One More Taste (One and Only Texas #2)(26)
Emily felt the muscles in her back relax. She enjoyed Knox’s company, especially this side of him that believed in ghosts and sentient fish. Just because they were out on a boat together didn’t mean it had to be romantic. Nothing wrong with having a bit of platonic fun. “I think your fish enemy needs a name. Hot tip, though. Moby Dick’s already taken.”
“How ‘bout just Dick?”
“Since you’re already being haunted by the ghost of your dad, and now you’re being shadowed by a fish, how ‘bout we call this guy Phantom?”
Knox gave a slow nod. “I like it. Phantom.”
“Tell you what. If you catch Phantom someday, I’ll cook him for you. Even if it’s after the challenge is done and I’m busy with my new restaurant.”
He offered her a keen smile, as though they were co-conspirators in a diabolical plot. “Deal.” Then his expression turned contemplative. His eyes seemed to take in their surroundings again. They’d drifted far out toward the center of the lake. What a beautiful, peaceful night. There was a nip in the air every time the breeze picked up, but Emily’s chef jacket was thick enough to stave off a chill.
As though in preparation to row the boat back to shore, Knox rolled up his sleeves to his elbows, revealing the perfect musculature of his forearms beneath a dusting of dark hair and the same designer watch he’d worn every day so far. Her pulse quickening, Emily thought back to their run-in in his bedroom, to the way he unwound from the day by stripping off the artifice of his business attire. He was halfway there tonight. No tie, shirt open at the collar, sleeves unbuttoned and rolled.
Physical labor suited him.
He’d told her that he went for a run every morning. What did he look like in a cotton T-shirt that clung to his sweaty skin beneath? How would a pair of nylon workout shorts fit his body? What of his legs?
With an audible snort, she gave herself a mental smack. No, really, Emily. What about your boss’s legs? Do tell. The professional ethics police would love to know.
Unaware of Emily’s indecent thoughts, Knox grabbed on to the oar handles and dipped the paddles into the water. Good. He was rowing her back to shore so they could end this awkward, oddly intimate boating excursion. Perched on the bench across from him, she let out a deep exhalation, infinitely relieved.
On his third stroke, Knox’s attention shifted from the lake to Emily. “Can I ask you something?”
Small talk was definitely beyond her capabilities at the moment. Then again, if it helped pass the tense minutes until they arrived at the dock, she could handle a question or two.
“You can try, but I’m not sure I have any answers for you. We already agreed I’m not going to give you the dirt on Carina’s family, and other than that, there’s not much else I know. I’m just a chef.”
She hadn’t known such a sentiment was inside her heart until she’d said the words. Just a chef. It was true, though. She’d carefully constructed her life to be just this one label. She poured everything she was into her work, her chosen art. It was a singular identity that was both comforting and liberating.
Just a chef.
Damn right. Because if she was just Emily Ford, the chef, then she wasn’t Rebecca Youngston, teen runaway. She wasn’t that victim of abuse. She wasn’t a nothing, adrift in the world with a fake name and a fake identity, with no family. So instead of all those things she didn’t want to be, or couldn’t be, she was Emily the chef. And a damn fine chef at that.
“I need you to tell me something honestly. And I don’t know who else to ask,” Knox said.
“I’m always honest.”
He opened his mouth as though to speak, but ended up grinning at her instead as he stroked the oars through the water. “That you are.”
He shifted his focus back to the dark silhouettes of the hills. “I know we agreed that you wouldn’t spill the dirt on Carina’s family, but there’s something I can’t—” He stopped speaking, sighed, and then started over. “The fight between my dad and Ty and my grandfather, you had a word for it that first day we met in Ty’s office, but I can’t remember what it was. What did you call it?”
“The rift. Everybody at the resort who’s been here long enough calls it that, Ty and Granny June included.”
“The rift,” he said slowly, as if weighing each word for import. “Do you know what the fight was about? I mean, really about?”
She didn’t owe him answers. Her loyalty was to the Briscoes. But he’d disarmed her with his earnest, almost vulnerable tone. Implicit in the question was the admission that he didn’t know the details of the decades-old family tragedy. Which was shocking, really. Hadn’t Clint ever told his children why they never saw their grandparents or cousins? Hadn’t the truth ever been revealed? Secrets that significant only went to the grave in soap operas and horror stories, or so she’d thought.
“I don’t know any details. If I did, I would tell you because you deserve to know. Ty refuses to talk about it and so do Eloise and Granny June. I’m pretty sure Tyson was the same way, though he’d passed before I came to work here. I’m definitely sure no one ever told Carina or Haylie the truth because we’ve all sat around speculating about it together.” She studied the frustrated set of his mouth. “You honestly don’t know what happened either? Your dad never told you?”