Spooning Leads to Forking (Hot in the Kitchen Book 2) Read online

  Spooning Leads to Forking

  Kilby Blades

  For my grandmother, whose pound cake was legendary

  Contents

  I. The Hot Grocer

  1. The House

  2. The Plan

  3. The Critic

  4. The Cash

  5. The Absentee

  6. The Bakery

  7. The Helicopter

  8. The Best Friend

  9. The Special Order

  10. The Tasting

  II. The Sheriff

  11. The One, Two Punch

  12. The Mills

  13. The Big Spoon

  14. The Unsolicited Advice

  15. The Sisterhood

  16. The Bureaucracy of Things

  17. The Loudmouth

  18. The Dirt

  19. The Book Nook

  20. The Sunday Dinner

  21. The Ride Home

  22. The Boat

  23. The Warning

  24. The Date

  25. The Dance

  26. The Breeder

  27. The Hammock

  28. The Storm

  29. The Morning After

  III. The Past

  30. The Aftermath

  31. The Recording

  32. The Sitting Duck

  33. The Private Event

  34. The Sleepover

  35. The Awful Truth

  36. The Ex

  37. The Finger

  38. The Geek

  39. The Restart Button

  40. The Epilogue

  About Kilby Blades

  Books By Kilby Blades

  Copyright © 2020 by Luxe Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between characters, situations, places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental. References to songs are cited with credit to the original artists.

  For permission requests and other inquiries, the publisher, Luxe Publishing, the independent publishing label of independent author, Kilby Blades, can be reached at: [email protected].

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-7338674-9-8

  Part I

  The Hot Grocer

  1

  The House

  Shea

  God, this air is clean.

  Shea had been hit with the same blunt thought that first morning when she’d pushed open the patio doors, two ribless panes of glass that refused to interrupt the view. The wide, green valley below and distant mountains that really were majestically purple still failed to trump her enjoyment of the air.

  This never gets old, she thought as she took a deep inhale, cool forest aromas and just a hint of the coffee in her hand filling her senses. In the six weeks since she’d arrived, reality about all the other things she was missing had set in. But did she mourn the smells of the streets of New York? That was a big “hell, no.”

  Shea had tried to stop comparing—tried to quit making New York her measuring stick—tried to love everything about Sapling, Colorado. And if “love” was too strong a word, to at least be grateful for a place to lay low. Things could be a lot worse. Things had been a lot worse. And most women in her situation didn’t have friends in high places.

  Speaking of Kendrick…

  Still in socked feet and pajama pants, Shea strode from the doors to the edge of the partially covered deck, no short distance since the deck had enough square footage to contain a full living space. Outdoor sofas with canvas cushions and inbuilt frames of reclaimed wood formed a U-shape around a grand fireplace. Stonework matched the ashen color of the wood. A different wood had been used for an outdoor table that was as much for dining as it was for a nice space to work.

  Fishing in the pocket of the bathrobe that had become more of a staple in her wardrobe than she cared to admit, she pulled out her ever-present phone. Even without all the texting and the phone calls and the constant stream of social media alerts, going anywhere without it still seemed wrong.

  “Call Kendrick,” she commanded Siri, quite a bit louder than necessary. Loud-voicing her commands was another habit that had proven hard to kick. This, from being accustomed to so much noise. It freaked her out—how quiet everything was out here. Her first week there, she’d shouted into the sprawling wilderness and descending valley. The echo of her own voice had shouted back.

  “Hey, gorgeous.” She could hear the smile in Kendrick’s voice when he picked up. He was one of her go-tos when her mood needed a lift. She’d gotten in the habit of calling a different friend every other morning to stave off loneliness. Only, few friends knew where she was.

  “Hey, hot stuff,” she returned.

  She and Kendrick had dated for about five minutes before realizing they were better off as friends. He was one of the first people she’d met when she’d arrived in Manhattan. He’d taught her some street-smarts, shown her the city and helped her find a better job when the one she’d moved there for hadn’t panned out. He was also one of the smartest people she’d ever met.

  “Still liking the cabin? You need anything?” Kendrick wanted to know.

  “Only you would call it a cabin. What is this place, like, 6,000 square feet?”

  “Something like that…” he replied.

  If it were less, he would have defended its modesty. Kendrick had that freakish kind of recall some people had for numbers. His vague response proved that the house was larger than she’d guessed.

  “It’s amazing—seriously. I can’t thank you enough for offering it to me, let alone for a whole year.”

  “Longer if you need it,” he cut in. “And stop thanking me—I’m getting embarrassed. Just name a character in your movie after me.”

