Yes Chef, No Chef - By Susan Willis Page 0,82
of Kate firmly from his mind. After all, he rationalised, here was a woman that definitely wanted to be with him and he was convinced they were going to have some fun later, which for now was quite sufficient.
He paid the bill while the waiter removed the three empty bottles from the table and she hung onto his arm as they left the restaurant.
“Coffee at mine?” she asked when they were outside on the pavement waiting in a queue for a taxi.
The cold night air seemed to knock the air from his lungs and his head spun even faster than before. He slurred, “Yeah, that’ll be great.”
Coffee would help, he decided, and if he didn’t have any more to drink he should be able to perform later and when she put her hands inside his jacket and wrapped her arms around his chest he moaned with sheer pleasure. He could feel the mounds of her soft, warm breasts pushed against his chest and he revelled in her female smell longing to lose himself in her body. Surely this mass of warm loveliness would be able to take all the weeks of pain away and when she lifted her face to be kissed he covered her mouth with his lips and probed deeply with his tongue.
The next day when Luke asked him on the telephone how the date had gone he jokingly told him that kissing his lovely cupcake was the sweetest thing he’d done for weeks, to which Luke had roared with laughter and Tim felt he was back in the land of the living again.
Simon was making pastry and Jessie had bought duck and goose in preparation for the Victorian stuffed game pies they were developing that day. Tim didn’t want the pies to be the standard type of stew in a dish with a puffed pastry lid which was the usual recipe in restaurants, he wanted his to be different. He decided to try and put the boned duck and goose one inside the other within a large turkey, which initially would make a fabulous centre piece for the royal wedding day banquet, and then they could cut thick slices from the bird to be wrapped in pastry and lightly oven baked. He worked feverishly all morning alongside Simon de-boning the meat and after stuffing the turkey and putting it into the oven to cook he took a breather in his office.
He’d tried twice during the last three weeks to put the photograph of Kate back in the drawer out of his sight but had now stopped struggling against it, admitted defeat and found it comforting to have her looking at him. Christ, he still missed her so much; it was like a toothache which was constant day and night – it never left him.
Two envelopes had arrived for her that morning and he’d pushed them into his jacket pocket before leaving for work. He pulled them out now and laid them on the desk in front of him. So far, he’d been re-directing her post but the longing to see her suddenly overpowered him and taking his tunic off, he tucked his clean white T-shirt into the waist of his jeans and headed out into the car park.
He knew he was being rash and she probably wouldn’t be there but as he turned the ignition he knew if he stopped to think about whether he was doing the right thing or not he’d change his mind. If there was just the slightest possibility of seeing her then it would be worthwhile.
Chapter Twenty
“What a tosser!” Lisa shrieked. “Just because his world falls apart when Jessica turns his proposal down he decides to have a pop at the first girl that smiles at him…”
Sarah lounged back into a white bean-bag in Lisa’s flat and sipped her coffee while Lisa put Danish pastries onto a plate.
“I know,” Katie agreed. “And he was a horrible kisser…”
Lisa roared with laughter and Katie joined her. “Yeah, and if I say so myself it was the best beef bourguignon I’d ever made. I couldn’t believe Terry could be like that. I mean, he was always so pleasant and nice at work. Now if it had been randy James I wouldn’t have been surprised. But there again, I wouldn’t have made dinner for that creep.”
Sarah bit into a pastry. “I know Lisa is making it sound funny but, Katie, you must have been scared?”
“Well, I was at the time, but you know when I’d calmed