“Will do,” he promised. “Thanks, Jess. I mean Ms. O’Brien. You’re amazing. I’d better go out there and put these reservations I wrote down into the system before I get food all over the paper.”
He practically bounced out of the kitchen. Jess stared after him, then shook her head.
“Who knew?” she murmured. “I didn’t think he was ever going to find his niche in the world. You’re a miracle worker.”
Gail grinned. “Not really. He just needed someone to pay attention to what he wants to do with his life. I started seeing it the first time he helped me out in here,” Gail said. “He’s good, Jess. With a little training, I think he’ll be special. And thanks to the deal you mentioned to him, he’ll belong to us, at least for a little while.”
“It must feel good knowing that you discovered someone’s hidden talent,” Jess said, wishing she’d been the one to see beyond Ronnie’s screwups.
“You can’t discover what someone won’t let you see,” Gail said. “Ronnie was too afraid of losing this job, which seemed like his last chance, to tell you what he really wanted to try. If you hadn’t insisted he help me that day, he might still be out there making a mess of the reservations. Or worse, you might have fired him.”
Gail looked up from the bread dough she was kneading and studied Jess more intently. “What’s going on with you? You look depressed.”
“I’m not depressed. I’m annoyed,” Jess replied.
“At Will, I assume. What’s he done now?”
“He found me a date, or rather Lunch by the Bay found me one. It’s pretty much the same thing.”
Gail looked justifiably puzzled. “Weren’t you complaining before because he hadn’t found you any dates?”
Jess nodded. “I am nothing if not inconsistent, at least where Will’s concerned. No wonder he’s had enough of me.”
“What makes you think he’s had enough of you?” Gail asked, then immediately said, “Oh, of course, the date.”
Jess nodded. “Let’s not waste time on this,” she said. “Are you ready to go over the menus for the week?”
Gail looked as if she might argue, but then she pulled a set of laminated pages from a drawer in her desk. Somewhere along the way, she’d developed the kind of organizational skills that Jess envied. All of her most prized recipes had been printed out and laminated, so she could shuffle them around for a variety of menu combinations. She occasionally shook things up with new experiments. The ones that proved popular with their guests were printed, laminated and added to the rotations.
“Here you go,” she said, handing them to Jess. “See what you think. I’ve been working on some ideas for the Parker wedding at the end of the month, too. We’re supposed to be pitching that tomorrow.”
Jess spent the next hour going over Gail’s menus and the accompanying cost projections, then sat back with a sigh. “I don’t know why I don’t just give you free rein with this,” she said. “You haven’t blown the budget to smithereens yet. You have a far better grasp of the costs than I do.”
Gail grinned. “I know you hate dealing with numbers. I even know that Abby trusts me. I still feel a lot more comfortable when you’ve signed off on everything.” She poured them each a glass of tea, then sat back and studied Jess.
“Okay, let’s get back to Will.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Just tell me why you’ve been so determined not to admit you’re interested in him.”
“It’s possible that I’ve overreacted to some stuff in the past,” Jess told her. “It’s kind of creeped me out to think he’s sitting there analyzing every word I say, but people keep telling me that having a man actually understand where you’re coming from is a good thing.”
Gail smiled. “I’d say so. With my husband and me, the fact that we’re both chefs is fantastic. Whenever one of us has a bad day, the other one really gets it. And we can bounce a lot of ideas off each other. Plus, on Sundays, when we’re both off, we love to spend the day in the kitchen experimenting with recipes. It’s fun having that love of food in common. All those fabulous aromas…” Her voice trailed off as she sighed. “It’s an amazing aphrodisiac.”
Despite Gail’s sigh of rapture, Jess had to ask, “How’s it a day off if you’re in the kitchen cooking?”
“Because it’s something we both enjoy and we don’t get to do it together that often.” Gail grinned. “Of course, when something turns out really well, then we fight over which one of us gets to use it. Those discussions used to get pretty heated, till we decided we’d just alternate. And, of course, some things work better in a big fancy restaurant like the one where he works than they would here.”
“So we get his castoffs?” Jess said with feigned indignation.
Gail laughed. “Hardly. When I think something is perfect for us, I have my ways of winning first dibs on it.”
Jess loved the picture Gail was painting of the give and take between her and her husband. In a way, that’s what she’d experienced all too briefly that day in the attic with Will. It had been a revelation to see how well their ideas for the renovations had meshed.
In fact, though she refused to admit it to a living, breathing soul, she could hardly wait till Sunday when they’d both see how her father had translated them into concrete designs. Seeing Will on a non-date, much as he would hate the designation, seemed like the smartest way to test whether her feelings for him had really changed.
Will was finishing up his lunch with Mack and Jake when Mick O’Brien walked in and joined them.
“How’s Bree?” Mick asked his son-in-law.
“She’s great,” Jake said, then beamed with the proud papa look unique to a new parent. “And the baby’s amazing. I have pictures on my cell phone. Want to see
