Sugar And Spice (Main Street Merchants Book 7) Read online

  “If I don’t use garlic, this becomes just lemon chicken. So why not just order lemon chicken?” he muttered as he put the meat in a small frying pan over the heat. “It’s not like I haven’t spent hours perfecting this recipe. I don’t know what Chef Marco was doing before this, but it couldn’t have been as good . . .”

  Toby didn’t listen to the rest of the rant—he had bread to deliver to the table.

  “I’m so sorry,” the woman said when he approached, “but I forgot to mention that I’m also allergic to parsley.”

  “I’ll take care of that right away,” Toby promised, heading back into the kitchen just in time to see Chef Avery season the chicken with parsley.

  “Chef, I’m sorry, but the customer has just told me that she’s allergic to parsley as well,” Toby said.

  Chef Avery whirled on him. “Oh? Is that so? Tell me—when she told you about the garlic allergy, did you even think to ask if she had other allergies? Or did that slip your mind? You just wasted this entire chicken breast.” He picked it up and threw it in the garbage, which was completely ridiculous because another waiter had just brought in an order that it would have suited very well. “Learn your job, Toby. Learn your job, and do it right.” He slammed the frying pan back on the stove. “I’m taking a ten-minute break.” With that, he stormed out of the kitchen.

  “He can’t just do that,” Chloe said, standing there with wide eyes. “It’s Andrew’s night off. We don’t have a chef for the next ten minutes.”

  Toby pulled in a ragged breath. “Yes, you do. Peter, can you grab me a new chicken breast from the fridge?”

  “Uh, sure,” Peter said, moving off to do as he was told.

  Toby grabbed an apron, put on a hat, and washed his hands. Then he took the chicken breast, rubbed it with salt and pepper on both sides, and laid it in a small drizzle of olive oil in the bottom of a new frying pan. He didn’t know how sensitive his customer was to parsley, but he figured he wouldn’t risk using the same pan just in case. Chloe carried it off to wash for him. While he was at it, he began the chicken for the other waiter’s meal too.

  While they were cooking, he grabbed everything he needed for a lemon sauce and threw it into the pan with the chicken so it could be absorbed by the meat. A little cream, just for richness, rounded it out. Then he slid it onto a plate, handed it over to Peter for sides, and moved on to the next meal ticket.

  Chloe was staring at him, dumbfounded.

  “Better keep moving,” he said to her jokingly. “Don’t want Chef to come back and catch you slacking.”

  “I didn’t know you were a chef, Toby,” she said. “Why haven’t you told us before?”

  He shrugged. He didn’t really have a good reason for that. “To keep you on your toes,” he said instead. “Here.” He handed her another plate. She added the rice pilaf and the roasted vegetables, and the food was out the door.

  A moment later, Chef Avery strode back into the kitchen, saw Toby at the stove, and kept walking out through the lobby. Toby didn’t know for sure where he was going, but he could guess, and sure enough, a few minutes later, Frannie came into the kitchen, looking worried.

  “Toby, Chef Avery’s in my office, and I think he’s about to break something.”

  “Would you like me to keep cooking until he calms down?”

  Frannie looked completely perplexed at the question. “There really isn’t anyone else, is there?” she faltered.

  “Nope. That’s why I took over when he stormed out.” Toby laid a steak on the grill. “I guess you’d like to see me in the office.”

  “I would, yes, but I can’t leave the kitchen without a chef . . .” Her voice trailed off. “I’ll see you after closing time, then. But if Chef Avery comes back in here before then, you’ll need to turn things back over to him, all right?”

  “Agreed.”

  Frannie left, literally wringing her hands, and Toby felt bad for her, but what else could he have done? If he hadn’t taken over, a whole dining room full of people would have been waiting on Chef Avery, and that wasn’t fair to them and it wasn’t fair to Frank and Frannie.

  All because of parsley.

