Keith (Hathaway House #11) - Dale Mayer Page 0,39

here, if you want to join us.”

He looked at him in surprise, turned to look at the spot, and said, “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

The other guys all smiled. One said, “Join us, please. We’ve been here so long that we’re sick of each other.” They all chuckled.

Keith replied, “I haven’t been here long enough to know who you are, so it’ll be a change for both of us.” And, with that, he set down his tray, and, for the first time in a long time, he had lunch with a group of men. Men who understood what he was going through, where he’d been, and what he was heading for. He thought to himself that maybe this was where he belonged.

Chapter 11

The next few days were harried as several of her staff fell ill. Ilse arrived this morning, earlier than normal, more or less running past everything. She didn’t get coffee, didn’t have a chance to deliver coffee, and by the time the three days were up, she was done. On the fourth morning, she walked in early, not yet knowing if this would be another shorthanded day like the others or not. But, when she walked in, one of her sick men was back to work. She looked at him with joy. “Well, thank heavens you’re back, Mike.”

He nodded. “Really sorry about being gone. I would have been here if I could have.”

“I know,” she said, “and we don’t want you in here sick anyway. It’s best to stay home.”

He nodded. “But I’m doing pretty good now,” he said. “I’ve got all the prep started for the breads,” he said, “so, if you need to take a few minutes, I’ve got at least my job covered this morning.”

“Well, unfortunately,” she said with half a laugh, “you, Tom, and Stefan were out all at the same time.”

He looked at her and winced. “Okay,” he said. “Well, I’m back doing my job, but I guess we still need to cover for them too, don’t we?”

She nodded. “That’s why I’m here. I’ll get the stock ready, and I have to prep the meat,” she said.

“Well, hopefully somebody else will be back in soon too,” he said.

“It would be lovely if they were all back today,” she said, “but there’s no telling when that’ll be.”

As she prepped the meat, piercing it with little slices and popping garlic cloves into each slit, she put four huge roasts into the oven, so that she had sandwich meat at lunch and also had some leftovers that she needed for other recipes.

With the roasts in the oven on low, she turned her attention to getting breakfast items ready. She had lots of bacon to be laid out, cheese to be sliced, and sausage to be cooked. As she turned around, Stefan walked in too.

She crowed. “Yes! It’ll almost seem like it’s normal again,” she said. “With three of you out, now two back, it’ll be like a holiday.”

They just laughed at her. “You could take the day off,” one of them said.

“Well, if all three of you were back on today,” she said, “I might do that, but I really don’t trust that just yet.”

“Trust what?” they asked, with feigned innocence.

She smiled at them. “Trust that it’ll all work out. I want to make sure we’ve got lots of staff here,” she said. “We’re behind on our desserts. We even had to cut back to two choices every day.”

“I bet nobody noticed either,” Stefan said.

“Maybe they didn’t,” she said, “but I did.”

They just nodded because nobody in that kitchen was anywhere near as fanatical as she was when it came to the quantity of what she needed. But that’s the way it was, and, with them back at work, she wanted to make sure that everything was ready and that the deliveries were on track. Then she made herself a pot of coffee and grabbed a cup. When she realized what time it was, she grabbed a second cup and walked to Keith’s room. His door was open, and his light was on, but he looked up at her in surprise.

“I wondered what was up with you,” he said. “I haven’t seen you in days.”

She nodded, walked over with two cups in her hands, and placed one for him on the nearby night stand. “I had three guys out sick at once,” she said, wiping her fluffy hair off her forehead. “I’ll drink this coffee, and then I’m heading back to my place for a