A few minutes in the calm quiet of the garden had Amy back on track. There was no need to allow Tad to get to her or allow the way her body reacted to him to throw her off her game. Christ alive, if she could cope with working for Billie Forsythe-Rogers, could cope with all her nonsense and the circus that travelled wherever Billie did, then why was Amy finding Tad Campbell such a challenge?
With a decent fist of clipped rosemary in her hand and having rubbed a couple of leaves together to breathe in their distinctive scent, she straightened her spine and headed indoors.
* * *
Tad wondered why Amy had made such a big point about mentioning her hair. Was she genuinely worried about kitchen hygiene? For someone who didn’t work in the industry, it was unusual; most people had no idea about standards expected in a large commercial kitchen. And although the situation at Casa del Cibo offered a rather more relaxed level of pressure for the chefs than some of the places he’d worked, every guest still expected excellence from the kitchen and it was Tad’s job to make that happen. The buck stopped with him and there was no way he would countenance anyone contracting food poisoning or finding a stray plaster or strand of hair in their dish. So, it was to her credit that she’d put her hair up into such a tight French plait, because if she’d been wearing it loose, he would have felt duty-bound to have said something.
Instead of being able to thank her for her consideration – or tell her, actually, how awesome he thought her hair was (inappropriate, even though it was true), he’d managed to upset her within minutes with a stray comment about sourdough. Then he’d banged on about Italian breads. Boring, or what? Probably went with being a sluggishly cold-blooded Scotsman. He laughed at the irony.
But he had to remember he was simply the means to an end for Amy – in this case, getting decent copy for Billie’s newest assignment. There was no reason why her interest in him should extend further than expecting him to cook decent food and show Billie Forsythe-Rogers the tricks of the trade for making a fantasticcacio e pepeand an awesome lemon tart.
Although now he thought about it, when Hugh had shuffled into the kitchen earlier, telling him how Amy had commented how much she wanted to help in a professional kitchen, it had thrown him. Why would she choose to spend time with him if she found him so colourless? Regardless of his thoughts, when she’d asked if he needed any help that evening, it seemed the only path was to accept her offer with a smile and as much good grace as he could muster.
Unable to shake the feeling that it was going to be a tricky evening, the one thing he didn’t have to worry about was watching every move she made with the food. As he eased the focaccia dough into the baking tray, pressing the customary dimples into it before rubbing the surface with olive oil, he asked her to cut out the tough stalky bits from a bowl of plum tomatoes he’d already soaked in hot water and peeled, then to roughly chop them up. A glance to check her progress reassured him she clearly understood the assignment and didn’t require further explanation or support.
As he sprinkled the dough with sea salt and stuck in the last few sprigs of rosemary, Amy turned and asked for her next task. He shoved the tray into the oven and wiped his oily hands, then set her going with the rest of the ingredients for the tomato sauce.
She gently softened crushed garlic and fresh herbs in a glug of olive oil in a large, flat-bottomed pan, and he set about slicing and preparing the aubergine. Apart from Amy asking if he ever put red wine in a tomato sauce, or some butter – decent questions as both ingredients added an extra element to a pasta sauce – they worked in silence.
Tad became aware of the creeping awkwardness of the quiet. There was a tension in the air. It felt as though they’d had an argument, and it had left them making the best of having to be in the same room together. It was such a change from the first evening, when they’d chatted and laughed and Tad had imagined how it might feel to get close to her while they made that peach tart.
The need to make conversation had him clearing his throat.
‘So, I hear you visited Limone del Garda today,’ he said.
‘We did. Just when you think the scenery around here can’t get any more spectacular, it manages to do exactly that. Lake Garda is an awesome place, isn’t it?’
He nodded. ‘Wait until you take the cable car up to Monte Baldo. I haven’t made it up there yet – been too busy here – but they say that the view is fantastic, and even better if you hike along to Monte Altissimo.’
‘Hiking? Not sure that’s going to feature highly on Billie’s list. She says she wants to do the cable car ride, but I don’t think her enthusiasm for adventuring will reach much further than the coffee house at the top. When we were working on theBillie Does the Alpsbook she never went skiing once.’
Tad glanced across. ‘Really?’
‘Apparently, she spent far too many of her formative years being forced down icy ski slopes by her father to want to do it again from choice. And it wasn’t as though Malcolm or I know one end of a ski pole from the other, so in the end we went up in the cable cars, and staged a whole load of photos that made it look as though she was about to head down a difficult slope?—’
‘Probably a black run,’ he said, relaxing into familiar territory. The winter seasons he’d spent working in the mountains of the French Alps, cooking for guests in catered chalets, hadn’t been spent entirely in the kitchen.
‘You know about skiing?’
‘I worked in the French Alps for a while, spent a couple of winters cheffing in private catered chalets.’
‘Ah, OK. We were in one of those, too. Billie blagged it from one of her friends, apparently. We stayed for a fortnight in a postcard-perfect chalet on the edge of a village called Base de Nuages.’
‘Base de Nuages?’ Tad was taken aback by the coincidence. ‘That’s where I worked – it was a couple of seasons ago, though. When were you there?’
‘That’s so weird – we were probably there at the same time. Maybe we bumped into one another in a snowy street and have no memory of it. And now we’re here, making aubergine-lasagne-whatsit together.’
Tad caught himself before he said the words that had popped into his head.I would have remembered bumping into you.Not only inappropriate, but the thought was also ridiculous, because back then his head was scrambled and his life was in tatters, his grief as raw and painful as an open wound. There was no way he’d have noticed anyone, not in that way. Even though there was no doubt Amy was stunning and, despite her clear lack of interest in him, he’d done little elsebutnotice her since she’d arrived at Casa del Cibo.
He supposed he should take the thought as a positive: a sign that he was finally moving forward.
Not that it mattered, either way, if Amy’s emotions were already entangled elsewhere. Tad smiled. ‘It’s aubergineparmigiana, but I suppose lasagne-whatsit is close enough.’
Amy grinned at him, then turned back to the pan. ‘I think the garlic is softened. Shall I add the tomatoes?’
Tad took a moment to answer, his attention taken by the soft curve of the back of her neck. His desire to kiss it hadn’t diminished – to start at the top of her spine and go all the way down with his lips. He only realised he hadn’t answered her question when she turned and frowned at him.
‘Yes. Some vinegar and a bit of sugar, too, please.’