  Toby sighed as he finished making the steak. Yes, he could have asked the customer if there were any additional allergies—he admitted that freely, and he’d be more careful to remember in the future. But it was Chef who wasted the chicken, and it was Chef who chose to throw a tantrum. There was nothing Toby could have done about that.

  After about twenty minutes, Chef Avery reentered the kitchen and approached the stove. “I’m ready to return,” he said, and Toby immediately stepped back.

  “Chef.”

  Toby took off his apron and hat, washed his hands, and stepped back into his role of waiter. He knew Frannie was waiting to talk to him, but he’d gotten the impression that she wanted to see both of them together, and that would have to wait until closing time.

  And that came around far too soon for Toby’s liking.

  The restaurant now quiet, he sat in the corner of the office, listening to Chef Avery rant about Toby’s gall in taking over the kitchen and how he’d never been treated so badly in all his life and how he was in charge . . . yada yada yada. Frank and Frannie let him go on until he burned himself out, and then Frank turned to Toby.

  “I didn’t know you were a chef.”

  “Well, I don’t really talk about it a whole lot,” Toby said, feeling heat rise in his face. “Truth is, I went to culinary school against my father’s wishes. He thought it was kind of a sissy thing to do.” He glanced over at Chef Avery. “No offense, Chef. After I graduated, I worked at a small restaurant for a year or so in Denver. Some things happened, and I decided to move here, and that’s my whole history in a nutshell.”

  “Why didn’t you apply to take over Chef Marco’s job when he quit?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t have near the experience you need,” Toby answered honestly.

  “That’s completely obvious,” Chef Avery said, folding his arms across his chest. “The way you were treating that steak . . .”

  “We didn’t have any complaints about Toby’s cooking tonight,” Frank said. “In fact, the customers were quite complimentary.”

  Chef Avery grunted and looked down at the floor.

  “Now, I have to say, this needs to be resolved,” Frannie said. “We have to figure out what went wrong so we can fix it.” She looked afraid to bring up the conflict, but was plowing ahead because she knew she needed to. Toby applauded her mentally.

  “I’ll tell you what went wrong,” Chef Avery said. “This idiot forgot to ask a customer if she had additional allergies.”

  “Yes, I did,” Toby said.

  Chef’s eyes flicked over at him. “What?”

  “I forgot to ask the customer if she had additional allergies.”

  Frannie looked back and forth between them. “So . . . I don’t understand.”

  Chef took a deep breath. “I suppose that if Toby is going to own up to his mistake, so can I. I became angry and stomped out the back door.”

  That was interesting. Toby hadn’t expected him to take any responsibility whatsoever.

  “You left?” Frannie asked, her eyes now on him. “Toby took over in the kitchen because you weren’t there?”

  Chef Avery nodded, and Frannie exhaled loudly. “Well, if that doesn’t beat all. You come barging in here, yelling because Toby has taken over your spot in the kitchen, riling me up when that’s not really what happened at all? This is ridiculous. It’s just simply ridiculous.”

  “I agree,” Toby said. “It won’t happen again.” Well, he could promise that for his part—he couldn’t say the same for Chef Avery.

  “I’ll do my best,” Chef added.

  Frannie stood up. “Thank you. I hope we can all agree that keeping the customers happy is the most important thing.”

  Toby and Chef Avery each nodded.

  “All right. I’ll see you both tomorrow.”

  Chef Aver
y walked out of the office. Toby moved to follow him, but Frannie called out, “Toby, wait.”

  He paused. “Yes?”

  “I wish I’d known you were a chef.”

  He felt sheepish. “I didn’t mean to keep anything from you.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I feel like we’ve been undervaluing you.”

  Toby smiled. If anyone had undervalued him, it was because he hadn’t insisted on being treated better. He had only himself to blame for that one. “It’s okay.”

  As he walked out to his car, he exhaled, trying to clear his head. Either Chef Avery was going to come around and become a team player, or he was going to lose it completely and storm off and never come back. Toby didn’t know which it was, but he could see either as a very real possibility.

