Carrie sank wearily onto a raddled velveteen couch left over from the
gilded age and parked now against the wall near the restaurant doors. Tye gave
her a smile and poured her the cold, dark, molasses-edged beer she liked. In
the sprawling circle of men, she saw Gabe’s sleek, trimmed head turn. He got
up a moment later, took the beer from Tye, and brought it to Carrie.
“Here you are,” he said, handing it to her, and sat, while his eyes went
back to the company he had left. “How’d it go tonight?”
“Thanks,” she said, yawning. “I had to do some serving; Marjorie missed
lunch. I made thirty-six dollars in tips. That’s going into the creel.”
He grunted, shifting as though a broken spring under the ancient velveteen had
bit him. He didn’t like the idea of the creel full of Carrie’s escape money
any more than Carrie liked the idea of accidentally falling in love with him
and spending the rest of her life in Chimera Bay. So they kept their distance
from one another, though Carrie sensed sometimes that he was simply waiting
for her to come to her senses and realize where she belonged.
She added, to take his mind off the creel, “Ella rolled cheese biscuits for
dinner. So I took the dough scraps, wrapped them around chopped green apple
and boiled shrimp with some grated ginger and a spritz of lemon juice, and
baked them.”
“Weird.”
“They all got eaten. Did my dad come in tonight?”
“I’m not sure. I got here late. You can ask; they’re almost done.”
“How can you tell? What do you talk about?”
He shrugged. “What comes up,” he said finally, “out of the deep.”
She looked at him silently; his eyes, back on the group now, were intent and
burning with the mystery that Hal Fisher carried around with him. “Fish
stories,” she said, and his eyes came back to her, earnest, unsmiling.
“Sort of. Not exactly, but in a way.”
She swallowed more beer, added restively, tired of hints, riddles without
answers, “If you see my father, will you tell him I’m looking for him? I’m
going home. It’s been a long day.”
“Sure,” Gabe said, his attention on her now that she was going to leave him.
He rose as she did, watched her silently as she took the glass to the bar. She
waved to him, and he nodded, still not moving; she felt his gaze until she
closed the screen door behind her and stepped into the parking lot.
A shadow shifted beside the pickup as she crossed to the driver’s side. She
stopped, more startled than frightened; nothing much ever happened in Chimera
Bay. The shadow stepped forward, let the light from the streetlamp fall on its
face.
She didn’t recognize him, but he knew her.
“Carrie. I’m Todd Stillwater.”
He was, she thought incredulously, the most beautiful man she had ever seen.
If a Greek statue of an athlete had landed in the Kingfisher parking lot,
alive, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, he would have looked just like this,
complete with the wonderful straight nose, the mobile, curling lips, the
wide-set, guileless eyes. Even his voice was perfect, deeper and more tempered
than she would have expected from his youthful, open expression.
She was staring, she realized, frozen and mute. She opened her mouth; a bat
squeaked out, by the sound of it.
He smiled a little, reassuringly, though the charming little frown, like the
most careful chip of the sculptor’s chisel between his brows, remained.
“I startled you. I’m sorry. I usually don’t skulk around scaring people in
parking lots. I just drove over on the off chance you’d still be here. I
closed earlier this evening.”
He paused, waiting. She cleared her throat. “Yes,” she managed. “I’m
Carrie Teague.”
“My wife Sage dropped into this place a couple of times recently. She likes
the way you cook. Your ideas. We wondered if you’d like to come and work for
me.” She opened her mouth again; nothing came out this time. He added, “I
run my own kitchen; Sage helps me. She also bartends, sets tables, serves,
cleans up after—”
“Oh,” Carrie breathed, enlightened. “You want me to set tables.”
“No. Sage doesn’t mind doing all that. But it’s too much for her to have
kitchen duties as well. So I’ve been looking for someone else to cook with
me. I’m asking you. If you can bear to leave this place. I can pay you very,
very well.” He smiled again. “I think you’d be worth it.”
She felt something break loose in her chest or her brain, float slowly aloft
like a hot-air balloon ascending from earth into warm, endless blue. “I don’
t—” She pulled in a breath dizzily. “I don’t know what to say. Except
thank you. I could never afford to eat in your restaurant. But I’ve heard
your cooking is—well, unlike anything else around here. Magical. I think that
’s the word I heard when I started paying attention. My experiments—my
little bites—they’re just for fun. Mostly I fry fish. Make clam chowder.
French fries for lunch and garlic mashed for dinner.”
“Yes,” he agreed, waiting patiently, she realized, while she dithered, tried
to talk him out of what he wanted. Why, she wondered, didn’t she just say
okay, then shut up and dream how fat that creel would get and how fast?