Can't Stand The Heat Read online

  Adam ground his back teeth. “Find some good stock. Now. Scrape yesterday’s containers if you have to. Go.”

  Milo hopped to it, leaving Adam seething and staring around the kitchen for a good outlet for this sudden frustration.

  The rest of the kitchen was quiet for the first time all night, and it was like the calm at the eye of a hurricane. Everyone was turned away, trying to keep out of the line of fire.

  Everyone except Miranda Wake.

  She was staring straight at him with an expression of open curiosity, as if he were a clock that had stopped and she wanted to take him apart to figure out why.

  That look on her angelic face, plus the knowledge that she’d been the one standing by the stockpot with a spoon in her little hand, built up the hot steam in his head until he was sure it would come whistling out his ears like a teakettle on the boil. His vision narrowed to her face, everything in the periphery like visual static, indistinct and unreal.

  “You,” he said, rage constricting his throat so it came out all raspy and hoarse.

  That startled her out of her contemplation of his inner workings, he could tell. Those big blue eyes got even bigger, and round like a doll’s. Her pink mouth dropped open, then closed with a snap as he advanced on her slowly, stalking her backward until she was pressed up against the walk-in door, well out of sight of the dining room.

  He loomed over her, using his superior height and breadth without remorse.

  “Are you deliberately trying to sabotage me?” he snarled. “You think this’ll make for a fun chapter in your book?” He panted for a second, before adding in a strangled tone, “And all this, after you made me miss the fucking morels!”

  “What?” she gasped. “Have you lost your mind?”

  “The stock,” he pressed, getting himself under control. “It was fine yesterday, when Rob made it alone. But today, with you here, suddenly it’s fucked. Explain that to me.”

  “I can’t,” she shot back. “Rob taught me everything I know about making stock just this afternoon. So if it’s not right, I’m very sorry, but I can’t explain why. And I have no idea what you mean about morels.” That pugnacious little chin went up, as if inviting a hit. Damn her, she didn’t back down for even a second, in spite of his blatant intimidation. And damn him, too, for finding that admirable in some corner of his mind. Even at a moment like this.

  “You will,” he promised her. “Tomorrow. Right now, I have to go clean up your mess and put the rest of the tickets to bed. I want you gone when I’m done.”

  Something, maybe outrage, maybe simple anger, painted rosy flags high on her cheekbones. “I’ll leave when everyone else leaves,” she said, stubborn.

  There was that tickle of admiration again, but Adam ignored it. It wasn’t enough to keep him from smiling gently, the smile Frankie could’ve told you meant Danger, Will Robinson, before saying, “Remember our agreement. You’ll leave when I say. And you’ll by damn be back here first thing tomorrow morning. We’ll discuss this further then.”

  She pressed her lips together mutinously, but didn’t argue.

  “My office. Nine o’clock,” he said over his shoulder as he strode back up to the pass just in time to intercept Milo with a fresh bowl of soup.

  If Miranda made any response, he didn’t hear it, and he refused to examine the roiling mix of emotions bubbling just under his skin. If the surging anger he felt was underpinned with a twist of disappointment, Adam didn’t want to know about it.

  Shut it down, he thought. Finish the night. Deal with it tomorrow.

  Damn it to hell and gone, he’d wanted tonight to be perfect. Was that really so much to fucking ask?

  ELEVEN

  Miranda’s fingers shook as she unbuttoned the hot, oversized chef’s jacket. She stripped it off quickly, wishing the vehement motion would strip away the raw humiliation and general pissed-offness.

  To be talked to like that, in front of the entire kitchen. Miranda’s stomach tightened ominously, reminding her that she should be grateful she hadn’t eaten anything since the meal with the staff nearly six hours ago. None of the people she and Rob (who’d conveniently disappeared before Adam blew a fuse) had served that odd dinner of chicken and artichokes to earlier were looking at her now.

