The Single Dad's Family Recipe

Chapter Two

“Tell me this is some kind of sick joke, Linda!”

Holding her chin high, she folded her skinny arms over her surgery-enhanced chest and glared at him. “Joke? Looking after my ailing aunt is not a joke.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Cut the crap. There is no aunt.” Her father had never been on the scene, and as far as he knew, Linda’s mother was an only child.

Linda let out a long, deep, clearly irritated sigh. “She’s my mom’s estranged sister if you must know.”

“So why isn’t Carol trekking across the country to look after her, then?”

“What part of the word estranged don’t you understand?” she said, speaking slowly as if he were five years old. “Besides Carol has just started a new job in Bend, she can’t just take time off when she feels like it.”

“But you can, because you have never worked a day in your life.” He was about to ask her if she had any idea what it was like to look after someone with a terminal illness—Linda had never been the nurturing type—but he figured she’d work that out pretty quickly.

“There’s no need to be such an ass about this.” She blew air between her lips, flicking her platinum blonde bangs upward as she did so. “You’d think I’d asked you to sail around the world naked, not look after your own daughter.”

“Keep your voice down,” he growled, glancing toward the shut door. He’d been in such a good mood five minutes ago—thinking that he might have finally found the perfect person to lead his waitstaff—but now he could almost feel the steam hissing from his ears. “You’ve got some nerve. You know I want her. I’ve always wanted her and our son, but your timing couldn’t be worse. I’m trying to open a new restaurant here, and you interrupted me in the middle of an interview.”

Linda smirked. “Oh, that makes sense—for a moment there, I thought you were on a date.”

He hated himself for it but he took the bait. “And why would that be so amusing? You don’t think I date?” She’d be right. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been on a date—between having permanent custody of their son, every second weekend with both kids and work, he didn’t have the time—but he wasn’t about to admit that. Not to her.

“Keep your pants on,” she said, obviously highly amused. “I just meant that woman isn’t your type. She’s a little too... How should I put it? Rounded?”

His hackles rose even further. He didn’t have a type—not anymore—but he didn’t like the way Linda spoke about Eliza. She might not look anorexic like his ex-wife, but she had womanly curves in all the right places and he thought that was a hell of a lot more sexy than someone who was afraid to eat carbs.

“So how long do you think you’ll be?” he asked, his voice louder than he’d meant. Already he was mentally calculating the extra things he’d have to do now that he had Hallie full-time. He loved his daughter—and his son—more than life itself, but he also understood that kids required time as well as love. Hallie had dance and singing classes and she went to school in Bend, not Jewell Rock, which would mean an hour round-trip twice a day. All this on top of Hamish’s therapy appointments and his extracurricular activities. Had Linda thought any of this through?

Again, his ex-wife rolled her eyes as if she were talking with a plank of wood. “She has cancer, Lachlan, I can’t give you an exact time and date when she’s going to breathe her last breath.”

“Isn’t there anyone else who can look after her? I’m opening the restaurant in a month!”

“You want me to dump our daughter on strangers?”

“Shh,” he hissed again. Then he firmly added, “I meant your aunt.”

She shook her head. “Can’t you show a little compassion? Besides, your mom and your family will help you look after Hallie. It’s not like one extra person in your massive family is going to make much of a difference.”

They stood there for a few moments, glaring at each other like two opponents in a boxing ring. How dare she assume his mom could help? Although he knew she would do her best, he didn’t like asking her to do any more than she already did. And with two family weddings imminent and his two future sisters-in-law pregnant, Lachlan’s mom had enough on her hands already. He wasn’t a violent man and he would never hit a woman, but the frustration coursing through his body right now made him want to pick something up and throw it against the wall.

Only the thought of his daughter and Eliza in the next room held him back.

Eliza. What must she be making of all this? Would she still be there when he went back out? It was definitely not the first impression he wanted to make on a potential new employee.

Feeling resigned and realizing they’d left their daughter with a stranger, Lachlan let out a long breath. “I take it you’ve packed Hallie’s school uniform?” Linda might have seen fit to take her out of class to bring her to him, but he didn’t want her missing any more because of this.

“Of course.”

“And can you give me a list of all her extracurricular activities?”

Linda smiled like a child who’d just been told they could stay up past their bedtime and eat junk food. “I’ll text everything to you while I’m waiting to board my plane. You’re a good man, Lachlan McKinnel.”

She moved forward as if to throw her arms around him but he held up a hand, warning her off. If she thought him so good, why had she looked elsewhere for excitement when they were married? Maybe he wasn’t good, maybe he was just a pushover. A pushover who had been blinded by Linda’s looks and the fun they’d had together when they’d first met but had been paying the price ever since.

