Spooning Leads to Forking (Hot in the Kitchen #2) - Kilby Blades Page 0,58
never laid a hand on me if that’s what you want to know. But he doesn’t know where I am. And he’s been trying to find me.”
“And if he does?” Dev’s grave tone was the same.
“Think Buffalo Bill, but a multi-millionaire, with more hubris, wounded pride and a hell of a lot more skin in the game.”
Dev quieted his voice at the same time that his breathing heavied. Even in the darkening twilight, she perceived the clench of his jaw. It took a long minute for him to calm just a little.
“That’s why you always pay with cash,” he concluded finally. “And why you ask me to special order things you could get yourself on Amazon.”
“C’mon…” She shifted her gaze to the water and blushed a little as she spoke. “You know that’s not the only reason why I come to The Freshery.”
When she finally gathered the courage to throw him a shy smile, he wasn’t quite smiling back but he no longer looked ready to murder somebody. Something in his eyes sparkled just a bit. It was embarrassing, how badly she wanted him to flirt back right then, but he didn’t take the bait. It was probably just as well.
“My mom left a guy who wasn’t good for her.”
Dev put it out there a long minute later, breaking a meditative silence that felt sublime in its utter peace. The calm, low rumble of his changed voice soothed her, too.
“Didn’t like to talk about him much,” he continued. “So as not to disrespect Eric, she always said.”
“Eric?” Night falling around her was so quiet, she felt every gentle lap of water against the sides.
“My dad—the one who raised me when I was little. This used to be his boat.”
Dev did something with the oars then—stopped paddling and rested them somehow—as if they had finally reached their destination. Only, their destination seemed to be the middle of the lake.
“He always claimed me as his son, but everyone in town knew.”
Shea crossed her arms against the evening breeze, then leaned forward a little, as if doing so would let her listen even better.
“And anyone who didn’t, figured it out the second they got an eyeful of Delilah.”
Shea winced. “Ouch.”
“Folks were always nice about it…said Delilah took after Eric and I took after my mom, neither of which is true. They did it to spare our feelings, I guess. It worked, too…until I was old enough to catch on.”
“What’d your mom tell you? About your biological dad?”
Dev shook his head and seemed far away as he looked at some point off in the distance.
“Only that she fell in love with him when she was young and that she would’ve given anything for him to have been the man she thought him to be. That he was long gone and it was best for everyone that he was.”
“Was it?” Shea asked. “Best for everyone I mean?”
“I understood why she thought it was. Eric was the best thing a single mother who didn’t want to be single could wish for: a good man who loved her, and who she loved, who would show up to be a great father to all of her kids…”
“But?”
“But she never told me who my real father was. It took me a long time to forgive her for taking it to her grave.”
“What changed your mind?”
The notion of parental forgiveness had infiltrated Shea’s thoughts for days, since she’d gotten to talking more about her dad and the restaurant with Delilah in the kitchen, and especially since she’d been avoiding Tasha’s instructions to get her father onboard.
“Something Pete tried to tell me when I was young, but I didn’t understand ’til I was grown. Sometimes a woman has her reasons.”
23
The Warning
Dev
“Your coffee is on the counter.”
Delilah jutted her chin toward the surface where a to-go cup sat next to the register. She sat on a stool, reading a magazine and looking bored. It was unusual for her—no tidying or displaying or final bustle of getting the bakery ready to open. A lack of music created a soundlessness void that had made Dev’s footsteps echo as he approached the counter. The morning was still dark and Delilah’s voice had been clipped but calm.
Only twice had Delilah pre-made his coffee. Both times she’d been slammed in the kitchen. In her infinite organization, she’d remembered Dev in the stolen minutes between oven runs. Baking was a complex dance of discipline, preparation and timed precision. Even on those two mornings when she’d been too busy