Recipe for Redemption
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Anna J. Stewart
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18
Chapter One
JASON CORWIN’S HAND stilled over the hotel registration form as he sniffed the air. “Do you smell smoke?”
A middle-aged woman with short-cropped gray hair passed through the reception area of the Flutterby Inn, Butterfly Harbor’s main hotel, a stack of freshly laundered towels in her arms. The lack of concern on her face might have made Jason wonder if he were imagining things, but as a former professional chef, he was more than familiar with this particular smell.
“I have you down for three weeks, Mr. Corwin,” Lori, the plump young woman who had introduced herself minutes ago, said. She leaned her hands on the whitewashed batten-board counter, lively green eyes devoid of concern as the air thickened. “Is that correct?”
“Yes.” He scribbled his name, his eyes beginning to water as a thread of white smoke snaked out from under the double doors to his left. “I’m sorry, but shouldn’t someone check—”
The deafening screech of a smoke alarm rent the air. Hints of gray puffed through the plumes of white smoke.
“It’s nothing!” Lori waved her hand before turning to focus on the old-fashioned mailbox portals behind her. “That’s just Abby in the kitchen. It’ll clear in a few minutes.”
The lobby became hazy. Jason’s pulse kicked into overdrive as he wrenched open the sliding doors and got a face full. Coughing, eyes tearing, he hurried through the dining room, dodging the mishmash of tables and chairs. He tried to inhale but there wasn’t any fresh air to be found, nothing to calm his nerves or stop the dread pounding through his body. Did it have to be the kitchen?
He’d kept his vow and hadn’t stepped foot in a professional kitchen in over three months, but given the choice between burning to death in a hotel fire and breaking a promise to himself, he’d take choice number two.
He pushed open the swinging door and stepped into the kitchen, waving his hands in front of him to disperse the smoke. A stockpot of what he hoped was water boiled over and splashed into the too-high flame beneath it, causing bright orange flickers of fire to arch toward the ceiling.
“Come on, you stupid, plastic piece of crap!” A woman stood on the stainless steel worktable and banged the end of a broom against the smoke detector. “It’s not like this is our first go-around.” Bang. Bang, bang. “Stop. Making.” She grunted and he could see her arms start to weaken. “So. Much. Noise! Ah!”
The kitchen went silent and she sagged forward, bracing a hand on her knee as she heaved out a sigh. “Got ya. Oh, sugar pots.”
Before Jason could move, before he could utter a word, she jumped down and grabbed a thick orange towel, dragged out two trays of cremated somethings and tossed them onto the counter with a squealing “Ow!” The bang of metal hitting metal echoed in the room and in his head.
She shook her left hand as if she’d burned herself—how could she not—before reaching for the pot. The orange towel slipped dangerously toward the flames.
“Stop!” Jason yelled and dived forward.
She shrieked and leaped aside as the towel skimmed the still-flaming burners and ignited. “Who are you?” She flipped the towel onto the yellowed linoleum floor and did a little dance over it to stomp out the flames. “What are you doing in here?”
“Right now I’m wondering where the fire department is.” He strode over and closed the oven door, flipped off all the burners and then shoved open the closest transom windows. “Hasn’t anyone told you the kitchen’s a dangerous place? It’s not a playroom.”
“I wasn’t playing.” She pushed the windows on the other side of the kitchen open and, as the smoke thinned, glared at him. “I was trying to make scones.”
Jason looked at what seemed to be tiny shriveled briquettes. “You failed.” He glanced up at the ceiling and saw the cover of the smoke detector hanging by a duo of thin battery wires. “Your detectors are not to code.” No wonder he didn’t hear sirens. It wasn’t hooked up to anything but noise.
Now that he could see clearly, the entire kitchen looked stuck in the past. Only the refrigerator appeared to have been manufactured in the last decade, the stainless steel scarred and leaning toward tarnish. He could see rust forming in the tile grout around the cracked farmer’s sink.
He bent down to grab the towel, but she snatched the smoking fabric out from under his hand and tossed it into the sink overloaded with used bowls, spoons and...was that a tortilla press?
