Too Hot to Handle (Romancing the Clarksons #1)(4)

“Remember when I got the job working for Senator Boggs? Mom threw that cocktail party and invited three of my ex-girlfriends, who quickly figured out there’d been some relationship overlap.” Aaron crouched down and tugged a wedged picture of Miriam standing in the French countryside from beneath a charred produce crate. “She laughed as I ran out the door.”

“We were all laughing,” Rita corrected, moving toward the remains of Wayfare’s former world-class kitchen.

“Thanks.” Aaron’s response was drier than dust as he set the photograph back down, his movements brisk. Dismissive. “She called me later that night and said, ‘There’s your first lesson in politics, son. Everyone you’ve fucked over shows up at the same party sooner or later.’ She was right.”

Rita stopped beside a stainless-steel oven range, kicking it with the toe of her boot. Barely having spoken to her siblings in the last year, opening up to them took a fair bit of effort. But something about the funeral-esque feel of the burned-down restaurant erased that no-contact year for just a moment, bringing them back to a time when conversation came more easily. When they were still uncomfortable with one another but at least they were accustomed to it. And since someone else arranged time together—namely Miriam—they were saved from appearing to have made an effort, because God forbid, right? “I, um, I made my first osso buco on this big boy,” she said, nodding at the oven range. “It came out like shoe leather. Mom ate the whole thing, chewing every bite while the crew watched. And then she said, ‘Thank God that sucked. If you’d gotten osso buco right the very first time, I would’ve had to step down as head chef. And I like being the main bitch too much.’ Then she took a shot of bourbon and rattled off that night’s specials.”

While I stood there like a naked teenager on the first day of school.

Never again.

“Ooh. My turn.” Holding Aaron’s shoulder for balance, Peggy stepped up onto an overturned steel refrigerator and spun in a pirouette. “After I broke my engagement to Harry, I didn’t want to leave my apartment…didn’t want to work. Nothing. But Mom picked me up and brought me to Wayfare.” Another ballerina-like move that had Aaron reaching without looking to steady her. “She sat me down in the dining room— at the center table in front of everyone—and gave me a skillet full of cherry clafoutis with a lit candle stuck in the center. She said, ‘There. Now it’s a real pity party.’ I went back to work the next day.”

A wind blew through Wayfare’s ruins, swirling ashes around Rita’s boots. Despite the distance between them, having her brothers and sister there was providing actual comfort. But that comfort turned to thorns with Aaron’s next question.

“What will you do, Rita?”

Her mother’s journal had turned to stone in her back pocket, creating a heavy downward pull. The Clarksons were not a family of oversharers. In fact, they weren’t even sharers, which is why she hadn’t yet told them about the journal Miriam had left for her to find. Their individual problems—and they each had plenty to boast about—were their own. While Miriam had occasionally broken through those walls to make a point, she’d been just as comfortable with her children being solitary entities. Dysfunctional islands that occasionally passed in the night. Her illness had knocked them all on their collective asses, because it was fact that the Clarkson siblings loved the shit out of their mother, but they’d never talked about it. Never grieved as a unit. As far as Rita was concerned—and she suspected she wasn’t alone—that suited her just fine.

But with the journal came responsibility. Her siblings deserved to know about Miriam’s final wish. A wish Rita was now determined to see through. Perhaps she was grasping at any excuse to leave California and her numerous fuckups behind, but the promise of a new beginning sounded better than melting butter. No more cooking. No more failing. She could finally indulge that secret fantasy of going back to school for anything but working in a kitchen. If Miriam’s journal gave her the excuse she needed, she would thank her mother and take it. Without or without her siblings in tow.

“I’m going to New York. The way she wanted. You’re welcome to come with me, but I won’t fault you for saying no. Just…here.” Rita slid the brown moleskin book from her jeans and held it out to Belmont. “Bel, can I borrow the Suburban? Sort of…indefinitely?”

Rita waited for her older brother’s stilted nod before she turned and left them with the journal. She sat in her car, pretending to organize a pile of old mix CDs, watching as her family took turns passing around Miriam’s penned thoughts, reading the first entry she’d marked. Although she couldn’t hear them, Rita could vibe Aaron’s incredulity, Peggy’s nervous follow-up questions, and Belmont’s silent, tangible gravity, his unawareness that the other two watched and waited, hoping he would weigh in verbally. It took them only ten minutes to approach the car looking like some kind of mobile intervention.

Aaron rapped on the window until Rita rolled it down. “Look, it’s just not happening. Next year is an election year and campaign season is critical. I don’t have time to fly to New York and dive into the goddamn ocean.”

Peggy chewed on her thumbnail. “They just promoted me at the store. I’m up for manager next and Christmas is our busiest season. They’d ax me for sure.”