Читать книгу Moonlight In Vermont - Kacy Cross - Страница 8

Four

Cock-a-doodle-doo.

The cry sounded again, just outside Fiona’s window. Groaning, she half lifted her head, saw it was the crack-of-dawn-thirty and slammed the pillow down over her ears.

Didn’t help. The crowing continued until it was ridiculous.

If anyone did bother to ask Fiona what she wanted to do, item number one on her list had just become throttle that rooster. Shoving the pillow aside, Fiona sat up.

“I’m trapped in Farmville,” she muttered and palmed her phone, not that she had any hope it would magically have gained a signal. She’d done everything she could think of last night in an attempt to connect, but no. Cell phone towers didn’t seem to exist here.

Something loud and un-rooster-like cut through the air outside her window. Thwack. City noise, Fiona could handle, would welcome. That had purpose and value. This thwacking noise? No. Just no.

She let the phone drop to the nightstand and flung the sheets back so she could roll out of bed to address the racket. Mushroom Man stood nearly even with her window chopping wood. Chopping wood as if people weren’t trying to sleep around here.

The window opened with one of those old-fashioned rollers. Fiona wheeled the handle in a circle until the window yawned wide enough for her to call through it. “Um, are you aware it’s not even six a.m.?”

Derek scarcely bothered to glance over his shoulder. “Well then, I’m late. This should have been done by five-thirty.”

He immediately turned back to his log splitting routine and cleaved through another one. It halved neatly and Fiona grudgingly noted that he’d barely put much effort into it at all. He was cute, dang it, even when he was being ornery.

It put Fiona’s back up. “Isn’t it a little early for all this racket?”

“If I don’t get this birch cut, there’ll be no smoked salmon for dinner.” And then he muttered, “New York princess,” under his breath but loudly enough that she heard him anyway, which had likely been his intent.

“Vermont lumberjack,” she returned cattily and rolled her window shut.

Since she was up, there was no excuse not to take a run, though surely there was far less to see on her route here than there was in the city. She’d have to make the best of it. But first, breakfast. That would put her in a more positive frame of mind.

Vermont was not going to break her.

Morning had long been Derek Price’s favorite time of day. He’d taken to getting up early in Paris, before the city fully woke for the day. He’d had a top floor apartment in the 10th arrondissement, tiny but serviceable, and the window opened up with a view over the rooftops.

The day hadn’t started yet, so the sun would just peek over the tops of the buildings, lighting on the spires of Sacre-Coeur, the white basilica on the hill. It was like a sign. That was when Derek knew he’d made the right choice to become a chef.

It hadn’t always been an easy road. But once he’d landed this dream job at Inn at Swan Lake, his life finally clicked onto the right track. He’d carved out a place here where he could build something meaningful. Put down roots in the Vermont soil where he belonged. He liked stability, traditions and people who said what they meant, in that order.

Which meant that interlopers in his kitchen were not necessarily welcome, particularly in the form of one Fiona Rangely, who had decided to become the thorn in his side, apparently.

She came into the room wearing an explosion of purple fitness wear, her long brown hair caught back in a shiny ponytail. With running shoes on her feet, no one could mistake the New York princess’s aim to go for a jog this morning. In the snow. Where there was ice.

Derek shook his head and laid down the knife he’d been using to pare pineapple for the fruit sauce he planned to drizzle over the wood-smoked salmon he’d mentioned to Fiona

“Can I help you?” he called out as he met her in front of the pantry she’d been about to open.

Fiona whirled, clearly startled, though why she’d expected the place to be empty when he had guests to feed remained a mystery to him.

“Oh, no thank you,” she said sweetly. “You were already helpful enough with the wakeup call.”

That was more Harris’s daughter’s speed—acerbic wit slathered in charm. He shouldn’t encourage it so much, but he just wanted to see what came out of her mouth next.

Which is why when she reached for the pantry door again, he closed it firmly. “My kitchen. So what can I get for you?”

Fiona sighed and then smiled in that way Derek didn’t trust for an instant.

“We got off to a rocky start,” she said. “But why don’t you just do your thing? I’m going to grab some food and go for a run.”

And then she actually tried to open the pantry door again. Man, the message was not getting through here and he had dinner prep to do, which took all day. Derek closed it with a click, which put him much closer to Fiona. She smelled…expensive. Nice. But definitely higher maintenance than he typically liked.

“Again. My kitchen.”

They stared at each other for a long beat, and it was a moment laden with more things than Derek could sort. Surprising things. Not just two strong-willed people facing off, but a spark.

Huh. Hadn’t seen that one coming. Sure, Fiona was attractive in a non-subjective way, same as a sunset was beautiful. But she had that attitude. Well, maybe he kind of liked that too.

