Читать книгу Code Name: Bikini - Christina Skye - Страница 12

One day later

THE SHIP’S LOWER DECKS were packed. While passengers lined up for entrance upstairs, uniformed workers raced past the lower loading areas with cans, food boxes and equipment.

Gina leaned against a rail, watching huge drums of cooking oil being rolled toward the ship’s stores. The head of beverage services stood in the middle of the chaos, looking perfectly made up and very smug. Gina wasn’t up with all the fashion trends, but she suspected that Blaine Richardson’s cropped red sweater was a Prada original. How you could afford designer clothes on a head of beverage service’s salary was a mystery to Gina. Then again most things about Blaine were a mystery to Gina.

As a seabird circled overhead, she rubbed her neck, smoothing knots of tension. All she wanted to do was sit down and close her eyes for a few minutes before the dinner madness began, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen.

Blaine was gesturing to her from the deck, and talking to Blaine was never a good thing.

Gina crossed the deck warily. “You wanted something?”

“No, but you will.”

The mysterious act again. “I don’t see any problems, Blaine. I logged all my stores in the ship’s computer three days ago. I’m good to go.”

Blaine studied a crimson nail and yawned. “Really?”

Whenever Blaine struck a casual pose like this, disaster always waited right around the corner.

“There’s no problem for me. But you’ve definitely got one. You should have been here earlier when the men began to load. There were space issues inside one of the refrigerated units. You remember when the thermostat started acting up, don’t you?” Her voice was sweet.

About as sweet as poisoned fruit, Gina thought. “That thermostat was supposed to be replaced here in California.”

“Afraid they couldn’t find the right parts.” Blaine studied another crimson nail. “That means no repair and no guarantees on anything stored in that unit.” She yawned dramatically. “Lucky for me that I’m an early riser. I made sure that all my stores were put in the functioning units. Since you weren’t here…”

The workers had diverted her food to a malfunctioning unit?

Gina stiffened, hit by a wave of anger. The day before she had been busy doing a favor for the cruise line bigwigs. Earlier in the morning she had had to catch up with her work on board. Meanwhile, the Wicked Witch of the West had been here sabotaging her pastry stores. Any pastry chef knew that chocolate was very temperature-sensitive, with an ideal storage temperature between fifteen and eighteen degrees centigrade. Fluctuations in temperature could result in melting and subsequent recrystalization of the cocoa butter fat. The surface powder or “bloom” was death to good pastry, requiring a new round of tempering.

Now Gina would have to beg, wheedle and trade favors to find adequate space for her sensitive chocolates and edible flowers in the ship’s already tight refrigerated areas. There was no way she’d ask Blaine to share her space.

Not that asking would help.

Never pleasant, Blaine had lapsed into full bitch mode after she learned that Gina was being considered for a food series on national TV. Since that day three months ago, it had become Blaine’s sole goal in life to beat out Gina with her own wine series, and her sabotage efforts were becoming more difficult to avoid. Gina had spoken to the head of food services twice, but he had been no help.

No surprise there. Blaine was boffing the man every chance she got. There was little that didn’t get noticed aboard a crowded ship, and crew gossip had pinpointed the spots and times, right down to the noise level and positions involved.

Ugh. Some details you just didn’t want to know.

“Thanks for all your help, Blaine.” Gina’s voice was icy. “You’re a real team player.”

Blaine buffed another nail. “Nobody said it was a team sport, honey. Just remember. If I don’t get a TV series, then nobody on board does.”

“Wow. Now there’s a healthy adult attitude.”

Much as she would have liked to, Gina didn’t stay around to trade insults.

She had a pallet of varietal semisweet chocolate to rescue before it started to sweat.

WHEN GINA TURNED into the corridor to the rear storage area, she nearly ran into her Brazilian sous chef. Andreas looked exhausted and worried. “He wants you and it’s not pretty.”

“Who wants me?” Gina ran through any recent problems with personnel, management or the captain and was relieved when she found none.

“Tobias Hale from security. He was down at the kitchen ten minutes ago. And ten minutes before that. He said you were to go straight to his office as soon as you came aboard.”

“Can’t. Gotta go save a ton of expensive chocolate from imminent peril. The Wicked Witch sent them over to the malfunctioning cooler.”

Andreas muttered a string of harsh words in Portuguese street slang. “You want me to help you with this transfer?”

“I can manage. But come back when you’ve finished checking on the tarts for dinner. We may have to work fast.”

“Nothing to sweat for, boss.” Andreas’s English was very good, but he occasionally mixed an idiom. “I will come soon. But Tobias—”

“Can wait.” The ship’s security chief was six feet five inches tall, built like an oak tree and had the smooth, dark features of a slightly younger James Earl Jones. He stopped fights with one glance and shot fear into the hearts of boisterous travelers and drunken crew alike. Because of him the ship never had security problems. The crew scuttlebutt said that he was a former CIA operative; others said he was ex-Delta Force. Maybe both were right.

His orders were never ignored.

But Gina did that now. She had her food to protect.

She was racing along the corridor to the galley so fast that she didn’t see a hand truck half hidden by a box of cleaning supplies. Her ankle hit metal and she went flying headfirst, skinning her palms, elbows and one cheek.

Closing her eyes to the sudden burst of pain, she sat up slowly.

A worried face loomed over her. The cleaning man shoved his hand truck back against the wall. “You okay? I had to use the bathroom. Sorry about that. Hey, you’re the one who made the rum cake for my birthday last month. Man, it was great.” He offered her his hand and tugged her to her feet.

Gina blinked, feeling a little dizzy. “Glad to hear you liked it.”

“Ma’am, you don’t look so good. You want me to get someone—like a doctor or something?”

“I’ll be fine. Just be sure you store that hand truck so no one else trips over it.”

“Sure. Real sorry about that. By the way, Tobias Hale is looking for you.”

Great.

Gina dug a tissue from her pocket and limped off. Most of the blood was gone by the time she located her chocolate pallet, just in time to keep it from being loaded into the cooler with the unreliable thermostat. After fifteen minutes of mixed pleas, promises and threats, she found an alternate berth in a different unit, but it meant volunteering to prepare special desserts for staff dinners the following month.

Next time she’d definitely beat Blaine to the dock. And until then she’d remember to watch her back.

When Gina finally reached the kitchen, she sank wearily into a chair, kicked off her shoes and pressed a bag of ice against her bruised cheek.

“Want to tell me what you are doing?”

“Resting?” She didn’t look up. She knew that deep voice, and there was no ignoring its edge of anger. “I had to rescue some chocolate.” She sighed. “And after that I was trying to avoid running into you.”

“In my office.” There was steel in Tobias Hale’s order. “Five minutes, Gina. Otherwise I’ll put you on report.”

If she hadn’t been so tired, she would have jumped up and saluted. “Aye-aye, sir.”

“Don’t bother sounding nice and obedient. We both know you’d like to insert one of your favorite knitting needles up my…nose. So stop smiling and get over to my office.”

One more fire to put out, Gina thought wearily. What had she done to piss off Tobias so royally?

She rubbed a fresh trickle of blood off her cheek and wiggled back into her shoes. Whoever thought cooking was glamorous needed to have a serious mental evaluation.