The Queensbay Series: Books 1-4: The Queensbay Box Set Read online

  “Caitlyn,” Darby said, gritting her teeth. Her friend’s exclamation had been loud enough that several customers were staring back into the kitchen with interest. It was also enough to pull her out of her obsessive Sean Callahan thoughts.

  “Fine, fine,” Caitlyn huffed, and there was a clatter of plastic and keys as she threw her stuff down on the prep area.

  “Not here,” Darby hissed, trying not to get raw onion on Caitlyn’s expensive phone in its even more expensive Italian leather case.

  Rolling her eyes, Caitlyn took her keys, purse, and phone back to the counter that Darby had designated just for that purpose.

  Satisfied that at least someone was listening to her today, Darby turned her attention back to the pile of onions.

  “Okay, so you needed cream, mushrooms, this long stem wild pilaf rice . . . .” Caitlyn clacked back over to the prep area in her elegant sandals and started to pull items out of the grocery bag.

  “You’re a lifesaver. Thanks for picking that stuff up. I know you’re on your way to work.”

  Caitlyn Montgomery, with hair so dark it was almost black, and cool, gray eyes, stood there in her summer-weight business suit with her arms crossed and an interested expression on her face. She was a year or so older than Darby and almost like a big sister to her. They’d grown up in Queensbay together, until Caitlyn had left for college and later London. She’d only recently returned to the States, and she and Darby had reconnected as if no time had passed.

  “What’s that?” Caitlyn said, as a phone vibrated. “Oh, it’s yours.” She picked up the phone from the shelf where Darby had placed it, glanced at the screen, and said, “Uh oh, it’s your dad.”

  “What is he saying?” Darby asked. She spared a glance for Kelly, the longtime employee who was working the front. It was past the morning rush, and most of the customers were ordering muffins and scones with their coffee, instead of egg sandwiches.

  “Don’t forget to rest the freezer on Tuesday, the invoice from Felix needs to be paid, you’re low on chicken broth—you know, all the exciting stuff.”

  “Nothing about the view, the food?” Darby said.

  She had gotten one message from her mom, soon after her parents had landed in Milan. Her mother had immediately sought out chocolate hazelnut gelato and texted Darby a picture. But the trip, after all, had been her mother’s idea: a three-week-long tour of Italy, including a stay in an authentic Tuscan palazzo. It was the trip of a lifetime, a promise her father had made to her mother years ago but had never made good on.

  Truth was, Reg Reese would much rather have been keeping watch over Queensbay Harbor and sneaking out early for an afternoon of fishing and beer than sipping Chianti under the Tuscan moon. But Aggie, Darby’s mother, had finally found a “great deal” and had Reg reluctantly packing his bags.

  “Nope. Just instructions. I did get one from him, too, asking how you were doing,” Caitlyn said, finding one of the thick, plain white mugs and pouring herself a cup of coffee from the carafe Darby had set aside.

  “And what did you say?” Darby said, trying to keep her voice neutral.

  “The truth.”

  Chapter 3

  The knife slipped, and Darby almost cut her knuckle off as she searched Caitlyn’s face. “How could you—”

  “Got you,” Caitlyn said with a laugh, her gray eyes dancing with mischief, “and watch it with that knife. I thought that was the first thing they taught you in those fancy cooking classes, how to handle the sharp, pointy things.”

  “You’d better watch it,” Darby said, as her heart rate returned to normal, and she continued to add to the pile of onions in front of her. “I can debone a whole fish in thirty seconds.”

  “Oh, I’m scared,” Caitlyn said, her black eyebrows rising up above the rim of the white coffee cup.

  “Well, what did you tell him?” Darby asked, when she could no longer stand the suspense. She had thought her dad was above spying on her, but at least he had gone to someone friendly to her point of view.

  Caitlyn shrugged. “That you’re doing fine. It’s only the first day, after all. I mean, how bad could things go on the first day, right?” Caitlyn’s eyes were no longer dancing and instead she shot a long, considering look at Darby.

  There was a pause, the only sounds the jingle of the bell above the door and Kelly’s voice as she called out goodbye to a customer.

