On the Steamy Side - Louisa Edwards [102]
No two faces were alike, and the longer Lilah studied the drawing, the more she noticed resemblances between Tucker’s fireflies and the Market crew. One had a thatch of black hair, for instance, while another sported Violet’s signature blonde. The details were tiny but unmistakable to anyone acquainted with the cast of characters in the kitchen.
The bottom left corner was Lilah’s favorite—it featured three lightning bugs in close formation: one with ringlets corkscrewing out from its head, one with a perfect wave of dark hair and even a suggestion of cheekbones, and a smaller bug hovering between them.
Looking at it now, Lilah felt her throat thicken with tears. Every place setting had one, centered beneath the see-through charger plate. It was beautiful.
“Your dad wanted to show them to you, but he had to get in the kitchen and start things rolling,” she explained, getting her feelings under control. “Do you like how they turned out?”
Tucker picked up his charger and stared at the table, then turned his wide eyes—younger, more unguarded than she’d ever seen them—on Lilah. “Wait. Lolly—is everyone gonna see it? When they sit down, oh, man, they’re all gonna see it.”
Suddenly worried, she put a hand on his arm. “Is that okay, sugar bean?”
“Okay?” A huge grin broke across his face. “It’s completely awesome! I’m going to be famous!”
Oh, yes. He was his daddy’s boy, all right.
The thought made Lilah’s heart pound, because it reminded her of the other big reason for her excitement tonight. She almost rolled her eyes at herself. As if contributing to a menu at a fancy restaurant where the man she loved was about to make his big comeback to the culinary world wasn’t enough!
And yet, there was more. Because Lilah had figured out the perfect way to cap off the triumph of what would be, she was certain, a perfect evening.
She’d done some digging through Devon’s home office—for such a good cause, her conscience barely even whimpered—and found the contact information for someone named Connor Sparks.
One slightly awkward phone call later, she knew Devon had a younger brother who missed him, and she had a New Jersey number where Connor said their parents could be reached.
Fingers crossed so hard for luck that they were nearly too numb to dial, Lilah had punched in the number and held her breath until she got an answering machine. A weird combination of relief and disappointment had her leaving a longer, more rambling message than she meant to, but the upshot of it was that Devon’s parents were invited to the fundraiser dinner.
It was exactly like directing a play. Everything was in place. She’d made her choices, put the actors in place, set the scene. Now all she could do was sit back and watch as it played out onstage.
So when Jess approached their table with a twinkle in his eyes and a tray full of pecan tartlets, Lilah grinned at him and held out her hand.
The miniature tart was still warm, the all-butter crust flaky and perfect. Lilah closed her eyes and chewed happily, making a mental note to compliment Violet on her pastry-dough skills. The crust was almost as good as Aunt Bertie’s!
Anyone looking at the tartlet would be expecting the familiar dessert, a burst of gooey brown-sugar sweetness. But Devon had played with that expectation by taking Lilah’s recipe for pecan pie and turning it into a salty little surprise using smoked pecans and a touch of kitchen wizardry.
The earthiness of the pecans was accented by a base of duxelles, a lovely thing Devon had introduced Lilah to, involving finely diced mushrooms, onions, shallots, and herbs sautéed in butter and reduced to a rich, savory paste.
The shiny, sticky sherry glaze over the pecans imparted a hint of sour to cut all the richness, and Lilah fought back her own indecent moan of satisfaction. A tug on her sleeve brought her