Cooking Up Trouble Read online

  “Yeah?” He smiled up at her, not at all benignly. “And how do you expect to set about it? From everything I’ve ever heard, you’re more apt to burn the place down than fix a meal.”

  “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before! How do you know anything about me?”

  “Word gets around,” he repeated.

  “Well, you can take your word and everybody else’s, and go away right this minute, if you please.”

  “Wait a minute, sweetheart—”

  “I’m not your sweetheart!”

  He laughed again. “Maybe not, but I can help you.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Ah, but I can. You see, I’m willing to do the cooking for you. For a whole month. And it won’t cost you much at all.”

  She gaped at him. “What? What did you say?”

  He held his hands up. “I’m serious, Heather—”

  “And I didn’t give you leave to call me Heather, either.”

  This bit of defiance earned her another laugh. Heather huffed indignantly.

  “Yes, Miss Heather.” His tone was mildly sarcastic. “But, if you’ll only listen to me, I think we can strike a bargain here.”

  “I doubt it.” Although Heather had been told by friends all her life that most men weren’t to be trusted, she’d never really run up against one whom she feared wanted to take advantage of her. Until now. She didn’t trust this handsome devil an inch.

  “Honest Injun,” D.A. said, grinning. “A little bargain is all I’m suggesting. I’ll do the cooking for you in exchange for something really, really small.”

  She was back to frowning. “How do I know you can cook?”

  “How do you know I can’t?”

  Bother. She hated this word-bandying. “If you were to cook for me, what would you want in return?”

  “Oh, an exchange of some sort.”

  “An exchange of what sort, exactly?”

  He shrugged. “Haven’t decided yet. Nothing much.”

  “What kind of ‘nothing much’?” For all she knew, he wanted her to kiss him. Or more. She blushed, thinking about how much more than a kiss he might require of her in payment. Most of the men who lived out here were gentlemen, but she’d heard stories.

  Obviously, he suspected what she was thinking, because he grinned again. “Heather, Heather, Heather, get your mind out of the dirt.”

  “It’s not in the dirt!”

  He laughed again, outright. “I promise you that I won’t require much in exchange for the services I aim to perform for you.” He adopted a wide-eyed, innocent expression that looked remarkably out of place on his sly, handsome face. “And you can watch me and see how I do it. That way you can learn your way around a kitchen. On-the-job training, is what they’ll call it one of these days.” He buffed the well-manicured nails of his right hand on his shirtfront.

  Heather stared at his hands, which were too clean for anybody living rough out here in the territory. And what did he mean about that on-the-job training nonsense? She almost asked him who he was again, but knew he’d only tell her his name was D.A. Bologh. Trying a different tack, she asked, “Where are you from, Mr. Bologh?”

  He shrugged. “Here and there. Mostly down south, but I get around.”

  Big help. “How do you know about cooking?”

  “Like I said, I get around.”

  She had a feeling she was making a big mistake, but his offer tempted her. “Um, how do I know you won’t ask for more than I’m willing to give in exchange for your help?”

  “I never ask more than a person’s willing to give, Miss Heather.” His expression turned guileless again. “I’m here to help. You need help. I’ve heard stories about how you get on in a kitchen, sweetheart, and believe me, you need help.”

  Shoot, wasn’t that the truth? Heather frowned down at him for several moments. He gazed up at her, a half-smile on his face, his icy blue eyes wide. She couldn’t read any expression at all on his countenance at the moment. The slyness had faded. Even the guilelessness was gone. He was just looking at her—a blank.

  Blast. What could she do? “You promise you won’t ask me for much in return?”

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  Why didn’t she believe him?

  “Let me think for a minute.”

  He waved a hand. “Think away. You’ve got about an hour or so. After that, one of us will have to get busy fixing supper.”

  Supper. Oh, Lord. Heather nearly lost what was left of her self-control and wailed in anguish. She turned and walked to the kitchen window. When she peered outside, she caught sight of Philippe St. Pierre, standing out by a nearby corral, talking to Gil McGill, who worked as wrangler on the St. Pierre spread. Seeing Gil made her feel better—more normal, or something. Gil was solid, a man of the earth. She understood Gil and others like him.