  At the mention of the screenplay Shea was supposed to be writing, she glanced to her right toward the set glass walls that delineated the spacious office in the corner of the house. The screenplay wasn’t exactly a fake cover. She was writing it, and selling said script got her closer to claiming her rightful career as a filmmaker. It just also happened to be her alibi.

  The small handful of friends who knew she’d gone away knew she’d retreated to an undisclosed location to write her opus. Everyone knew she had a film degree from Tisch. What would come out soon enough was that her abrupt departure was caught up in the tangled web of her unannounced divorce.

  “And what sort of character would fictional Kendrick be?” Shea quipped, wanting to revel in the only contact she was likely to have with a real friend all day. The people in town were neighborly. But she was still new, and they were still strangers. Living under a false identity meant she needed to lay low.

  “Handsome, rich, benevolent…” Kendrick began.

  Shea smiled even as she rolled her eyes. “Obviously.”

  “But with a dark side, you know—maybe like a modern-day Robin Hood or a superhero assassin?”

  Shea blinked. “Wow. I didn’t see that coming.”

  He chuckled. “They never do.”

  Kendrick was handsome and rich, not so much a badass as he was a bleeding-heart humanita
rian type. Her best friend, Carrie, who always forgot names, called him the “hot computer geek.” Kendrick wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  After picking up her coffee mug from where she’d set it on the wooden railing, Shea took a long, creamy sip before walking left. Where she’d first stood had given the head-on view of the mountains but her favorite place to stand was at the corner of the deck, where the aspen trees began. She was kind of in love with their spade leaves and their silver bark.

  “Seriously, though ... how do you like the town? I know there’s not a whole lot there, but—I don’t know. There’s something about it.”

  She didn’t want to complain. There was nothing wrong with Sapling. Sapling was exactly what it was supposed to be. It was she who was out of place; she who was used to a different cadence of life; she who had thought it a brilliant idea to fall off the map; she who hadn’t thought through what it would mean for a hot-shit food critic to move to a tiny town in the mountains with absolutely nothing to eat.

  “It’s really clean,” she said, a positive note lifting her voice. “And the hiking is amazing. For the first time in a long time, I can breathe.”

  She’d been thinking about that—about how, once you got used to a dirty place, it didn’t seem so dirty. Just like once you got used to a bad marriage, it didn’t seem so bad. Her marriage to Keenan had been bad enough for her to leave like she did. Attempting a normal existence over the last six weeks proved that her marriage had been worse than she thought.

  But cryptic metaphors about clean air would have to do for now. Kendrick had never liked Keenan and she had yet to tell her friend about the divorce. The omission was one of her current half-truths. At least most of her half-truths nowadays didn’t involve dodging her closest friends. They were all about avoiding suspicion among people in town.

  Sticking to her story about borrowing a house from a friend to write a script was easy. The tricky part was staying off the grid. Using her born name was Shea’s best shot at keeping her old self—Elle West—back in New York. Elle Winters was the name she’d chosen at eighteen when she’d moved there with dreams of cinematic fame. Here, she’d reverted to Shea Summers, her born name.

  “I’m gonna make it up there,” Kendrick promised. “Someone has to make sure you don’t go crazy from the isolation. It’s a vacation house, not The Shining.”

  Shea usually liked a good movie reference. The promise of a friendly face evoked enough sentimental emotion to head off what might have been a smile.

  “I’d love that,” she replied only after she’d modulated her voice to sound normal.

  “It won’t be for another month or two…” Kendrick warned.

  “It’s your house.” Shea tried to make light. “Come whenever you want.”

  Only after Kendrick promised that he would, and Shea promised to name a badass character after him did they hang up. Only then did she let herself wonder whether she could survive that long. She would have been crazy not to meticulously orchestrate her divorce from a man like Keenan. But had it really been better to move 1,800 miles away than to hide in plain sight?

  Ten-minute limit, she scolded herself. That had been the deal. She’d wallow in self-pity for a maximum of ten minutes a day, then remind herself: Sapling was just a way station—her gateway to all the things she wanted. She’d be happy here because happiness was a choice and her joy didn’t belong to him. She’d be happy if she stuck to the plan.

  2

  The Plan

  Shea

  The plan was ambitious—audacious, some would say. Others might call it crazy and complex for all she was trying to achieve. Some people left bad marriages first and figured out the rest of their lives second, but Shea didn’t need all the Eat, Pray, Love. Living every day with what she didn’t want had her clear on what she did. The plan was her roadmap to get all of that and more.

  Step one was reprogramming: breaking bad habits, getting his voice out of her head, building new muscle memory that reminded her she was autonomous and free, navigating the mundanities of life organically rather than orbiting him—remembering she was a grown-ass woman who could do whatever the hell she pleased.