  It was as if Adam’s tirade had turned her invisible, and part of Miranda really wished it were true, because she had no idea how she was supposed to just leave the restaurant before it closed. There was a door by the walk-in that led out to the alley behind the restaurant, but one year wasn’t quite enough time in the city to accustom Miranda to the idea of being in a dark Manhattan alley all alone at night.

  Besides, she needed to see Jess before she left. She folded the soiled jacket between her hands and looked toward the front of the kitchen, where Adam had returned to cast his eagle eye over the few remaining plates yet to go out. As if he sensed her stare, he turned his head far enough to catch her eye and Miranda had to fight not to drop her gaze. The berserker rage might have left his face, but from the tight line of his mouth and the thunderous look of his brow, he hadn’t cooled off much. Okay, so the guard dog wasn’t about to let her past him and into the dining room. Fine. She’d have to hope Jess figured it out when he couldn’t find her later.

  The glower Adam sent her way stiffened her spine enough to get her to move. She’d rather be out back with the crazies and the rats than in here with him!

  Miranda threw back her shoulders and marched to the back door. Every second of that walk, she was aware of having to concentrate not to hobble. The vicious ache in her feet and back, a constant throb of painful pressure, ticked her off even more because Adam had predicted it.

  She was not going to give him the satisfaction of limping.

  With a defiant push, Miranda knocked open the door and stalked out into the alleyway. It would’ve been a more impressive exit if she’d managed to avoid tripping over the empty vegetable crates stacked beside the door, but the resulting clatter and cursing probably scared away any resident crazies or rats, so that was good.

  The noise also seemed to startle the two people who were standing together a few feet away from the door, just outside the pool of light cast by the bare bulb hanging over Miranda’s head.

  The dark figures stiffened and drew apart. Miranda saw the bright orange glow of a lit cigarette, and logically, she knew it was probably just an employee on a smoking break. But still, she tensed with one hand on the doorknob behind her. No amount of wounded pride was worth getting knifed in a back alley.

  The two walked into the light, and Miranda relaxed when she saw Jess. But the other guy made her frown a little. It was the tall, punked-out sous-chef, Frankie. She hoped Jess wasn’t getting too friendly with the cooks. From what she’d seen, chefs were moody at best, certifiably insane at worst.

  “Hey, Miranda,” Jess called. “What are you doing out here?”

  “The restaurant’s almost ready to close for the night,” she hedged, shooting a glance at Frankie. If he’d managed to miss Adam’s meltdown, she didn’t feel particularly inclined to give him a play-by-play.

  “Suppose I’d better get back to it, then.” Frankie sighed, looking like a mournful Goth boy in the harsh direct light.

  He stubbed out his cigarette and looked at Jess, who said, “Oh. Yeah. Okay, well, thanks for the . . . talk.”

  Frankie flashed a grin that startled Miranda with its unabashed wickedness. “Anytime, Bit.”

  And then he was through the door, leaving a blast of heat from the kitchen behind him.

  “What was that all about?” Miranda asked.

  Jess shrugged, but turned his face a little to the side. “Frankie was just giving me a hard time.”

  Miranda didn’t like the sound of that. “What was it he called you?”

  Her brother made a face Miranda couldn’t quite interpret, sort of half rueful, half pleased. “Bit. I don’t know why, maybe because I’m shorter than he is? But everyone in the universe is shorter than Fra
nkie, so . . .”

  An especially evil throb of pain along the arch of Miranda’s left foot distracted her. With a gasp, she stood on one leg and clutched at the offending extremity.

  “Are you okay?” Jess rushed over to hold her up just as her balance started to go.

  “Oh, I’m fine,” Miranda grumbled. “I should’ve worn different shoes, that’s all. I’ll know better tomorrow.”

  Because she would definitely be back tomorrow. If Adam Temple thought he could run her off by yelling at her in front of a crowded room—well, he obviously wasn’t a man to learn from his mistakes.

  “In the meantime,” she said, determination giving her a sorely needed shot of adrenaline. “I’m heading out. Are you coming?”

  Jess glanced toward the kitchen door for an instant before saying, “Nah. I think I’d better stay and see if Grant needs any help closing down. See you at home later?”

  Miranda smiled at his use of the word “home.” “Only if you’re planning to invade my dreams. I’ll be asleep the moment my head hits the pillow. You’re on for breakfast tomorrow, though.”

  With a nod, Jess headed back inside and Miranda tottered out to the curb to hail a cab.

  Before she could raise her arm, however, she was arrested by a hissed whisper from the building corner beside the alley entrance.

  Clutching a hand to her racing heart, she made out the amazing disappearing Robin Meeks, her erstwhile partner in crime on stock detail, gesturing furtively at her.

  “As God is my witness,” she swore through gritted teeth, “if one more person jumps out of the shadows at me, I’m going to stroke out. It’s been way too long a night for this kind of nonsense.”

  “Sorry,” Rob said, not sounding all that apologetic. “But I wanted to talk to you, outside the restaurant.”

  “Oh, is that why you skipped out on me? I thought maybe you knew we’d completely messed up the stock and that Chef Temple was going to lose his marbles over it.”

  He groaned. “Shit, what difference does the stock make, anyway? It’s nothing but broth.”

  “Tell that to the chef. No, really, tell him. Preferably tomorrow morning at nine A.M., so I have time to sleep in while you get your balls handed to you on a chopping block.”

  “Listen, none of that’s important. It’s all small stuff.” Rob waved his hand. “But I heard you were writing a book. Is that true?”

  She stared. “Did I miss the water cooler on the tour? Because I could really stand to know where you all get your information so damn fast.”

  “There’s no such thing as a secret in the kitchen,” Rob told her. “Which is kinda what I wanted to talk to you about. So is it true?”

  “Yes, I have a book deal.” The thrill she got from saying it was probably illegal in twenty states.

  Rob stepped closer and a stray passing headlight caught his eyes in a weird way, making them seem sharp and fragmented.

  “Then I’m your guy,” he said, his voice tight and high.

  “What are you talking about?” Miranda asked, genuinely mystified and really wishing he’d finish creeping her out so she could go home already.

  “You want to know all the gossip? The shady backgrounds, the bad pasts, the rap sheets? Who in the kitchen does the dirt, how and when, and with who else? I know all of it. And I’m willing to spill. With one condition.”

  Miranda’s heart started pounding again, this time from excitement.

  “What condition?”

  He smiled, a thin, unpleasant expression that made him look more like a ferret than ever.

  “Keep my name out of it. If you out me as your source, after what I’m going to tell you, I’ll never work in a restaurant again.”

  It was hours before she made it to bed that night, but they were productive hours. Rob spilled, as promised, loads of dirt. It turned out that he felt he’d been passed over by Adam and Frankie in favor of cooks with less formal training, and it rankled.

  Not that Rob put it so succinctly, but Miranda pieced it together. The many and varied comments on the various line cooks’ immigrant backgrounds and lack of familiarity with classical French terminology were a big clue.

  She couldn’t wait to transpose her notes from their conversation and order them into something resembling a narrative. There was a lot to work with here: criminal priors, Mafia connections, insanely dangerous pranks played on other kitchens and bragged about . . . none of it attributed directly to Adam Temple, but that sous-chef, Frankie, was on the hook for enough illicit nookie in and around the restaurant premises to keep the Department of Health and Sanitation hopping for a year. Which only made her retroactively even more anxious about the fact that Jess had been talking to the guy last night. She needed to nip that friendship in the bud.

  Once she finally hit her bed, she slept so hard she actually missed her alarm going off and had to scramble to get showered and dressed. She put on one of her office outfits, hoping the conservative dark gray wrap dress would boost her confidence with its associations of delivering the verbal smackdown to bad restaurants across the city.

  Jess still wasn’t up when she left. He’d been in his room with the door shut when she got home, but his light had still been on. She worried he wasn’t getting enough sleep, and thought about trying to enforce a curfew or a lights-out policy while she did her makeup.

  Luck was on her side, and she caught a cab right away. The cabbie seemed to know the best way to go, and to not be intent on taking her from the Upper East Side to the Upper West Side by way of Rockefeller Center, so Miranda crossed her fingers and hoped her luck continued to hold.

  The cab pulled up at the corner of Seventy-eighth and Columbus Avenue, where Miranda paid up and got out. She was going to have to figure out a bus schedule; all this cab fare was killing her.

  Market on a Saturday morning was very different from Market on a Friday night. It already felt more welcoming than it had when she’d been there before during off-hours, and Miranda wondered at that. It wasn’t like she’d spent any time at all, really, in the front rooms. Still, the morning sunlight filtered in the dark gold–tinted windows, making the main dining room seem warm and intimate.

  Too bad she had to beard the lion in his lair. Miranda sighed. The staircase down to the private offices was dim, and Miranda noticed for the first time how sore her legs were. This cooking gig was pretty intense on the body, she was starting to realize. Who would’ve thought she’d need cross-training at the gym to be able to get through it?

  No one had bothered to give Miranda a full tour, but Jess had pointed out the staff locker room, and he’d mentioned that Adam’s office was at the end of the same hall. Miranda ended up in front of a heavy metal door that looked as if it had been installed as a bomb shelter or something.

  There were word magnets all over the door, including a sentence right at eye level that said THE BOSS . . . IS IN.

  Fighting down a wave of trepidation, Miranda rapped her knuckles hard against the door.

  “What?” came Adam’s voice, muffled by the thick door.

  Great. He sounded as if he were still aggravated.

  “It’s Miranda Wake,” she called, feeling like a fool. It was awkward to cool her heels outside a closed office, but it would be even more awkward to burst in and find him doing something embarrassing. She couldn’t quite call up a picture of what that might be, but still.

  “Oh, right,” he said. “Were you planning on coming in?”

  Pressing her lips together, Miranda pushed open the door. Adam was behind a big old-fashioned desk, nearly hidden behind a mammoth computer that looked like it might be the first one ever invented. Like it should have its own room and six men to run it.

  Trying not to be obviously in shock over the Stone Age monstrosity Adam was laboriously hunting-and-pecking out keys on, Miranda stood for a moment in the doorway. There was no natural light at all in the basement office, and the greenish reflection from his computer screen should’ve made Adam look sickly and
wan. Unfairly, it didn’t. He looked every bit as tanned and delicious as he’d looked every other time she’d seen him, although minus the crackling energy he seemed to exude in the kitchen.

  Down here, sweating over what Miranda could only presume to be the books, Adam looked like the definition of stress.

  He squinted at the screen, his two forefingers hovering indecisively over the keyboard, and finally blew out a gusty sigh that fluttered the lock of mink-brown hair on his forehead.

  Looking up, Adam blinked at Miranda as if surprised to see her standing there.

  “Hi,” he said. “Um, you want to sit down?”

  “Thank you,” Miranda replied as she moved to the lone chair. Her voice went a little heavy on the irony, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Right. You’re here because . . .” He seemed genuinely lost, and Miranda almost had to laugh. Seriously, she’d been torturing herself in anticipation of this?

  “Last night,” she prompted him, not really sure why she was helping except that he was bound to remember at some point. Better to get it over and done with. “The soup?”

  His face lit up with recognition. “Yes! Sure. That nasty stock you made.”

  Miranda scowled. “I made it the way I was told. It’s not like I was alone on the station.”

  “I know, I know.” He waved her defense away. “I shouldn’t have blown up at you like that. I can get kind of . . . intense during service. My crew knows it’s nothing personal—not that I don’t mean it,” he said.

  Miranda shook her head, confused. “I’m sorry, but you mean what, exactly?”

  “Well, that everything should be perfect,” he said, as if that were eminently reasonable. “That we should always strive for perfection, every night, every minute, and anything less is an insult to the food and the customers. If that’s not the goal, why are we bothering? Perfection is paramount. And that stock?” He looked stern. “Not perfect.”