Where Dreams Are Well Done Read online

  Where Dreams Are Well Done (sweet)

  a Seattle romance

  M. L. Buchman

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  A Sweet Note

  This “Sweet Version” is exactly the same story as the original, with no foul language and the bedroom door—even when there isn’t one—tastefully closed.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

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  About the Author

  Also by M. L. Buchman

  Chapter 1

  “What is wrong with you? I needed that fish three minutes ago. Did you learn to cook in a cave?”

  “You needed it twelve seconds ago,” Sam shot back. And decided against telling Luisa Valenti that she wasn’t going to get it for another thirty seconds. Besides, the kitchen’s aboyeur was busy dressing the plate of pappardelle with wild boar ragù that he’d just handed across the line.

  “Fine, then where’s my trio of sea scallops and squid-ink pasta?” She didn’t even stop for a breath. “Though why everyone at a table would order the same dish is beyond sad. Just keep cooking the way you are and maybe we’ll never see such dweebs ever again.”

  “Open your pretty eyes, Luisa,” he teased her as his sous chef Marlys slid the three matching plates onto the warmer shelf that separated his station from Luisa’s.

  She rolled those beautiful brown eyes at him, making it clear that she knew he was trying to distract her from the laggard glazed halibut.

  A glance down the cook line either way told him that they were running a little rough, but okay. He dropped another two orders of orzo into a pot of boiling water to help out Valerie. He also passed a tray of stuffed and breaded squash blossoms from Tony to Valerie as she turned to the deep fryer, saving her three extra steps she didn’t have time for. He dropped the next two pieces of fish into pans for Marlys and accepted the two plates of sea bass ready for saucing.

  He’d never have dared talked to Luisa that way while he was still a prep chef. He’d noticed her of course, there were only a dozen staff at Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth Ristorante, including the three waitstaff, but his duties had mainly been in the morning before the restaurant opened. Angelo or Manuel would do the shopping at daybreak, then all of the proteins and produce would arrive for him to prep. When Manuel had shifted to Angelo’s new restaurant, Sam had been pulled into the lunch line.

  Up until this morning he’d thought he was just being trained to fill in where needed. Tonight they’d dropped him instead of Marlys into the Executive Chef slot for dinner service because Angelo couldn’t make it. If he had time, he’d be freaking out right now, but he didn’t.

  Over the last month he’d worked with Marlys the grillardin cooking the meats and Valerie at entremetier—the hot appetizers, soups, and pasta station, one of the keys to an Italian restaurant. He’d almost died at the sous chef position—keeping the saucier’s eight pans always filled with whatever had to be sautéed to perfection, because Angelo accepted nothing less, which required being part magician, part juggler, and part octopus.

  As a prep cook, the menu had been drilled into this head. Yes, it was always changing based on what was freshest in Seattle’s Pike Place Market just out the back door, but there was a style, a flavor, a feel to Angelo’s cooking that made sense once he understood it.

  He’d even done some turns as the Executive Chef for lunch service. The lighter fare becoming second nature with practice.

  That was when he first bumped heads with Luisa.

  There was no way to miss Luisa’s presence in the kitchen. It was the aboyeur’s job to expedite service and did she ever. Luisa had every order in her head, never having to check a ticket twice. And she was very vocal about not getting everything in the exact order she’d called for it. Table Seven had a simple ragù, a pan-fried swordfish on a bed of angel hair pasta with one of Angelo’s signature sauces that had to be made the moment before service, and a grilled lamb and baby asparagus with a Gorganzola cheese drizzle—and Luisa would throw a fit if they weren’t all ready in the same five seconds even though they took drastically different amounts of time to cook. Actually, in the same three seconds.

  But with Luisa in charge, there was never an undressed plate or a missed order. She was just as amazing as she looked. And as dangerous.

  He slid across the missing halibut with a honey-rosemary-chestnut glaze and the accompanying bowl of the wild boar ragù.

  “Finally!” she huffed at him.

  Being the sole target for her ire was daunting. Everyone on this side of the cook line answered to him, but he answered to the fair Luisa.

  He still didn’t know how he’d landed in the Executive Chef slot through a dinner service. He’d entered the kitchen and Luisa had simply told him, “Angelo’s busy tonight. It’s your cook line.” He’d taken his first breath about an hour into the meal, but hadn’t had time yet to take a second one.

  She finished dressing the plates with berry compote traced in an elegant line around the outline of the halibut. With immaculate timing, Graziella breezed in from the front of house, barely breaking stride as she gathered the completed dishes, and whisked back out.

  It was a shock every single time to see them together. Two slender, beautiful Italian women with golden skin and lush dark hair that reached the middle of their backs. They could have been twins. Except Graziella was as gracious and patient as her name, unflappable under even the most dire circumstances. Luisa’s heritage must be at least part Roman, as in Roman candle. Incendiary.

  “What are you paying attention to, Chef?” she snapped at him.

