NYPD Red 6 - James Patterson Page 0,47
out her cell phone and flipped the camera into selfie mode. She wasn’t taking a picture—she just wanted one last look at herself before she got to the restaurant.
Kylie tried to think of the last time she’d gone on a blind date.
College. God, I am so out of practice.
She reminded herself of why she was doing this. For one thing, she was doing her friend Cheryl a favor. Plus Zach, of all people, thought it was a good idea. And hell, it was a free dinner.
The Uber pulled up to the restaurant, and she got out. She recognized the tall red-haired man standing at the front desk from her Google image search, only he’d traded his chef ’s whites for a blazer, a tattersall shirt, and a tie.
She smiled. “Kylie MacDonald.”
He returned the smile and extended a hand. “Shane Talbot. Your table is ready.”
He escorted her to a booth in the rear. “What kind of wine would you like?” he asked as they sat down.
“Surprise me,” she said.
He held up three fingers. A waiter appeared with a platter of appetizers while another set a loaf of warm fresh-baked bread and a small stone crock of butter on the table. A minute later the sommelier arrived with a chilled bottle of rosé.
The wine was poured, and Shane raised his glass. “To my meddling mother and my complicit cousin, who came up with this brilliant idea.”
Kylie touched her glass to his and sipped the wine. “Oh my God. This is … I’m not good at wine words. How about darn tasty?”
He laughed. “The guy who sold it to me said it has a crisp palate of strawberry and crunchy apple gorgeously rounded out by light toasty undertones. But I like your description better. It kind of captures our philosophy of locally sourced fresh food, a range of fine but affordable wines, and minimal pretensions.”
“Minimal pretensions?”
“Yes. That means I will now attempt to give you the grand tour of the seven different appetizers on this platter without once saying, ‘La-di-da.’ ”
His descriptions were funny, and the food was every bit as good as Cheryl and Zach had promised it would be.
“This is about the point where I would normally say, ‘Tell me about yourself,’ ” Shane said as they dug into the appetizers. “But Dr. Cheryl gave me a complete dossier on you, so I already know the answers to most of the traditional first-date questions—where you’re from, where you went to school, what you do for a living. So how about you tell me something Cheryl might have left out?”
“Let’s see,” Kylie said. “Did she tell you my favorite action movie?”
“No.”
“How about my favorite Christmas movie?”
“No.”
“They’re the same movie,” Kylie said.
“Really? Which one is it?”
“Back off, pal,” Kylie said. “That’s a second-date question.”
Shane laughed. “Okay, what did Cheryl tell you about me?”
“She gave me a list of culinary schools you went to, all of which I’d heard of, and she told me you were an apprentice to some famous chef in Switzerland, and I was duly impressed even though I’d never heard of the guy.”
“That’s terrible profiling,” he said. “It makes me sound like I’ve spent my entire life in the kitchen.”
“Haven’t you?”
“Heck no. When I was twenty-three I didn’t see the inside of a kitchen for eight solid months,” Shane said.
“Sounds like jail time.”
“You think like a cop. No, I hiked the Appalachian Trail—all two thousand one hundred and ninety miles of it—with my friend Pat.”
“Pat-rick? Or Pat-ricia?”
“Back off, pal,” he said. “That’s definitely a second-date question.”
Three courses followed the appetizers, each paired with a different wine, and by the time they were finished, Kylie had decided that Shane Talbot was too much fun and too damn sexy to be one-and-done.
The restaurant was bustling, but he never once turned to look at the crowd. She’d been married to Spence for eleven years, and she couldn’t remember a single dinner when he’d spent an entire evening completely focused on her.
“I hope you saved room for dessert,” Shane said.
“Dessert, singular? I got through seven appetizers because I was starved, but I couldn’t possibly handle a heaping platter of multiple desserts.”
“Just one, I promise.” He twirled his fingers in the air, and a waiter arrived with two bowls and set one in front of each of them.
Kylie looked at it, leaned down and inhaled the sweet aroma, then finally picked up a spoon and tasted it.
“Butterscotch budino with salted caramel sauce,” she said. “You’re not going to believe this, but this is hands-down my