Page 48 of Cooped Up for Christmas

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Apparently, when the guests came home, they oohed and ahhed over the wedding decorations in the great room. And then, they decided they wanted a little something sweet. Olivia radioed me in a panic. Fortunately, I’d taken the radio with me into the bathroom, which was where I was when she called. Coop and I had had our fun and I was getting ready to turn in, so I might have been a little short when I said, “I swear to God, if you tell me the chef is on fire one more time—”

“No. No. But you better come.”

“All right. Where?” I came out of the bathroom and scowled at Coop. He flopped back and covered his face with a pillow.

“Noel’s room.”

“Okay. Be right there.” I dropped the radio and reached for my blouse. Thank God we hadn’t completely undressed. “Hey. I gotta go,” I said.

His response was muffled by the pillow.

I stepped over Mason—who was lolling on the floor, and, frankly, didn’t seem to care if I left or not—and headed out.

Noel was in his room, sitting on the chair. Kind of. Okay, parts of him were on the chair. Parts of him were also on the floor with the rest of him leaning that way. In short, he looked as though he had melted all over the furniture.

“’Allo, Victoria!” he said when he saw me. He attempted to raise a bottle in my honor. It appeared to be far too heavy.

“Noel, are you drunk?” I asked, though the answer was there, right under my nose.

He lurched toward me. “Drunk? Moi? Non. Non, mon chéri.” I grabbed hold of his chin when he got too close and all kissy.

Drunk Frenchman? Merci, mais non.

All righty then. First things first.

Rearrange the horny chef on his bed with a bottle of water and a nice big bowl within barfing distance.

Next, I turned to Olivia. “Did they say what kind of sweet they wanted?”

“No.”

“Awesome.” I’d seen some frozen desserts stocked in the freezer. It only took me a minute to find some microwavable frozen lava cakes and the caramel Noel marked as leftover from the wedding cake. And yeah. I made that.

Caramel chocolate lava cakes.

Served on crystal plates (with a caramel swoosh on the base), sterling silver utensils and a cloth napkin…and you had a thirty dollar dessert. Easy. I squirted a little whipped cream on the warm cakes and then shaved chocolate over them just to be sure they looked fancy.

Olivia helped me serve, while Wren poured coffee. They didn’t ask for it, but we made decaf because, clearly, these people needed their sleep.

And so, by the way, did we.

They loved the coffee and cakes and quickly succumbed to that lovely state I like to call satiation. They were simply happy. And so was I.

Until I remembered that my chef was blotto and there was a huge breakfast planned for tomorrow morning early. As in O-Dark-Thirty, as Dad used to say.

So, as soon as the guests went upstairs, I corralled Olivia and Wren into the kitchen, grabbed my radio, and called for backup. It didn’t take long for everyone to appear in Noel’s room, which was the only staff room in the guest lodge. It was near the kitchen, but it wasn’t much larger than ours, so it was a tight fit.

Especially since Coop and his team had answered the call as well.

“We have a problem,” I said, gesturing to Noel, there on his bed, drunk on brandy. Like, sloshed. And he was not a pretty drunk. He was crying and sniveling and cradling that empty bottle, there on the corner of his bed.

The cake was done, thank God—salted caramel so no one could taste his tears, which was a blessing—but the chef was a mess. There was no way he was going to be able to pull together a five-star wedding breakfast in ten hours.

Jed shook his head. “Dude. I don’t understand why he can get shitfaced and I can’t smoke a little pot.”

Ye Gods! “Jed. Listen to me.” I took him by the shoulders. “Noel is not supposed to be shitfaced. And he will very probably be fired. Do you see? Do you see why we have that rule? Now, there’s no one to do his job. Get it?”