Love in the Morning (2 page)

“Come on, damn it!” Denham snarled from the doorway. “I don't have all day for this.”

Or not.

*****

Clark sat on his barstool at the Blarney Stone and watched Ted Saltzman keep an eye on his new barmaid. Ted owned the Blarney Stone and he was normally a study in efficiency of movement. He managed to serve as both manager and chief bartender, with a chef who kept plates full of high octane snacks rolling out of the kitchen while his waitresses spread beer, wine and margaritas among the customers packed into the booths and tables. At least somebody had an efficient kitchen.

The Blarney Stone was an extremely successful operation, a lesson to anyone in Salt Box who wanted to handle the tourist trade. But everything depended on the intricate parts of the setup fitting together and performing seamlessly. Currently, one particular part was showing its seams spectacularly.

Ronnie Ventura was gorgeous. Her golden blonde hair spilled down her shoulders in silken waves. Her body was nicely curved in all the right places. When she smiled, her dimples almost seemed to sparkle, even in the dim light of the Blarney Stone.

Of course, she was wearing platform sandals that made it difficult for her to walk in a straight line, let alone walk in a straight line carrying a tray of beers on her shoulder. Clark watched her wobble toward a table across from the bar. The beers on her tray were perilously close to slopping over.

Ted watched too, his forehead furrowed in concern.

“So tell me again—why exactly did you hire her?” Clark took a swallow of his beer. Very nice.

Ted shrugged. “Ronnie needed a job. She wanted to stay here in Salt Box instead of going back to California. She's looking for a new start.”

That Ronnie would want a new start at least made some sense. She'd been featured in a reality show that had been shot in Salt Box. And the show had not ended well. On the other hand, of all the people involved in the show—which had centered on Ronnie choosing a potential mate from a motley crew of bachelors—Ronnie had come out looking the best. For some reason, however, she'd chosen to stay in Salt Box rather than pursuing a career as a reality star.

Clark scratched his chin reflectively. “So who gets to tell her about the shoes?” Ronnie might have been gorgeous, but she seemed a little confused about effective waitress attire.

Ted shrugged again. “I'm thinking of introducing a dress code for the waitresses. Blarney Stone T-shirts and jeans. And sneakers.”

Clark grinned. “Coward.”

Ted gave him a dry smile. “Absolutely.”

Clark rested an elbow on the bar, surveying the rest of the room. He usually hit the Blarney Stone after he'd finished his day at Praeger House, but that sometimes took longer than usual. Tonight, for instance.

He wasn't sure what had his chef's ass up currently. He just hoped it wouldn't end up costing him either time or money. Clarice had been after him to hire a kitchen assistant for two weeks. The girl he'd hired that afternoon—Lizzy Aposomethingorother—might or might not be qualified. If Clarice refused to take the time to question her, Clark sure as hell wasn't going to do it for her. Even assuming he knew what questions to ask, which he most assuredly did not.

Judging from the girl's pitiful excuse for a car—which had, in fact, been absolutely dry of gas, and he'd had to fuel up before returning to Praeger House—she needed a job. That might mean she'd stick around and be a model employee. Or she might skip out after her first paycheck. Clark found he didn't much care what she did.

Hiring her was one more thing checked off his list. Of course, there would probably be five more things added to that list by tomorrow. That was the thing about owning a hotel, particularly an older one in the Colorado Rockies. He never lacked for things to do.

Ronnie wobbled back toward the bar, her forehead furrowed in what might be pain. If Clark had been wearing those shoes, he'd definitely have been frowning by now. Possibly even moaning. She put her tray back on the bar and gave Saltzman one of those miraculous smiles of hers, the ones that made strong men fall to their knees in awe. Saltzman looked a little like someone had just clubbed him.

Clark had to admit—the smile alone would be a good reason to hire her.

“Would y'all mind if I took these shoes off?” Ronnie widened her eyes slightly.

“Sure,” Saltzman stammered. “I mean, that'd be great.”

“Okay. Whew!” Ronnie pulled the shoes off and tucked them at the side of the bar.

Clark raised an eyebrow. “You're going barefoot?”

Ronnie turned her smile in his direction. “Oh, I'll be okay. My feet are tough.”

Right.
“Actually, that probably violates some section of the health code. Since you're serving food.” He actually had no idea whether bare feet were against the rules or not, but he figured somebody needed to make a stab at keeping Ronnie in line since Saltzman wouldn't do it.

