Secret Wife Read online

  Secret Wife

  Mia Carson

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the author.

  COPRIGHT 2017 MIA CARSON

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  About the Author

  1

  “Orders in! I need two fish, two burgers, and one steak very rare!” Jaylyn called out as she picked up the new tickets. She slung the towel over her shoulder and stuck the new tickets up on the line with the others.

  “Yes, Chef!” her man on the grill called, followed by the cook in charge of fish.

  “We’re slammed tonight, people. Let’s keep everyone happy!”

  “Including you, Chef?” Frankie, her grill man, winked at her.

  “Even me, smart ass. Especially me,” she said.

  The restaurant was packed, as it always was on a Friday night. She moved easily to the rhythm of the kitchen, the sound of food cooking and pans clanking her favorite soundtrack. She and her perfectly chosen crew had spent the last two years together in this kitchen. When they had started, her dad, Darien Wilson, was in charge. Six months ago, he passed the reins to her, and the restaurant was improving. She’d produced a new menu, which was a hit, focusing on classier versions of good old mid-west comfort food.

  Her family was originally from Kansas, and she’d brought those flavors, along with a touch of her own ideas, to the east coast. Her dad had opened this restaurant nearly ten years ago, and she couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t working beside him or the dining room wasn’t packed.

  Cooking was in her blood. Her mom, Mariah, always teased her that if she got hurt, olive oil would spill out of her veins instead of blood.

  As the busy evening wore on, Jaylyn called out orders and took care of her kitchen. Nothing left unless she approved it. Her cooks made her proud during another crazy night, and as a waitress dropped off the final ticket, she raised her hands over her head.

  “Final table, people! And, man, is it an easy one. Cakes, please, lemon and chocolate! Then you may all call it a night!”

  Amy, in charge of the desserts, plated two perfect slices of cake, and the second they were carried out, Jaylyn applauded her crew as they clapped along with her.

  “Thank you all for another perfect dinner. Let’s get cleaned up and I’ll see y’all tomorrow.”

  “Y’all,” Frankie teased her. “Woman, when will you start sounding like one of us east-coasters, huh?”

  “Never. It’s part of my mid-western charm.” She clutched her hands to her chest and batted her eyelashes. “Besides, I don’t think I could ever lose the slightly hickish accent. Blame my mother for that.”

  “Never heard her or your dad say y’all.”

  “You don’t live with them.” She left them to their lists for the evening and headed out to the dining room. She would clean up the last few stations once she checked in with her parents to see how the night went.

  They sat at their usual back corner table near the kitchen and the bar. “There she is!” Darien announced loudly as she bent and kissed his cheek. “My, you should hear the compliments coming from the dining room tonight. You are getting better every day.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” She kissed her mom’s cheek next and sat next to her. “Nothing was sent back, so I’m going to assume the guests were happy?”

  “Beyond thrilled. I think we’ve broken our record for Friday nights,” Mariah announced, shuffling through receipts. “This new menu is quite a hit up here outside Woodstock.”

  Jaylyn admitted she couldn’t believe her parents had moved them from Kansas all the way up to New Hampshire, but the east coast had so much more to offer as far as culinary backgrounds. She’d been able to attend one of the better institutions, and the fine dining restaurant Darien wanted to open fit in with the crowd here. Tourists flocked to the beautiful White Mountain National Forest, including many of the upper crust of society, making it a perfect place to open a more high-end restaurant. They’d helped to bolster the tourism, thanks to the success they’d had over the past ten years. It was harder to get the quality beef Jaylyn needed, but their profits were high enough that she could ship in whatever she couldn’t find within driving distance.

  Darien coughed harshly, and Jaylyn and Mariah exchanged worried glances when he couldn’t seem to stop. He held a handkerchief to his mouth, hacking painfully, and excused himself from the table to disappear into the restroom.

  “He’s getting worse,” Jaylyn whispered.

  “I know that and so does he, but you know your father. He’s stubborn.”

  “He needs to go to the doctor.”

  Mariah sighed as she set the receipts from the night down. “I think he knows what’s wrong, but hearing those words coming from the doctor, knowing his fate is essentially sealed? I’m not sure he’s ready for that.”

  “But if he knows, he can start treatment. He might have a chance.”

  “And what would he do then? His life is in his food, this restaurant.” Mariah took her daughter’s hand, smiling sadly. “Why do you think he handed it over to you?”

  Jaylyn pulled the bright blue bandanna from her chestnut hair and fiddled with it. “Nothing is going to happen to him. He will be just fine. You said it yourself—Dad’s strong. He can face down any odds and win.”

  “Oh, sweetie, you know I wish it was that simple.”

  “It would be if he’d get his ass to the doctor,” she muttered. “I have to get back to the kitchen.”

  “Lyn,” her mother pleaded, but Jaylyn walked away, forcing a smile on her face as she entered the kitchen and set to work cleaning and preparing for the next morning.

