One More Taste (One and Only Texas #2)(19)

“I’m sure he’s not interested in your opinion.”

“Guess we’ll find out. Unless you’re chicken.”

Maybe seeing would be believing for her. Knox climbed into the driver’s seat, started the truck, then reached across the bench seat and unlocked the passenger door. “Get in.”

“Ready?” he asked once she was settled with her seatbelt on.

“Let’s do it.”

Imprudent hope took hold of him. Emily was so committed and passionate about everything she did that it was easy to get swept away by her confidence. He disengaged the parking brake, put the truck in gear, and eased the gas pedal down.

Lo and behold, the truck rolled forward toward the property line.

“Come on, Clint,” Emily whispered.

At only a few yards away from the edge of the resort, Knox’s imprudent hope turned into full-fledged faith. This was going to work. Emily was the key, somehow. She—

As the front bumper crossed the cattle guard, the engine died. No warning, no gradual slow down. Just dead. So much for that wild flare of faith.

A hard bark of laughter escaped his chest. “See? Told you.”

Emily’s mouth had fallen open. “That’s … I don’t know what to say. I mean, I believed you. I really did, but I still thought maybe this time he’d cut you a break.”

“Nope.”

She puffed her cheeks with a sigh. “He’s really not happy you’re working at the resort, is he?”

“I can see how you’d think that, but it doesn’t make sense. I have to believe he’s proud, and that he knows I’m restoring balance and righting a wrong. He has to know I’m doing all this for him.” There he went again, oversharing with Emily. How did she manage to disarm him so completely? Here she was, pulling from him some intimate truths he’d never shared with anyone, Shayla included, while he knew barely anything about her save for the sparse details from her personnel file, which he’d opened and skimmed today.

“Did you grow up in Texas?” he asked.

Her face went blank. She stared straight ahead, though he wasn’t sure she registered anything but the darkness. He sat in silence, waiting her out, hoping she’d cave and start talking.

“Houston.” Her clipped tone held a warning not to question her further, but she’d done more than her fair share of probing him, so it was only reasonable.

“Are your parents still there? Any brothers and sisters?”

“I’m an only child.” She sat in silence for a moment more. Then, in a flash of movement, she unclipped her seatbelt and opened her door. “So I’m just gonna go…” She hitched her thumb toward the resort’s main building. “I’ve got ingredients to pick up in the catering kitchen. Dinner’s in two hours. I’ll see you at your house.”

“Emily!” he called out his open window, but she didn’t acknowledge his call.

She stalked over the cattle grate and onto the resort grounds, then down the hill and out of sight.

*

Knox’s sister, Shayla, was a tightly wound ball of positive energy, with an ultra-fit body to match. She probably rolled out of bed in the morning and straight onto a workout mat to perform rear leg lifts and crunches. She didn’t look like she carried an extra ounce of fat, which probably meant, like Knox, she thought of food as fuel and nothing more. Such a pity.

Knox pulled Emily out of the kitchen to meet his sister in the living room while the biscuits were cooking. Emily kept one eye on the oven, while also trying to make small talk with Shayla—not an easy feat for an introverted chef with a well-rooted disdain for wasting time with conversations that went nowhere with people she’d probably never meet again.

Maybe it was a mistake to have set the kitchen table for dinner, where they’d have a front row seat to watch Emily’s every move. On occasion, she pulled that move at the resort, serving VIP clients at a chef’s table in the kitchen, but the stakes had never been this high. It had been one thing to share a meal alone with Knox the night before. As nervous as he made her, they’d had no shortage of topics to banter about. But with Shayla there, as well as Emily’s surprise guest—who was on the verge of being late—the feeling of being on stage had her surprisingly anxious.

“It’s great to meet you,” Shayla said, shaking Emily’s hand. “When Knox told me he was auditioning a chef for a restaurant he’s opening at the resort by using her as a personal chef for a month, I thought that was a genius idea. I had to come check you out for myself.”

“Yeah, check me out.” Ugh. So awkward.

“I don’t see any place settings at the dining room table,” Knox said. “Are we eating on the deck?”

“In the kitchen,” Emily said, gesturing for them to follow her.

Shayla seemed delighted by the news. “How kitschy!”

Shayla’s joke landed with such a thud that Emily’s step faltered. Knox groaned good-naturedly. “You did not just go there.”

“Damn right, I did. You know me, the most awkward girl in the room.”

Looked like Shayla and Emily would have to compete for that title. “And here I thought that was my cross to bear,” Emily said.

“We can share the crown.”

If this meal were designed to wow Shayla instead of Knox, there’d be no way Emily would seat them in the kitchen. No, instead she would have indeed seated them on the deck. She would have tapped into Shayla’s amusement at the world with fresh air and quirky gastronomic marvels. Sparse plates and exotic flavor bursts.