“No, no, no, no!”Bella lunged across the kitchen to pull the pan out of the oven as black smoke curled through the doorway. She waved her oven mitt over the top of the tray to clear the smoke, and her heart sank. Her honey-glazed carrots, the side dish for the main course of the sit-down meal, had turned to charred black lumps. There was no salvaging them. Tears of frustration pricked at Bella’s eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She needed to focus.
Bella threw the carrots into the trash and turned back to the kitchen, her heart racing. She’d spent the better part of the last week going over every detail of this event, and still she’d messed up. Bella brushed her hair back with one hand and surveyed the mess. What was she going to do?
You should have tried harder.Her mother’s critical voice echoed in her mind. It had been years since Katherine Nolan had said those words, but they still stuck with Bella in moments like this. It was what her mother always said when Bella got a C on a math test, or didn’t make her high school ski team, or wasn’t accepted to her first-choice college. No matter how hard Bella tried, it was never enough.
Now, it seemed like everything was falling apart today, too, and on such an important gig.
“Ms. Nolan?”
“What?” Bella snapped as she turned towards the voice. She immediately softened her tone. “I’m sorry. What’s going on?”
The woman in the door was one of the team of waitstaff Bella hired for events like this. Her name was Callie. She had honey-colored hair and blue eyes, which were now staring at Bella as though she might snap the poor woman’s head off.
“Sorry,” Callie stuttered. “It’s just that Susan — you remember Susan — well, she’s got some kind of stomach flu, so she’s not coming in. Neither is Larry. Apparently, he has the same stomach flu or something. So, we’re, like, a little short.”
Bella forced herself to take a deep breath. Her waitstaff of ten had just dropped down to eight, meaning that she was going to have to pitch in during dinner to get everything on the table in time.
The pressure cooker where she was making garlic rice let out a loud whistle, and Bella hurried to take it off the stove. As she did, she turned back to the waitress, still holding the heavy pot with both hands.
“Thanks for telling me,” she said. “I’ll help with the serving.”
“You seem, um, a little busy here,” Callie pointed out, her blue eyes as wide as those of a baby deer. Using great willpower, Bella managed not to snap “Obviously.”
“I am, but I’ll make it work,” she said instead. “Just go get everything set up. Please.”
As Callie hurried away, Bella surveyed her options to replace the carrots. She felt a little like a surgeon triaging patients, which was funny, since she was pretty sure today’s conference was for surgeons. Grabbing the lettuce, tomatoes, radishes, and carrots she’d planned to make garnishes out of, Bella quickly assembled a side salad while braising the salmon. She could easily whip up a dressing from the extra ingredients she’d brought. Thank goodness the first trays of hors d’oeuvres had already gone out.
At times like this, even Bella could admit that it would be useful to have assistants — preferably a whole team of chefs and assistants — to help her. Most catering businesses as big as hers involved at least a few people working together, but Bella still did everything herself, from finding clients to planning menus, cooking, and cleaning everything up afterwards — and “everything” apparently also included acting as a waitress for tonight’s event.
With a sigh, Bella took the salmon off and started on the steak. The sizzle of the meat and the warm scents made her smile. At the end of the day, it didn’t really matter that she was forced to run around the kitchen like a headless chicken all by herself. Her business was about food, and she still loved cooking as much as she always had. Things were back on track, with a replacement for the carrots ready and only a slight delay. Thank goodness.
Twenty minutes later, it was almost time for dinner to be served. It had been tight, but Bella was pretty sure she’d managed to pull off a decent meal without anyone noticing the chaos behind the scenes. She double-checked her dessert, a play on red velvet cake featuring a light sponge cake paired with cream-cheese ice cream and fresh fruit, which she took out the fridge so it would be ready to serve. Perfect.
Hurriedly, Bella went out to her car and grabbed a plain white shirt from her trunk, exchanging it for her apron. She always kept spare clothes in her car in case of food-spillage emergencies. With the white shirt on, she’d look enough like the waitstaff — instead of like a chef — that no one would wonder why the caterer was running around serving food. Or so she hoped, at least.
“You can do this,” Bella told herself out loud. She’d long ago learned that she couldn’t rely on anyone but herself, not in her personal life and not at work, but that didn’t stop her. It didn’t even slow her down anymore. No, Bella had learned that she was strong enough to take on almost anything, and that she just didn’t need anyone else to help her. If that meant serving her own food at this event, so be it.
Back inside, Bella joined the rest of the waitstaff to start serving the appetizers.
“We can manage this part without you,” Callie said. She’d pulled her hair back into a bun and looked more serious.
“I know, but I don’t want anyone to wait for their food,” Bella said. She turned to the remaining eight waiters. “As you remember from the briefing, there will still be talks going on while the guests enjoy their appetizers. Please, remain quiet and don’t disrupt things.”
Bella winced internally. It sounded like she was talking to children, which wasn’t what she wanted at all — but she couldn’t bear the thought of an accident ruining the dinner she’d worked so hard to prepare and even harder to save at the last minute. Enough had gone wrong already without one of her waitstaff dropping a plate or making some other kind of commotion.
All the waitstaff nodded, and they filed into the conference room. Men and women in formal clothing were seated around large tables, whispering to each other and sipping their drinks while the woman on stage talked, rather stiltedly, about… something. Even when Bella tried to listen, all she heard was a complex stream of medical jargon that she couldn’t understand at all.
Tuning out the speaker, Bella wove between the tables, setting down plates of food and smiling at the guests who thanked her. In her mind, she ran through the steps to finish everything up.
It’s almost over,Bella thought to herself. She’d managed to save the dinner and get everything on the tables at the right time. All she had to do now was finish serving the mains, plate the desserts, and clean everything up. Then she could go home, at last.
You’ll have to do better next time,her mother’s snide voice pointed out in Bella’s head. She shook her head slightly to clear it and headed back to the kitchen to get the next tray of appetizers.
CHAPTER 3
LUKE
“Multi-car collision, at least five wounded incoming,” Doctor Harris called to Luke as he raced by. Luke hesitated, looking down at his suit and tie. He was just about to leave for the conference — the stupid, unnecessary conference that he hadn’t wanted to attend in the first place, much less speak at.
