No Strings Attached. Susan Andersen

than, oh, say, being fired. He strode out into the restaurant, loaded up a tall cup with ice at the machine, then filled it with Mountain Dew from the fountain. He drank down half of it in one long gulp, then topped it off again. After a brief hesitation, he filled another one with a different beverage. He took both back to the kitchen and offered Tasha the second cup. “I’ve noticed you sometimes like a Diet Dr Pepper in the afternoon.”

      She took it, gulped down a large sip, then grinned at him as she lowered the container. “You see, this is exactly what I like about you. You’re a hard worker and you pay attention to the details.” She studied him for a moment. “You’re graduating at the end of the month with a high school diploma, right?”

      He nodded.

      “Do you have plans to go to college?”

      He wished. But he merely shrugged, as if he couldn’t care less. Yet he found himself answering honestly. “I’d like to go, but I can’t afford it. I’m not even sure where I’m gonna live after graduation.”

      “Do you plan to stay in Razor Bay or are you chomping at the bit to go home?”

      “I’d totally like to stay. I like it here.”

      He’d noticed before that she possessed the same kind of genuine interest in people that Harper Summerville did when she interacted with him and the other guys at the Village. Except for during his interview, however, Tasha had never focused it on him quite the way she did now. Her gray-blue eyes seemed to bore straight into his mind. “What, exactly, do you like about it?”

      “It’s so...clean here. And quieter than anywhere I’ve ever been. Every time I look at the mountains and water, they just—I don’t know—give me this...still feeling. Like they’re smoothing my insides all out or something.”

      She simply stared at him for a moment, and he wanted to kick himself. Where had that crap come from? Now she was going to think he was a complete ass.

      “Oh,” she finally said, and he was shocked to see tears rise in her eyes. She dashed them away. “Good answer.”

      His heart lightened, and a rare smile tugged at his lips. “Yeah?”

      “Definitely. Drink,” she said, nodding to the mostly untouched cup in his hand. She took a sip of her own soda. “Is there a particular thing you’d take in college if you could?”

      “Nah.” He shrugged. “I don’t really have a clue what I wanna do with my life—but I’d like to get my AA while I’m figuring it out. No one in my family has ever gone to college. It’d be beyond dope to be the first.” His mom wouldn’t give a shit, but his dad would sure be proud.

      “Okay.” She set aside her drink and, with quick, efficient movements, used her fingers on the triangular dough to shape the slices. “This is my proposition. You know I tried to hire a cook.” Grimacing, she waved a flour-covered hand before saying dryly, “Forget I asked that—it’s a stupid question, considering he tried to blame you for all that house wine he knocked back. Of course you remember.”

      “Yeah, kind of hard to forget that.” He’d thought for sure his ass would have been out the door that day, too, but Tasha had looked the hammered cook in the eye, said that he was a stone liar in the hardest voice Jeremy had ever heard out of her and told the man to get the hell out of her restaurant. Then she’d turned to him and apologized that the lying sack of slime had dragged Jeremy into his lies. As if that were somehow her fault.

      He would have done anything for her that day.

      But he gave himself a mental shake now and tried to concentrate on this conversation, not the one almost a week ago. “What does a drunk cook have to do with your mystery proposition?”

      “I’d like to make you my new cook.”

      He froze. “Huh?” His hand made a totally spastic movement, and he shoved his fingers into his back pocket to keep from looking like an oversized puppet being jerked around by a three-year-old. “I mean, I heard you, I just...” He shook his head. “Why me?”

      “Because you’re smart, you’re levelheaded and, as I said before, you pay attention to details. I have a feeling you’d be good at it. I admire the way you’re not easily shaken—admire more that even when you are, you control your temper. That’s a rare quality in anyone of any age. In an eighteen-year-old guy it’s downright golden.”

      He no doubt looked as stunned as he felt because she stepped closer and gave his forearm a comforting there-there pat as if she were an old Italian auntie.

      “I’m not asking you to commit to it as your life’s work,” she said softly, as if maybe she was worried he felt trapped or something. “But it could be a bridge to get you through the next few years. I can help you find a place to live and pay you a livable wage.” Her lips developed an ironic slant. “Well, livable by Razor Bay standards, anyhow. And Jenny and I—and I bet Mary-Margaret, as well—can help you find funding for a community college to get your AA. Jenny, in particular, is brilliant at finding tuition money. She put herself through school without help from anyone and got her bachelor’s in hotel management in large part by hunting down a number of scholarships that were offered by Rotaries, clubs and other organizations. None of them tend to be huge, but if you put the work into getting enough of them, they can really add up.

      “Which is all a long way of saying I can work around a school schedule if you’re up for both working and studying.” She tipped her head to thoroughly inspect his expression. “Are you interested? Don’t be afraid to say no if you’re not. It won’t affect your current job, and I know cooking isn’t for everyone.”

      He finally shook off his shock and regained his power of speech. “No. Are you kidding me? That would be great.” He laughed out loud and didn’t even notice when most of the teen girls on the other side of the service counter turned to stare. “You wanna pay me to play with knives and fire.” He looked at the red wood-fired pizza oven with its brick-arched opening, at the gleaming stainless-steel and butcher-block work spaces, industrial appliances and the black-and-white tiled floor.

      Then he looked at Tasha again. “I get to learn the secret of making the best pizza in the county—and maybe even the world,” he said in amazement, then smiled at her and shook his head. “Man. I can’t believe it. It doesn’t get much better than that.”

       CHAPTER SIX

      THE SUN WAS a spectacular flaming ball minutes shy of sinking behind the rugged peaks of the Olympic Mountains Sunday evening when Luc let himself into his studio. Tossing his keys into the wooden bowl on the coffee table as he passed by, he strode over to admire the panoramic scenery through the slider. Before he could lock on to it, however, a movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention, and turning his head, he spotted Tasha out on their shared terrace.

      Or more accurately, he spotted her feet. Within hours of his move-in, she had thrown up a screen of live plants to divide the veranda, lining them up to march from the wall that connected their two units to within three feet of the balcony railing. Even with a little space between each one, it made a surprisingly effective barrier between her part of the deck and his.

      So all he could see now was the end of a white wicker chaise lounge and its cushion in the same cheery blue-and-green patterned fabric she’d used to furnish a good part of his studio. Atop the cushion, he caught a glimpse of the long pale-skinned bare feet he still remembered as clearly as if seven years hadn’t passed since he’d last seen them.

      He stared in bemusement, for they appeared to be performing a complicated seated dance, clearly the movement that had grabbed his attention in the first place. Her feet heel-toed across the cushion, bopping from one side to the other. Her toes pointed toward the fabric one moment, then arced back toward her shins the next as she segued into differing rhythms. Within the ever-changing patterns he caught here-and-gone glimpses of the candy-bright polish decorating her toenails, the color of which