  She scrubbed down the counters and checked the dates on every package of food in the fridge. She went through the produce to ensure none of it had turned and needed to be trashed or used first thing tomorrow. She was so caught up in what she was doing that when a heavy hand landed on her shoulder, she screamed, jumping in the air and almost slipping. Another hand reached out and caught her as Frankie’s deep laugh filled her ears.

  “Damn it,” she cursed. “What the hell, man?”

  “Sorry,” he said through his laughter. “I didn’t mean to scare you. You looked like you were about ready to declare war on the produce. I thought I’d come and save it.”

  She scratched at her head as she exited the fridge and closed it. “I wasn’t killing the produce.”

  “What’s on your mind that’s got you all twisted up? Your happy face is not exactly happy.”

  “I don’t have to be happy all the time,” she grumbled.

  He nodded. “No, but you usually are. What’s going on? I thought we did good tonight?”

  “We did,” she said, hopping up on the stainless-steel countertop. “We broke the record for Friday night sales, actually.”

  “Shouldn’t we be celebrating? Popping open a bottle of red?”

  “Usually, I would, but I’m not exactly in a celebratory mood.” She swung her legs, hitting her heels on the shelving below. “I know you all know Dad’s sick,” she said quietly.

  Frankie leaned against the counter opposite her. “We do, yeah. Is he getting worse?”

  Angry tears stung her eyes, but she grabbed her bandanna from her pocket and wiped them away. �
�He is, and what does he do about it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing! He sits there coughing and hacking and making himself miserable, and he refuses to go find out for sure what’s wrong! Why, why would he do this?”

  She buried her face in her hands as the truth hit her hard. One of these days, her dad wouldn’t be around to see how well the restaurant was doing. He wouldn’t be around to watch her eventually get married and have kids. He simply wouldn’t be there. Not seeing his smiling face as he cooked or baked some new invention for her mother… her heart ached and her mind raced with how terrible the future would be if he wasn’t in it.

  Frankie draped a heavy arm over her shoulders, holding her against his side. “Come on, we’re getting a beer.”

  “It’s past midnight. I have to be back in the morning.”

  “You don’t have to be in that damn early. Get your coat and let’s go, woman. You need it.”

  She groaned but jumped off the counter to grab her blue Carhart coat and left through the kitchen back door with Frankie. Once it was locked, they hopped in her rundown truck and high-tailed it down the street into the main part of town to one of the only bars open this late and had a bartender who wouldn’t be annoyed if two latecomers showed up. Frankie held the door open for her, and they bustled inside, stomping their feet as the warmth of the atmosphere surrounded them.

  “I was wondering when you two would get here,” the bartender, Hannah, called out.

  “We’re not here every night, you know.” Jaylyn shrugged out of her coat and hung it on a nearby rack.

  “Yeah, okay. What’ll it be?”

  “Beers, if you please,” Frankie requested with a sly smile.

  “That smile will get you into a world of trouble one of these days.”

  “With you? I hope so.”

  Jaylyn burst out laughing as he waggled his eyebrows at a blushing Hannah. Their flirting had gone on for weeks, and it drove her insane. She’d told him the other day to ask her out on a date, but despite his outward confident appearance, Frankie was shy around women, at least at first. He and Jaylyn had enjoyed a brief affair when they’d first met but decided after two weekends they liked each other better as friends. Plus, any extra tension in the restaurant had been vanquished, and they needed a smooth-running kitchen to be a top restaurant on the east coast.

  Hannah set two local craft beers on the bar. “Drink up, kiddies. What’s on the gossip menu tonight?”

  “Nothing good, I’m afraid,” Jaylyn said as her hands rested on the bar. She glanced around at the very-late-night crowd—or what was left of them—and nodded to those she recognized. Her thumbnail dragged down the center of her palm on the opposite hand as she heard her dad’s hacking cough again, saw him rush to the bathroom, and saw the pain on his face.

  A large, dark-skinned hand fell on hers, stopping the motion. “Lyn, the last time you started that shit, you scratched your palm so bad you had to bandage it. Don’t do it again.”

  She stopped and drank her beer sheepishly.

  “All right, spill. Is it the restaurant?”

  “No,” Frankie told Hannah and waited for Jaylyn to tell the rest, but she tipped her beer towards him, giving him the go ahead. “Her dad.”

  “Darien? I thought he was doing better, hon?”

  “So did I. You know, parents shouldn’t be allowed to lie so well to their kids. It’s not fair.”

  “Now you know how they felt,” Hannah said.

  “I was never a liar because I sucked at it.” Jaylyn drank another large gulp of beer and rested her head on the bar with a grunt. “I’ll have to knock his ass out and drag him to the doctor. Is that illegal? I think I could get away with it.”

  “What does Mariah say?”

  Jaylyn laughed, not lifting her head, so the sound echoed back to her from against the bar. “She says he’s a stubborn ass…and she said him getting sicker is probably why he handed over the restaurant to me—or, well, the kitchen.”

  Jaybird’s Roost was named for her, according to Darien, who told her that at least twice a year since he’d thrown all their life savings into that rundown building. Jaybird’s. A high-end dining experience with fresh food and fresher recipes. A place he wanted to be his daughter’s one day, but she’d expected that day to be decades from now.