Saltzman grabbed her tray. “Why don't you run home and get something more comfortable. I'll handle your station until you get back.”

“Thanks, Ted. Back in a few.” Ronnie gave him another gleaming smile, then grabbed her shoes and jogged out the door.

Clark watched Saltzman head for Ronnie's tables, having just added yet another job to his list. Pathetic. That's what happened when you gave a job to somebody out of pity.

Unbidden, an image of Lizzy Apowhatever's face drifted through his mind.
Totally different.
He hadn't given her the job out of pity. He was trying to keep Clarice happy. Still, once he'd started Lizzy's car and gotten her set up in a room, he hadn't done much checking on her qualifications. She'd seemed so relieved to have the job.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to see what kind of references she listed.

No, it wouldn't. And he'd definitely do that. One of these days.

Chapter Two

At five the next morning, Lizzy stumbled toward the kitchen at the Praeger House. Yesterday, by the time she'd finished getting her car, getting checked into her new home, and filling out all the paperwork for her new job, the chef had gone home for the day. Just as well—Lizzy doubted she'd have had enough energy left to be much of an assistant.

This morning, she could already hear the sounds of cooking, muffled thumps and the occasional clang. She pushed open the door, then paused and stared at the scene before her.

Clarice stood in front of the oven, lifting out a king-sized muffin tin. Several dozen more muffins rested on cooling racks. The kitchen was full of the warm scent of cinnamon, cloves and sugar.

Lizzy's stomach growled. She hadn't had anything to eat since the candy bar that had passed for lunch yesterday. Maybe she could scarf a muffin or two later.

Clarice spun around at the stove, black eyes snapping.
Maybe not.
“Where have you been? You should have been here a half hour ago. Hell, make that an hour.”

Lizzy blinked.
Four A.M. Sigh.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Get over here and get going. I need the omelet station set up stat.” Clarice waved a hand at the counter where a pile of onions, spinach, peppers, bacon and ham sat ready to be sliced.

Lizzy nodded, grabbing an apron from a rack near the door and knotting it around her waist as she trotted toward the counter.

“Knives on the rack over by the pans.” Clarice nodded toward a set of shelves at the side.

“I've got my own.” Lizzy dropped her knife roll on the counter and pulled out her six-inch.

Across the kitchen, Clarice turned to stare at her, hands on her hips. “What's your name, anyway?”

Lizzy froze.
Don't be an idiot. She needs your name for work. She doesn't recognize you.
“Lizzy Apodaca.”

“Well, Lizzy Apodaca, have you ever been in a professional kitchen before?”

Lizzy nodded, slicing an onion in half before she turned to the sink.

Clarice stayed where she was. “Whereabouts?”

Lizzy licked her lips, then turned to face her. Might as well meet everything head-on. “San Diego.” Which was true. Just not chronologically accurate.

Clarice scowled, but it was no worse than all the other chef's scowls Lizzy had encountered in her career. “All right. Get that shit chopped up—half-inch dice. Then start breaking eggs. I want that container full by the time service starts in…” She checked her watch. “…forty minutes. Now get on it.”

And Lizzy did just that. Fortunately, none of the stuff she needed to do for breakfast prep was all that tough. She could chop onions in her sleep. And considering how little sleep she'd gotten the night before, what with worrying about her future and regretting her past, she might actually end up dozing off if she wasn't careful.

Fortunately, four dozen eggs more or less filled the container. Unfortunately, Clarice thrust a large whisk into her hands and told her to get on it, they were running late.

In fact, “get on it, we're running late” seemed to pretty much sum up Clarice's approach to life. And breakfast.

The first customers showed up when the dining room opened at six. Clarice took her position at the omelet station with Lizzy as runner and occasional fry cook, producing trays of bacon and sausage to go on the steam table, along with trays of hash browns. The tins of muffins Clarice had baked up beforehand disappeared with lightning speed, to be replaced by sheet pans of coffee cake. Then there was the crock of oatmeal, which had to be refilled at regular intervals, along with the accompanying bowls of raisins, cranberries, walnuts and almonds. In fact, everything on the line had to be replaced at regular intervals. By Lizzy.

Apparently, they were feeding well-disciplined swarms of locusts.

By ten, when the dining room finally closed, the flood of customers had diminished to a mere trickle. A hungry trickle that required seconds and thirds. The whole buffet thing had begun to pall somewhat for Lizzy, particularly since these diners never seemed to get full. They appeared to take “All You Can Eat” as a personal challenge.