  “What is it?” Darby had long ago learned to read into Caitlyn’s silences.

  “Are you sure about this, chucking your career? You spent three years in law school, two in practice.”

  “It was three years in practice. And I hated every minute of it,” Darby almost exploded, since she could remember every moment of the soul-sucking time.

  “But you seemed to be doing well at it,” Caitlyn said.

  Darby sighed, tried to keep her temper in check. No one had said this plan would be easy, which was why she had stopped sharing it. But it seemed as if today, the world was aligned against her. First uber chef Sean Callahan had burst into her kitchen accusing her of theft and now Caitlyn, one of her oldest friends, was questioning her meticulously drawn up plans. “And I thought you were on my side.”

  Caitlyn held up her hands. “I am, of course. You know I’m always on your side.”

  Darby sighed, into another one of Caitlyn’s silences. “Well, what is it now?”

  “It’s just your dad’s so proud of you. I mean seriously, every time he gets a chance to slip it in, he does . . . ‘My daughter, the lawyer.’ Ugh. It would be obnoxious if it wasn’t so cute,” Caitlyn said, then took a sip of her coffee.

  Guilt rose in Darby. Unlike Caitlyn, she had a close, loving family that was invested in her every success. This was part of the whole problem, why something so simple just wasn’t. She threw down the knife and scrubbed a hand over her face. “It’s just . . . it’s that I can’t do it anymore. Sitting in an office, behind a desk all day, looking over papers. It’s killing me. I want to cook, and I know it was never something he wanted for me, but it’s what I want. I know how proud he is, but I can’t spend all my life living out someone else’s plan. You, of all people, should understand that.”

  Caitlyn searched her face, and then gave a single nod of her head. “You’re right; I do understand that.”

  “So you’ll keep it under wraps for a while longer?” Darby asked desperately. Queensbay wasn’t exactly a small town, but it operated like one. Nothing really stayed secret for long.

  Neither of her parents knew that she had ditched her job for an intensive course at the New York Culinary Academy last fall. After that, she’d done an internship in the kitchen of an upscale French-inspired restaurant on the Upper East Side where she had been yelled at, had food thrown at her, and generally been belittled, all in the name of haute cuisine. It had all been in the name of preparing her for her next big step.

  She had always loved to cook, but this was a whole new experience. The temper, the passion, the excitement—they were like nothing she had experienced in law school, where everything was dry and dull, reduced to simple black and white. She had absolutely loved it and knew she couldn’t go back to her old life.

  Cooking was all about the nuances and flavors. She had worked in restaurants all through high school, college, and law school to make her spending money. But it was only in the last year—as the realization that a life working at a big law firm lay ahead of her—that she knew with a fierce certainty she had to get out. She even had a plan. After all, her dad wasn’t getting any younger but The Dory wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Look, I tried to tell my dad what I wanted to do. I even made him an offer to buy him out. He just laughed at me. Said that I was meant for ‘better things’.”

  Darby shook her head. She had hoped that offering money would show her father how serious she was, how she wanted to be part of the family business, take it over from him, even buy it outright if that’s what it took.

  Caitlyn was rooting around for a
chocolate chip cookie, prying off the lid of the airtight plastic container Darby had placed them in. She’d had to bake a new batch after Sean Callahan had ruined the first.

  Caitlyn took a bite of her cookie, eyes closed as she savored the way the chocolate mixed with the sugar, butter, and flour to create the perfect melt-in-your-mouth flavor.

  Darby knew this because the cookies were her specialty—a giant confection of chocolate and sugar and fat that no one could resist.

  “Man,” Caitlyn said, “I swear these are the best yet. What could he possibly mean by ‘better things’ when you can make these?”

  Darby smiled. She knew at the end of the day she could count on Caitlyn, even if her plan was sneaky, underhanded, and on the crazy side.

  “Your dad is going to flip when he comes home and finds that you’ve changed the entire menu around on him,” Caitlyn said.

  “Look, if he doesn’t see things my way, then he can always change it back.”

  “And what will you do?” Caitlyn stopped chewing and looked at her.