  Not years…or months. She gulped as her thoughts grew darker and chugged the rest of her beer, raising her hand for a second.

  “You are in a bad state,” Hannah mused with a sympathetic smile. “Tomorrow is Saturday, and you and I are spending the day together.”

  “Can’t. I have to prep for dinner.”

  “And what am I, chopped liver?” Frankie shook his head when she opened her mouth to argue. “No, I see that look on your face. Your eyes are getting all squinty and you’re doing that thing with your hands again.” He scowled and her hands froze. She hadn’t even realized she’d been doing it. “Take the day, go do your nails, and get your mind off your dad. You can’t control him and it sucks, but that’s the way it is. You have a kitchen to run and we need our leader clear-headed. Not wallowing.”

  Jaylyn hugged the second beer close as she mumbled, “I’m not wallowing.”

  “Not yet, you’re not. Please, for the sake of all of us in your kitchen?”

  “Fine, fine,” she said, giving in, and Hannah bounced excitedly. Her boobs jiggled with the movement, and Frankie’s eyes were immediately drawn to them. “Hey, Hannah, you know Frankie would also love to spend a Saturday with you sometime.”

  Hannah’s face reddened even more than before, and Frankie kicked Jaylyn’s shin. She’d take the few seconds of pain to see him choke on his words for a change. “Well now, why ever didn’t you ask me before?”

  He cleared his throat and played with his beer bottle. “I didn’t think you’d be interested.”

  Hannah leaned over the bar and kissed his cheek, making his eyes widen and Jaylyn sputter on her mouthful. “I am, so you better plan us a nice, fine date for next Saturday. And you,” she said, turning to Jaylyn, “better be ready by nine o’clock tomorrow. We’re having a no-stress girl day.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  She drained her second beer as Frankie and Hannah talked about what they might do together. Jaylyn was content to sit and listen as the anxiety from the past few hours slowly washed away with the last of her second beer, and her third. Luckily for her, she could hold her alcohol. The patrons of the Eight Ball Bar filed out, and soon, it was only Jaylyn and Frankie left, the latter smiling brightly as he flirted openly with Hannah. Jaylyn yawned but tried to hide it.

  “All right, you two, scram,” Hannah said, catching it out of the corner of her eye. “I have to wipe this place down and you two need some sleep.”

  “See you in the morning,” Jaylyn told her as she waved and reached for the wallet in her back pocket of her chef’s pants, but Hannah shook her head at her and Frankie reaching for money.

  “On the house tonight, I insist. Now go, scoot!” She flicked the towel over the bar at them, and they wandered towards the coat rack, bundled up, and headed outside into the cold January air.

  Tourist season was only a few months away, and Jaylyn was already planning a fresh springtime menu that would lead into the perfect light and delicious summertime food their usual clientele couldn’t get enough of. Jaybird’s was so interesting because she changed the menu every season with the season, adding new flavors and ingredients. Once the farmer’s markets opened in March, she would head there at least three times a week to buy their produce from the local growers. Their fish already came in locally, of course, and her herbs were also purchased from a local grower year-round.

  The Jaybird was north of town, but her parents’ house, where she still resided, was a few miles away, so after waving bye to Frankie, who could walk to his apartment a few streets over, she climbed into her beat-up truck and headed for home. No one was awake when she crept inside, and that was the way she wanted it. The beer might have soothed the worst of h
er worries, but why her dad wouldn’t get himself some help baffled her. She changed into her comfy flannel pajamas and curled up in bed, waiting for her limbs to thaw out and morning to come.

  “Oh! What about that one?”

  “I don’t need a new purse,” Jaylyn mumbled as they wandered around the indoor mall in Manchester. Portsmouth was a cute, touristy shopping town, but there were no regular retail stores. And nowhere to get a manicure.

  “You need something fun. You haven’t bought anything today.”

  “That isn’t true,” she argued and held up her shopping bag.

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “New mixing bowls and a set of cutting boards are not the items I had in mind when I said we’d have a girl day.”

  “This is about as girlie as I get.”

  They meandered through the mall, mostly window shopping, looking at clothes and beautiful gowns neither could hope to afford nor even have a place to wear them. Jaylyn and her parents weren’t rich by any means. The restaurant did well, but they were still paying the mortgage. Not that her parents told her how much they still owed on the place. Or their house. Money was tight, that was nothing new for the Wilson family, but they managed to get by. Jaylyn had been able to pay for most of her schooling through grants and scholarships, but a hefty chunk hung over her head.

  Despite not really buying anything, the day was more fun than Jaylyn thought it would be, and she thanked Hannah as they stopped to eat lunch at one of the smaller cafés inside. As they drank their fancy coffees and ate their croissants, Hannah frowned and Jaylyn turned around to follow her gaze.

  “The buzzards are back,” she muttered.

  “Buzzards?”

  “You haven’t seen them around? They’ve been eyeing businesses across the state—some uppity investment firm company,” she said. “I heard they’d taken over the mall and a few other places in Manchester. I saw them here two weeks ago.”