“I’ve got it, thanks.” She shooed him away from the mess she’d made and toward the door. “All in a day’s work. Nothing to worry about.”
Must be the hotel motto. Was it too late to rethink his stay? Probably, considering he hadn’t been the one to make his reservations in the first place. Fresh air collided with the smoke and thinned it out. He’d never been so grateful to fill his lungs before as he coughed out the remnants of her scone attempt.
Her mouth twisted as she peered at the charcoal briquettes scattered on the trays, counter and floor. “I don’t know what happened. Our cook told me they were foolproof.”
“You mean full proof.”
“She said what she meant.” She swiped a hand over her damp forehead and let out a long breath as she seemed to collect herself. “Not the way I like to greet new guests.” She was choking as she tried not to cough and as she blinked, cleansing tears streamed down her face. “I’m Abby Manning. I run the Flutterby Inn. And you are—?”
“Jay Corwin.” After three months, the lie came easily.
“Next floor show starts at five.” Her laugh sounded strained as she planted a hand on her hip and studied the mess. Her doll-like face with a too-small nose and too-wide turquoise eyes eased into a smile that almost broke through his personal bank of storm clouds. How, with all those thick blond curls of hers tumbling around her shoulders, had she managed not to set herself on fire? He needed to keep moving, keep thinking, otherwise the walls were going to start closing in on him. Walls. Memories.
So many memories...
“You’ll want to put some ice on your hand.” Jason dropped his gaze to her reddening fingers. He headed toward the stainless steel refrigerator only to have her wave him off again as she dragged open the freezer door and sank her hand wrist deep into the ice tray with a relieved sigh.
“If you’d like to return to the lobby, Lori can—”
“Abby? Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine!” Wincing, Abby pulled her hand free and shoved it into her jeans pocket, pressed a finger against her lips in a silent plea for his cooperation. “Just a little, um—”
The kitchen door swung open and an elderly woman entered. It was like watching night turn into day right before him as Abby’s eyes brightened despite her fingers flexing in her pocket. “Good morning, Gran. How did you sleep?”
“As fine as anyone my age does these days. Hello. I’m Alice Manning.” Alice bypassed Abby and headed straight for him, her steps short and slow. “This one here’s my granddaughter. I’m the former manager of the Flutterby Inn.”
“Jay Corwin, Mrs. Manning.” He could see the family resemblance, the familiar soft feminine features right down to the same color eyes. He shook Alice’s outstretched hand before he bent down to retrieve a stray over-cooked scone off the floor and tossed it into the sink. The door beckoned him, offering freedom, offering relief, but he didn’t see a way past Alice without being rude. Stuck. In a kitchen. Great. “A friend of mine recommended your hotel as the perfect getaway.”
“Well, I hope you’ll feel at home during your stay. That’s what we always aim for, right, my girl?” Alice glanced at Abby before she wagged a finger at him. “You’d be from the East Coast. New York, I’m guessing? Always could tell. Used to make a game of it when I checked customers in. I worked that desk out there for more than fifty years, long before this one was born. I know my accents.” Gran angled her chin in Abby’s direction. Something akin to pride shone in Abby’s face as she watched her grandmother. “Nothing I like more than meeting people from all over this wonderful world, not that we get many visitors these days. Tell me, how long will you be staying with us, Mr. Corwin?”
“A few weeks.” He couldn’t remember exactly at the moment, because all he could think about was escaping the Flutterby Inn’s kitchen. If he closed his eyes, he could almost hear the cacophonous symphony of the nightly dinner rush at JD’s in New York.
“Good, good.” Alice nodded and lifted a slightly trembling hand to smooth a curl above her ear. “Then you’ll be here for the anniversary celebration. It’s going to be quite the to-do, from what I hear. And what kind of work do you do?”
The truth froze in his throat and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t quite clear it. “I’m between jobs,” he managed and avoided Abby’s suddenly curious stare.
“Finding yourself, then?” Alice said with a solemn nod. “No place better than Butterfly Harbor to help you figure out life’s big questions. Now, as for you.”
