Cats were so much easier to get along with.
All rightIm back to cooking. Only one other thing I want to say up front. Im the god in the galley. Im not your wife, not your girlfriend-you dont have to watch your language or your manners around me, and you dont need to help with a thing. But nobody touches my knives, my tools or my spices. Cant imagine why youd want to, anyway. If you need something from the galley, all you have to do is ask. We square?
More head bobbing. A little laughter. A lot of smiles.
Okay, Ill catch up with each of you in a bit.
En route back to the galley, naturally, Ivan tried to cop another feel. She shot him a look so icy it could have stopped global warming in its tracks, then just moved past him.
She heard his muttered chuckle. Sheesh, Cate, it wouldnt kill you to loosen up. Dont forget, were in Alaska. Rules are a lot more flexible here.
Im positive I told you in the job interview that I flunked plays well with others in kindergarten.
God, I love a feisty woman, he said.
She kept on going, didnt even waste a roll of the eyes. The captain wasnt a serious problem. As far as she could tell, Ivan was a terrific sailor, just a jerk around women. She could handle him with both hands tied behind her back, and even if the other men proved to be mangerines-boys with unmanageable balls the size of tangerines-Cate didnt anticipate any sweat working with them, either.
She would hardly be an adventure chef if she didnt love a little risk and danger now and then.
She zipped into the galley, instinctively whistling some old kick-ass rock and roll. What a kitchen. Shed made dinner for seven in the Himalayas in a snowstorm, sand-roasted snake for a gay couple in the Amazon, so maybe cooking under adverse conditions was her forte-but man, there was nothing wrong with a little luxury.
Naturally, shed brought her own knives and spices-what chef didnt?-but the galley was a techno dream. Armed with a hot pad and spatula, she checked on lunch, savoring the work space at the same time. The Corian countertops were in a sharp navy blue; the walls ice-cream white. A Thermador cooktop and grill accompanied the Sub-Zero fridge and freezer. Extras included the trash compactor, double sink, convection microwave and two-count em, two-Thermador convection ovens, and that wasnt even counting the to-die-for pantry.
The whole package was enough to give a girl multiple orgasms-without all the hassle and messiness of a personal relationship. Besides which, the job was going to leave her with a chubby chunk of money. How could a girl not whistle?
It took less than ten minutes to put the finishing touches on the lunch menu. Obviously, the first meal needed to be killer good. Not fancy. Nothing that guys would be afraid of. It just had to be exactly right.
Once those chores were checked off, she grabbed her list with the passenger names and hustled below to the guest cabins. The big shot, she already knew, was Harm Connolly. The first names of his guys were Fiske, Yale, Purdue and Arthur. At the first cabin door, she rapped, and waited.
The man who answered the door was short, white-haired, plump and out of breath. Fiske. She took one look at the kindly eyes, judged him to be good to the bone and smiled. A lot of running around this morning? she asked sympathetically.
Glad to finally be aboard and settled, he admitted.
Ill bet. And Im not going to bug you, just want to ask a couple of things to make sure I have the right info. Do you have any food allergies? Or any food issues, cholesterol, diabetes, anything you didnt put on the form that I need to know about?
No allergies. Nothing but the usual boring health issues, either. A little heart issue, have to take cholesterol meds, should lose a few pounds, that kind of nonsense. Had to give up doughnuts. He added in a mournful tone, I love doughnuts.
Me, too, she confessed. Rather have coffee or tea?
Coffee.
Listen, Fiske, if you need a treat, you come find me. You hear? Or if theres anything special you like, just say. She resisted hugging him, but right off the bat, she could tell he was going to be an angel.
When she knocked on the next door, she knew shed found Purdue even before the guy introduced himself. It was the look. Tall, dark, good-looking, maybe thirty, know-everything, so smart he charmed himself. In another ten years she figured the sharp edges might start showing up, but right now, hed tickle any single womans radar. Hers not included, of course. He had the posture of someone who was always tense, always ready to duck and run-or charge. Maybe he had good reason to never relax, she thought, and knew perfectly well all those prejudgments werent fair.
Just checking things off my list, she said cheerfully. Do you have any food allergies or dislikes you didnt already mention?
Just checking things off my list, she said cheerfully. Do you have any food allergies or dislikes you didnt already mention?
Anything you make, Cate, I guarantee Ill like.
There were compliments, and then there was flattery. Shed never had patience for the latter, and was pleased to see him bump his head on the narrow cabin door when he turned around. At the end of the narrow corridor was a bathroom-head, she reminded herself of the correct term-and then rapped on the cabin door after that.
