Hungry for More

CHAPTER 2



The scotch scorched Amy’s throat, but it didn’t help ease her growing panic. For three months, she’d been searching for her missing spirit-voice, Maddie. Finally, after three well-placed, ever-increasing bribes to a corrupt high-level Gypsy elder in Yonkers, she had gotten word of a young Gypsy waitress in Philly who had mysteriously begun hearing a spirit-voice that spoke names and only names.

The voice just had to be Maddie. Her Maddie. Her voice. And she was getting Maddie back; that wasn’t negotiable. The voice said only names in a woman’s singsong; it appeared just last week out of nowhere; Roni, the waitress, was reportedly good and honest and pure—exactly the kind of Gypsy Maddie would want to inhabit after her obvious disappointment with Amy’s more unconventional ways.

In other words, Roni was Amy’s complete opposite.

Amy couldn’t stand the woman already.

She still had no idea how she’d get Maddie back from this Roni. But the details would come to her; the cons always did.

It was the traveling that was killing her. She was getting too old for this nomadic life. Thirty-four sucked. The long trek to Philly began with a cross-country Greyhound ride from Chicago, her seatmate a two-hundred-fifty-pound man with a bad case of dandruff, and ended with a mile-long slog through the slush in her hole-laden boots.

And Roni was gone. She had missed the Rom by a day.

Amy was so tired and wet and cold, she wanted to cry.

No. She was no weeper. Think. Make a plan. She concentrated on the handsome chef. His ink-black, pin-straight hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck like a nineteenth-century nobleman. His angled cheekbones directed her eyes toward his carefully drawn mouth. In fact, every dark, angled plane of his face pointed toward that tempting, burgundy mouth—which was talking again. “You’ll need different clothes. The floor staff wears uniforms. Black button-down shirt and black pants, but at this short notice—”

Bingo. A plan. “Front me fifty bucks and I’ll match the look. Boring and uptight, right? No problem. I’ll pay you back from tips.” The idea of waiting tables in this stuffy joint made her whole body ache with fatigue. No way was that happening. She’d take this sexy chef’s cash, get a lousy room, and sleep. Just sleep. Then, in the morning, she’d figure out how to find Roni.

The dark, handsome chef fished a roll of cash out of his pocket, and Amy watched him count twenties, her mouth watering at the sight of the bills. How her life had come to this, she didn’t know. Finding Maddie had become a three-month obsession that was getting out of hand. But every day without Maddie, a hole deepened inside her that became harder and harder to fill. It was like Maddie had been a person—a friend, even—which was ridiculous. Amy watched the money—twenty dollars, forty, sixty.

He met her eyes, paused, then unrolled seven more twenties. He pushed the cash across the bar, holding her gaze as he did.

She broke his gaze to look at the cash. I asked for fifty dollars and he gave me two hundred. It was an act of trust that knocked her sideways to Tuesday for the simple reason that they both knew she didn’t deserve it. She’d have to watch James; he was smart to tie her to him like that. It was harder to rip off a guy who made a point of trusting you.

Especially one who looked like a pirate on shore leave.

Never trust a Gypsy, Chef. She’d take the cash and split—

And then what, Einstein? She had no idea where this Roni lived or where she might have gone. All she knew was that she worked here and that she might have Maddie. Amy’s toes were soaking wet and icy cold. She wished she could pull off her boots and warm her feet in her hands while she tried to think.

Amy shook off her doubt and fear. I am Amy Burns! A powerful Gypsy who makes her way in the world on brains and guts—

—and a spirit-voice that ditched me .

Okay. New plan. She’d take the cash, steal a new set of clothes, work one night for the tips, learn what she could about Roni, then split.

She took the bills but hesitated. She hated owing people. She might be down on her luck, but she was never down on her pride. Equals or nothing, Chef . She reached behind her neck, unclasped her necklace, ducked under the bar, glided behind James, and draped the jewel around his neck. I’ll call your cash and raise you priceless jewels. The clasp closed with an ominous snap. “Collateral until I pay you back,” she said.

“Welcome to Les Fleurs,” he said.

“Lays Florz,” she said, anglicizing the French with exaggerated disregard. “Lays floors. Lays coat-check girls. Lays Roni?”

He didn’t flinch at her brazen question or ask how she knew he’d slept with the coat-check girl; Amy had seen the flicker of memory in his eyes when she mentioned her. Gypsy Con 101: watch the eyes. She knew he’d slept with her and knew the woman had left him. And, more important, she knew he didn’t know why.

“Not that my sex life is any of your business, but I don’t sleep with the hired help,” he said.

“Too bad,” she said. She didn’t believe him for a minute. She’d bet every dollar he gave her that his staff were the only people he knew. “ So if you’re not boffing Roni, why would she come back to this dump?” She tucked the bills into her bra.


His eyes followed the bills. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Amy felt a rush of excitement at their flirtation. I may be a Gypsy with nothing, but I still have some power. “Is she coming back?”

“She’ll be back. I’ve got something of hers she can’t live without.”

“Hope it’s not a dime-store necklace,” she said.

His eyes hardened, and something seemed to shift deep inside him. “Four-thirty sharp for the staff meeting,” he said. “Be there or never set foot through my doors again.” He rose abruptly from his stool and made his way through the swinging doors into the kitchen, leaving her alone in the empty dining room, wondering what she had done to piss off that moody chef.



James was furious as he strode through his bustling kitchen. She might as well have punched him in the gut with that dime-store-necklace comment. Not because he believed her. The weight of the real-gold pendant resting against his chest gave her away. But her clumsy bluff said that she didn’t trust him. Trust was everything in his restaurant. She was clearly an outsider who thought she was dealing with a fool. She was—

A taste-vision struck him: she was a lobster salad with wilted lettuce, candied ginger, and a wine and tamarind reduction.

He froze. She had inspired a first course on first sight . That had never happened before. Women inspired all his dishes. But for it to happen so fast, without even a kiss. A touch.

And he didn’t even like her .

He stood in stunned silence. The dish was surprising, sexy, brash. Just like her.

Imagine if I kissed her, what I’d come up with .

Imagine if I made love to her . . .

James stirred from his fantasy to find Troy watching him. Or rather, watching his chest. The kid’s eyes were glued to the pendant, his spoon suspended over the steaming pot.

“Counterclockwise!” James commanded, proud of the boy but trying not to let it show. The last thing he needed was a cocky brat in his kitchen. The boy was too young to be in here, anyway.

But Troy didn’t move; his eyes were fixed on the necklace.

James grabbed the spoon out of Troy’s hand. “Have you ever seen a clock? Round thing? Ticks? Stir this way.”

The boy shook his head. “I wouldn’t wear that if I were you, Chef.”

“Why not?” A chill rose up James’s spine, but he kept stirring. What did that Gypsy want with Roni, anyway? And how had she known he had slept with Maria? “What is this thing? Gypsy voodoo?”

“Voodoo isn’t Gypsy. It’s Haitian, migrated over from Africa.” Troy rolled his eyes as only a disgusted teenager could. “But that medallion, my man, is bad luck. The worst kind of shit-awful luck.”

Yeah. Tell me something I don’t know, James thought.

Because despite the steaming pots around him, all he could smell was cinnamon and clove.





What you put into cold storage will never be what you take out. Often the change is for the better. A ripening. A master chef will be aware of these changes at all times. Anticipate them. And plan for them accordingly.

—JAMES LACHANCE, Meal of a Lifetime