Alice spun to face her granddaughter so fast, Jason held out his hands for fear the older woman would topple over. Abby reached out at the same time, shooting him a grateful look over her grandmother’s stooped frame.
“Abby, tell me you haven’t been cooking again.” Alice shook her head and scanned the room, her rust-colored hair reflecting against the ceiling lights.
“You always told me practice makes perfect,” Abby said in a tone that spoke of lifelong affection and commitment.
“I also taught you to accept your limitations. You should have learned your lesson when you were six and blew up your Easy-Bake Oven.” She made a face at Jason, who kept his expression neutral. “Bet you didn’t know one of those could fly, did you? Up and tried to launch itself out of the house on Christmas morning, I’m telling you.”
“I thought we agreed it was a faulty lightbulb,” Abby said without a hint of embarrassment.
“Your grandfather, bless him, and I thought it best to keep the truth from you. Now that you’re almost thirty, I think you can handle it.”
“You know me...” Abby stepped in and wrapped her arms around Alice and hugged her close. “I can handle everything as long as I have you. And I’m not going to stop trying to make Matilda’s cranberry-orange scones you like so much.”
“No scone is worth burning down our home.” Alice clicked her tongue and patted Abby’s back. “You always were an overachiever, Abby girl, but it’s time you wave a white flag and accept when you’re beat. I’d like to go at least a week before hearing that blasted alarm again.”
“I’ll do my best,” Abby chuckled. “Would you like me to drop you off at Eloise’s this morning on my way to the hospital? I’m going to be leaving in a little bit.”
“I’m ready whenever you are,” Alice announced. “I’ll go put my lipstick on and we’ll zoom, zoom, zoom. A lady just isn’t ready to go out in public without her red lipstick,” she told Jason as she held out her hand again. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Corwin.”
“Jay, please. You, too, Mrs. Manning.”
“Alice.” She smiled, charming character wrinkles around her eyes appearing. “Welcome to Butterfly Harbor. I hope you enjoy your stay.”
Abby’s amused gaze faded as he caught her eye. “So do I.”
* * *
“MR. CORWIN, THERE you are.” Lori Fletcher, Abby’s assistant manager and invaluable right hand, met them in the dining room as Abby led their new guest to the lobby.
She could feel the cool morning air brushing in through the front door Lori had opened to clear out the smoke. All the better to see Jay Corwin. Abby’s gaze skimmed from his short-cropped, almost military-style brown hair to a neatly trimmed beard down to a myriad of muscles peeking from under a snug black T-shirt.
He seemed a bit more relaxed now that the smoke had dissipated. Or maybe it was a trick of the light. He’d stopped staring daggers at her and she was glad to see that frown on his face wasn’t permanent. Not that he would win any points for a cheery disposition.
“Bonnie’s doing a quick once-over on your room,” Lori told him as she handed him the room key dangling from one of their trademark monarch butterfly key chains. “We have fresh coffee and pastries on the buffet in the lobby if you’d like to wait there.”
“Thank you, Lori. Miss Manning.” He bowed his head as if he were dismissing her. Abby gnashed her teeth. Storming into her kitchen to lecture her? As if she didn’t know how inept she was when it came to cooking? Or that she didn’t know how to silence a smoke alarm? Arrogant know-it-all.
“Abby, Matilda’s going to have a coronary when she hears about this,” Lori whispered once Jay Corwin was out of earshot. “She almost went on strike the last time you tried to cook spaghetti and over-boiled the sauce so it erupted like a volcano.”
“If you don’t tell her,” Abby singsonged with a sweet smile as her face went hotter than the oven she’d been battling. She’d never understood how things got away from her so fast. “Then we don’t have to worry, do we?”
“Uh-huh.” Lori grinned, an expression that lit up her face as they returned to the desk. “I’d ask if this is the last time you plan to burn down the Flutterby, but now that you’re attracting men who look as if they’ve modeled for a firefighters’ calendar, I might start giving you my old matchbook collection.”
“Not funny,” Abby said. “I didn’t think breakfast and dinner were going to be a problem.”
“You had a good plan. Matilda’s replacement didn’t have any way of knowing his brother was going to die, and it’s not like Butterfly Harbor is brimming with competent cooks.”