  Today’s “whatever the hell she pleased” would involve driving into town to get her morning bun from Delilah’s and taking another crack at her script. Then, she’d see a matinee of the new action flick a second time at the Grand Lake. She would smuggle in a flask of red wine, eat too much buttered popcorn and maybe some of those little ice cream bites. But none of that before she hit The Freshery. Sure, she’d pick up a few things to stock her cupboards if it would make her seem less creepy about her real purpose: to get an eyeful of the hot grocer.

  That related to step two: Shea wanted to feel like a woman again, even if dating was out of the question. Getting too close to anyone ran the risk that she’d reveal too much about who she was. But she needed something just a little sweet and sinful to tide her over until things could be different. It didn’t seem like a terrible idea to dip her toes in by flirting a little.

  She plucked her keys off of the kitchen counter, walked to the staircase next to the front hall and descended to the garage. The living spaces, office and bedrooms were all on the ground floor. An enormous rec room, a guest bedroom, utility rooms and a three-car garage were below. Passing the hidden-away bedroom that sat empty and waiting reminded her she needed to move the money.

  Shea didn’t know trucks, but Kendrick kept a pristine one in the garage. It was off to one side and Shea’s own vehicle straddled the two spaces in the middle. Also in the spirit of “whatever the hell she pleased,” Shea had bought herself her first new car. She’d dreamt of owning a crimson Mustang since she was sixteen.

  Just as Shea didn’t think she would ever get tired of the clean, Colorado air, she knew she would never get tired of the deep, reverberating growl of her engine. Twelve years in New York had done nothing to cure her of her love for the road. At first the Town Cars and limos and even the yellow taxis had felt exotic. But “whatever the hell she pleased” had already begun to involve long drives around Grand Lake and through the mountains with Lucille. Because of course Shea had named her car.

  The drive down the hill was pleasant, a meandering descent to the valley, through forests of evergreens and aspen trees down to Sapling proper. Even the wooden bridge that crossed high over Elk River had a certain beauty. You could see on its legs how high the water rose after the snow melt, but it flowed like a creek at this late stage of summer.

  The road she came in on became halting with stop signs as soon as she reached downtown. Her eyes scanned for a parking spot after the turn on to Oliver Street. The Freshery stood on that first block in a building that had been spruced up—the same old-western style of architecture shared by the other buildings on the street, only newer and in better repair.

  Act natural, Shea instructed herself after she’d parked, slammed shut her car door and taken measured steps toward the entrance. People go to the market every day in a lot of cultures.

  Only, Shea doubted that most people who went to the market every day cared so much about looking cute. She liked looking put together, regardless of where she was going, but hoping to see him made it different.

  “Oh, hey, Dev,” she said breezily, casting him a slightly lingering smile after grabbing a cart from near the front of the door. He was almost always near the front behind a computer at the customer service desk. Stevie Wonder songs floated over the sound system whenever he was working. The large, semicircular area was on a raised platform that reminded her of an open DJ booth. It sat adjacent to the leftmost register.

  Weekend mornings aside, the place stayed pretty dead. It wasn’t uncommon for her and Dev to be the only ones in the store. Frankly, she didn’t know how the place stayed afloat. But being alone with him was A-Okay with her. Sapling was a place where people stopped to greet one another. When it came to Shea, Dev’s prevalent emotion seemed to be amusement. And far be it from her to disown her own quirks.
<
br />   “Mornin’ Shea.”

  Dev’s warm baritone made her as melty as Nutella on oven-fresh brioche. She’d come to crave it like sugar. As expected, he sat in front of his laptop and the desk was littered with papers. Apart from Tuesdays and Thursdays—when the deliveries came—he tended to be glued to his seat, unless he was helping a customer.

  Half the fun for Shea was being that customer. Seeking his guidance had become addictive. At the beginning, it had been legitimate to confirm whether he carried things like prepared guacamole, MCT-enhanced cold brew coffee and manuka honey. But she knew the store so well by then, most new requests were pure theater.

  The exception were her special orders, which Shea could admit must seem bizarre. She was certain Dev thought she was a little weird. She didn’t dress like anyone else in Sapling; though, by New York standards, she was quite toned down. If not for Dallas Eaton—the guy who wore 80s track suits and walked with his macaw on his shoulder—Shea could win an award for most unusual fashion sense in town.

  Dev pushed back in his rolling chair in a single, smooth motion and rose to his feet to stand. Shea was ridiculously charmed by the gesture. Men who walked on the outside and who rose when a lady walked into the room were a dying breed. Sure, she could chalk it up to attentive customer service, but her intuition told her Devon Kingston was a real gentleman.