  Mr. St. Pierre, on the other hand, made her break out in shivers. Hot shivers. She didn’t understand it, but she rubbed her hands over her arms, trying to get her gooseflesh to settle.

  Then there was Mr. Bologh, sitting like a lump in the middle of the kitchen, peering around as if he hadn’t a care in the world, drumming his fingers lightly on the table. He began whistling softly, a plaintive old tune popular some years before, during the War Between the States. It always gave Heather the tingles when she heard it.

  His offer was awfully tempting. If he meant what he said and could cook, her job was safe for a day, at least. But what then? She decided to ask.

  “What about after supper?”

  He glanced up and smiled at her. “Beg pardon?”

  “What about other meals? If you cook tonight, that still leaves me to struggle with breakfast, dinner, and supper tomorrow. And the next day, and the next, and the next.”

  He held up a hand to forestall further protests. “I already told you a month. I’ll do the cooking for a month, Miss Heather. It won’t cost you much at all, and by that time, you’ll probably have the hang of it.”

  She squinted at him. “Why are you doing this, Mr. Bologh? I still don’t understand.”

  He shrugged. “Little things like this amuse me.”

  “You’re a very strange man,” she muttered, realizing as she did so that she was being mighty uncivil. But she was unnerved, both by his presence and by his offer. Not to mention her own inadequacy to deal with the job she’d been hired to do.

  He pressed a hand over his heart and blinked up at her as if her words hurt his feelings. “Is it so strange to want to help one’s fellow man? Or, in this case, woman? I thought that sort of thing was expected out here on the wild western frontier.”

  She got a funny feeling that he was teasing her, and she didn’t appreciate it. Crossing her arms over her breasts, she spoke sharply. “All right, Mr. Bologh, or whoever you are, what’s your game?”

  “My game?” He stared at her as if he couldn’t imagine what she was talking about. “I have no game. I’m offering to help you.”

  “There’s something very odd about this,” Heather murmured. She thought of something else. “Anyway, I’m sure Mrs. Van der Linden won’t want a strange man in the house. She’ll tell Mr. St. Pierre, he’ll find out I’ve been getting help, and I’ll get fired. I probably shouldn’t have let you in in the first place.”

  “Nobody ever has to know about our deal but you and me,” D.A. Bologh said softly. “I’ll see to it that not a single soul knows.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Oh, I’m very good at that sort of thing.”

  “I’ll just bet you are.” She thought of something that completely unsettled her. “Say, you aren’t wanted by the law, are you? Outlaws are always running out here to escape their misdeeds in the States. Is that why you don’t want anyone to know about—”

  He cut her off. “I’m not the one who doesn’t want anyone to know about this deal, Miss Heather. You’re the one. I don’t care if the whole world knows I’m helping you.”

  “Oh.” She frowned
at him for another minute or two. “You mean you’re not a crook?”

  He laughed. “A crook? Me? No.”

  “Oh.”

  “You might say I’m something of a gambler, though. And I like to make deals with folks.”

  “Deals. What do you mean?”

  “Like the one I’m going to make with you.”

  Oh, he was going to make a deal with her, was he? Well . . . Heather huffed. Maybe he was.

  “Better think fast, Miss Heather,” he suggested. “Time’s running out.”

  “I know.” She turned, walked to the window and looked outside again, turned back, glared at D.A. Bologh, and said, “Very well. I’ll do it.”

  D.A. Bologh got up from the chair and walked over to her, his hand held out to shake on the bargain. It was all she could do to keep from shrinking back from him. She’d never had this reaction to a person before, and it troubled her. Was it that she didn’t trust him?

  Maybe. But there was something else, too, and she couldn’t put her finger on it. He gave her an uncomfortable feeling that something bad was going to happen.

  Stop it, Heather Mahaffey! she scolded herself. Something bad has already happened: You took a job you’re unfit to fill.

