Several months in Mongolia? Even if she had some pressing issue, she’d clear her schedule for this. She’d already passed up an opportunity with Samuel once. No way would she walk away from this.

“I’ll make it happen,” she promised.

THREE

THE SOUR, I-JUST-SUCKED-ON-A-LEMON look on Reginald Buchanan’s face didn’t lift Brody’s spirits. The man had ambled into the restaurant on legs so thick they resembled an elephant’s. The light blue polo tucked into black slacks was barely able to contain his round, sagging belly. His appearance alone told Brody that he’d been a food critic likely since leaving the womb. Martin, Brody’s father and the restaurant owner, had gotten a referral who said he had a habit of being one of the milder, more forgiving critics. Brody wasn’t sure he wanted a critic who was “forgiving.” After all, what good would that do them?

The situation had shown promise when Reginald nodded his bloated head and tilted one corner of his mouth in what Brody thought was a smile. That was after slurping his loaded baked potato soup so loudly, Brody’s stepmother, Carol, would have slapped the man upside the head. After that, the meal had taken a turn for the worse. His eyebrows, which looked like overgrown caterpillars, lowered in distaste after he saw the fried chicken. The man shoveled two impressively large bites into his mouth before shoving the plate away from him. The poor harried waitress endured grumbling and groaning from Reginald as she carted away his food.

Brody held out little hope for dessert.

“I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” Charlene muttered next to him. She’d been uncharacteristically nervous during their critic’s stay. In the past she would breeze past Brody, pat him on the shoulder, and say, “Don’t worry about it. It’s only one person’s opinion.” Okay, now they were working on their third, and things were not looking up.

“Maybe we should offer him a discount,” she suggested.

Brody’s gaze never left the critic’s table. “That would only look desperate.” Plus critics tended to frown on that sort of thing. They didn’t want to feel like they were being bribed into giving a good review.

The waitress hurried back to Reginald’s table and set down a berry cobbler à la mode. Reginald’s beefy fingers wrapped around a fork and attacked the dessert with gusto. The thing disappeared faster than gold in the Yukon.

Charlene glanced at Brody. “He seemed to like that.”

Brody snorted. “I think he likes all desserts.”

When the whole painful experience was over, the critic paid his bill and somehow managed to lever himself, after several attempts, out of his booth. Charlene offered him a professional, friendly smile and asked him to come back soon.

His response was a discouraging “Don’t count on it” muttered through lips bracketed by deep lines.

“He’s supposed to be forgiving?” Charlene asked, but Brody ignored it as he approached the waitress who’d served Reginald.

The young woman, Theresa, gathered the dessert plate and silverware in her hands.

“What did he say to you after eating the chicken?” Brody asked her.

“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” she answered.

He forced his voice to come out calm and not show the frustration and borderline hysteria bubbling inside him. “Yes, I really do.”

The girl turned her brown eyes to his. “He said it was too salty. In fact, his exact words were ‘I wouldn’t feed that to my dog.’ ” She held up a wad of cash. “But he gave me a decent tip.”

Brody managed to grace the waitress with a tight-lipped smile. “You did a good job handling him.” He left her to clean up and headed to the kitchen. There were some words that needed to be exchanged between him and Travis.

The chef was tossing pasta in a skillet, the noodles lifting up into the air without sliding over the edges and falling to the fire beneath them. “Is his highness finished with his meal?” Travis asked without taking his attention off his task.

“Yeah, he’s gone. The appetizer and dessert went well. The main course, however, is a different story.”

The muscles in Travis’s jaw hardened. “Theresa mentioned he didn’t like it.”

Chefs were temperamental creatures who tended to take criticism of their food personally. Travis was no different. If Michael had received feedback like that, he’d have chucked a meat cleaver across the kitchen.

Heat from the stove only exacerbated Brody’s rising body temperature. “Tell me you tasted the dish before you sent it out there.”

Travis threw him a borderline murderous look. “Of course I did. Either that guy’s taste buds are off or he was just having a bad day.”