“Where the hell do they put it all?” she muttered to herself, watching through the pass-through as a man in cargo shorts loaded up on his fifth helping of bacon.

“Energy. A lot of them are going biking or climbing. They'll burn it off in a couple of hours.” The voice came from behind her, but she managed not to jump. She turned to see Denham watching her. She hadn't noticed him come into the kitchen, but then again, given her workload, she probably wouldn't have noticed a rampaging rhino come into the kitchen. He raised an eyebrow. “How's it going?”

“Fine.” She blew out a quick breath. “Just fine.”
Nothing to see here. Move along.

“Right.” He folded his arms across his chest, leaning back against a counter. “Clarice says you've worked in a kitchen before.”

“Yep.” She folded her own arms.
Don't give an inch, kid.

He raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to go on. After a moment of silence, he shrugged. “Glad to hear it. Did she tell you how the meals work around here?”

Clarice hadn't told her much of anything other than
get on it, we're running late.
“Not really.”

“We do breakfast. Then we stock a selection of sandwiches and salads and stuff like cheese plates in some refrigerated cases out in the hall. That way people can buy lunch and dinner if they want to, but we don't have to keep the dining room open.”

Lizzy had a sneaky suspicion who was and wasn't included in that
we
since Denham didn't seem to be offering to make any sandwiches himself. She nodded. “Okay.”

After a moment, he pushed himself upright. “Do you have any questions about anything? I didn't give you much of a chance to ask yesterday.”

No, he definitely hadn't. Of course he'd been pretty busy rescuing her car and finding her a room and giving her a job, so she couldn't exactly hold it against him. “No questions for the moment.”

“Okay, welcome to Praeger House,” he said, extending his hand.

“Thanks,” she said, shaking his hand.

He still wasn't smiling. On the other hand, he appeared to have shaved since yesterday. Or something. She found herself studying those chiseled cheekbones and the square jaw. Denham was actually a good-looking guy, underneath that gruff exterior. Of course, the gruff exterior added a lot to the rugged outdoorsman vibe he was giving off. She'd always considered rugged outdoorsmen to be hot.

Not that she had any business being even slightly interested in his relative hotness.

She nodded, then went back to wrapping the last of the coffee cake in plastic wrap before putting it in a freezer bag. Maybe Denham would take the hint and go back to whatever it was he'd been doing before. After a moment, he did.

Clarice stepped back into the kitchen as he was leaving. She turned to Lizzy, frowning. “What did he want?”

Lizzy raised her eyebrows. “Not much. He just told me about the lunches.”

Clarice was still frowning. Of course, Lizzy wasn't sure she'd seen her yet without a frown. “That's none of his business. I don't care if he is the owner, the kitchen's off-limits.”

Lizzy's eyebrows stayed up. Clarice didn't seem to be showing the proper respect for somebody who could fire her at will. Lizzy dropped the coffee cake into the freezer bag. “Anything else I should be freezing?”

Clarice shook her head. “Don't freeze it. We'll sell the last pieces in the lunch case. Put the stuff from the omelet station into storage boxes and put it in the walk-in for tomorrow. Chop up the leftover bacon and freeze it. Then you can start on the sandwiches and salads for sale.”

The kitchen door swung open, and a human beanpole walked in. The kid was one of the skinniest people Lizzy had ever seen. He stared at her in confusion. “Who are you?”

“She's the new kitchen assistant.” Clarice nodded in the kid's direction. “He does the dishes and the floors. You two can introduce yourselves.” She strode out of the kitchen without looking back.

The beanpole blinked a couple of times and then stuck out his hand. “Desi Sanchez.”

“Lizzy Apodaca.”

“You just started?”

She nodded. “Today.”

“Welcome to the Praeger House.” The boy smiled, then headed toward the broom closet.

Lizzy looked at the pile of sandwich loaves and salad fixings on the prep table and felt like sighing. On the whole she preferred Denham's kind of welcome to Clarice's.

Lucky me.
She picked up the remaining bowls of ingredients from the omelet station, checking the shelves for the storage containers.
You have a job, Lizzy. You have a place to live. Don't bitch.

She wasn't, really. Making sandwiches and salads, chopping up leftovers, cleaning up the kitchen, it was all stuff she'd done a hundred times herself.

Ah, but the last time you did it, it was in your own kitchen.
Her chest tightened.
And see how well that turned out?
Right, well, she wouldn't make that mistake again. No more kitchens for Annalisa Antonio.

