Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek #1)(13)

Too bad it was a onetime thing.

Not that she would’ve allowed herself to keep him either way.

As she stepped into the brewpub, she shook off that depressing thought. Enough mooning. One good thing about being bone tired today was that she could stop thinking about the man for a little while. If only out of sheer exhaustion. Having her weekend day cook switch shifts with her at the last minute yesterday had forced her to work back-to-back for the first time in months—brutal, since she’d both opened and closed the day before. To top it all, because the universe, or at least Arizona’s jury system, didn’t think her life was interesting enough, she was now covering her weekday day cook’s shift as well. It wouldn’t have been so bad if today weren’t a Monday. As it was, with the tight demands of her time each week, she’d had to turn today’s regularly scheduled clerical duties into last night’s blurry-eyed homework. She’d barely gotten in an hour of sleep before her alarm had gone off a few minutes ago.

Smothering a yawn, Dani waved to her mid-morning crew and began faxing out next week’s vendor orders before filing the net calculation logs she’d finished at four this morning. She spent a few minutes online before moving on to the part she’d been looking forward to today—writing this quarter’s bonus checks for her assistant managers and brew managers. It thrilled her to no end that the checks would be bigger than usual, courtesy of the great crowds they’d had through the holidays. Rewarding her management team sizably and giving her staff regular Christmas and anniversary bonuses were among the many business ethics she’d inherited from her dad, a luxury she was able to keep up because of Ocotillos’ growing success over the years.

After scrawling her signature on the last check, she stuffed each into their recipients’ inboxes and rushed downstairs to fire up the kitchen grills for the lunch rush. Within a half hour, Dani was churning out food orders with nothing more than hope and a recurrent yawn keeping her awake, a sad fact she was trying desperately to keep from showing in her food. Even if it killed her—and today, there was a strong possibility it would—Dani never allowed herself to put anything less than her heart and soul into both her brewing and her cooking. She worked the way some people prayed, and reaped the same kind of fulfillment for her commitment.

By the time noon rolled around, however, she was plum fulfilled out.

As far as exhausted delusions go, the one of Xoey stomping in and taking the tongs out of her hands was up there with fairy mermaids on unicorns. Entertaining, but all too unbelievable.

With a groan, Dani tried pinching herself to wake up from what was clearly an extravagant daydream resulting from her falling asleep at the grill. She blinked. No cigar. After another hard pinch, she realized Xoey really was standing there, not only hours early for her shift, but in a cooking apron. Dani’s mouth gaped open in disbelief. Make that shock. The full apron was not a look Xoey ever rocked, nor was the kitchen an area she ever entered except to flirt with the cooks.

Craig, the kitchen part-timer who was carrying a pan of meat from the walk-in fridge came to a skidding stop with a quiet, “What the—” He almost dropped the food he was carrying.

Oh good, he saw it too. So this wasn’t a hallucination.

They both stood there and watched Xoey efficiently check the order monitor to see what dishes she needed to get started on, and then hustle to grab the ingredients for a portabella salad.

“It’s not that weird,” snapped Xoey. “Craig, get over here.” She slapped a spatula into his hand. “I called Javier and he’ll be coming in soon to cover so until then, you’re gonna show me how much you’ve learned to cook so far. Don’t screw it up.” The wide-eyed college kid who’d been limited to prep and appetizers until now just bobbled his head and got to work.

Turning back to Dani, she scowled. “You have to learn to ask for help, lady. The brew boys shouldn’t have to call me to tell me you’re like the walking dead in here.”

Awww, her workers had called Xoey.

“Go up to your office and get some sleep. And don’t even think about coming back until tonight, missy.” With that, Xoey got to work throwing a flank steak on the grill, blending up some basil for their pesto dressing, and scooping hummus onto a platter. Dani didn’t even get to utter a word before her server staff promptly herded her out of the kitchen.

Up in her office, she saw waiting for her, a glass of icy strawberry milk and a warm cookie, her all-time favorite comfort food combo thanks to Elle, the veteran waitress who’d been the first to spoil Dani with this afterschool snack decades ago. A faint mist gathered in Dani’s eyes. Crazy wonderful workers. Smiling sleepily as she sipped her milk, Dani shuffled to the couch at the back of her office and plopped down.

Halfway through her milk and cookies, a flash of color on the far table caught her eye and had her quickly heading over to investigate the source.

It was a beautiful Christmas cactus, with loads of volcanic, chlorophyll-green leaf strands and waxy, bright flowers in full bloom.

Touching one of the pinkish-red petals, unique to this variety, she smiled, curious as to who’d have brought it in. For all she knew, it could’ve been here for days. And since none of her workers saw the untamed beauty in all the local desert cacti flowers she chose to decorate her brewpub with—often asking why she didn’t go with orchids or other ‘normal’ restaurant flowers instead—Dani knew this had to be a gift for her...but from whom?