So it was the critic’s fault? “No matter the guy’s mood, he’s now going to give an honest opinion about his experience. Which wasn’t good,” Brody added in case Travis didn’t seem to understand the severity of the situation.

The pan settled on the stove with a loud clang. Travis turned to face Brody. “Look, I tasted that dish and it was perfect. Get another reviewer in here and I’ll show you. Those other two clowns don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“Travis, when a possible customer is reading a review, they’re not thinking about whether or not a reviewer knows what they’re talking about. All they see is that this person had a bad experience. A bad review can have more of an effect on a restaurant than a good review can.”

The man turned back to his food. He picked up the pan and dumped the pasta dish onto a plate. “I’m fully aware of that.” Then he handed the plate over to Maria at the garnish station. Travis turned back to Brody. “I’ve already had the shit come down on me from your father.” The chef’s voice lowered a notch. “He said if this guy had anything negative to say, he’d fire me.”

Now, that was a real problem for both of them. Usually Brody took care of hiring and firing people. However, this was Martin’s place, and if he wanted to fire the chef, that was his prerogative. There’d be little Brody could do to stand in his old man’s way.

He pinned the chef with an aggravated look and forced his words to come out calm. “Your ass isn’t the only one on the line here, Travis. I have a son to think about.”

He left the kitchen and Travis to his work. When he’d first hired Travis, the man had been pretty good. The restaurant had just gotten rid of Gary and had been desperate to get someone back in the kitchen. Martin hadn’t been thrilled with the man and had compared his food to a low-grade buffet. Not a high compliment for a head chef. Fortunately for Travis, he was surrounded by excellent sous-chefs who did their best to cover up his inconsistent food.

Even though Martin hadn’t said so, Brody had a feeling Travis was his last chance. They may be father and son, but his old man was a hard-ass when it came to business. Brody had no doubt Martin wouldn’t hesitate to fire him if things didn’t pick up soon.

He was running out of options. Fast.

Charlene broadsided him the second he pushed through the kitchen doors. “This will be the third bad review we’ve had under Travis.”

He continued to walk past her. “We don’t know the review will be that bad.” Well, he actually did. But he didn’t need Charlene to be negative in addition to him and his father. Charlene was this restaurant’s sunshine.

She fell into step beside him. “I guess we’ll have to see. Kelly’s here, by the way.”

Just what he did not freakin’ need right now.

There had been a time when he’d loved Kelly very much. Her bright smile and willowy body had attracted him when he first met her. Her pregnancy had been completely unexpected, leading to a rushed marriage. Then she had Tyler, and over the course of their marriage, they’d gone from being a married couple to simply existing with each other. Kelly deserved better than that. She’d deserved to be with a man who could worship her the way she should have been worshipped. Brody just hadn’t been that man.

He came to a stop in front of her. “I can’t really talk right now.”

“This can’t wait, Brody. I have to leave this evening.”

A weary sigh flowed out of his lungs. “All right.” He turned and led her to his office so they could speak in private. Sometimes being on the floor gave him a headache. He’d been having a lot of those lately.

“I don’t know how I feel about you leaving our son with a woman I’ve never met,” he said after Kelly told him about having to leave town to take care of her mother. He completely understood the reason for she and Colin to leave. Brody would have done the same thing for Martin or Carol. Unfortunately, Brody couldn’t leave the restaurant every day for long periods of time to pick up Tyler, and he couldn’t bring the boy back here—especially with all the tension in the restaurant. But some stranger Brody knew nothing about? He didn’t love that idea either. For all he knew, this woman could be some witchcraft-practicing basket case who would have his son worshipping Mother Earth within a week. No thank you.

Kelly crossed one leg over the other. “I know her, and Tyler knows her. She lives right down the street from us. I trust her.”

Brody swiveled back and forth in his leather chair. “Okay, point made. But that doesn’t remedy the fact that I don’t know her.”

Her green eyes lifted to the ceiling. “What suggestion do you have, then? What about Lacy? She’s home during the day with Mason.”

Lacy was married to Chase, Brody’s older brother, and had always been like a sister to him. And normally a very wise choice. But not this time. “She’s also eight months’ pregnant and on strict bed rest.”