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)
At the crosswalk, she waited to make sure the drivers would actually stop for her. You took your life in your hands if you stepped out just because a traffic light had changed.
Sure enough, she would have been flattened by a bus thundering by.
Yet, in the next moment, she was flattened, at least emotionally. There he was on the side of the bus. Ransom Yates. The famous chef. With his own cooking show, Recipes from Ransom.
God, the man was gorgeous, even after fifteen years. No, he was better. With light streaks of silver in his dark hair and those deep mocha eyes that could see right into you, he was to die for. At forty-six, Ransom Yates was the epitome of a silver fox. No wonder his marketing company put his face on the sides of buses. And billboards. And magazine covers. Ten years younger than he, Ava wondered if she’d held up as well. Of course, the photo was probably airbrushed to smooth out every flaw the man had.
Except that he hadn’t had a single physical flaw fifteen years ago.
The bus blew by, and the cars behind it stopped for her. She stepped into the street, and damned if the man wasn’t on the back of the bus, too, as if he were haunting her.
If she didn’t know better, she’d say the photo actually winked at her.
Chapter Two
As Ava entered the restaurant, she was assaulted by a cacophony of voices. The ceilings were high, the floor concrete, and all the noise seemed multiplied in between. Diners shared deliciously scented plates, servers rushed back and forth, and a great flame rose up from the open kitchen, where some specialty of the house was being crisped to perfection.
They were all there, her big, beautiful family, seated at a center table. Just looking at them, her heart swelled. They’d gone through so much together, both before and after their parents died. And they’d made it out the other side, all of them doing so well for themselves, and with a closeness that other people envied. If any one of them had a problem, they all pitched in to help. She’d been known to make and receive midnight phone calls, sometimes for a shoulder to lean on, sometimes just to shoot the breeze. They were totally there for each other.
Her big brother Dane looked positively domestic, his arm draped around Cammie seated next to him. He was still her tall, dark, and handsome brother, like all her brothers were, but there was a new contentment about him. Cammie ran his life for him, and now Dane had finally realized she was the love of his life too. Ava would say he glowed, but he’d probably bop her on the arm for that as well. She was happy for him. For Cammie. They made her wonder if there was hope for the rest of the family.
Except for her. She’d pretty much proven she sucked at the love game.
As she made her way around the table kissing cheeks—Dane and Cammie, her brothers Clay and Troy, her sister Gabby—she stopped in front of Fernsby. Good old Fernsby. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that was a scowl on his face. But that was just Fernsby. He’d probably worn that look as a baby. Except it was hard to imagine Fernsby had ever been a baby. And yet, over the summer, since he’d won the top prize on Britain’s Greatest Bakers—or maybe because of Dane and Cammie—Fernsby had actually loosened up. Not much. Just a bit.
“Miss Harrington, may I say you look lovely this evening,” he said in his cultured British tones.
The consummate British butler, he went everywhere with Dane. But to the family mastermind? Well, yes. Fernsby was part of the family.
“Thank you, Fernsby. Where’s T. Rex?” Dane and Cammie’s excessively adorable long-haired mini dachshund also went everywhere with them.
“Since this is a restaurant and they don’t allow dogs, Lord Rexford,” Fernsby drawled, because he always used the dog’s formal name, just as she was always Miss Harrington, “is at the Nob Hill flat.” While Dane’s main estate was down in Pebble Beach, he kept a pied-à-terre in the city.
Ava smiled and took the seat between Clay and Gabby at the round table. Though she’d called for these meetings, she was still the last to arrive. It was always the one who came the least distance, right? While Cammie, Dane, and Gabby—who ran a vegan café in Carmel—had driven up from Monterey Bay, both Troy and Clay had probably come straight from the airport, the two of them always on the move.
Despite the Maverick holiday events and weekly barbecues, Ava had opted for instituting their own family mastermind once a month. Distance and travel made weekly an impossibility.
Ava beamed at her family. “I’m so glad you all made it.”