Page 54 of Cookbooks and Demons

“I think we need to stop flirting now, or we are both going to be in big trouble. And we need to get you some sunglasses,” she whispered.

The long fingers on his hand lifted to touch the back of hers as if he were only just realizing what had happened. “Agreed. Speak of something else.”

Helena’s mind raced for a new topic, but the only things going on in her life at the moment outside of Rafferty was Yosef driving her crazy and what to do about Chris—

“Oh damn,” Helena cursed, suddenly remembering. “I forgot to get some advice from Cindy about Chris andCharlie.”

Rafferty pulled down her hand to look at her, and to her relief, his eyes had returned to a more human-like black or what people thought of as dark, dark brown.

“What about them?” he asked, sitting back as another person dressed like everyone else in the room approached and set two salads before them, along with two dishes of some sort ofdressing.

Blowing out a breath, Helena looked down at what was frankly a disappointing salad, iceberg lettuce broken up rather than shredded with bits of carrot sprinkled over it and two radishes halved each. That was about it. “I just need to decide if I should tell Charlie or not about Chris’s alleged infidelity. It seems if I do either, I’mscrewed.”

“Yes, you are,” he said simply.

“Oh. