Completely Smitten (17 page)

“I’m sure you have better uses for the money at the moment.” Blackstone shrugged. “And the restaurant is doing well. I can afford to serve a meal on the house now and then.”

Tucker gave Blackstone a sad glance, almost as if he wanted to protest again but was afraid to push too hard. “Thank you, Alex.”

Blackstone nodded. “My pleasure. I want you to come back when you can, Mr. Tucker. There’re always ways to accommodate our very best customers.”

Tucker nodded, thanked Blackstone again, and made his way to the front door. He still looked defeated, but not quite as destroyed as he had a moment earlier.

Blackstone stared after the man. Ariel watched Blackstone. She hadn’t expected kindness from him. Somehow it put her at ease.

“Mr. Blackstone,” she said, while he was still staring at the door, “do you know a man named Darius?”

He turned toward her, a frown creasing his brow. “Darius? Darius what?”

She shook her head. “I never learned his last name. He’s about as tall as you are, with blond curly hair. He has a runner’s build, very blue eyes.”

“Darius?” There was something in the way he said the name, an incredulity, as if she were dredging a long-forgotten name out of his past.

“Yes,” she said. “He was staying at Mr. Vari’s house in the Idaho wilderness area, even though Mr. Vari denies it. He saved my life.”

“Mr. Vari?” This time the incredulity was real.

She shook her head. “Darius. I’d like to thank him. But Mr. Vari says he’s never heard of him. I’d just like a way to contact him.”

“So you came here to see Mr. Vari.”

She looked down at her hands. They were still threaded together. “I came for the job. I moved to Portland earlier this year and then my position got eliminated. When I saw the ad, I thought I’d apply. The fact that Mr. Vari’s here is icing on the cake.”

“Yet you brought that up first.”

“Actually, you did.”

His smile was gentle. “Have you worked in a restaurant before?”

She was a little startled by the change of subject. “Yes. I waited tables throughout high school and college.”

Blackstone left the maitre d’s station, placed the leather folder with the soon-to-be voided credit slip near the cash register, and reached beneath the bar.

Ariel glanced over her shoulder. The people at the remaining table were enjoying their entrees. She hadn’t seen anyone serve them the food, a fact which she thought odd, since she had been staring right at them.

“Ms. Summers?”

She turned toward Blackstone.

He had set a slip of paper on the counter and held a pen. “Here’s an application, if you’re interested.”

“Yes,” she said. “I am.”

“Mr. Vari handles the staff. I’ll get him.”

Blackstone seemed so professional, yet she had the sense that he was amused by her. He gave her the pen, then headed down the aisle between the tables, stopping to charm the people eating their entrees. They all seemed to perk up when he spoke to them, and as he moved on, they talked about him in an excited whisper.

She had forgotten how famous this place was. In the age of the celebrity chef, Blackstone had become an important person.

And she had spoken to him as if he were just anyone. He had made her feel at ease, as if everything were about her, not him.

Perhaps that was part of his charm.

She bent over the application. She had a resume folded in her purse, but people usually didn’t use resumes for simple restaurant jobs. Apparently not even for jobs at high-end restaurants. Still, she reached inside and pulled the resume out, partly so that it would help her remember everything she needed to know.

Ariel glanced at the glass door.

This was her last chance to leave.

Darius had backed away from the swinging door. He was heading down the hallway to the employee break room, where he had hung his coat, when Blackstone entered the kitchen.

“Thanks for the echo,” he said.

That made Darius stop. “Huh?”

“The echo,” Blackstone said. “That spell you did so that you could hear our conversation created a lovely reverb that even now is making me slightly dizzy. Can you undo it, please?”

He was often polite when he was angry. Darius snapped his fingers and slipped inside the break room, grabbing his coat off the back of a chair.

Blackstone followed him. “You can’t leave now. You have to go see her.”

“Why? She’s bothering me.”

“That’s clear.” Blackstone crossed his arms and blocked Darius’s way out of the break room. “Is Darius who I think he is?”

Darius’s heart beat harder than usual. He made his expression as impassive as he could. “I don’t know. Who do you think he is?”