“Go say goodbye to Hallie,” he said instead and then turned and opened the door for her to go through.

“She’s not here!” Linda exclaimed, then turned to him in horror. “Who was that woman? What has she done with our daughter?”

“Will you stop being so dramatic?” Lachlan snapped. “They’re probably just outside.” Although inside, his heart clenched as if someone had wrapped string around it and was tightening quickly. Where were Hallie and Eliza?

He strode quickly to the door and breathed a sigh of relief when he opened it and spotted Hallie and Eliza a few yards away, seemingly deep in conversation in the garden. Eliza glanced up as if sensing his presence and the look she gave him told him exactly why they’d moved outside.

Shame washed over him and he felt heat creeping into his cheeks that a stranger had thought it best to intervene so his daughter didn’t hear the raised and bickering voices of her parents. At the same time, he was thankful that she had. However many times he told himself not to let Linda rile him up, he always failed miserably in this resolve.

“She’s out here,” he told his ex-wife.

The possible-kidnapping drama forgotten, Linda rushed over to Hallie and made an elaborate show of bidding her farewell. “I’ll miss you, my darling. Be good for Daddy and Grandma Nora. I’ll call you every night.” She clung to her a few more moments, then kissed her on both cheeks and stepped back.

“Au revoir, folks,” she said with an irritating wave of her fingers, before turning and tottering away in her ridiculously high heels to her car. She seemed more like someone off on a beachside vacation than someone off to play nurse.

As Linda sped off down the long drive, Lachlan turned to Eliza. This is awkward, he thought, wondering what she must make of arriving in the middle of his family drama. “I’m sorry about that,” he said. “That was my ex-wife.”

“I guessed.” She nodded and her shoulder-length, chocolate-brown hair bobbed a little.

“I had no idea she was going to come over like that or I wouldn’t have scheduled the interview.”

“I guessed that, too,” Eliza replied, but her lips didn’t even offer a hint of a smile.

“Daddy.” He felt Hallie tugging at the side of his shirt. “Dad-dy. I’m hungry.”

“Wait a moment. Can’t you see I’m talking?” The moment his words were out, he realized how snappy they sounded.

“Sorry, Daddy,” she said, a quiver in her voice and her eyes glistening.

He swallowed the frustration at his daughter—none of this was her fault—and took her small hand in hers. He squeezed it gently three times, which was their secret, silent way of saying I love you. “It’s okay, glitter-pie. Everything’s going to be okay. Can you just give me a moment and then we’ll go get some lunch?”

She nodded solemnly and squeezed his hand three times in reply. His heart flooded with warmth. No matter how angry he was at her mother and however untimely this new arrangement was, he never wanted to make Hallie feel like she were a burden.

He looked back to Eliza and offered her a conciliatory smile. He could tell she wasn’t impressed with his and Linda’s behavior. Although it really wasn’t any of her business, he wanted to stick up for himself, wanted to give her a little history of the last tumultuous decade with his ex-wife. But he would never speak badly of Linda in front of Hallie. And besides, there were still so many questions he wanted to ask Eliza about herself and her own professional experience.

Sadly, conducting an interview with his eight-year-old daughter in tow was also not ideal. He was about to ask her if she’d mind if they rescheduled the interview for later in the day or even tomorrow but decided he didn’t really have the time. Opening night was four weeks away and so far he’d interviewed ten people for the job and none of them had been suitable.

Yet from the moment Eliza had walked in the door, he’d thought she was the one. There was just something about her that made her look like she belonged in the restaurant—he could already imagine her weaving between the tables on a busy night, chatting to the customers, directing the waitstaff, helping make McKinnel’s the place where people wanted to be.

His older brother, Callum, would probably berate him for hiring someone without calling their references or finishing a proper interview but this was Lachlan’s restaurant and sometimes you had to go with your gut. He ignored the voice in his head that told him how wrong his gut had been about Linda—there’d been adolescent hormones involved there, so it didn’t count.

As far as he could see, the only thing against Eliza was that she couldn’t cook—but considering he wasn’t hiring her for the kitchen, that didn’t actually matter. It was her personal skills that counted and the way she’d taken Hallie away from the drama impressed him. Not that Hallie was difficult but he believed Eliza would be able to handle difficult customers, leaving him to focus on the restaurant, which was his area of expertise.

“When can you start?” he asked her.

“What?” She blinked. “You’re offering me the job? Don’t you want to ask me more questions? Check my references?”

“I’ll call your references later but they won’t change my mind, will they?”

“They better not,” she said. “Wow. Okay.”

“Is that a yes?”

She deliberated so long, he thought she was about to reject his offer, but finally she said, “Will Monday be okay? I have a few things I need to organize first.”