  “There are other storefronts in town.”

  “With commercial kitchens, a half block from the marina?” Caitlyn pointed out.

  “Well, no, and I would hate to go into competition with my dad, but I’m prepared to play dirty.” Darby looked at her friend. “I quit my job, I gave up the lease on my apartment. I dumped my boyfriend because he thought I didn’t have the guts for it. I’ve saved every penny for years to make this happen, even when I didn’t know what I was saving it for. Come hell or high water . . . .”

  “Fine,” Caitlyn shrugged, not letting Darby finish. “I get it. You’re playing for keeps. Just remember, you have just about three weeks for your grand plan. Plus, I’ll make you a bet.”

  “What kind of bet?” Darby asked. Caitlyn had always loved to gamble. With her, everything had always been a competition. The stakes could have been anything, from a dollar to the promise of tracking down a cute guy’s number, to a crazy dare like jumping into Queensbay Harbor in the middle of winter.

  “I bet that if you can increase The Dory’s revenue by, say, fifty percent, in the three weeks he’s gone, then maybe, just maybe, your dad won’t go ballistic when he finds out you quit your promising career to keep the populace of Queensbay in baked goods.”

  “Okay?” Darby couldn’t exactly see how this was a bet. “So if I win, I get to work at The Dory and preserve family harmony and you get to eat cookies for the rest of your life?”

  “Correct,” Caitlyn said, smiling.

  “Well, what do you get if I lose?”

  “Your secret cookie recipe,” Caitlyn said.

  Darby’s eyes widened. “It’s a secret for a reason.”

  “Well, then, don’t lose,” Caitlyn said, as she grabbed her stuff and started to sashay her way out of the kitchen.

  “Actually, I don’t see how you can lose—either way, you get cookies,” Darby called after her.

  “Exactly!” Caitlyn said. Just before she went through the door, she called out, “Your dad wanted me to remind you to go to the Chamber of Commerce meeting today. It’s at the Village Hall.”

  The door slammed, and Darby swore. She had forgotten she’d promised to go to the Chamber meeting. Just another thing that would keep her out of the kitchen. She glanced up at the clock and realized she had only another hour before the lunch crowd started to come in. She’d better get moving if that soup was going to be ready.

  Chapter 4

  He looked at his assembled collection of basil, garlic, pine nuts, and olive oil. Pesto. He’d been trying to teach one of the line cooks the right way to make pesto, but somehow he found himself staring at the dark green of the basil and thinking about eyes.

  Not just any pair of eyes, but the ones belonging to the woman who’d been in the kitchen at The Dory, the little deli where someone had suggested he might find his mushrooms. He’d barely noticed it on his first walk through town, but when he’d approached, he’d been struck by its good location. Not too far off the water, in a sturdy brick and wood building, just as quaint as all the others in this typically quaint town.

  The inside space was a decent size, with a serving counter and some tables, but the place could have used a paint job, inside and out. He’d gone through the back—force of habit when he entered a kitchen—and been pleasantly surprised to see that, if not modern, at least it had been clean.

  The woman standing there had been plainly taken aback to see him, her mouth drawn into a startled O that had quickly turned to annoyance. Her eyes had flashed, and he had immediately thought of the green of fiddlehead ferns. Or the green of dried sage. Not brilliantly green, but a dusky, earthy green. They had stared at him quite hotly, rightly annoyed at his intrusion.

  He’d been so disconcerted by the eyes, by the way she had looked, that he had forgotten to use any of his charm. “Roguishly charming” was what his kindergarten teacher had called him, and the description had been apt, since all his life he’d relied on that charm to keep him out of trouble. But there had been something about her that had rendered him speechless or, worse yet, incapable of polite speech. So he had done whatever he did when he felt like he needed to get a handle on the situation—gone on the offensive.

  Okay, so maybe, when it had just been about the mushrooms, he’d been rude. But then he had seen her eyes, and what? He’d needed—no, he had been overwhelmed by the sense that he knew this woman, that he had to get to know her. So, what had he done?