“The guy who can’t seem to find a hundred people who were meant to be together?” Blackstone’s voice held a soft contempt. He had no idea who he was talking to. None at all.

Darius couldn’t answer him. “I would like to leave.”

“There’s a woman waiting to see you.”

“I don’t want to see her.”

“I think you should.”

“Who are you? My boss?”

Blackstone’s eyebrows went up. “In this restaurant, yes, I am.”

“Fine,” Darius said, shrugging the coat over his shoulders. “I quit.”

“You can’t quit.”

“I just did.”

“Because you’re afraid of a woman.”

“I’m not afraid of anyone.”

“Oh,” Blackstone said softly, “I think you are.”

Darius felt a blush rise on his cheeks. Some of his emotions were apparently obvious and others were so hidden, not even his best friend knew about them. Not that it was Blackstone’s fault. Darius hadn’t told him about anything in his life that happened before the birth of Christ. He didn’t think it was any of Blackstone’s business.

At that moment, Nora opened the door and peeked her head inside. “Sorry,” she said, “but there’s a problem out front.”

Ariel. Darius raised his head. Something had happened to her.

“What kind of problem?” Blackstone was asking.

“One of the diners has collapsed.”

Blackstone hurried out the door. Darius followed, silently cursing himself. He should have used that moment to hurry out of the building, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

The kitchen door was already swinging by the time he reached it. Blackstone’s longer legs had gotten him to the table in half the time it took Darius.

Darius shoved his way through the swinging doors and stopped. Ariel was kneeling beside a man who was prone on the floor. She was doing CPR with the skill of an expert. Blackstone knelt beside her and touched the man’s chest.

At that moment, the man coughed and seemed to come around. Darius clenched his own hands tightly together. He hoped Blackstone was careful in healing the guy. Ariel was too smart; she might figure a few things out that she shouldn’t.

The man started to sit up, but she kept him down, holding his hand and talking to him. The other patrons were fluttering around him, looking useless. Nora was on the phone in the kitchen, apparently having called 911.

Darius wasn’t needed here. Ariel was all right, the situation was under control, and he would only make matters worse. He slipped out the side door and stood under the eaves for a moment, feeling shaky.

She had described his other body with such precision: a runner’s build, very blue eyes, curly blond hair. And as tall as Blackstone. She had said that part with awe, as if she preferred tall men.

She had been attracted to him. He should have felt flattered by this, but all he could feel was appalled.

He was not the man she thought he was. And the way things were going, he probably would only be that man for two weeks during every year of her lifetime.

He was as big a failure as Blackstone thought he was. He couldn’t even do simple spells anymore.

And now the Fates were tempting him.

He didn’t think he had enough strength to hold out.

*Eleven*

Ariel sat with her back to the wall near the kitchen door and watched the restaurant go through its late-afternoon rituals. In the front, the maitre d’, a slender middle-aged man who looked comfortable in a tux, spoke on the phone. The bartender sliced limes behind the bar, and three different waiters set tables for the dinner crowd.

The mess that had been the dining room half an hour earlier was long gone. The ambulance had come, the paramedics complimenting her on her quick thinking as they strapped the man to the gurney and plied him with oxygen. His family left with him, their meal unfinished, the bill not paid.

How did this place make any money?

Blackstone didn’t seem concerned by any of it. He had been the picture of calm beside that dying man. It almost seemed as if his touch had awakened the guy.

In fact, once the ambulance left, Blackstone and Nora seemed more concerned about Ariel. They sat her at this table, and Blackstone gave her some of the best stew she’d ever had in her life. When she found out it was rabbit, her stomach didn’t churn as she would have expected it to. Instead, she felt like asking for more.

The man really was a magician with food.

She was eating the last of her French bread and leaning back in her chair. It felt good to be off her feet. Those high heels did not agree with her ankle at all.

From the conversations she’d already overheard, she realized the first reservations of the evening were for five, and by five-thirty, the place was going to be full. The kitchen was bustling, with prep cooks and regular chefs and dessert chefs and people who specialized in foods she’d never heard of.