For Lizzy Apodaca? She'd just have to wait and see.

*****

Clark had to remind himself not to gun the Lincoln as he headed down the driveway toward the street. Vintage Lincoln Town Cars did not take well to gunning even if he was running late.

He thought about calling Lauren to let her know he was on his way, but he was afraid it would slow him down. It would be faster if he just drove to her place now, before she had time to get too pissed at him.

Besides, truth be told, he didn't want to talk to her. He just wanted to take her out to dinner.

And bone her.

Well, yeah, if he was being honest, that too. He and Lauren had sort of an understanding. The sex was the main thing they had in common. Once he'd tried asking her to go climbing with him, an activity that might have given him a chance to get to know her better, and she'd laughed in his face. Lauren didn't want to know him. She wanted to screw him.

He headed up Main toward Elkhorn Run, the ski area. Lauren's condo was in one of the newer complexes, a perk that came with being the publicist for the corporation that owned most of the resort.

Like most of Salt Box, Praeger House benefited indirectly from Elkhorn Run since people who couldn't find rooms at the ski area or didn't want to pay the steep premium that went with a ski-to-your-door location frequently ended up in town. Of course, Clark also shared the general Salt Box opinion that the people who ran the ski area were a bunch of smart-assed dicks. But as long as they kept the shuttle buses running from Elkhorn Run to downtown Salt Box, he and the rest of the townies were prepared to put up with a little dickishness.

He pulled the Lincoln into a parking spot not far from Lauren's door. Given the kind of footwear she probably had on, he didn't want to make her walk too far.

The door to the condominium lobby swung open as he was locking the car, and Lauren tottered across the lot in his direction.

Clark checked her shoes. Four-inch heels at least. He shook his head. One of the great advantages of living in a Colorado mountain town was that nobody expected you to dress the way you would in the Cherry Creek section of Denver. But Lauren never seemed to avail herself of this dispensation. He tried to picture her kicking off her heels the way Ronnie had the night before, but he just couldn't. Ronnie was always good-natured. Lauren's nature wasn't even in the same ballpark.

Despite the fact that the late-afternoon temperature hovered in the fifties, she wore a sleeveless black dress that hit her around mid-thigh. The V-neck showed a shadow of her more-than-respectable cleavage. Her silvery blonde hair brushed the tops of her shoulders. She gave him a brief, seductive smile, gazing up at him from beneath thick black lashes.

Okay, there was clearly no question where this evening was headed. For either of them.

She reached the curb at the edge of the parking lot and stepped off—into a rather large pothole in the asphalt.

Crap. This will not end well.
He stepped forward quickly, managing to catch her before she did more than stagger. She gazed up at him in surprise, blinking. “Oh, thanks. I didn't see that hole.” She gazed up at him from beneath her lashes again, her lips curving up in another faint smile.

Maybe they could skip dinner and just go straight to bed. It seemed like they never really had anything to talk about anyway.

He took a deep breath.
Okay, get it together. Don't be a dick yourself.
It was time to get this date back on course.

“No problem.” He put his hand firmly under her elbow, maneuvering her to the car.

Lauren's immaculate forehead wrinkled in distaste as she glanced at the Lincoln. “Oh. I didn't know you were going to bring this.”

Clark shrugged. “It's my car.” Technically, of course, it was the hotel's car. It even had Praeger House written on the door in gold script. On the other hand, he owned the hotel.

“Well, yes,” Lauren slid into the front seat, smoothing down what there was of her skirt. “But I mean, it's not your only car, is it?”

“I guess I could have brought the truck.” Clark gave her a bland smile. Now he remembered just why he didn't spend more time with Lauren. He had a feeling if they got to know each other better, even sex wouldn't be enough to make them want to get together.

Lauren settled back into her seat, her lower lip slightly extended in a close-to pout. “It's just so…conspicuous. And not in a good way. It looks like a hotel limo. Next time we can take my car.” She pulled down the sun visor, apparently looking for a vanity mirror that wasn't there.

Clark kept his grimace down to a slight twitch. He would only drive Lauren's Mini Cooper on a cold day in hell. He started to head back down Main toward the Blarney Stone, then thought better of it. The denizens of the Stone favored flannel shirts and jeans. Lauren's ensemble wouldn't exactly fit in. Plus she'd previously expressed a few negative opinions on the Stone and the people who drank there. Probably best to head elsewhere.