Undercover Cook. Jeannie Watt

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СКАЧАТЬ as her bare feet hit the blessedly cool tile floor, then reached for her orange kitchen clogs. It didn’t pay to be short.

       Sunday-morning meetings were not the norm for her. Usually she spent that time prepping meals for the two families she cooked for on a weekly basis—the Stewarts and the Ballards—in addition to her catering duties. Today, however, was the only time a prospective bride with a vicious travel schedule could meet with her, and Eden went with it. Happily so, since she had a signed contract in her hand.

       No one was in the kitchen yet, so she stowed her portfolio and her purse in the small back office. Grabbing an elastic band off the top of her desk, she pulled her blond hair into a haphazard knot and secured it just as the rear door of the kitchen banged open, scaring the bejeezus out of her. Patty Lloyd, their prep cook, did not slam. Ever.

       Then one of the lockers next to the back door rattled and Eden let out a breath.

       Justin. Her brother. Who wasn’t supposed to be in until the early afternoon.

       “Why are you here now?” Eden demanded, leaning out the door.

       “Guess.” Justin barely held back a yawn before pulling a white, jersey-cotton stocking cap over his choppy blond hair. Sometimes Eden wondered if he still cut it himself, as he had when they were kids. It wasn’t that he couldn’t afford a haircut. He was just never able to find a barber who could give him the dangerous skater-punk do he wanted.

       “You took a cake order when you shouldn’t have?” Her voice dripped sisterly sarcasm.

       “Hey, you’re one to talk. You volunteered to help with geriatric cooking lessons when you’re swamped.”

       “I’m not as swamped as you, I have help with the lessons and it’s only for six weeks.” She folded her arms. “Besides, it’s community service and that’s not only great for the soul, it’s excellent public relations.” She cocked her head, scowling at her brother. Sometimes she honestly worried about him. “How late did you get in last night?”

       Justin shrugged into a chef’s jacket with a blue-food-color stain dribbled down the front. His favorite jacket. He said it unleashed his creativity. “Two? Two-thirty?”

       “So you got what? Three hours sleep?”

       “I’m too tired to do the math,” he said as he headed past her to one of the two stainless-steel fridges and pulled open the door. A weary smile transformed his angular face as he glanced over his shoulder at Eden. “Did I tell you that I love Patty? That I’m going to make her my bride?” He pulled out a stainless-steel bowl of what had to be cake filling, and held it up. “One less thing to do. If I play my cards right, I may be able to sneak in a nap before I head back up to the Lake.” The Lake being shorthand for Lake Tahoe, where Justin had his second job.

       By day, Justin was the Tremont Catering dessert chef, but he also worked three nights a week at a Lake Tahoe resort hotel as the pastry chef, and, in spite of those two jobs filling much of his time, he kept making high-end cakes. The more he made, the more the orders poured in as word spread. And they all seemed to be rush jobs. If they weren’t to begin with, then by the time Justin fit them into his jammed schedule, they became rushes.

       “You’ve got to stop doing this,” Eden muttered. Her words were barely audible, since she knew they would do no good. She’d been saying the same thing over and over again for how long now? Since he’d taken that first emergency cake order for a bakery that’d had an electrical fire.

       Even on that first order he’d been pushing things. They’d had three big catering events that week, yet he’d still somehow pulled off a masterpiece. And Eden knew the argument she’d get in return—the cakes brought in a lot of extra income. Some old equipment had finally been replaced, thanks to those cakes, and Justin had been able to refurbish the classic Firebird he’d bought from one of Eden’s clients. Plus he was socking away money to make a balloon payment on his condo.

       At some point all this was going to catch up to him—physically, if nothing else—even if he did have Patty. When, exactly, had she made the filling? She was supposed to have gone home shortly after Eden left. Obviously, she hadn’t. Their prep cook needed to be needed, and with their sister, Reggie, out on maternity leave, and Justin’s ridiculous schedule, Patty was working at the right place.

       “When’s this cake due?” Eden asked as she started breading beef for stew. She made five days of container meals for the Stewarts and the Ballards every Sunday and delivered them late Sunday evening. During the remainder of the week, between catering events and prep, she planned menus and typed up reheating instructions, which she saved to her computer for repeat performances. She had the personal-chef gig down to a fine science now.

       “Tomorrow,” Justin said. “I have Donovan coming over to help me deliver.”

       “Then I can have the van tonight?”

       “All yours,” Justin agreed.

       “Great.” Eden hated delivering in her small Honda Civic.

       “Am I making crème brûlée for the Wednesday deal?”

       “Yes. And mini tarts.”

       “Got it.” Justin disappeared back into the alcove known as the pastry cave, and turned on his music. Eden chopped vegetables in time to classic Green Day songs as she browned the sausages for the lasagna the Ballard family requested as a weekly staple. Easy for two teenage boys to fill up on.

       By the time Patty came in at eight-thirty, Eden had every burner on the stove going, as well as two ovens. She tended to hog the kitchen on Sunday, which was why they avoided Monday events if at all possible. Today was officially Patty’s day off, so she would be coming in for only one reason....

       “Good morning,” she said, pulling a scarf from her permed curls. “I thought I’d stop by and see if Justin needed some help.”

       “You know he does,” Eden said. “How late were you here last night?”

       “Only until eight, but I didn’t put down the extra hours. It was my choice to stay.”

       “Put down the hours,” Eden said. “It comes out of the cake money, since that’s what you were here for.”

       “If you insist,” Patty said. “Even though I’m happy—”

       “I insist. But, really, you shouldn’t stay late to help Justin out of situations he gets himself into.”

       “It’s for the good of the company.”

       “Yes.” Hard to argue with that.

       “The oddest thing happened last night,” Patty said as she tied on her oversize apron. “When I went out to my car, there was a young man hanging out in the alley near the van.”

       Eden looked up from the carrots she was dicing. “Just…hanging around? Loitering?”

       Their Reno neighborhood was a quiet one, consisting of a couple small bistro-type restaurants that were open only for breakfast and lunch, law offices and boutique stores in refurbished houses and a quiet, upscale lounge two blocks away. They didn’t get many people lingering after hours—especially in their alley, which was a dead-end.

       “Yes. I thought it was СКАЧАТЬ