Blackstone was supposed to be cooking tonight, but he seemed unconcerned. Nora had said that once he figured out the rabbit stew, he felt his work for the evening was done— even though it wasn’t. He was sitting across from her now, a frown on his face. Nora sat next to him, her hand casually resting on his knee. The two of them looked so affectionate together that it was hard to believe they’d been together as long as they had.

It was, obviously, true love.

“Ariel,” Blackstone said, staring at the side door, “I’m going to hire you.”

She blinked, startled at the turn in the conversation. She had thought he’d do something to recognize her quick thinking, but not this. “You haven’t even checked my credentials.”

He smiled. “Credentials are a crapshoot. What matters in restaurant work is how people handle themselves when the boss is not around. You weren’t even hired yet and you dug right in.”

She set down her bread. “To be honest, I would have dug right in if he’d fallen on the street.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s what I like.”

“You don’t know why I’m out of work or what I’ve done for the past few years or anything.”

He faced her, put his elbow on the table, and rested his chin on the palm of his hand. It was a lazy movement that reminded her of Darius. “So tell me.”

She glanced at Nora, who was frowning. For some reason, Nora didn’t approve of his actions. And that seemed odd, because just a few moments ago, Nora had been very accepting of Ariel.

Ariel took a deep breath and decided to start at the beginning. She told him about the triathlons and the rotator cuff. She didn’t tell him about the broken ankle, though. Just the need to rethink her future and the way she had come to Portland for a job that disappeared out from under her.

“I remember that merger. Even though I’ve lived in this country for…” Blackstone paused, as if choosing his words carefully. Nora gave him a sharp glance. “… what seems like hundreds of years, I still don’t understand the need to merge and get larger. People contact me all the time with offers for the restaurant, ways we can make it a national chain, and I keep explaining that Quixotic is me, and I can’t be franchised. No one seems to understand that.”

“I do,” Nora said, smiling at him. “I don’t want you to be franchised. I’d have to share.”

“And you don’t share well.” He smiled back at her. They stared at each other lovingly for a moment, and Ariel had to look away. She felt as if she were intruding on a private moment.

He leaned over and kissed Nora, then slipped his arm around her back.

“So you’ll work for me, Ariel?” Blackstone said.

Ariel started. “I—I don’t know.”

“That’s what you came here for.”

She nodded.

“That and Andrew Vari.”

She froze. What was Blackstone doing? Attempting to manipulate her somehow?

“Yes,” she said. “Is he here yet?”

“He left.” Nora’s tone was flat, as if she were deliberately keeping emotion from it.

“When?” Ariel felt her shoulders tense. She already knew the answer.

Nora’s gaze met Ariel’s. “When he knew the man having a heart attack would be all right. An—” and she hesitated briefly, as if she were about to say something else “—drew didn’t want to see you.”

“Why?” Ariel asked, although she already knew the answer.

“He wouldn’t say.” Blackstone’s strangely colored eyes met hers. “In fact, he’d never mentioned you before. Is there something I should know about?”

She looked away. Then she set her plate aside, her hands shaking. But she was the one who had brought it up. In fact, she was the one who started the whole thing by coming to Quixotic in the first place.

“This is embarrassing,” she said.

“What is?” Nora asked.

“I’ve been a real pest.” She shook her head, amazed at her own behavior. “I don’t blame him for avoiding me.”

All the good humor left Blackstone’s face. “What happened?”

Ariel took a deep breath and then told him.

Darius was lying on the huge sofa sectional that filled his TV room. The leather upholstery stuck to his bare legs. He was wearing a pair of gym shorts and a torn T-shirt, having given up completely on his usual sartorial elegance.

The big-screen TV was on. He was surfing through the 100+ channels he got on his digital cable system and thinking of Springsteen’s lament: 57 channels and nothing on. Or was that some other group? He couldn’t remember anymore, and he didn’t care.

The not caring was the toughest part. He usually cared about being accurate in all things. But he had run away today, from his job, his best friend, and everything he cared about—all because of a woman.