“Fine,” she said and it was clearly not fine, but it broke the odd tension. She handed him a folded piece of paper. “Have it your way. Gluten-free, no soy, no dairy diet.”

He scarcely glanced at the list because…come on. “Food allergies.”

It wasn’t a question. Only someone who had no choice would deliberately go gluten-free, soy-free and dairy-free. Might as well add cardboard and sawdust to the list.

“No, my nutritionist has this amazing—”

Decisively, Derek ripped the list in half and threw it on the counter. If he never heard about it again, it would be too soon.

“What are you doing?” Fiona squeaked and picked up the pieces, trying to fit them back together. He should have thrown it in the fireplace.

“Don’t worry,” he advised her. “I’ve got breakfast covered. You’re going to love it.”

Because it had food in it. The kind that took hours to make, which meant it was worth it. He poured her a cup of coffee from the French press on the counter and handed it to her as he fetched a plate from the cupboard.

“Maybe I don’t drink coffee,” Fiona said primly as she accepted the cup with hungry eyes that had already devoured the first sip.

“You? Please.” She had caffeine addict written all over her. She’d need it to speed through her day as she missed all the greatness of Vermont around her because she was too much in a hurry to appreciate the small things.

Pulling a pan from the oven with a dishtowel, he put fresh cinnamon rolls on the counter and just caught her sipping the coffee from the corner of his eye, a note of bliss on her face that he could get used to seeing a whole lot more.

When people enjoyed something he’d made, that was the best. It was why he’d become a chef—to feed people good food that nourished them body and spirit.

She watched him pull a roll off the tray and as he put it on a plate, she waved at the pan. “Just so you know, I’m on a carb free diet.”

“Until now.” Wow, she really needed to loosen up. Like a lot. She treated food as a punishment of some sort, skipping all the good things about eating, particularly the enjoyment part.

Her gaze never shifted from the roll in his hand though, no matter how much she protested. Just to prove the point, he took extra time with the glaze, coating the roll twice with his brush.

“Literally watching paint dry here,” she said, revealing more than she’d probably intended, like how much she wanted this roll.

“Just give me a second,” he told her with a smile. She clearly needed to learn the art of patience. All good things happened when you took the time to do it right.

She sighed and palmed her phone, tapping at the screen since apparently she couldn’t just stand there and drink the fantastic coffee he’d made for her. “My cell gets really bad reception here. Do you know where I can get better service?”

“The world can’t function for a day without your input?” He glanced up at her as he finished off the glaze.

“That wasn’t the question.”

“Try outside. A high place, a hill, a barn. Horse.” He handed her the roll and she took it without protest.

“Thank you. So helpful.”

He had to grin. Her mouth was something else. He liked watching her eat his cinnamon rolls. She took a small bite the way a kid does when he isn’t sure he wants what his mother put in front of him, testing it out before fully committing.

“Well?” he couldn’t help but ask. He wanted her to like what he cooked. Otherwise there was no point in doing it.

“It’s not terrible,” she allowed graciously.

That was likely the highest praise he would get. But she did like it, he could tell. The bliss stealing over her features was a dead giveaway. With a knowing smile, he turned to close the oven. While he was distracted, she chose that moment to really bite into it in the way a roll of that stature was meant to be eaten.

He let her have her fun and pretended to be occupied so she could enjoy in peace, but when he turned around a few beats later, she’d vanished. There was a telltale hole in the pan of rolls where she’d snagged a second one, though.

“Not terrible,” he repeated to the empty kitchen and that put a smile on his face he wouldn’t be able to wipe off for some time.

Hurricane Fiona had blown through his kitchen and he had a feeling she’d rain on his menus a few more times before she went back to New York.

Fiona ran until she thought she might have worked off a quarter of one of Derek’s amazing sticky-sweet cinnamon rolls, then ran more to try for another quarter. Running in Vermont was nothing like running in New York. It was all the same: white, white, more white, oh look a tree, more white.

And no amount of running had worked off the distinct awareness she’d had of Derek back there in the kitchen. What was that? She didn’t even like him. Okay, he was good-looking with those New England cheekbones and long lean body that didn’t suck to watch when he moved. But other than that, he had cocky smugness down to a science. An answer for everything. Little respect for healthy eating.

But he did have charm to spare and, holy cow, could that man bake.

Pausing to catch her breath—and no, she was not stopping to examine whether Derek had something to do with why she was out of breath either—she put a hand on a blue tractor that was parked outside of a dilapidated old barn. The tractor didn’t seem to be much newer or in any better condition. When she looked into the adjacent field, an equally old man stood just inside the gate with a bale of hay. Grizzled and at one with the land, he wore plaid like it had been invented for him and a fierce scowl on his face.

