скачать книгу бесплатно
“You look good,” Gabe said and it was such a lie, such an attempt to sweet-talk her, that she laughed. “You do,” he protested.
“Save the charm for someone else, Gabe.” Finally she pushed her shades up onto her head and looked her ex-husband in the eye. “I told you I never wanted to see you again.”
CHAPTER TWO
“AND—” HIS SMILE SEEMED a little brittle around the edges “—I think we both know you didn’t mean it.”
She arched her eyebrows in response. Oh, she’d meant it all right.
“What do you want, Gabe?”
“A guy can’t visit an old friend?”
She laughed outright. At him. At them. At this stupid little dance.
“Gabe, we were never friends.” The lie slipped off her tongue easily. It was better to pretend they had never been friends than to dwell on those memories, to give in to the sudden swell of feelings his presence stirred in her belly. “What. Do. You. Want?”
He ran his fingers through his too-long hair and scowled at her, the fierce look that always warned her he was running out of patience.
Good, she thought, get mad and leave like you always do.
She scowled back. She’d never been overly gracious—she was too busy for that—but in her time with Gabe she’d learned to be polite.
But not anymore. There was no one in her life to be polite to, so she had no practice.
And she wasn’t about to apologize. Not to him.
“I need you,” he said and she fought to keep herself from choking on a sound of disbelief.
“Gabe Mitchell at my door, begging.” She shivered dramatically. “Hell is getting colder.”
“Alice.” He sighed. “This isn’t easy for me. You know that. But I need you. Bad.”
His low tone hit her in the stomach and snaked down to her sex, which bloomed in sudden heat. Too familiar, those words. Too reminiscent of those nights together, when they’d needed each other so much, good sense got burned to ash.
“I really can’t imagine why,” she said, crossing one leg over another, and her arms came across her chest, giving him every signal to stop, to say goodbye and walk away.
But he didn’t and she wondered what was truly at stake here. The Gabe she knew did not fight and he never begged.
“I built the inn,” he said softly. “The one we always talked about.”
It was a slap. A punch in her gut. Her eyes burned from the pain and shock of it. How dare he? He’d walked away with her pride, her self-respect, her dreams of a family and now this.
She wanted to scream, just tilt her head back and howl at the pain and injustice of it all.
The inn. The home they’d dreamed of. He’d built it while she worked shifts grilling grade B steak and making nachos.
She let out a slow breath, emptying her body of air, so maybe the shell she was would just blow away on the wind.
“Good for you,” she managed to say through frozen lips and got to her feet. “I need to go.”
He stopped her, not by touching her—good God wouldn’t that be a disaster—but by getting in her way with his oversize body.
“It’s gorgeous, Alice, you should see it. I named it the Riverview Inn and it’s right on a bluff with the Hudson snaking through the property. You can see the river from the dining room.”
A mean anger seeped into her, culled from her crappy job, her hangover, her ruined life…even from the Dumpster. She didn’t need to be reminded of how much she’d lost and she really didn’t need to be brought face-to-face with how well Gabe had done.
“Like I said—” she didn’t spare the sarcasm “—bully for you. I’ll tell all my friends.” She ducked by him.
“I need a chef, Alice.”
She stopped midstride, snagged for a second on a splinter of hope. Of joy.
Then she jerked herself free and laughed, but refused to meet his earnest blue eyes. Was this real? Was this some kind of trick? A lie? Were the few remaining friends in her life setting up some elaborate intervention?
“Me? Oh, man, you must be in some dire straits if you are coming to me—”
“I am. I am desperate. And—” he inclined his head to the Dumpster, the plaza parking lot “—from the look of things…so are you.”
The bravado and sunglasses didn’t work. He saw right through her and it fueled her bitter anger.
“I’m fine,” she said, stubbornly clinging to her illusions. “I need to get back to work.”
“I want to talk to you about this, Alice. It’s a win-win for both of us.”
“Ah, Gabe Mitchell of the silver tongue. Everything is a win-win until it all goes to shit. No.” She shook her head, suddenly desperate to get away from him and his magnetic force that always spun her in circles. “I won’t be your chef.”
She walked around him, careful not to get too close, not to touch him, or smell him, or feel the heat from his arm.
“I know where you live, Alice,” he said, going for a joke, trying to be charming. “Look, I just want to talk. If you decide after we talk that it’s not for you, fine. That’s totally fine. But maybe you know someone—”
“I don’t.”
“Alice.” He sighed that sigh that weighed on her, that, during their marriage, had filled the distance between them and pushed them further apart. The sigh that said, “Don’t be difficult.”
“I don’t,” she insisted. “I don’t know anyone who would want to live out there.”
“Except you?” Gabe said.
“Not anymore,” she lied. “My break is over. I have to go.”
“I want to talk. Can I meet you at home?” He caught himself. “At your house?”
Painful sympathy leaped in her. He’d loved their house, had craved a home, some place solid to retreat to at the end of the day. He’d finished the basement and hung pictures and shelves and repaired the bad plumbing like a man in love. And in the divorce he’d given it to her, shoved the lovely Tudor away like a friend who’d betrayed him.
“The locks are changed,” she said.
“I’m sure they are, but I’ll bet you a drive out to the inn that you still keep the key under that ceramic frog you bought in Mexico.” He smiled, that crooked half grin. Charm and bonhomie oozing off him and she wanted to tell him no matter how well he thought he knew her, he didn’t.
But the key was under the frog.
“Suit yourself, Gabe,” she told him. “But my answer won’t change.”
“Alice—”
He held out the roses and she ignored them. She hit the door and didn’t look back. She could feel him, the touch of his gaze even through the steel door, through her clothes, through her skin right to the heart of her.