Arthur looked just like his name. He was easily six feet, maybe fifty-five to sixty, with a handsome head of premature white hair and a long face with stress-dark eyes.
Any special things I can make for you, Arthur? Food allergies? Types of food you really dont like?
Nothing special, but I tend to get up early. How soon is coffee available?
Any time you want. Ill have a pot of fresh in the salon by 6:00 a.m. If you want it earlier yet, no sweat, just say.
No, thats fine. Arthur seemed to look through her, not at her. Cate fully understood that some people treated staff as invisible, but Arthur appeared more preoccupied than rude or snobbish. She made a mental note to watch out for him, make sure she found things to tempt him at mealtimes.
The last aft cabin was hers-the sleeping area was the size of a closet, with an adjoining hatbox-size head. Normally, shed sleep in the crew quarters, but when Ivan lost his regular chef and interviewed herwell, Cate wasnt about to sleep in a bunk in the open crew quarters, not when there was a spare cabin with a locked door.
On the starboard side, again she knockedand the last of Harm Connollys guys yanked open the door. Yale. Had to be. Easy to guess how the two youngest men had picked up Ivy-League-type monikers, no matter where theyd actually gone to school. Yale was blond to Purdues dark, thin rather than muscular, and had a trimmed beard where Purdue was clean-chinned. Still, they both looked like up-and-comers, duded up with expensive labels and styled haircuts, in the same early-thirties age bracket.
Hey, he said, giving her the same up-and-down that Purdue had-although not as offensively. Somewhere in that practiced expression was some honest friendliness. Quite a boat.
Fantastic, isnt it? She reeled off her short list of questions.
I can eat anything. He cocked his head. You cant be on 24/7.
Im not. Once dinners put away, Im on my own time.
Soyou do have some free hours.
She wasnt about to pretend she didnt understand where he was going. Tons. Crew and staff eat together, tour together when were offshore. Well all have plenty of time to get to know each other. Once the dinner stuffs completely put away, though, Im on my own time. Which means you guys can stay up deck, drink all night, watch whatever you want and do whatever you want, without crew in your face.
Thats good, he said, then opened his mouth to continue.
Im en route to your boss, she mentioned, which shut him up beautifully.
Of course, it shut her up, too. Ivan had made clear to the crew that sucking up to Harm Connolly was required. Unfortunately, Cate had always flunked the course in kowtowing. It would have helped if shed gotten a look at him before, she thought glumly, but no, she hadnt thought ahead and made the effort. Truth to tell, failing to think ahead was a fault of hers. In fact, pretty much a fault on a daily basis. And she really didnt want to put her foot in her mouth right off the bat with the head honchowhich meant she was all too likely to.
She rapped. Waited. Thought aha, maybe she could get a reprieve and not to have to deal with him right then-but then the door unlatched and there he was.
The punch in her gut was completely unexpected. He was the owner of a big-to-do company, for Petes sake. Mentally, shed had pictured him as in his sixties, tyrannical, formal.
Instead she got a half-naked dude with sculpted shoulders, unshaven cheeks, and a head full of towhead blond hair, spiky and wet from a fresh shower.
At least hed pulled on pants before answering the door, but the technogear revealed the long, lean muscles of an athlete, not a desk guy. His eyebrows and chest hair were as white-blond as his hair, his skin ruddy. The glower of impatience on his brow radiated arrogance, energy. He couldnt be older than mid-thirties. And the sharp, dark gaze inhaled her in a single testosterone-colored photo snap.
His expression telegraphed that he knew what he liked, and he liked the look of her.
The overall punch waswell, downright bamboozling. It was more than his being unexpectedly hot. She just rarely, rarely got that suck-in-the-gut response for a guy. She loved men; what woman didnt? And shed slept with them now and then, of course. Liked a good-looking ass, naturally. But she always carefully steered miles around the rare guy who brought on that suck-in-the-gut feeling.
She liked adventure. Hell, she loved risk.
She just didnt like risky men.
Youre the chef, he said, in a voice that sounded like rough gravel.
Yes. And I dont want to bother you. I just wanted to ask you a couple of short-
Come in. There are a few things we should cover.
She didnt want to go in any of the boys cabins. But she tapped her pencil on her list and sucked it up.
The master cabin was an awesome comfort zone-queen-size bed, teal carpet thicker than a lawn, teak cabinets for gear, an angled private head. Steam was still pouring from that bathroom, a thick white towel abandoned on the bed, all of it smelling like wet, clean male-intimate, distracting. Somehow there wasnt room enough for the two of them, even in the most spacious cabin onboard.