As today was Friday, that seemed reasonable. “That would be fine, but if you need a little longer, that’s okay, too. And let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. Now, my daughter here is hungry and I think I recall you saying you were, as well. Would you like to have an early lunch with us?”

Again she deliberated, but not quite so long this time. “If it’s not an imposition?”

“Not at all. It will give us a chance to talk a little more and you can start to try some of the dishes I’ll be putting on the menu. Come on, let’s head back inside.”

“Can we have mac’n’cheese, Dad?” Hallie asked as they started toward the restaurant.

“Of course,” he replied.

“That’s my favorite food, too,” Eliza said, smiling down at his little girl and Lachlan felt the tension that had built inside him with Linda’s arrival start to dissolve again.

They went inside and Hallie and Eliza sat at one of the tables while Lachlan went back into the kitchen to make lunch.

He made two separate dishes—one for his daughter sans the whiskey and one for his newest employee with all the trimmings. As he worked, he kept one ear to the door, smiling as he heard Hallie chattering away to Eliza, telling her about school, the distillery and the fact her two new aunties were both having babies very soon. It didn’t sound like she was too affected by her mother’s sudden departure and for that he was grateful. Although Eliza didn’t say much, her replies were soft and encouraging and the belief he’d made the right decision in hiring her solidified inside him.

“This smells delicious,” she said a few minutes later when he emerged from the kitchen, carrying three bowls of steaming pasta.

“Thanks, Daddy,” Hallie said before picking up her fork and diving in as if this were the first meal she’d had in months. He had to wonder if Linda had given her breakfast but again he bit his tongue.

“Let’s hope it tastes as good as it looks.” Lachlan sat down beside the girls and waited in anticipation as Eliza tasted her first mouthful. He was a good chef but he knew from her résumé that she’d worked in restaurants with some of the best chefs in America and he found he really wanted to impress her.

“Wow,” came her one-word reply after a few moments. It wasn’t the word but the way she said it and her almost-black eyes that lit up as she did so that made his heart soar.

“It’s okay?”

She smiled. “Okay is an understatement.”

He let out a breath he hadn’t even known he’d been holding and picked up his own fork. But before he’d even loaded it with macaroni, the door of the restaurant burst open again and in came half his siblings.

“What’s for lunch?” Mac said, before he, Blair and Sophie—his youngest sister by two and a half minutes—halted in their tracks.

“Sorry,” Blair said.

“We didn’t know you had company,” Sophie added.

Lachlan stood and gestured to Eliza. “This is Eliza. I’ve just offered her the position of head hostess. Eliza, these are three of my siblings, Sophie, Mac and Blair.” He pointed to each of them as he spoke.

“Wow. Cool. Hi. Nice to meet you.” Sophie rushed forward, offered her hand to shake Eliza’s and then pulled out a seat at the table.

Mac and Blair also followed with handshakes and Lachlan couldn’t help noticing the way his younger brothers looked appreciatively over his new employee. Mac’s appreciation wasn’t surprising—he might not date much since splitting with his longtime girlfriend a year ago, but he wasn’t dead. And Lachlan had to concede you’d have to be dead not to notice how easy on the eye Eliza was.

But Blair’s interest surprised him—granted, he was divorced but most of the time he and his ex-wife, Claire, acted like newlyweds. It was very confusing for everyone.

Whatever, he made a mental note to warn them both off Eliza later—he didn’t want any flings with his brothers getting in the way of her doing her job.

“Hi, Auntie Sophie, Uncle Mac and Uncle Blair,” Hallie said through a mouthful of macaroni.

“Hey, short stuff.” Sophie ruffled Hallie’s hair. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in school?”

Sophie half looked at Lachlan as she said this and he mouthed back, Linda.

Sophie nodded—he’d fill her in later—then she leaned in and sniffed Hallie’s lunch. “Mmm, that smell’s to die for.”

“Okay, okay.” Lachlan shook his head as his brothers also pulled up seats. “I’ll go get you all a serving.” He knew he wouldn’t get rid of them until he did so.

“So where are you from?” Sophie asked when they all had steaming bowls of the best mac’n’cheese in Oregon in front of them.

“New York,” Eliza replied.

“Long way from home,” Blair commented.

Eliza shrugged. “I’m looking for a change of scenery and a new adventure.”

Mac nodded. “I can relate. So where are you living?”

“Um...I actually came straight here from the airport,” she admitted, glancing over and meeting Lachlan’s gaze. “That’s one of those few things I need to organize.”

“Hey, why don’t you check out the apartment next door to us?” Sophie suggested. “The old tenants moved out last month, and the landlord is still looking for a new one. It’s nothing flashy, but it’s cozy and not far from here.”

