“Can’t miss it.”
I made a mental note to swing by there while I perused her selection of soil-spotted mushrooms and fragrant, leafy herbs. I even snapped a few surreptitious photos of Mia’s stall while she briefly turned to check on another customer, then went back to squeezing waxy cucumbers.
“So, how’s the chef life treating you?” she asked.
“So far so good,” I admitted. All things considered, it was far from the worst gig I’d ever worked.
“Really?” She cocked her head like I’d given her a riddle to solve. “Huh.”
“What?”
Mia shrugged, absently rearranging a display of carrots with long, leafy stalks. “Nothing. Just the Hawthornes are notoriously difficult clients. Folks joke that half the tourism in this town is just the turnover of their staff.”
“I don’t know,” I said. I grabbed a paper bag from a crate on the ground and started filling it with stone fruit. “I’m new to private cheffing, but they don’t seem any more difficult than most rich people, I guess.”
No doubt Mrs. Hawthorne was a handful. Sometimes it felt like she made a sport out of keeping me on my toes. But it wasn’t like her demands were outlandish or exceptionally malicious. She just craved perfection. I’d say she was paying me enough to deserve at least the attempt.
“Give it time,” Mia groused, smile faltering. “They’ll find a way to let you down.”
“Speaking from personal experience?”
That was a pretty specific accusation. The tone of Mia’s delivery said it was more than idle small-town chatter. Though I didn’t want to take a wrong step and end up neck-deep in the gossip, I couldn’t deny a growing curiosity about why Mia seemed to have a particular aversion to the family.
“I’m just saying . . .” Mia plastered on a flippant expression and shook her head, aloof. “Don’t expect too much and you won’t be disappointed.”
The vibe had turned unavoidably awkward while I finished my shopping and Mia began to ring me up. I felt bad that I’d soured her mood.
“Hey, what can you tell me about the Thanksgiving Throwdown?” I asked, changing the subject.
Her eyes perked up. “Oh, yeah. One of my favorite holiday events. Takes place outside city hall. Last year someone made the Grand Canyon out of German chocolate cake. Year before that, there was a life-size toffee Elvis. It gets pretty intense.”
I sighed inwardly. Knowing this town, I’d had a feeling.
“Ran into Bea at the bookshop earlier. She’s trying to get me to enter.”
“Do it,” she said. “I’m not much of a baker, but I love to watch. A huge audience gathers to watch the creations come together. People get so creative. But if you’re going to do it, better get planning now.”
“Yeah, I guess I’ll have to figure out what I can build out of gingerbread and frosting that could beat a gingerbread Taj Mahal.”
Mia’s face brightened suddenly. “Hey,” she said, picking up several of my bags, “What are you doing tonight? A group of us are getting together. Low-key hang. Grab a few drinks and shoot some pool. We could have a brainstorming session.”
She helped me carry my haul out to the Land Rover in the parking lot and I opened the lift gate of the trunk.
“I’ve got dinner service for the family, then I’m probably going to crash out and catch up on some sleep.”
“Boo,” she teased as we loaded the bags.
“Raincheck?”
“Fine. But I’m going to keep bugging you.”
“Good. I want you to.”
I appreciated the effort. Back home, people stopped inviting me places because I was always too tired to go out after pulling double shifts. Then I forgot how to make friends. Here, I seemed to have a little more time on my hands than I’d expected. And more importantly, great people that I genuinely wanted to spend that time with.
Chapter 19
Over the next few days, I didn’t hear much from Charles, as the family was out of the house more often than not. If I was honest, there was a tiny niggling seed of paranoia in my mind that wondered if our date day had somehow given him the ick and he was done with me. Or that his mother had found out and was purposefully keeping us apart. Then I reminded myself that there was an entire genre of fiction about people who went mad while secluded in snowy mountain retreats, and that maybe I should stop overthinking it.
