Free One More Taste by Melissa Cutler Page B

ingredients to pick up in the catering kitchen. Dinner’s in two hours. I’ll see you at your house.”
    â€œEmily!” he called out his open window, but she didn’t acknowledge his call.
    She stalked over the cattle grate and onto the resort grounds, then down the hill and out of sight.
    *   *   *
    Knox’s sister, Shayla, was a tightly wound ball of positive energy, with an ultra-fit body to match. She probably rolled out of bed in the morning and straight onto a workout mat to perform rear leg lifts and crunches. She didn’t look like she carried an extra ounce of fat, which probably meant, like Knox, she thought of food as fuel and nothing more. Such a pity.
    Knox pulled Emily out of the kitchen to meet his sister in the living room while the biscuits were cooking. Emily kept one eye on the oven, while also trying to make small talk with Shayla—not an easy feat for an introverted chef with a well-rooted disdain for wasting time with conversations that went nowhere with people she’d probably never meet again.
    Maybe it was a mistake to have set the kitchen table for dinner, where they’d have a front row seat to watch Emily’s every move. On occasion, she pulled that move at the resort, serving VIP clients at a chef’s table in the kitchen, but the stakes had never been this high. It had been one thing to share a meal alone with Knox the night before. As nervous as he made her, they’d had no shortage of topics to banter about. But with Shayla there, as well as Emily’s surprise guest—who was on the verge of being late—the feeling of being on stage had her surprisingly anxious.
    â€œIt’s great to meet you,” Shayla said, shaking Emily’s hand. “When Knox told me he was auditioning a chef for a restaurant he’s opening at the resort by using her as a personal chef for a month, I thought that was a genius idea. I had to come check you out for myself.”
    â€œYeah, check me out.” Ugh. So awkward.
    â€œI don’t see any place settings at the dining room table,” Knox said. “Are we eating on the deck?”
    â€œIn the kitchen,” Emily said, gesturing for them to follow her.
    Shayla seemed delighted by the news. “How kitschy!”
    Shayla’s joke landed with such a thud that Emily’s step faltered. Knox groaned good-naturedly. “You did not just go there.”
    â€œDamn right, I did. You know me, the most awkward girl in the room.”
    Looked like Shayla and Emily would have to compete for that title. “And here I thought that was my cross to bear,” Emily said.
    â€œWe can share the crown.”
    If this meal were designed to wow Shayla instead of Knox, there’d be no way Emily would seat them in the kitchen. No, instead she would have indeed seated them on the deck. She would have tapped into Shayla’s amusement at the world with fresh air and quirky gastronomic marvels. Sparse plates and exotic flavor bursts.
    But this challenge was about Knox, and he didn’t need quirky. Their confrontation-turned-conversation at his truck convinced her all the more of his need for nostalgia with a modern twist. Hence, why she’d led them to a table in the kitchen next to the brick fireplace that looked to have been used by the previous owners for baking bread and pizza and any other matter of wood-fired food.
    Earlier that day, Emily had dragged the kitchen table in front of it and loaded the fireplace with wood. She’d then gathered Knox’s framed family photos from the study and arranged them on the thick wood mantle above the oven. A little touch of hominess and warmth, the perfect setting for Emily’s take on comfort food.
    She’d just gotten Knox and Shayla seated when the doorbell rang. Knox made to rise. “Sorry. I have no idea who that could be.”
    â€œI’ll get it,” Emily said, waving off his offer.
    Granny June