  When she looked at it in that light, she wasn’t as reluctant to take the hand D.A. Bologh held out to her and shake it.

  “Deal,” he said.

  “Deal,” she said.

  She had the oddest sensation that her fate had just been sealed.

  Chapter Three

  Still and all, Heather had to admit that Mr. D.A. Bologh, the man from nowhere, was as efficient as anything she’d ever seen in the kitchen. He didn’t even put on an apron, but as soon as the bargain was struck, he got to work.

  He didn’t ask Heather where anything was, but went here and there, picking out potatoes and onions, carrots and green beans, flour and milk and beef. He worked so fast, Heather sometimes had the sensation that her vision was blurring. She even rubbed her eyes once or twice.

  “What can I do to help?” she asked as he filled a pot with water and set it on the stove to boil.

  “Not a thing. Just watch.” He winked at her.

  Heather watched, but she didn’t believe what she saw. She could have sworn she saw a spatula fly across the room and into D.A. Bologh’s hand, but when she mentioned it, he only laughed at her.

  “That’s an old trick amongst us cooks, Miss Heather. I’m surprised you fell for it.”

  “Oh.” She puzzled that one over for a minute. “Ah, have you ever worked in a circus or anything? As a magician, maybe?”

  “I’ve done my share of this and that.”

  That told her a whole lot. His lack of candor grated on her nerves. She watched him some more, frowning. He caught her at it and grinned some more.

  As if he knew her nerves were shaky, he said, “I’ve worked at all sorts of odd jobs, Miss Heather. I’ve done lots of entertaining. You might sat my whole life’s been a circus of one sort or another.”

  “Really? My brother Henry would like to be a clown.”

  “Ah, yes. Kids love the clowns.”

  He tossed an onion in the air, slashed at it with a knife, and it fell to the counter, split into four neat sections. Heather was absolutely certain she’d never seen anyone do that before. Her mother didn’t have this man’s facility with a knife, although she was a pretty good cook.

  “How did you do that?”

  “What?” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Oh, the onion. It’s an old trick. Learned it in the army.”

  “In the army?”

  “Yeah. You can learn a lot about how to use knives in the army, if you keep your eyes open.”

  Ick. The only uses she could think of for a knife in the army were ones that involved human flesh, unless— “Oh, were you a cook in the army?”

  “I’ve done all sorts of work in my life, Miss Heather. Lots of it with armies here and there. There’s a lot of work for a man of my talents in the military.”

  “I see.” She didn’t see anything at all. She also didn’t much like the gleam in his eyes. “Er, exactly what are your talents?”

  “I’m demonstrating them to you as we speak.”

  As he spoke, he threw a potato in the air. As it spiraled down to the counter, D.A. held up his knife, and the potato peeled itself before it landed. Heather rubbed her eyes again. “Did you really peel that potato by tossing it in the air?”

  Yet another laugh. “I’ve got lots more tricks up my sleeve, Miss Heather. You just watch me.”

  “I’m trying to watch and to learn from you, but I think it might be easier if you were to go more slowly.”

  “Can’t.”

  “You can’t go more slowly?”

  “Not if you expect me to get all this done in time to feed the master of the house.”

  “Oh.”

  “Pull up a chair and take a squint at how I work. You can learn a lot by watching.”

  She hadn’t learned a blessed thing so far except that D.A. Bologh was some kind of an actor-type person, and immensely talented. Maybe he’d been a performer in the theater. Every now and then a traveling acting troupe would pass through town. The whole family had piled into their wagon and ridden to Roswell to see the circus once.

  Since watching D.A. work didn’t seem to be doing her a whole lot of good, she decided to ask some more questions. “What are you preparing?”

  “Thought I’d whip up a tasty French dish. It’s sort of a stew with beef and carrots and onions. A little garlic.” He shrugged negligently. “Beef Bourguignonne is what they called it in the old days.” He tapped his chin. “Maybe I’ll do a sort of Wellingtonnish crust.” He shrugged. “Maybe not.”

