asked Reg, “Does Shane talk about her?”
Reg dabbed under his nose and sounded exasperated when he questioned, “Why are we spending so much time discussing Shane?”
* * *
In his kitchen, Shane took out his frustration on the mint he tore for the salad. With a syncopated rhythm, he ripped leaves from their stems and threw them onto a work board. His preferred soundtrack of hard rock music did little to squelch the thoughts stomping through his head.
When he’d first heard this master scheme of Audrey Girard being matched up with his brother, he heartily approved. Reg spent far too much time agonizing over spreadsheets, finding fault with staff members and riding Shane about the cookbook or the lagging business. Hopefully a wife would take up some of Reg’s attention and get him off of everyone else’s back.
But now, face-to-face with Audrey again, the whole idea angered him. Wasn’t she just a little too pretty, a lot too sexy and even a bit too independent to be with uptight Reg? He loved his brother and wanted the best for him, but Audrey was too fine a lamb to be offered up for this sacrifice.
During the meetings regarding the new restaurant, he’d observed petite but voluptuous Audrey Girard in action. In her tight business skirts, she moved with the charged-up energy to match the clack of her high-heeled shoes. In fact, memories of her would linger in his mind for days after every encounter.
While Shane wielded his knife to halve the cherry tomatoes, a tight smile crossed his lips. He remembered the first time he’d met Audrey, still in her teens back then, during that summer in St. Thomas when he was doing a promotional stint as a guest chef.
She had been scared to death of him. Who could blame her? At twenty-four, with his heavy boots and impossible standards, he must have cut a frightening figure. Another sneer broke through as he realized that not much had changed since then.
Except for two massively successful restaurants that had made his name a household word. Although the world didn’t know that the restaurants had ceased making the profits they used to. Had anyone noticed that he was no longer asked to make appearances on national morning TV talk shows? That the public had moved on to new culinary revelations, new rising-star chefs? One thing they did know was that Shane Murphy had lost his wife to a gruesome death.
He plated the tomatoes and crumbled cojita cheese on them. Yes, he still remembered Audrey Girard and that midnight ocean swim. He flicked the mint on top of the cheese. Drizzled on olive oil and finished with a dotting of manzanilla olives. He could do this salad in his sleep.
All afternoon, he had been alone in the kitchen, trying to come up with a fresh idea. Just one new recipe for the cookbook. A start.
But he’d only spun his wheels. Unable to summon a clear vision. Nothing was right.
A muse was nowhere to be found.
“Aha,” Shane heard Reg call out as he entered the dining room with the salads he’d served tens of thousands of in his restaurants. “We were just talking about the cookbook.”
“What about it?” Shane already knew where this conversation was going.
“That perhaps we’ll shoot some photos of you on the patio,” Reg said. “Fire up the grill out there, and you can do street tacos with a party crowd surrounding you.”
Shane placed the salad plates on an empty table nearby so that he could clear Reg and Audrey’s appetizers away before serving. Audrey had only eaten a few bites of the poblano.
“You didn’t like it,” he announced rather than inquired.
Audrey looked up at him with her big eyes. He hadn’t remembered how light a brown they were. The color of honey. “It was delicious,” she answered, as if she thought that was something she needed to say.
“I see.”
Shane kept his connection with Audrey’s seductive orbs while Reg asked, “Are you any closer to actually finishing the cookbook, brother? Or even beginning it?”
“Enjoy the salad,” Shane uttered between clenched teeth.
Back in the kitchen, he dialed up his music even louder.
Even if he didn’t like it, he could see how the pairing of Reg and Audrey would benefit business. That was an important consideration now that Murphy Brothers Restaurants needed to take a huge step forward. A soaring success here could lead to more Shane’s Table restaurants in other Girard hotels.
Shane rocked his hips to the beat of a heavy metal song as he deveined the shrimp for the Guatemalan tapado.
And let’s face it, his brother needed to get married. A woman’s touch was going to be the only way to get Reg to lighten up. Plus their parents, now semiretired, longed for grandchildren. Shane would never marry again or have children. Reg was their only hope.
His dad and Daniel Girard used to joke around about matchmaking Reg and Audrey, but after Melina’s death the talk became serious. Shane had made an impulsive marriage that ended in disaster. His father probably felt he needed to step in to insure his other son had a more controllable fate.
After a hand wash, Shane began sautéing the onions and peppers.
One marriage was quite enough for Shane, thank you very much. He was clearly not to be trusted with the well-being of another person. Not a day went by that he didn’t think about the death that maybe he could have prevented. Had he been a different person. In fairness if Melina had been, too.
Shane added the coconut milk that was the basis of the sauce to the sauté pan. Mixed in a ladleful of stock. Stirred in his seasonings.
If a Murphy brother was to marry, it was definitely going to be Reg.
Then why did he picture Audrey, with those spectacular golden eyes smiling at him, while a voice to the side of them asked, “Shane Niall Murphy, do you take this woman...?” Why was he picturing lifting a white-dressed Audrey up into his arms and carrying her over a doorway threshold into a private suite?
Tossing the shrimp into his sauce, he reckoned that the prospect of anyone getting married probably brought up twisted wedding images for him. He was just having a distorted waking nightmare about Melina.
Swirling in a handful of chopped chard, he finished the dish. He portioned cooked rice onto two plates and spooned his stew on top of each. Another recipe he could cook with his eyes closed.
Coming out from the kitchen with his tapado de camaron, Shane noticed from twenty feet away that Audrey hadn’t finished her salad. Was she one of those girls, who only pecked at food? He’d always noticed the seriously lush curves on that small frame of hers. She didn’t look like a bird who didn’t eat.
Were his flavors too unusual for her? Was she used to a blander palate?
He placed the dinner dishes down on the side table.
“You didn’t like the salad, either.” He hastily snatched Audrey’s barely touched plate. “I sell a lot of them.”
“It was lovely, I’m just not that hungry,” Audrey sputtered like she was making an excuse.
Shane served his entrée.
“Have a seat with us,” Reg instructed, gesturing for Shane to pull a chair over from one of the other tables. Reg refilled his own sangria glass and slid it into position for Shane to have it. Audrey’s was barely touched.
For all of his brother’s annoyances, Shane respected Reg more than anyone in the world. Reg had provided the necessary foresight and know-how to lift Shane’s Table to fame. Shane could never have done any of it without him.
Reg had taught him that he had to play the game sometimes, had to make nice with people even when he’d rather be hiding in the kitchen. So he obeyed his brother, turned around a chair and straddled it backward to sit down with them.
“We need to have a discussion about the cookbook,” Reg said