Page 5 of For the Record

“I-I did, I think, once,” J.D. admitted. He frowned down at his ribs, where his shirt was torn. Blood oozed from an exposed wound, staining his Granny Smith apple green T-shirt.

“Let’s pull our bikes more out of the way so I can look at it,” Coy decided, her tone leaving zero room for debate. Already regretting how far away they were from a hospital, she hoped to all hell J.D. just had a messy scratch.

In less than a minute, Coy had her cousin sitting shirtless on a fallen log while she rummaged through her emergency pack. “Tell me again, Sloane, how carrying all this stuff is overkill?”

“Yeah, yeah, Mom,” Sloane groused, her face inches away from J.D.’s armpit. “That’s quite a gash.”

Coy got closer and whistled, observing the road rash and deep laceration, and then examined the rest of him for any further signs of injury. “Anything else hurt? I’m sorry we didn’t slow down sooner.”

J.D. shook his gorgeous head of sandy blond hair. “Nope, and I can hardly feel this one. I’m sure it’ll be fine, but I know what you’re like, Coy.”

“Oh?” Coy grunted, slipping on a pair of medical gloves. She tore open a couple packets of alcohol swabs, arching a brow up at him. He looked younger than his twenty-three years, his face still bearing all the perks of youth.

“Yeah, you know. Like you’ll nag me the entire way home if I don’t let you patch me up.”

“McCoyistrained in First Aid,“ Sloane reminded him, handing Coy the tweezers.

“The only one here, I might add. So shut it, cuz.” McCoy smirked, enjoying the hiss of pain as she poured disinfectant solution over his ribs. “Hold still.” Using the tweezers, she carefully dug out bits of dirt and splinters from the wound before applying ointment and gauze.

It was a basic clean and patch job for the most part. J.D. had been lucky, but that didn’t extinguish the guilt gnawing at Coy as they got back on their bikes. She was responsible for them when they were this far out. She was the most experienced, and yet her head had been everywhere but on the task at hand. Racing against Sloane hadn’t been the best idea, but Coy had been preoccupied all day. Thoughts of a beautiful stranger had taken up more than enough rent in her mind, and to what end? It’s notlike Coy would ever settle down with one woman. So, what aboutthisone had her so bent out of shape?

Chapter 3

Sawyer

Thump, thump, thump.

Sawyer rubbed the persistent ache at her temples, pulling away from her open laptop to fish a bottle of Tylenol from her desk drawer. Not that pain meds had helped the last three times she’d dropped two into her palm. The pounding in her temples might as well be another heartbeat, it was so loud. She popped the capsules into her mouth, washing it down with the half-finished vitamin water she’d brought from home. The wall clock above the door laughed at her, each chime of the second hand reminding Sawyer there were still two more hours before she was homebound.

“One hour to go, people! We can do this!” she heard Barb yell from the front line, ever optimistic. Her sous-chef preferred to look at how long it was before closing rather than how long it’dalso take to clean and go home. A loud whoop from the rest of Sawyer’s staff followed Barb’s encouragement in the kitchen.

Sawyer’s gaze returned to the screen in front of her. She’d received a reply email from yet another mechanic she’d sought out in hopes of a possible car rebuild. She quickly scanned the unedited response from someone named Darryl, glossing over the spelling errors until her gaze landed on“... would require taking the car to my shop.”

“Like hell it will,” Sawyer huffed aloud, scowling so hard at her computer that it was a wonder the sheer force of it didn’t shatter the screen. Her headache flared in response. What part of her carefully laid out stipulations for hiring someone to rebuild the hunk of steel in her garage did Darryl not understand? The car stayed put, and that was her final offer. Sawyer wanted to keep watch on the progress via her garage surveillance, and she couldn’t do that if the car was sitting unsupervised across town.

“Idiots.”

It was challenging to find adequate people these days.

“Dustin, where’s mypouding chômeur?”

Barb’s voice rang out once more from the kitchen, another reminder that her workday wasn’t finished. Sawyer sighed, knowing she needed to head back out there. Sneaking into her office for a quick reprieve was just that. Shane was expecting her, likely still looking forward to learning the next step in making gravy for the meat pies.

Not bothering to spend the minute it would take to reply to the email, Sawyer stood, chugging the remaining water before tossing the empty bottle in the recycling. Her stomach felt empty since she’d eaten toast and avocado hours ago at breakfast, but when she ate, it burned like the worst indigestion imaginable. The discomfort didn’t seem worth it until she couldn’t bear the hunger any longer.

She returned to the line, checking on Micah on meats and her second station chef, Leon, before sidling up to where Shane was removing the giblets out of the gravy pot. “Yeah, just like that,” Sawyer greeted him, ignoring the pang in her belly. She swallowed, pointing to the flour already measured out on the counter. “Now add a little of the drippings to your bowl, and slowly mix in the flour. Yes, just like that.”

While Shane did as she instructed, Sawyer kept a watchful eye on the rest of her staff. Barb was busy belting out orders while Leon removed a casserole from the oven. Micah had just plated a fine-looking beef filet, and Dustin was adding final touches to the desserts going out.

“Make sure there isn’t a detail missing on those plates!” Sawyer reminded her team, glancing between Micah and Dustin. “Earning our first Michelin star was only the first step. Now, we need to put in the hard work to keep it.”

“Understood, Chef.”

“Heard that, Chef, thank you.”

Sawyer nodded, turning back to Shane, and frowned at how he just stood there staring blankly into the pot. “You should be stirring every half minute and chopping the garnish in between. You need to be able to multitask if you want to make a career of this.”

Sawyer had always been a firm believer that being a great chef didn’t necessarily mean going to a culinary school. Preparing a Michelin star-rated dish was more than just memory or learning different cuts of meat in a classroom. The knowledge came from deep within, like all the senses coming alive to feel out if the bouillabaisse had the right amount of saffron or if the crème brûlée was cooked at the right temperature. Some of Sawyer’s signature dishes were created purely on instinct. Bree often joked that Sawyer’s sixth sense was knowing if a recipe was perfect or not. She wasn’t sure if such a thing existed, but if itdid, Sawyer owed it to kids like Shane to find out. But that didn’t mean she made things easy.

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