Nope, she shook her head. Not again. Not ever again with that man. She’d worked too hard to forget the past. She’d worked too hard to stop the pain, to cauterize the wounds he’d left in her.
There was nothing he could say that would convince her. Nothing.
“WELL,” Gabe said, tossing the bouquet into the Dumpster. “That went well.”
He shook off the strange sensation in his stomach, brought on by the begging he’d had to do just to get her to listen to him.
Dad would be proud, he thought and the thought actually made him feel better.
He still couldn’t manage to wrap his head around the fact that she worked at Johnny O’s. Last he’d heard, her restaurant, Zinnia or Begonia or something, had gotten a high Zagat rating and someone had approached her about doing a cookbook.
He looked at the neon lights of the cookie-cutter restaurant she’d escaped into and smiled.
This had to bode well for him. She must be dying to get out of this place. He just had to figure out what kind of offer would make her see things his way.
First things first, he’d stop by the house, take stock of her kitchen, run for groceries and have some food waiting for her. Tomato soup and grilled-cheese on sourdough bread, her favorite. Followed up by mint Oreos—another favorite. Maybe he’d get the Beaujolais she loved, set up some candles…
A seduction. He smiled thinking about it, even when something primitive leaped in his gut. It was weird, but he’d set up a sexless chef seduction of his ex-wife.
Whatever it took.
He headed to his truck, climbed in and on autopilot wound his way through Albany to the lower east side. By rote he turned left on Mulberry, right on Pape and pulled in to the driveway of 312.
He took a deep breath, bracing himself.
Empty houses with dark windows disturbed him, ruffled those memories of being a boy and wondering if, when he went downstairs, she would finally be there. If this morning, after all the others, would be the one when the kitchen would be warm, the lights on, the smell of coffee and bacon in the air, and Mom would be sitting at the table. She’d tell him it all had been a mistake and she wouldn’t be leaving, ever again.
Stupid, he told himself. Ancient history. Like my marriage. It’s just a house. It’s not mine anymore.
Finally he looked up at the two-story Tudor—with its big backyard—where they’d planned to start their family. The magnolia tree out front was in full bloom, carpeting the lawn in thick creamy pink and white petals.
Her herb garden looked a little overrun with chives and she must have finally decided that perennials weren’t worth the hassle. Otherwise the house looked amazing.
Sunlight glittered off the leaded windows and he tried not to remember how he’d jumped on the house, probably paying too much. But it hadn’t mattered at the time—the house was meant to be theirs.
And it had been a happy home for a year.
His neck went hot and his fingers tingled. He forced himself to fold the feelings up and shove them back in the box from which they’d sprung.
Don’t care, he told himself ruthlessly, hardening his heart. He let himself go cold, pushing those memories away with the ones of his mother until his heart rate returned to normal, his fingers stopped tingling.
It’s just a building. Not my home.
He got out of the truck and bounded up the slate walkway.
He lifted the blue frog with the bulging eyes that sat on her porch and—as expected—there was the key. But he couldn’t pick it up. His body didn’t obey the messages from his brain. His body wanted to run.
“Hey, man? You need something?” Gabe whirled to find a good-looking, tall…kid. Really. Couldn’t have been older than twenty-six. He stood in the open doorway, a backpack slung over his shoulder.
“Hi,” Gabe started to say. “No. Well, yes. Actually.”
“You selling something?” The kid pointed to the sign Alice had hand printed and posted on the mailbox: No Salesmen, No Flyers, No Religious Fanatics. This Means You.
He smiled, typical Alice.
“No,” he told the kid. “I’m not selling anything. My name is Gabe and I—”
“You’re the dude in the pictures.” The guy smiled and held out his hand. “You look good, keeping in shape.”
Gabe was knocked off stride but managed to shake his hand anyway. “Thanks. Um…I’m sorry, who are you?” And what pictures?
“Charlie, I’m Alice’s roommate.”
Roommate? Gabe’s mouth fell open.
“No, no, man, not like that.” The kid laughed. “Though I did try at the beginning but she pretty much let me know that wasn’t going to be happening. I just pay rent and live in the basement.”
“Why does she need a roommate?” he asked.
Charlie shrugged. “Why does anyone need a roommate? Money, I guess. It’s not for the company that’s for sure. I barely see her anymore. She used to make me dinner.” He whistled through his teeth. “Best food I ever had.”
Gabe’s head reeled, but he saw the sugar he needed to sweeten the deal. Alice needed money, it was the only way his incredibly private ex-wife would ever rent out part of her home and, horrors, share her kitchen with some kid who no doubt scarfed down freeze-dried noodles and Lucky Charms by the boatload.
Perhaps it wouldn’t be so hard to convince her—working at Johnny O’s, renting out the basement. He only needed to push down her pride and get her to see what an opportunity he had for her.
“She is a great chef,” Gabe said. “Look, Charlie. If you don’t mind, I was hoping to come in and wait for Alice to get home. I am supposed to have a business meeting with her.”
“Sure, no problem.” Charlie stepped out onto the porch, leaving the heavy wooden storm door open. “Don’t touch her booze, though. She gets crazy if you drink her stuff.”
Gabe nodded, suddenly speechless as Charlie walked by dragging with him Alice’s scent from the house. Roses and lemon swirled out around him, reminding him of the smell of her blue-black curls spread out across the pillows of their marriage bed, the damp nape of her neck after a shower.
“See you around,” Charlie said and took off on a bike.
Gabe lifted his hand in a halfhearted farewell.
Suddenly, the narrow hallway leading back to the living room with its big picture windows looked a mile long.
The brass key in his hand—a standard house key, identical to the one he’d carried on his key chain for years—weighed a thousand pounds.
Need a chef. Need a chef. Need a chef.
