The Blessing Read online

  Charles looked up at his employer with sparkling eyes, obviously enjoying the whole masquerade.

  “I hear he has a kitchen that can handle a catering company,” Jason said as he glared at his chef. Only someone of Charles’s caliber could get away with what the man did.

  “Oh, yes,” Charles said in that tone he used with women. In his kitchen he used a whole other tone, one of command that brooked no disobedience, but now he practically purred to Amy. “I have the most divine kitchen. Copper pots from France, a cook stove as big as my first apartment. You must come and see it.”

  “I’d love to,” Amy said eagerly. “Maybe you’d give me a few cooking lessons.”

  “I will give you anything you want,” Charles said seductively as he raised her hand to kiss the palm.

  But at the exact moment that Charles’s lips were to touch Amy’s flesh, Jason accidently knocked over Max’s high chair and the clatter made her jump away. Max was frightened by the noise, so he started to scream, and Amy grabbed him from the floor.

  After a moment she had him settled, and she turned back to Jason. “So, what so you think about Charles’s opening his own business? I told him you’d have good advice.”

  When Jason just stood there in silence, she looked nervously at Charles. “Yes, well, I think it’s a good idea. Max has eaten more of your food in the last day than he has in his whole little life. If you want to do more testing, I can get some other women you can supply baby food to and they’ll be your guinea pigs. And we’ll all write letters of recommendation for you.”

  For a moment Jason smirked at this idea. Charles and baby food! The idea was laughable. Charles was such a snob that he complained about what people wore when they ate his food. “That woman crumbled crackers in my soup,” he once said, then refused to ever again cook for her, saying that she wasn’t worth his time. And later Jason found out he was right: the woman was a gold digger of extraordinary greed.

  But now Jason could see that Charles was thinking about Amy’s idea of going into business. Which would mean that he’d lose his chef!

  “You don’t know how difficult it is cooking for a baby,” Amy was saying. “If you cook a butternut squash, you have enough for a dozen meals and who wants to eat butternut squash for a solid week?”

  “I see. It is a problem. I had never tasted baby food from jars until this week. Awful, dreadful stuff. No wonder American children hate proper food and prefer living on hamburgers and hot dogs.”

  “Exactly. So that’s why—”

  She broke off because Jason suddenly stepped between them. “I think we need to get ready to go now, so you’d better leave,” he said to Charles.

  “But we were just getting started. I’d like to hear more about this baby food idea. Maybe I could—”

  “Maybe you couldn’t,” Jason said as he pulled the chair back so Charles could stand. So help him, if he lost his chef to this whole fiasco of David’s, he was going to—

  “For you, my beautiful lady,” Charles was saying, “I will deliver free dinners every night for the next two weeks. And perhaps lunch too.”

  “Oh, really, I haven’t done anything,” Amy said, but she was blushing prettily as Charles once again reached for her hand to kiss.

  But Jason stepped between them and in the next moment Charles was out the door. “I could have stayed in the most expensive hotel in the world for less than what this trip is costing me,” Jason muttered as he leaned against the door.

  “You were awfully rude to him,” Amy said, frowning. “Why?”

  When Jason could think of nothing to explain his actions, he picked up Max and started toward the living room. “I think we should go shopping today,” he threw over his shoulder. “Unless you have all your Christmas shopping done already.”

  “Oh, no, I haven’t. I, uh, yes, I’ll get ready in a moment,” she said, then disappeared into her bedroom.

  “Lesson number one, ol’ man,” Jason said as he lifted Max high over his head, “if you want to distract a woman, mention shopping. The worst you’ll have to do is spend the day in a mall, but it’s better than answering questions you don’t want to answer.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “WAS CHARLES YOUR LOVER?” AMY ASKED AS SOON as they were in Jason’s car. The vehicle was much cleaner now that she’d spent hours cleaning it, but the interior, including the upholstery, had been ruined.

  “My what?” Jason asked as he swung the car into the street.

  “Why do you always say that when I ask about your personal life? You can see all about my life, but I know nothing about you. What was Charles to you? You obviously know him well.”

  “Not as well as you think,” Jason said, looking in the rearview mirror at Max as he chewed on his fingers and stared out the window. “Where did you get that coat Max is wearing?”

  “Mildred,” Amy said quickly, giving her mother-in-law’s name. “What about Charles? Would you rather that I didn’t take food from him?”

  “Charles is a brilliant chef, so of course you should take his food. Can Max choke on that?”

  Instantly, Amy turned around in her seat, entangling herself in the seat belt, only to see that Max wasn’t chewing on anything. “I guess that means you don’t want to talk about that side of your life,” she said heavily as she turned back around.

  Jason didn’t answer but kept his eyes on the road—and his mind imagining ways to murder his little brother.

  “Have you ever thought of going to a therapist?” Amy asked softly. “Being gay is nothing to be ashamed of, you know.”

  “Where do you think we should park?” Jason asked as he pulled into the lot of the mall. Since it was a mere two days before Christmas, there were few places. “Looks like we’re going to have to hike,” Jason said cheerfully, as he found a place that looked to be half a mile from the stores.

  Amy was sitting still, not moving an inch, and when Jason opened the back door behind her to get Max, she still sat where she was.

  “You going with us?” Jason asked, somehow pleased by her disgust with his refusal to talk about his personal life.

  “Yeah, sure,” she said as she climbed out of the car, then stood back as Jason unfastened Max from the car seat and inserted him into the new stroller.

  “Maybe I can change,” Jason said when Max was strapped into the stroller. “Maybe I can find the right girl and she could change me.” With that, he started pushing Max toward the stores.

  “Right,” Amy said as she hurried after them. “And tomorrow I’m going to go the other way.”

  “Could be,” Jason said. “I guess stranger things have happened. Now, where do we begin?”

  “I have no idea,” Amy said, looking at the huge crowds moving from one store to another, their arms straining under the weight of the bags they carried. “Shopping isn’t something I do a lot of.” She was feeling as though he’d snubbed her, and she hated the way he laughed at her every time she asked him a personal question.

  “I think Max needs a new coat, so where’s the best shop?”

  “I really have no idea,” she said aloofly, turning away from him to look at the crowds. When he didn’t speak, she turned back and he was looking at her with an expression of, I don’t believe a word you’re saying.

  “There’s a BabyGap—”

  “Where would you like to buy Max’s clothes? Money no object.”

  For a moment Amy hesitated; then she gave a sigh and pointed. “Down that aisle, take a left at the second intersection, four stores down on the right. But it’s no use going there. The clothes cost much too much.”

  “Would you let me worry about the money?” he said.

  For a moment she squinted at him. “Is this the way you ordered your lover around? Is this why he kicked you out?”

  “My last lover threatened to commit suicide if I left, so do you want to lead or follow?”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t think we can travel through these crowds side by side