  ***

  “So, what do we do?” Sloane looked at Taci over the top of her hot chocolate. She’d already eaten one slice of the pumpkin pie that had been brought in by their food supplier, and it was pretty good, but it wasn’t Eddie’s.

  “I don’t know.” Taci stirred her Coke with her straw. “I feel really bad for asking you to stay when I got here, but I don’t think we would have made it without you.”

  “Hey, no worries. We’re all just in survival mode here.” Sloane rolled her shoulders, trying to loosen some of the built-up stress. “Did Sal look okay to you when he headed upstairs?”

  “Nope. He looked like he’d been dragged around the block by a pit bull.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.”

  Just then, they heard a knock on the diner door.

  “Does the closed sign mean nothing?” Taci asked.

  “I’ll tell them to leave,” Sloane replied, sliding out of the booth and walking over to the door. She had meant to point at the closed sign, but when she saw that it was Toby on the other side, she flipped open the deadbolt and let him in.

  “I hope you don’t mind—I was driving past, saw the light, and thought I’d see if everything’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not,” Sloane said. “Come sit down and listen to us whine at each other.”

  Toby slid into the side of the booth across from Taci, leaving Sloane in an uncomfortable position—should she sit next to Taci, which might make Toby feel unwanted, or should she sit next to Toby, which might seem a little too friendly? She decided to delay that choice by asking, “Can I get you anything, Toby? A drink or some pie—on the house.”

  “I’ll take a Sprite, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not. Be right back.”

  She studied him out of the corner of her eye as she dispensed his drink. He wore his Frannie’s uniform, and the scruff was gone. She missed the scruff.

  When she walked back over to the table, he scooted over on the bench to make room for her, taking the spot right under the window. Okay—a clear invitation. She could work with that.

  “We were just talking about today,” she said. “And being in survival mode.”

  “Things get worse after I left?” he asked.

  “They didn’t exactly get worse, but they definitely didn’t get better,” Sloane told him. “I think Sal was wise to go out of the diner business when he did. It’s not his thing.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Toby asked after taking a sip of his drink.

  “That’s what we were just talking about,” Taci replied. “Sloane says you worked here this morning—what do you think?”

  Toby exhaled. “That’s a tough question. I wish I had some kind of brilliant answer for you.”

  “I think I have the answer.”

  The three of them turned at the sound of the new voice. Sal stood in the doorway that led into the kitchen, most likely having taken the back staircase down from the upstairs apartment.

  “I tried. I really tried. But I ended up making a mess of everything,” he said. “My hands were too shaky, my memory was too poor . . . I can’t do this. I need to go home.”

  “No, Sal!” Sloane was out of her booth and at his side almost before she knew what she was doing. “Please don’t leave us.”

  “If I stay, I’ll ruin Eddie’s business.” Sal ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up. He looked a bit like Albert Einstein.

  “But if you go, it will definitely be ruined,” Sloane said. Her heart was pounding. What on earth would they do if Sal walked?

  “No, no, you’re smart. You’ll figure it out.” Sal shook his head. “Do you know what I really wanted to do? I wanted to own an aquarium. You know—big tanks with iguanas and sea turtles and clown fish, and people would pay admission. And now it’s too late.”

  Sloane felt her heart go out to him. He’d turned away from his father’s dreams because he had some of his own, but those had never been realized either. “You’d like to go back home?”

  “I do. It’s better for you, it’s better for me . . .” He suddenly sagged against the counter. “But I don’t want to turn my back on Eddie.”

  “Did you hear from the hospital tonight? They said they’d call, didn’t they?”

  “Yes. They want to do a double bypass.”

  “Oh, wow.” Sloane couldn’t process everything she was hearing. “Come sit down with us.”

  Sal took the now-vacant spot next to Toby, and Sloane sat by Taci. Nothing like a game of musical chairs to keep things interesting.

  “Okay,” Sloane said. “Sal would like to go home. Eddie’s having a double bypass. What are we going to do?”

  “The only thing we can do,” Taci replied. “We need to close the diner.”