  Heather didn’t care about the crust, Wellingtonnish or otherwise. “What old days?”

  “Oh, around Louis XIV’s time or so.”

  Heather felt her eyes open wide. “Louis XIV? What are you, some kind of cooking scholar? Have you studied the history of cooking? Do you look up old recipes in libraries or do research in foreign countries or something like that?”

  “Ha! No, I don’t have to do that, Miss Heather. They’re all right here.” He tapped his head. “No need to look up anything. I’ve been around long enough that I can cook any kind of dish from any time period you can possibly mention.”

  “You haven’t been around since Louis XIV’s time,” Heather grumbled, wishing he were a more open and forthcoming person. He evidently knew cooking and what he was doing, and she’d like to learn from him. If he’d only go slower. She couldn’t keep up with him.

  He laughed again. “Sweetheart—whoops, sorry. I remember you don’t want to be my sweetheart—”

  “You got that right,” she muttered.

  “But I can cook up a dinner that the Pharaoh of Egypt might have eaten in 3,000 B.C., if you want me to. Hard to get some of those ingredients anymore, but I can do it.”

  “Good heavens. You must have studied cooking for a long time.”

  “A very long time.”

  He had the wickedest grin on his face. Heather got the feeling she was missing some hidden meaning in his words, but she was becoming too fascinated watching him to concentrate much on anything else. She stood up suddenly, and squinted hard at a bottle that seemed to have materialized from nowhere, straight into his hand. He was pouring a big dash of reddish-purple liquid into the pot where he’d thrown some onions, carrots, and meat cubes. “What’s that?”

  “Burgundy wine.”

  “Burgundy wine? What’s that?”

  “Burgundy wine is wine.”

  Of course, Heather knew what wine was—but this was the New Mexico Territory. Folks didn’t cook with wine here. If they used spirits at all, they took whiskey for snakebite or beer at the saloon in town. Cowboys were notorious for drinking too much whiskey and shooting off their guns on Main Street during cattle drives. Heather had never heard of anybody cooking with the stuff.

  “Where’d it come f
rom?” She hadn’t seen any wine in any of the cupboards she’d looked in—and she’d looked in them all. Now there was suddenly a whole bottle of it in D.A. Bologh’s hand. If this was another of his conjuring tricks, it was a very disconcerting one. Heather had opinions about folks who drank strong spirits, and they weren’t good.

  D.A. turned and gave her a pitying smile. “The man’s from Louisiana, Miss Heather. He’s used to fine dining. He keeps a stock of wine.”

  “But this isn’t Louisiana,” she said, feeling a little desperate. How could she ever learn to cook fancy like this? She couldn’t even fry a chicken.

  “I’m sure the man still wants to dine well.”

  She sighed. “I suppose so.”

  “Absolutely. Besides, he’s of French heritage, and you know how the French are about their food.

  Actually, she didn’t know anything of the sort, but she wouldn’t admit it. In the meantime, while D.A. Bologh fixed up a meal fit for a Louisiana king, Heather was still no farther along on her road to learning the fine arts of kitchen craft. His hands were a blur, and watching him work was making her dizzy. “Um, I don’t suppose you can move a little slower now that you’ve got the pot on the stove, can you?” she asked without much hope.

  “Nope. I do what I do, Miss Heather, and that’s what you’ve bargained for.” He tossed her another wink. “But keep watching. You’re sure to pick something up if you only keep watching.”

  “Maybe.”

  The door opened at her back, and Heather whirled around, her heart in her throat. She gasped.

  Philippe St. Pierre stood in the door of the kitchen, smiling at her. He sniffed the air appreciatively. “Smells good in here.”

  Unable to speak, Heather turned, trying frantically to think of some way to explain the presence of D.A. Bologh in Philippe St. Pierre’s kitchen.

  D.A. Bologh was gone.

  “I do believe you’ve been hiding your light, Miss Mahaffey.”

  Heather tried to speak, but couldn’t get her tongue around the words.