Fearless Love Read Free Page B

ass sometimes, but she was a hell of a cook.
    “Found us a new egg producer.” He opened the cartons, checking the eggs for dirt. “She lives down the road here. Small operation, maybe eighteen or twenty eggs a day.”
    Darcy raised her eyebrow but said nothing, keeping her focus on the greens.
    Joe felt like sighing again. The hell with it—time to face the problem head on. “Okay, Darcy, let’s talk this out.”
    She turned to look at him, her chin elevated mutinously.
    Joe raised his hands in what he hoped with a calming gesture. “Look, darlin’, I know you’re pissed about not getting the job, and I know you’re a smokin’ cook. Hell, we both know that. If it was just cooking, you’d be a shoo-in. But that’s not all the job involves. Right now, you can’t talk to other people for shit, and we both know that too. If you want to be sous chef, you need to learn how to get other people to work with you. And at the moment, you’re not ready to do that.”
    Darcy froze, chin up, back rigid.
    Oh crap, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.
    “How am I supposed to learn to do that?” she said between her teeth. “I’m spending half my time washing fucking greens and peeling potatoes, for Christ’s sake.”
    He shrugged. “Okay, I know, we’re down on staff. We need somebody to do prep work, but prep cooks aren’t thick on the ground around here. I’ll work with Kit to find somebody long term, and maybe I can find someone to do the crap part of the job now—washing and peeling and slicing. I agree, you shouldn’t get stuck with all of this.”
    Darcy’s back relaxed slightly, and she looked him in the eye for once. “You think Kit will go for hiring more help?”
    “Sure, why not? We lost Herb to the Silver Spur, so we’re down by one. And we’re always scrambling back here anyway. I’ve got a standing order for more cooks.”
    She blew out a breath. “So who did you hire for the sous chef?”
    He shrugged again. “New guy. From Austin. He should be here after we finish lunch service.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Todd Fairley.”
    “Fairley, huh?” She stared down at the greens for a moment, then grimaced. “Hope he turns out to be fair himself.”
    You and me both, sugar. “I guess we’ll find out in a couple of hours.” He turned back to his eggs. At least they seemed to be a neutral topic.
    Three hours later, after the lunch rush had died down, Todd Fairley arrived wearing khakis and a knit golf shirt, and Joe felt the first stirrings of unease.
    Fairley didn’t exactly look like his idea of a chef. No gut, for one thing. No tats. No facial hair or visible piercings. No rat tail. He looked like he got his hair cut regularly, in fact, and he’d obviously shaved within the last four or five hours.
    The two times he’d met Fairley previously in Austin, he’d been dressed for the dinner crowd in his chef’s coat. The food he’d turned out had been respectable—more than respectable if Joe was feeling generous. And he’d come across as a normal member of the kitchen brigade, if there was such a thing as normal where the kitchen was concerned.
    But now he looked really… wholesome . Joe couldn’t imagine him wielding a cleaver to scare off a kitchen rebellion, which was what one of the sous chefs of his acquaintance had done. On the other hand, he looked like the kind of anal retentive type who’d make sure that nothing left the kitchen for the dining room in anything other than the best possible shape, which was what the kitchen at the Rose really needed right now. Since Joe was cooking, he couldn’t expedite at the same time.
    And then there was the fact that Fairley had come very highly recommended by the chef de cuisine at one of the more trendy restaurants in Austin.
    But for a sous chef, Todd Fairley had a more than passing resemblance to an insurance salesman. Brown hair and eyes, warm smile, pleasing manner. He’d probably be a whiz with the customers at Applebees.