  “And Sal should go sit with Eddie while we wrap things up here,” Sloane added. “That’s where he’s really needed.”

  Sal nodded. “Yes. Coming here was a mistake—I should have stayed with my brother. But I was just trying to do what he asked.”

  “We all were,” Sloane said. She felt an ache start to grow in her chest. How could they close down? This diner had been a landmark in Aspen Springs for decades. “I wish we knew how long we need to shut down. Are we talking forever?”

  “No way to know that until you see how well Eddie recovers from the surgery,” Toby replied.

  They sat and stared at the table, probably all feeling what Sloane was—that the world was coming to an end.

  “Well, I’m beat,” Taci said after a long pause. “I’d better head home.”

  “Me too,” Sal replied, and they left Sloane and Toby sitting there alone together in the half-lit diner.

  “Are you all right?” Toby asked.

  Sloane shook her head. “I’m shocked at how quickly things can change. Just a week ago, I was looking forward to Thanksgiving, Eddie was planning out what to serve here in the diner—it was great. And now? I feel like a lost puppy wandering through the park, looking for its people. I need to go talk to Eddie. I mean, this is his place—he asked us to run it, but that doesn’t mean we’re in charge. I can’t make decisions like this without his approval.”

  Toby nodded. “Do you mind if I come too? I’ve been thinking about him today, wondering how he is.”

  Sloane looked at him with surprise. “Of course, but are you sure? Don’t you have work?”

  “Well, we could go in the morning and be back by two.”

  “Okay. Let’s do that. Thanks, Toby.” She paused and looked at him. “It’s so weird—we’ve only known each other a few days, and now I’m dragging you all over the state with me and involving you in my drama.”

  He grinned. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

  Chapter Nine

  Early the next morning, Sloane pulled up in front of the address Toby had given her. She was a little startled—it was one of the nicer apartment complexes in Aspen Ridge. He came running out before she had the chance to turn off the ignition and go up to knock on the door.

  “Hey,” he said as he climbed in. “Did you get enough sleep last night?”

  “Are you kidding?” They’d stayed at the diner for another hour, putting all th
e meat in the freezer, shutting down the cash register, turning off the drink machine, and doing everything else they could think of for a temporary shutdown. Sloane had emphasized the word “temporary” to herself over and over again. And then she hadn’t been able to fall asleep when she did get home because she didn’t know if they’d made the right choice.

  Toby laughed. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m coming along, then—to keep you awake while you drive.”

  “Yes, that’s a very good idea. I grabbed some buns and lunch meat and stuff from the diner and threw it in a cooler in the back so we won’t starve to death, and there’s some pie and few other things in there too.”

  “Great. Any Doritos?”

  Sloane glanced at him before she pulled out onto the road. “Doritos?”

  “Yeah. You say lunch meat, and I want Doritos. It’s a natural human response.”

  “Well, no, I didn’t bring any, but we can get some on the way.”

  “Excellent.” Toby settled into his seat, clearly much happier with this plan.

  They stopped at a gas station and grabbed some Doritos, then continued on their way to Denver.

  Eddie was awake when they walked into his room. “They want to cut me open,” he said by way of greeting.

  “Yeah, I heard,” Sloane replied. She sat down next to his bed, hating that he had to be here at all. “How are you feeling? I mean, aside from the whole impending unwanted surgery thing.”

  He grunted. “Been lying here, looking at the sunlight through that window, wanting to get out of here. Toes itch. Not bad other than that.” He looked back and forth between Sloane and Toby. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not really sure how to tell you,” Sloane said. “I mean, I don’t want to upset you or anything.”

  “Being stuck here—that’s what’s upsetting me. Just spit it out.”

  Sloane leaned forward a little and watched his face as she spoke. “Sal really can’t handle the kitchen, Eddie. Toby helped him, I helped him—he’s just not up to it.”

  Eddie closed his eyes. “Was afraid of that.”

  “But he tried,” Toby chimed in. “He really did. He wanted to do you proud.”