wanted to reciprocate.
He shook off the memory. He could not let himself get distracted. He had work to do, a restaurant to run, a boss to keep happy, and a sous chef to avoid murdering. Getting entangled with Grace Danvers would be career suicide.
After talking with Adam, Jaime returned to the kitchen to finish prepping for tonight. This was a slower time of year for the restaurant, and he didn’t expect a huge crowd. But that didn’t mean he didn’t want the food to be perfect each time: it didn’t matter if a customer was a state senator or some local from Heron’s Landing. Every time they served food, it should be amazing.
Eric, though, seemed hell bent on doing the exact opposite. Jaime caught him texting in the pantry when he should’ve been prepping. Later, Eric overcooked the salmon, and Jaime almost tossed the plate in his sous chef’s face. A headache was threatening, and this was one instance when he wished he were the boss of River’s Bend and could fire anyone he wanted.
Technically speaking, he could fire Eric, but Adam had asked him to stick it out. So he would stick it out. Even if it drove him to drink, he would do it, at least until after the New Year. The last thing Jaime wanted to do was add to Adam’s plate when the vineyard still wasn’t out of the red completely.
As the night wore on, Jaime began muttering in Spanish, calling Eric all kinds of names he wouldn’t understand. Everyone knew when Jaime spoke Spanish in the kitchen was when he was pissed. The words flowed in a river of rolled r’s and slightly lisped c’s, the accent regional to El Salvador and how his parents spoke Spanish at home.
At any rate, by the time he got to go home, Jaime had decided a bottle of wine would be his best partner. Sometimes he hated Heron’s Landing—or rather, hated how small and insular it was—while other times it had been the place he’d felt most at home. It was a strange contrast, and one he’d yet to fully reconcile. He had friends here—Adam most of all—but oftentimes he still felt like the strange foreigner, even though he was just as American as his sous chef.
And of course, there was Grace. Grace! In his mind, Jaime had begun calling her Graciela, and sitting on his couch, he leaned his head back and sighed. Graciela, Graciela, what am I going to do with you?
When he’d first met her, he had to admit, he’d barely noticed her. She’d been shy, young, her long hair in her face, and she’d stuttered her name and subsequently hadn’t said another word when Jaime had come over for dinner at the Danvers’ home that first time. Back then, Carolyn had still been alive, and she and Adam had kept the conversation going, laughter and jokes filling the room.
Even the Danvers patriarch and the boss of River’s Bend at the time, Carl, had been in a good mood. Jaime had just been offered the job of executive chef at River’s Bend, and he had all kinds of ideas of how to bring the restaurant to a whole new level. Although Carl had been skeptical, Adam had been wholly supportive.
Grace, though, hadn’t said much during that dinner. She’d just watched, passing a bowl of food whenever asked. Jaime had sat next to her and had tried to engage her in conversation, but she’d been so shy that he’d eventually given up. He’d been twenty-five and too interested in himself to draw out an awkward eighteen-year-old who wore long skirts and bangles.
Something had shifted since then. After Grace had returned to Heron’s Landing after receiving her degree in studio art, she’d blossomed. Oh, she looked only a little bit older, and she still wore her hair in braids, but she wasn’t that shy girl of eighteen. She was a woman now, and Jaime—goddamn him—had noticed.
Jaime closed his eyes. He’d never, in his wildest dreams, would’ve thought Grace would approach him and confess her feelings. He’d known she liked him—he’d be an idiot not to notice, but he’d assumed she’d be too shy to say anything to him. When she’d come to him, wearing that dress, her mouth red and her creamy skin glowing in the lamplight? He’d been lost.
“Fucking hell, I’m a mess,” he muttered to himself. He took the bottle of wine and stuffed it back into the fridge. He wasn’t drunk, but he was