  Luisa hadn’t looked up at him, but he’d been watching her and not his line and somehow she knew. A quick glance showed him that his momentary lapse to admire his aboyeur had just caused him more trouble.

  “Fire three halibut and two sea bass, a lamb, a beef tenderloin, and two scallop.”

  Marlys grimaced, but hustled to get them all going.

  It was too late, the next five tables were going to be all out of sync and he was going to pay royally for it.

  Chapter 2

  Luisa kept her head down to hide her smile.

  She remembered her first day here, Angelo and Manuel purposely messing with her, testing her. Angelo would finish a fish and then sit on it for thirty seconds just to break her rhythm. When she’d chewed him out over the line, he’d merely smiled and handed it across.

  Manuel had mixed up three different orders, just to see if she’d catch it, like she was that dense. She’d ripped him a new one and he’d told Angelo to hire her on the spot.

  That had been a year ago and Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth Ristorante was now a well-oiled machine, reproducing the chef’s magic to the table with class and consistency.

  And at last it was finally turnabout, her turn to be testing someone else to Angelo’s stratospheric standards. Manuel had moved to run the new restaurant by the Seattle Center and Angelo wanted to focus on a third restaurant he was creating. She was the one who had suggested pulling Sam Walsh out of the prep role.

  His prep had always been immaculate.

  Then she’d spotted him making a quic
k lunch for himself and recognized the instinctual skill of his actions.

  She’d spent three years in Italy studying restaurants, eking out every penny she could to continue doing so. Every three months she went to a new restaurant and volunteered to shadow and assist the aboyeur in exchange for food and a place to sleep. Many times she’d ultimately been offered a permanent job, but there’d been so much to learn, so many regional varieties of food, so many different chefs to study that she’d always refused. She’d worked her way from Rome down to Puglia, into Sicily and back up the west coast to Tuscany, Liguria, and the Piedmont before the money ran out.

  She knew what a real chef looked like, even if Angelo and Manuel were too dense to notice what was in their midst.

  When Sam had been momentarily called away, she’d snuck a forkful of his lunch and been stunned. No prep cook should be able to cook like that. Especially not a tall handsome one with auburn hair and such agile hands; he looked Irish not Italian for crying out loud. Of course Manuel was Mexican, but so were most of the sous chefs and line cooks in high-end restaurants throughout the U.S.

  She’d stolen a second forkful, carried it over to Angelo, and fed it to him. His eyes had gone wide, then thoughtful when she pointed at Sam returning to his meal.

  Sam spent some time looking for his fork, never spotting that she’d stolen it. It had been awfully cute.

  But the fact that she’d been the one to discover him, meant that he had to perform even better than Manuel and Angelo did. If she had to hound him twice as hard to meet that standard, he’d just have to get used to it. And he had.

  Until she’d distracted him.

  She handed off the next order to one of Graziella’s waiters and then did her best not to laugh at the cascading disaster his lapse had caused.

  Luisa was used to men watching her. Hadn’t thought much of it except when she wanted to take a likely candidate home with her. At least not until everyone started calling her Graziella’s twin sister. When “evil twin sister” had slipped out of someone’s mouth, she could only sigh in acknowledgment of the sad truth.

  Grace and graciousness had never been in Luisa’s genetic makeup; her “good twin” was elegantly second-generation Italian and Luisa was third-generation shrew. But that anyone thought she was that beautiful was still a surprise. And that Sam had noticed so much that he’d lost the thread of the meal…

  “C’mon, Sam,” she called out to distract herself. “It’s your first dinner as Exec Chef. Don’t drop the ball on me now.”

  He didn’t snarl or glare at her. He didn’t even frown. He simply turned to assist the suddenly overwhelmed Marlys trying to simultaneously fire nine dishes in eight pans.

  Luisa moved down the line to chat with the patissier about a new dessert idea she’d had. She’d give Sam a little time to recover, but not too much.

  Chapter 3

  When the last two-plate order had slid across to Luisa, Sam was ready to collapse.

  Someone slapped him hard on the back and shoved a cold beer into his hand. A round of applause sounded down the line.

  And across the cook line from him, even the bane of his existence was applauding with those elegantly fine hands of hers. He tipped his bottle to her in silent salute; they both knew he couldn’t have done it without her help.

  “So,” Angelo and Manuel came in through the back door which had been left open to the warm September night, “Let’s see how you did.” He took up the two plates of the final order and handed one to Manuel. A test? Tonight had been a test?

  For what?

  The two chefs tasted, chewed, swallowed, and then tasted each other’s dishes.

  “He didn’t follow your recipe,” Manuel pointed at the smoked eggplant and shrimp ravioli.

  “No, he didn’t,” Angelo closed his eyes for a moment. “Walnut, no. Chestnut.” He opened one eye to glare at Sam. “How much?”

  “A single light grating over the eggplant before I smoked it.” He knew it was taking liberties, but it had seemed right. Now he was less sure.

