Ifound the heart flutter and soft smile that had been missing with Will English.They had been waiting for Wyatt.
ChapterThirteen
Myphone buzzed in my pocket, a reminder that I still had it. I was in the middleof Monday afternoon prep, and already hot and irritated.
Hotin the literal sense of the word.
Nothot and bothered because of the way Wyatt kept staring at me across thekitchen. That was more irritating than sexy.
Okay,lie. It was sexy. Super sexy. And only vaguely irritating.
Buthe was acting like we weren’t surrounded by my coworkers and his staff and thathe could do whatever he wanted without repercussion.
Isupposed that was how he did everything. That was how I’d always known him. Butnow that all that bad boy rebellion was directed at me, I didn’t know what todo with it.
Theparanoid part of me wondered if he knew about Sarita and this was his way ofsabotaging me. I wouldn’t put it past him.
Thesmitten girl inside me couldn’t get enough of him and the way his eyes darkenedevery time he looked my way.
Thebuzzing stopped, but started again almost immediately. I pulled my phone frommy pocket, worrying that maybe it was something important.
Thephone call was my parents.
Iwas on the fence if the reason they were trying to reach me was important ornot. We hadn’t spoken in a week. The last time I’d answered, my mom had triedto convince me to take the freshly opened cook position at their local diner.She’d tried to sell me on it by dangling how close I’d be to home, how nice thehours were because even though I’d have to start work at five in the morning, Icould be off by one. But the kicker was that Nolan stopped by there everymorning for his cup of coffee on his way to work. She’d been unfairlydisappointed when I turned her down on the grounds that I was a night owl.
“Youcould change who you are for an opportunity like this,” she’d snapped.“Something like this doesn’t come around too often, Kaya Camille. You need toget your priorities in order.”
I’dchosen not to remind her that positions like that didn’t come around oftenbecause there was only one diner cook position in all of Hamilton and the lastguy had worked the shift until he’d died of a heart attack two weeks ago. Ialso carefully danced around the priorities comment.
Ihad mine in order. And mine didn’t include Hamilton or giving up on my executivechef dream. It most certainly didn’t include moving home to marry the highschool football coach and have all his babies in an attempt to keep the town’spopulation from dipping.
Iwanted babies, don’t get me wrong. I also wanted a career that set my soul onfire and a husband that made my toes curl. I dreamed of a legacy. A balance ofboth work and family that screamed into this great big world that Kaya Swifthad tried her absolute hardest to make the very best of her one, little life.
Iwanted the entire package. And maybe that wasn’t possible. But moving back toHamilton was about ten thousand steps in the wrong direction. More importantly,it wasn’t going to happen. I wished my parents would figure that out, so wecould stop fighting over it.
Givenhow things ended last week though, I decided I better take the call. I answeredand shouted a quick, “Hold on!” into the speaker before slipping outdoors. Thedays were getting hotter and hotter as summer approached. I squinted into theblinding light, enjoying the way the sun immediately began to bake my exposedarms and face. The fragrant breeze chased the sensation, washing over me withthe scent of flowering trees.
Itwasn’t exactly quiet outside. The bustle of downtown Durham buzzed and zoomedand occasionally honked. Traffic and pedestrians and the busy life ofbusinesses booming in the plaza sang all around me. But the space was larger,more stretched out unlike the deafening cacophony of inside the kitchen.
Notthat I minded the sound. It was like the soundtrack to my life. The clanging ofmetal together as pots and pans were moved around. The thwacking of kniveschopping, julienning, mincing. Water boiling. Sauces simmering. Music playingsomewhere. Voices shouting and laughing, ordering things to be moved or stirred.It was our own brand of symphony. This was the warm up, the sound of a hundredinstruments preparing for the performance.
“Mom?”I asked the quiet on the other end of the phone. “Sorry, I’m at work.”
“Kaya,”she sighed. “You’re at work already? Don’t you have to work late?”
“Yes,”I replied patiently. “These are my hours.”
Shesighed again. “That job is going to turn your hair gray.”
Itugged on a faded pink curl. My hair might already be gray. It was impossibleto tell after years of dying it whatever fun color of the rainbow I was in themood for. And my hairstylist was a genius, a true color artist. Unless Ispecifically asked for gray, she’d never let my hair be anything but the colorwe decided on.
“I’vegot a girl, Mom.” I dodged her. “She won’t let that happen.”
Shemumbled something that sounded like, “Thank God.” I smiled at my shoes. My momwas meticulous about her looks and public persona. Growing up, she’d always sayto my sisters and me, “Girls, there are only three women in the world youshould trust enough not to let you down. Your mama, your stylist, and yourmanicurist.”
Heradvice had stuck. I might dye my hair the craziest shades I could think of, butmy hairstylist, Veronica, was a super star.
Anddon’t even get me started on Tina, my nail tech. She could work legit miracles onthe fingernails I destroyed on a nightly basis.