Butterfly Harbor wasn’t brimming with much of anything these days. “We’ll make do,” Abby tried to sound more confident than she felt. She was just going to have to make it work. “Meanwhile, we’ll have to explain the situation to our guests and get by with them eating at the diner. Unless...”
“Unless what?” Lori’s tone was hesitant.
“I could call Matilda and ask for some of her best recipes.”
“Gee, Five-Alarm Manning, I can’t understand why she didn’t do that to start with.”
“Are you guys really still calling me that?” Abby sighed as she headed to the über-organized registration desk and pushed aside all thoughts of sending out an SOS to Matilda. “Oh, no. What’s this?” She picked up the large metal showerhead.
“That,” Lori said, “is a showerhead.”
“Lori—”
“Room 206. It fell off when I was cleaning the bathtub.”
“My own fault,” Abby muttered. “I got sidetracked last week and forgot to check the rest of them.” If it wasn’t the showerheads taking suicide drops, it was leaky pipes under sinks or loose floorboards...everywhere. The Flutterby was falling apart, but she was determined to stay ahead of the collapse. She had to. She didn’t have a choice. “Start me a list of any repairs we need to do. I’ll get going on them after I visit Mr. Vartebetium.” The Flutterby’s owner had been in the hospital for several days now. Her fingers throbbed. It was all she could do not to run back to the kitchen and stick her hand in the freezer. “How are we coming on the reservations?”
“Working on them now,” Lori told her. “It’s been a while since we’ve had all twelve rooms filled, but we should have everyone’s needs accounted for. That’ll also leave two extra rooms for last-minute arrivals. That producer from the National Cooking Network is a picky one.”
“New Yorkers,” Abby muttered, casting a glance to her newest arrival, who had taken a seat near the dormant fireplace. “I’m going to check with Matt about helping us get the last rooms in shape so we can have them as well.” The recent Army vet had been doing odd jobs for her around the inn for a while, but his time was more limited now that he’d been hired as one of Sheriff Saxon’s deputies. “It’s going to be a crazy couple of weeks around here,” she said to Lori. “We’re going to need all hands on deck.”
“We’re ready.”
Between the organizers of the By the Bay Food Festival and the production crew from the National Cooking Network, not to mention the out-of-town attendees, the Flutterby Inn was poised to be sold out for the first time in over two years. As much work as it was going to be for Abby and her three employees, it was their opportunity to make the Flutterby Inn shine in all its aging glory. And hopefully make a profit for their bedridden boss. “Nothing like going from a drought to a flood when it comes to guests.” Abby inclined her head toward where their new guest sipped his coffee.
“We’re in good shape. Besides, he paid for his reservation up front, so we can’t exactly kick him out. I gave him the tower room, if that’s okay? Kind of suits his knight-on-a-white-horse persona, don’t you think?” Lori leaned her chin on her hand.
“The tower’s fine.” Abby ignored the question from the ever-romantic Lori along with the implication. Knight or not, she did not have the time or energy to invest in romance, no matter what her struggling online dating persona or her well-intentioned employee thought. Not that Jay Corwin was remotely her type. She liked her potential romantic partners to have fewer sharp edges to them. This guy was more prickly than a spiny jellyfish. “That leaves us with, what? Four guest rooms occupied through this weekend?” Lori nodded. Good. Not too much upkeep then, and at least two rooms would be vacated by the following week. “I’m going to drop Gran off at Eloise’s for the day and then head over to see Mr. Vartebetium. I’ll stop at the diner and pick up lunch. What do you want?”
“One of Holly’s strawberry shakes would be heaven.” Lori sighed, then looked down at her significant waistline hidden behind a full flowing skirt and oversize sweater. “But better make it a turkey on whole wheat. No fries.”
What Abby wanted to do was remind the younger woman that depriving herself wouldn’t help, but she didn’t want to force Lori off the healthier bandwagon. Her friend’s confidence had begun to climb and she’d even treated herself to a cut and color at the Bee Hive to tame her once brown, now nutmeg-highlighted brown curls. “You’re doing great, Lori. Losing thirty pounds is nothing to sneeze at.”