  “Seems odd to me,” Manuel replied.

  Angelo harrumphed in agreement.

  Sam was starting to get really worried, he knew chefs who’d been fired for tinkering with the Head Chef’s recipes. Then he spotted Luisa’s expression. She winked at him. After all of the abuse she’d unloaded on him during the meal, she winked at him.

  Greatly encouraged, he winked back, then waited for Angelo and Manuel to get to the point.

  “Going to have to change the recipe now,” Angelo grumbled, but Sam could finally tell that he was pleased.

  Angelo waved him out from behind the cook line. When he reached them, Angelo shook his hand. Manuel gave one of his quiet nods that Sam had long since learned was his form of high praise. Graziella had joined them by that point and kissed him on both cheeks before tasting some of Manuel’s dinner and sighing happily. She slid an arm around her husband’s waist and he held the bowl so that she could take another mouthful.

  Sam felt himself wilting a little every time he saw them. Manuel and Graziella were so sweet together. When would he ever find something like they had? Based on results to date, never was his best guess.

  “Looks like you were right, Luisa,” Angelo looked at the aboyeur.

  “Told you,” was her pert reply.

  “Told him what?” Sam asked.

  But she just kept grinning at him.

  “Told you what?” he asked Angelo.

  “I think you two are ready to run this restaurant. Interested?”

  Sam looked at Luisa and saw the stunned look on her face, perfectly mirroring what he was feeling right at that moment. Well, something had finally put her in her place.

  Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth was top-rated as was the Piedmont Hearth which Manuel now ran across town. And not just top in the foodie Pacific Northwest, but nationally.

  “We…two?” Luisa managed a bare whisper.

  Her gaze slid to Angelo then back to him, her dark eyes gone wide.

  Not to do this for a single night, but every night?

  He tipped his head in the slightest question to her. Angelo was right, he couldn’t have done it alone. But to run such a restaurant had been his goal since forever.

  “You game?” he managed, his own whisper no louder than hers had been.

  The astonishment shifted through a hundred stages on her beautiful face through consideration, weighing factors, acceptance, and finally a blinding smile that stunned him right back on his heels. He’d known she could smile…but not like that.

  “Heck yeah!” was her verdict.

  They traded high fives and a quick hug as the rest of the crew cheered for them.

  Chapter 4

  As far as Luisa knew, she and Sam had never actually touched, always separated by the width of the cook line. But his brief hug was warm and sincere. His big hands had wrapped briefly around her waist and she could still feel the impression of their easy strength. He’d smelled of the cook line; flavor and spice.

  If she’d been seeing anyone, it might have had less impact on her thoughts. But she hadn’t been. Not for several months even before she’d stolen that taste of Sam’s lunch. Then Angelo had assigned her to lay out his training because he was too busy with his plans for the next restaurant, and that had preoccupied her thoughts.

  So, she’d made sure that “Angelo’s” official schedule rotated Sam through every position until he could do each as well as the station chef normally posted there.

  And it had worked. Worked beyond her wildest imaginings actually.

  “Run the restaurant?” she whispered to herself, but it couldn’t be real.

  She cleaned and prepped her station for the next day, tossed out the sauces and garnish that wouldn’t survive overnight, stowed everything else where it belonged. The other chefs were tending to their own stations. She’d demanded end-to-end ownership, if you needed more pans or towels or a sharper knife in mid-shift and didn’t have it, it was your
own fault. Angelo himself had been the slowest to adopt the change, but now agreed it was the best way.

  “Run the restaurant?” She’d been aboyeur for a year, the longest she’d ever stayed anywhere, but that was a long way from running a restaurant.

  She was staring at her immaculate station when a hand landed against the small of her back—she knew it was Sam’s by the feel alone—and swept her from the kitchen and out into the main room. It was dark, the last of the diners were gone. The shadowed room was spotless. The tables already set with the lunch service cloths and tableware.

  Only one table remained candlelit, the one closest to the hearth that was the centerpiece of Angelo’s. The fireplace was a simple affair of stone and brass that anchored the room and gave it a lush ambience.

  The table contained a chef’s meal: a cutting board of crackers and several varieties of cheese, and a bottle of wine uncorked to breathe. Two glasses.

  “You trying to woo me, Sam Walsh?” she asked as he held out her chair for her.

  “No!” He startled as if she’d just whacked him with a wooden spoon. “Trying to be nice; sort of to say thanks for getting me this chance and maybe try to figure out what’s next. Is nice too foreign for you, Luisa Valenti?”

  He teased her. He’d actually teased her, which was quite a step for Sam Walsh. She considered several acerbic replies as he settled into the chair opposite and began pouring the wine.

  “Way too foreign,” she sighed. “I don’t think that nice runs very deep in my bones.”

  He snorted out a laugh, “Might have noticed. Pity. However, they’re such very nice bones.”