Promise Canyon (Virgin River #13)(55)

"It's a good life. But I'm no chef. I cook the best I can. That's all."

"If they're coming back year after year, you're making it work. Isn't that what it's all about? People enjoying your food?"

Preacher gave a boyish shrug and shy smile. "We're not open tonight on account of all this, but I'm cleaning and loading the barbecues before dusk and I have some venison chili in the freezer if you and your girls want to come by and do a little sampling."

She reached out and impulsively touched his arm. "Seriously?" she said, her eyes wide. "Oh, that would be fantastic!"

"Might even be a couple of stuffed trout tucked away, too--stuffed with corn bread, rolled in bread crumbs, seared in a little extra virgin and simmered in beer. And there's always pie. Hardly anyone beats my pie. In fact, come to think of it, Buck Anderson gave me a big lamb shank and there's some of that left.... It wouldn't be as good reheated, but it's still pretty fine. I don't think I ever fed a chef before. I'd do it, though. Professional courtesy."

"That would be so wonderful. I hate for you to open up the kitchen just for us, but..."

"Open up the kitchen?" he asked. "My kitchen never closes. I feed my family from that kitchen--our house is attached to the bar and we don't have any other kitchen. It's open twenty-four hours. The front door of the bar has a lock."

"Front of the house," Kelly said.

"Huh?"

"That's what we call the restaurant, the seating, where the food is served--the front of the house. The kitchen is the back of the house."

"That a fact? Well, it's simpler here--it's a kitchen or a bar or a house. And we pretty much do as we please."

Kelly laughed. "I like that."

"Have you been in Hope's old house?" Preacher asked her.

"Not yet," she admitted. "I always seem to talk to whoever is cooking before doing anything else."

"Well, I don't know that Hope was much of a cook. Never heard her mention it and never knew anyone invited to dinner. But that house has a very neat kitchen. Looks like Hope pretty much lived in it the last ten years or so. I have to stay with the grills, so let me get my wife to show you around. Paige," he called. A woman with a toddler on her hip wandered over to Preacher from a short distance away. "Paige, this here is Kelly and she's a cook like me. Can you show her Hope's kitchen?"

"Sure, John," the woman said. She stuck out her hand. "Pleasure to meet you. Did you come to Virgin River for the estate sale?"

"Actually, I came with my sister and friends just to enjoy the mountains for a day or two before going back to the city. I'm from San Francisco. I work as a chef and your husband and I were just talking food. He even offered to open up his kitchen to give us a sample of his best chili and trout."

Paige laughed and her eyes twinkled. "John likes to show off his cooking. Wait till you see this kitchen. In fact, wait till you see the house...."

"So...the woman who died," Kelly said, "she was a hermit?"

"Not at all," Paige said, leading the way up the front porch. "She was around all the time, in everyone's business, looking out for the town. She was in the bar almost every evening--she liked a shot of Jack Daniel's to go with her cigarette. But she definitely had her secrets. Even though she was present for every town event or gathering, none of us has run into a single person from Virgin River who's ever been in her house. Though lots of people have been as far as the front or back porch or garden.... Hope used to garden like a madwoman and complain about the bunnies and the deer, but she'd give away most of her vegetables."

As Paige talked, Kelly followed her through the house toward the back and finally they stepped into a massive kitchen. The appliances were old but clearly of the type to service a manor house and not a house for a single inhabitant. There was a large worktable that had a Not For Sale! sign on it in the center of the huge kitchen. There were two sinks, a six-burner stove, two ovens, two refrigerators and a large, walk-in pantry. Kelly also saw a stairway that went to a cellar. "What's down there?" she asked.

"There were mice and canned goods that expired forty years ago," Paige said. "It's pretty much an unfinished cellar with a dirt floor. This house was built long before people thought of rumpus rooms."

One end of the kitchen was for cooking while the other was for eating and contained a very large stone fireplace. There was no furniture there.

"It appeared Hope stayed here. There was a big old easy chair and ottoman along with a couple of quilts. From this spot she could look out over her backyard, see the mountains rising back there behind her property. Anytime anyone came to see her, she met them on either the front porch or back porch. As close as we can figure out, she chopped her own wood, too. She had a desk, computer, files and television here; John took the computer home to see if he can help find if there's anything on it that Jack should know--like relatives, special charity interests, lost accounts or deeds, that sort of thing." Paige pushed open a door off the kitchen to reveal what would have been maids' quarters in its day. "Even though there are like seven bedrooms in this old house, Hope lived in the kitchen."

"That's what I would do," Kelly said somewhat absently. She turned to smile at Paige. "I fall asleep in my recliner almost every night. I mean morning. I work till three or four in the morning. I go home, turn on the TV, which by that time is usually showing infomercials, and zonk out. I wake up just before lunch and start over. My bed doesn't see me that much."