oh, Nathan didn’t think so.

“Fuck off, man, leave me alone.” He didn’t want to deal with this shit right now. “You’re a liar and a thief. You need to go back to your little fuck star in Houston.”

And he needed to watch his mouth.

“We broke up. He’s not you.”

“Of course he’s not me.” Nathan knew that. It was fucking amazing how Dan had figured it out. “You need to leave the Chiaras alone.”

“You don’t belong out here. This place is ridiculous.”

He stared, his arms crossed, trying for expressionless. Whether or not he was supposed to be here was none of Dan’s fucking business.

Maybe he didn’t belong here, but that didn’t matter. He was building a life here, one way or the other.

He didn’t fit in completely, no, but Ames did, and that was important.

That was the big part.

There was no way he was going to have a screaming fit in the Chiaras’ house. No way.

The kids were in here. Who knew who else was in here. He simply wasn’t going to do it. “Excuse me? I think you need to leave.”

“You don’t understand. I can get the restaurant started back up for you. I have investors. They came to me in private, and they wanted to work with you. And we’re not talking Dallas, we’re not talking Austin, we’re talking New York. They want you to open up in New York.”

Jesus Christ. He swallowed hard, because this was the dream, right? This was the whole thing. This was what everybody wanted.

Nathan found himself standing there staring at Dan because this was the most backhanded awful piece-of-shit situation in the history of piece-of-shit restaurant situations.

Here, let me offer you a chef’s dream, but it’s attached to an asshole you hate, that you can’t trust, and you’d have to lose the family that you were in love with to get it.

Fuck him.

Fuck this.

Fuck everything.

“You have to go. You’re bothering these people.”

“Well, I didn’t know how to get a hold of you.”

“Well, thank God and Greyhound, that’s good. You’ve got to go. This place has children. I don’t want them even to know that you exist. You make this place filthy by standing here.”

Dan gave him a hands up, placating smile. “That’s right, baby, get it out. I know you’re mad. You have a good reason to be mad.”

“I’m going to fucking show you mad,” he snarled. If he’d had one of his chef’s knives is his hand? Somebody would be bleeding.

“Well, there you are.” Ames came strolling into the parlor as if he had nothing better to do, hands loose and ready at his sides. He curled his lip at Dan. “Who’s this?”

“Just someone I used to know.” He tried hard for casual. “Don’t care to anymore.”

“That’s that, then, ain’t it?” Ames moved in between him and Dan. “I reckon you’ve outstayed your welcome.”

“Who are you, John Wayne?” Dan sneered.

Ames never blinked. “No, sir. I like to think I modeled myself on Doc Holliday in Tombstone . You know. About the huckleberry?”

Oh shit. He’d never seen this side of Ames, and while it was kind of hot, he didn’t need the impending bloodshed to come from Ames any more than he wanted it from himself.

Dan gaped. “I—Well, I have business with Nathan, not you.”

“Oh, no, sir. You got no business here. Nathan already said so.”

“I did. And I meant it. I want you out of here.” Dan was a little disease.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Dan snapped. “We’re talking about New York City; we’re talking about Manhattan. We’re talking about a flagship restaurant. You’ve worked for this your entire life, and I’m offering it to you on a silver platter. I have the investors. I have everything, I have signatures. All I need is you.”

Fuck, his heart hurt. “You have to go. You don’t belong here.”

“Neither do you. You belong where you can be celebrated, not trapped in this dusty, cheap redneck wet dream.”

“Now. Out. Ames. We need to make him go. And without the kids disrupted. I don’t want them upset, or the Grannies.”

“Listen to yourself. You are a chef and you’re what? Babysitting. Running an old age home? Catering to the masses? Are you a chuck wagon cook?”

“No, her name is Layla. Ames, please. Quietly.”

“I can do quiet.”

He turned his back on Dan. And went to stand in the hallway so that no one saw whatever it was that Ames did.

He didn’t care.

This whole thing was so fucking stupid.

And he wanted to lie down and cry.