  He shredded the basil efficiently, still thinking. He’d tried to find out where he knew her from. But she had just stood there, silent, eyes boring into him, until he had tried one of the oldest lines in the book. Real smooth move. No wonder her eyes had hardened with anger and those cute, little lips had grown tight and thin. He didn’t think she was a woman that responded well to pick-up lines. There had been something distinctly elegant about her long, lean body and fine-boned features. Classy types like her usually didn’t want to give him the time of day.

  “Excuse me, Chef?” The voice was hesitant, and Sean turned to see one of his line cooks standing there. “Was this what you were looking for, the broth?”

  He looked. “I said beef, not chicken.” The line cook’s hand shook, and Sean sighed, resisting the urge to yell. After a rocky start at the restaurant, he’d done his best to be nicer because - hell, he wanted to be a nicer, better person. He didn’t want to be that guy, the one the whole world already thought they knew.

  And this was his chance. His shot at redemption, his chance to get back into the big leagues. He couldn’t mess this up. He’d made a promise to himself that he would do whatever it took to get it all back.

  “I don’t think we have any more,” Kevin, the line cook, managed to say.

  Sean suppressed his second sigh. The entire kitchen staff of the Osprey Arms had been a pretty sorry lot. Well, he supposed sorry was too harsh a word. They were rather average, and that’s just what this restaurant was, too. Or had been. He’d been here almost three months and was whipping them into shape, but there was still a lot of work to do.

  The restaurant had an amazing location, nestled right on the edge of Queensbay Harbor, and was the first dining establishment anyone who tied up at the busy marina saw. But until recently, its specialties were baskets of fried shrimp and frozen cod. That was, until Chase Sanders, a local businessman, had bought the whole complex, a hotel and restaurant combo. Sean had met Chase a few years ago, and he had been the first person Chase called when the deal on the Osprey Arms closed. Chase had offered him the chance to be a full partner in developing an upscale steak and seafood place. At first, Sean hadn’t been interested, not wanting to leave the rush of the big city for a small town in Connecticut that no one had ever heard of.

  But Chase was a patient guy. After Sean had found himself out of a job and out of favor, Chase had called again. Being a stand-up guy, Chase hadn’t changed the deal. A full partnership and the authority to design a new menu and run th
e restaurant the way Sean wanted. All of a sudden, what had seemed like a step down a few months earlier now appeared to be the perfect way to make the climb back to the top. Eventually, even his publicist had come around, and so far Sean had been here a few months, working hard to make the restaurant into something unique—a high end, yet friendly placed that served impeccably prepared gourmet food.

  But in order to do that, he needed to raise everybody’s standards, and it started with the staff. That was one of the first lessons Big Mac had taught him back in the kitchen of that simple rib joint in Indiana. It all came down to how well your team worked . . . well, as a team. You couldn’t serve over a hundred dinners a night flying solo, whether it was filet mignon or chicken and biscuits. And if it took some shouting to make it happen, well then so be it.

  “Well, then, add it to the list,” Sean said, pleased that his voice was calm. He almost went back to his chopping, but he turned. “Hey, kid, you from around here?”

  Kevin turned and nodded, plainly too scared to speak.

  “You know that deli up on Main?”

  “The Dory,” Kevin nodded, and Sean could see him relax a fraction. “Good sandwiches,” the cook added and then shuffled his feet as if aware that offering an opinion on food was a dangerous thing to do.

  “Who owns it?”

  “The Reeses. Owned it for years, I think, even when my grandmother was alive.”

  “Reese,” Sean said. “Thanks,” he added over his shoulder. Well, that girl hadn’t been more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight, so probably not the Reese who had owned it for years. She looked like she was in charge, though—Sean could always tell—so maybe she was a family member.

  There had been something in the way she looked at him. Or maybe it had been how she looked: short khaki shorts, plain white sneakers, a simple gray V-neck t-shirt, an apron around her waist. Her hair, that red-gold color, had been pulled back in a ponytail, but some of it had escaped, waving about her face. She had a nice, trim figure, the kind that begged you to touch and feel. She had even smelled good, like vanilla and flour.