Too Hot to Handle (Romancing the Clarksons #1)(75)

Staying in Hurley would mean dropping the family she’d only begun to win back, nixing the mission she’d laid out for herself, and beginning new in a strange place.

As a chef, no less. She’d fallen into a familiar rhythm immediately upon walking into Buried Treasure, inspecting the kitchen, devising plans. Simply beefing up the specials menu sent her right back to the holding pattern she’d fled in San Diego. Now she had a chance to start over in New York, free of the failures she’d courted by being a chef, but the kitchen seemed determined to pull her back in. Because she loved it, loved the man who’d given her the fresh slate? Or because she didn’t know anything else yet?

Rita entered the kitchen to find Aaron and Peggy tossing a lime back and forth. The chef clearly wanted to be irritated but couldn’t quite pull it off in the face of Peggy’s giggling. Sage danced into the kitchen behind Rita, catching the lime in midair and giving the two siblings a stern look before making it a three-way game of catch.

“I’m done going through the books,” Aaron said to Rita without looking at her. “Your boyfriend knows what he’s doing. Low overhead. Great cost efficiency. He doesn’t need me so I’m here to offer my cooking expertise.”

“You can’t fry an egg,” Rita pointed out.

Aaron rolled the green fruit along his shoulders, making Peggy and Sage laugh. “I was thinking more along the lines of official taste tester.”

A minute earlier Rita had sworn she might never smile again, but having them all in the same kitchen reminded Rita of days when Miriam would cook and they’d all congregate around the stove, trying to steal bites of food. And something mended itself inside her chest. The only one missing was Bel—

“Am I the only one working here?” Her older brother grumbled from behind her.

Aaron tossed Sage the lime, but she missed the catch because her wide gaze had fastened itself on Belmont. The fruit thudded on the ground.

Rita decided to take pity on Sage. “Hey, what song was it Mom used to sing when trying out a new menu? I can’t remember. …”

“‘Raspberry Beret,’” Aaron said. “By Prince.”

“That’s right.” Peggy hopped up on a waist-high refrigerator, ignoring the chef, who tried to shoo her off. “Except she would change the words to ‘Raspberry Sorbet.’”

It was well known that nary a Clarkson could carry a tune, so they all raised eyebrows at one another, waiting for someone to start. Rita went to the pantry and began pulling out ingredients, wondering if she was a lunatic for putting her dignity on the line. But a distraction from the ache in her stomach whenever she thought of Jasper was necessary, so she took a deep breath and started to sing.

Peggy joined in halfway through the first verse, her voice a much higher pitch than Rita’s. Aaron’s baritone was low and almost inaudible, but there nonetheless. And when Sage chimed in, Rita thought Belmont might throw himself down at the girl’s feet, but no one expected her older brother to sing. And he didn’t.

Ingredients were diced, sauces mixed, meat prepped around the big white cutting station, each of the Clarksons—and Sage—focused on their work. The singing eventually faded away, leaving the sound of slicing knives and murmuring voices as they compared notes and talked over ideas to leave Jasper for menu changeups.

The more time passed, the more Rita began to experience a winded feeling. An impending sense of loss. Movements that were usually natural felt stiff. Scenes with Jasper filtered through her mind like sunshine through lace. Being picked up on the side of the road on his motorcycle. Dancing in Rosemary’s kitchen. Kissing in the motel parking lot. Seeing Buried Treasure for the first time, seeing all he’d worked for without anyone the wiser. Lying side by side in his truck bed, watching clouds shift, talking about anything that entered their minds. While she and her siblings were healing one deep-seated scar, another one was forming, making itself permanent.

And when she turned around to see Jasper watching her from the doorway, where she stood huddling with her laughing siblings, that scar deepened and gushed fresh blood. Because without saying a word, in that moment, she’d given him her answer.

*



The dining room of Buried Treasure was full. With a line out the door. Several customers had already made reservations for the following night. Sage had started some sort of Instagram account—although God knew how he’d keep that straight when he was on his own—and pictures were posting steadily. Pictures of food. Food Jasper could look at and see Rita’s touch. See the subtle changes she’d made to give it the right flair. Even without seeing the dishes she sent out from the kitchen, he would have known they’d have little quirks, just like Buried Treasure.

A parmesan crisp in the shape of a heart stuck in the center of mashed potatoes. Little sticks of hardened sugar bundled together to resemble firewood. She sent out little pieces of her heart on the plate, and every time one passed, another piece of his own chipped away.

His conversation with Belmont that afternoon had come into stark focus when he’d walked into the kitchen. As he’d stood there, watching Rita exchange tentative looks with Aaron, noticing the way she watched Peggy thoughtfully, as if dying to get inside her little sister’s head and rearrange things. Seeing the way everyone, especially Sage, stopped on a dime whenever Belmont spoke, staring at him as if it could be the final time he ever communicated in the open. So many intricacies. So much at stake. And it was all happening right before his eyes.