Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83699 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 335(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
When he’d become the huge success he was, he could have pulled up stakes and gone anywhere. But obviously, he’d loved the area and stayed.
He certainly hadn’t stayed because of Ava.
Chapter Seven
“So now you have world-famous chefs working for you in your restaurants.” Ava glanced at him, her eyes sparkling in the brief instant of contact. “Do you still do your own cooking at home?” Then her smile dimmed, as if she realized she’d stepped into personal territory.
Ransom knew she’d been purposely avoiding it. “I even chop vegetables.” He smiled to take the bite out of the memory of all the times they’d worked together in the kitchen. It had been one of his greatest joys in their relationship. Almost as much as their lovemaking.
“When I’m not working on the cooking show—”
“—or writing a new cookbook—”
“—I like to fly out to the different restaurants and just take over the kitchen for a night, to keep my hand in.”
He still supervised some of the major events himself, like the New Year’s Eve gala, especially since Gideon was a Maverick and Dane was organizing. He’d jumped at the chance to cater that event because he’d thought Ava might be there. He’d spotted her glossy red hair across the ballroom, but every time he made his way over, she seemed to disappear.
“Doesn’t a world-class chef get ticked off when you take over?”
He laughed. Ava had always made him laugh. When she wasn’t driving him wild with that beautiful body of hers. “Most of them say business booms in the few weeks afterward.” He shrugged. “There are a few who resent it, but that type doesn’t last long. I don’t want prima donnas who run their kitchens like tyrants.”
“It’s like a test, then,” she mused.
“As much as I enjoy it, yes, it’s a way of testing how they treat their employees.”
He was also known for hiring female chefs in a male-dominated field. As if women hadn’t been doing the cooking for millennia. He didn’t mention that to Ava. She would say that women didn’t need to be given a chance by a man, that they could make it on their own, just the way she had—spectacularly.
“That’s kind of admirable,” she said, glancing at him. “You don’t just walk away from all your employees when you move on to another project.”
“The work environment at all my restaurants is important to me.” He was gratified that she approved of what he’d done. Not because he needed approval in general, but because he wanted hers.
They chatted about his career, and with each topic, he thought, That happened before you left me. Or, That came after you were gone. The discussion made him think of how it all started for him, too, in his family’s mom-and-pop restaurant back home in Milwaukee. People referred to places like theirs as a greasy spoon, although his mother had kept everything spotlessly clean. But his parents were always working, and they had him and his brother working there too.
In fact, his father had worked himself to death, dying of a heart attack when he was only in his fifties.
Ransom had already struck out on his own by then. He’d worked as a caterer, been on cooking competition shows, worked cruise ships as a chef. He’d been a personal chef and created menus for resorts. He’d already been thinking about a cookbook too.
When his father died, his mom wanted him and his brother to take over the restaurant. But there was no way Ransom could go back. He’d been twenty-four, and Milwaukee just wasn’t in his life plan.
His mother had stopped speaking to him, and it was only when she became ill with cancer that she finally forgave him. But even in those last few weeks he had with her, he’d still felt the pain of her rejection. He felt it even now, but at least he’d repaired his relationship with his brother, Adam, who’d taken over the family restaurant.
He sensed his maudlin thoughts bringing down the atmosphere in the car. He didn’t want to waste his time with Ava ruminating about the bad parts of his past. He wanted to remember the short year they’d had together. How good it had been.
And not for the first time, he wondered what his life would have been like if she hadn’t left him.
* * *
His story was amazing. Some of it she’d known, a lot she hadn’t. But sitting in the car with him, even as she tried to concentrate on her driving, Ava felt overwhelmed—by his scent, his body heat, his masculine presence. She hadn’t realized it would be like this.
She could only breathe normally again once they pulled into the parking lot of her San Juan Bautista senior living complex, and she could finally step out of the car.
The care home had different levels, each catering to the needs of her residents—independent living, assisted living, memory care, and a hospital wing with twenty beds. Residents sometimes convalesced there until they could return to their own apartments.