“It’s the next thirty that has me worried. I’ll hold down the fort, don’t worry.”
“Paige said to keep her on speed dial if we need extra help.” But with her friend doing extra shifts at the diner, Abby didn’t think it right to ask her to man the kitchen at the Flutterby as well. Not that Abby could afford to anyway, not with the way the business’s finances were stretched these days. Not having an in-house cook was proving to be more of an issue than she’d anticipated. And it was only going to get worse with the influx of guests they were expecting.
She’d find a solution. She always did. She’d do anything to keep the Flutterby Inn running. It was the only home Gran had ever really known, and Abby wasn’t about to have Alice spend her twilight years anywhere else. Especially now.
Abby rifled through one of her drawers for the stack of meal vouchers for the Butterfly Diner. “I’m going to make sure our resident fireman is all set before I go.”
“I’d say I saw him first,” Lori said, “but you one-upped me with that fire of yours.”
“It wasn’t a full-blown fire.” But it could have been. Gran was right. When was she going to learn her lesson? She and kitchens did not mix. Abby took a steeling breath and carried the vouchers over to their new guest, who was flipping through one of the anemic local tour books. “Mr. Cor—er, Jay?”
“Should I stay on alert for the duration of my stay, Five-Alarm Manning?” He didn’t bother to look up from the booklet.
My, what big ears you have. She would not let him bait her. She couldn’t afford to alienate paying—and from what she could tell, incredibly flush—guests. Some people, like this man, exuded money. “I’m afraid you’ve discovered my one weakness.”
“Kitchens are dangerous for those not properly trained.” The superiority in his voice obliterated the last of Abby’s goodwill.
“Yes, I heard you the first time.” Why did he make her sound as if she was a rambunctious five-year-old who’d dumped a container of flour all over her head? She bit her cheek. She could tell her guest she’d been trying to save some money, that scones couldn’t possibly be that difficult, that she hadn’t wanted her guests to have to trudge to the diner. Or she could do as she’d done for the last seven years and keep her tongue in check to make sure her customers—even Mr. Jay Corwin—were happy.
“Since the kitchen is closed for the next couple of weeks—” she offered up a silent prayer that Matilda would return sooner than planned “—and your rate includes breakfast and either lunch or dinner, we’re offering free meals to our customers down at the Butterfly Diner. I think you’ll agree that’s best while my cook is on vacation.”
“You don’t have a backup cook?” He frowned at her over the top of his coffee cup.
“We did. Matilda walked him through the paces before she left, but then his brother passed away. He had to fly back to Michigan.”
“There’s no one else available?”
“It took us weeks to find him. Besides, Matilda would throw a fit if someone she didn’t know came in to work her kitchen.” It was a joke. Kind of.
“You allow her to take time off and leave you high and dry during what could be a busy couple of months for you? Doesn’t seem very responsible to me.”
He couldn’t have sounded any more judgmental if he’d banged a gavel on the sink. Life happened. And sometimes it had a cruel sense of timing. “Tell you what. If you’re here when Matilda returns, feel free to let her know her annual long-distance breast cancer awareness fund-raising walk isn’t smart business sense.” So much for holding her tongue. “In the meantime, I hope you enjoy your stay. The diner opens every morning at six and what stores there are on Monarch Lane will open between nine and ten. If you have any questions or need assistance, let Lori know. She’s more than up to the task, I’m sure.”
Either he missed her sarcasm or he didn’t care.
“Are the grounds around the inn open to guests?”
“Yes. There’s a path down to the beach off the front parking lot. And if you give the Butterfly Diner a call ahead of time, Holly can make a nice lunch for you to pick up. Thank you again,” she added before she pushed open the door. “I’m sorry your first few minutes at the Flutterby were distressing.”
“Interesting, though.” Jay gave her what could have been interpreted as a smile. Such a shift from his earlier manner confounded Abby. “Have a good day, Miss Manning.”
“Abby,” she responded automatically, then, before she started to think better of him, headed off to collect Gran.