“Us?” Eliza asked.

Sophie grinned. “Me and my twin sister, Annabel. She’s a firefighter, but I’m sure you’ll meet her soon enough. If you’re interested, I could call the landlord and see if she can show you round this afternoon.”

“That would be wonderful. Thank you. And then I’ll need to deliver my rental car back to the airport and work out more permanent transport.”

“We can probably help you with that, as well,” Blair said.

“I can draw some pictures to go on your new walls,” Hallie—never one to be left out—offered.

Everyone laughed.

“Thank you,” Eliza said, “that will be wonderful.” Then she looked to Mac. “So are you the genius behind this building?”

“Sure am.” As Mac’s face glowed with pride, Lachlan felt a pinch of something like jealousy inside him. It might have been Mac’s handiwork but much of the concept was Lachlan’s and he’d got his hands dirty a few times during the construction. But he bit down on the impulse to state these facts as he knew how uncharitable it would sound—besides, even when they egged him on, he’d never been the type to compete with his brothers, so the feeling was weird. Perhaps he was still unsettled after Linda’s dramatic arrival and departure.

Lachlan refilled his brother’s bowls and poured Hallie a glass of milk while conversation continued around him. Eliza got along well with his siblings, she showed lots of interest and asked lots of questions about the history of the distillery and the café that had been open until recently.

“We closed it a month ago—in April—so we could finish the construction and decorate the restaurant,” Lachlan explained. “It’s ideal to have somewhere to eat on the premises as customers tend to buy more whiskey when they can linger for a snack, hence why I want to open up as soon as possible.”

“Fantastic,” Eliza said, wiping a tiny smudge of cheese-and-whiskey sauce off her bottom lip. “I’m excited to be here at the ground level.”

Mac chuckled. “I hope you’re prepared to work hard because I can attest to the fact that Lachlan here is a slave driver. I’ve barely slept in a month.”

Lachlan glared at him but Eliza didn’t seem perturbed.

“Bring it on,” she said as she met his gaze. “Workaholic is my middle name.”

And something inside him fizzed at this declaration. Someone who wasn’t afraid of a little hard work was exactly who he needed in this position. Eliza’s good looks had absolutely no bearing on his decision whatsoever.

Chapter Three

Everything was happening so fast, Eliza thought as she flopped back onto her bed in a cute little boutique hotel in Jewell Rock. Unlike the neighboring town of Bend, whose popularity was rising by the second, Jewell Rock was still a national secret and therefore there wasn’t an abundance of places to choose from to stay. The few options were all high-quality, rustic, mountain-lodge-type places. Lachlan’s sister Sophie was so very friendly that she’d offered Eliza the couch in her and Annabel’s apartment for the night, but Eliza had politely declined the generous invitation.

Once upon a time, she’d have accepted such an offer from near strangers—thought of it as an adventure—but things had changed and now she preferred to keep to herself and take new friendships slowly.

Her cell phone beeped and despite the fact that her limbs felt heavy from exhaustion, she rolled over and reached to grab it from the bedside table. Speaking of friends...a message from Lilly, her best one, popped up on the screen.

Just checking in. How was your day? Any news on the job yet? xx

While part of her felt too tired for a conversation, calling was easier than typing out what would inevitably be a long message. She pressed Dial and less than two seconds later, Lilly picked up.

“Tell me the interview was a disaster and you’re not moving halfway across the world.”

Eliza almost smiled as she snuggled back into the pillows. That was classic Lilly—no time for greetings and a tendency for theatrics. “Oregon is not halfway across the world.”

Lilly groaned. “Oh, no. You got the job, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I start on Monday.”

“Monday?” Lilly exclaimed. “How on earth are you going to come home and pack all your things and get back there in that time? Where are you going to live?”

“I’m not coming back to New York.” She couldn’t bring herself to call it home—without Jack and Tyler, nothing felt like home anymore. “Not yet anyway. The restaurant is opening in a month, so there isn’t really time. I don’t need much. I’ll have a uniform for work and I’ll buy whatever else I need locally. And I’ve already found a place to live. It’s an apartment, only a five-minute drive from the restaurant—I might not even need a car. I’m thinking of buying a bicycle and getting fit.”

Lord knew after all the comfort eating she’d done over the last eighteen months, it wouldn’t be a bad thing if she lost a few pounds.

“Getting fit?” Lilly sounded horrified. She was married to a chef, wrote food reviews for a popular mommy blog and believed life was too short to waste time exercising.

“It’s an idea,” Eliza said.

“A crazy one if you ask me,” Lilly replied, “but moving on. Where are you living? What was Lachlan McKinnel like? Will you get free whiskey as part of the package because...in your situation, I’m not sure if that’s a good thing.”