Fiona waved. “Hello.”

The man paused long enough to acknowledge that someone had spoken to him but the look he gave her held no warmth at all. And then he turned back to his task without uttering a word.

“Good morning to you too,” she muttered and held up her cell phone in search of those elusive bars. “Come on, signal… signal… Oooh, signal!”

The screen lit up with text messages and missed calls, which she ignored in favor of dialing. When Andy answered, she spilled a litany of instructions at the poor man in fear of not getting something out before she lost the signal. Which is what happened. In the middle of her spiel. With a sad beep, the phone died, cutting her off mid-stream.

“Andy!” No Andy.

So much for that. She pocketed the phone and ran back to the inn. In the latest in a long string of unfortunately-timed meetings, Derek came out of the house right when she got there.

“Hey,” he called as if he was actually happy to see her, which was a nice change from the chilly non-greeting she’d just gotten up the road. “Help me out a second. I’m late on brunch.”

He handed her a basket lined with a dishtowel and that was so intriguing, she followed him. And then she caught sight of the brown and red bird standing on a hay bale outside the house. That looked suspiciously like the other half of her wakeup call.

“Is this where that rooster lives?” She pointed at the offending bird. “’Cause he and I are having a talk.”

“Yeah, I named him Swatch,” Derek said easily. “He thinks he’s a clock.”

This was almost a pleasant conversation. She could stand a bit more of nice Derek. “Do you think he knows how to get a cell phone signal? This is Vermont, not Timbuktu.”

Derek led her into a greenhouse full of vibrant plants that shouldn’t be thriving with snow still on the ground. But the explosion of green told a different story. Clearly someone took very good care of the plants in here. Derek, unless she missed her guess. He had that no-one-touches-my-stuff vibe about him, all right.

“The signal is pretty sketchy up here.” He turned his attention to a small-leafed plant in the corner, but then glanced slyly over his shoulder. “Anyway, aren’t you supposed to be relaxing after that breakup of yours?”

The squeak that came out of Fiona’s mouth wasn’t entirely human. So much for civil conversation. He could have gone all day without mentioning that, and how had he heard that anyway? Surely Delia hadn’t—

“The staff gossips.” Derek cut some of the small leaves from the plant and put them in her basket. “Probably wise that you learn that now.”

Well, someone had overheard her talking to Delia then and should definitely be fired, whoever it was. “It’s no wonder. There’s absolutely nothing to do up here.”

Derek scoffed. “There’s plenty to do up here.”

“Oh really, like what? Growing your own herbs? Because that looks really entertaining.”

What was it about this man? He got under her skin like nobody’s business. She was never this catty with Nate. Of course, Nate did nothing to elicit such a response. All Derek had to do was stand there and all of these things welled up from inside her…

“Exactly,” he said as if he hadn’t noticed her sarcasm. “Everything I serve is locally sourced. And what I can’t grow, I buy from local farms. Mostly.”

He rubbed some of the plant leaves between his fingers and held them out for her to inhale. Smelled like fresh herbs to her, not that she had any hope of identifying the slightly spicy scent.

Then she made the mistake of glancing up. And immediately fell into Derek’s enigmatic silvery gaze. It bored through her, tripping her pulse as they stared at each other, and she did not like how easily he affected her. How easily it seemed like he saw right through her into the inside parts that no one had access to.

“Mostly?” she prodded, but only to distract herself from the unsettling way Derek was looking at her.

“Sometimes I can’t get the fresh vegetables I really need. But I’m working on a solution.”

In spite of herself, she was curious. “What’s that?”

“The neighbor is selling off one of the fields on his farm. The fellow up the road.”

“Oh, yeah, the kind of cranky guy who favors plaid.” He’d looked at her so strangely, as if he didn’t like her, which made no sense when they’d never met. And she was a very nice person. Most of the time. Present company excluded maybe, but only because she couldn’t help herself.

“That’s him. Only problem is old Chauncey refuses to sell to me.”

Fiona rolled her eyes. “I’m shocked that you would rub someone the wrong way.”

“Thank you,” he shot back with one of his smart-aleck grins. “I have a brunch to prepare.”

With that, he left the greenhouse, leaving Fiona with nothing to do but follow him through the door, wondering how on earth she’d exited a run-in with Derek and still had all her skin.

That man was something else. He gave as good as he got and didn’t get offended when her sarcasm gene went a little haywire. Somehow, she’d started to like him a tiny bit.

And she’d take that to her grave, thank you very much.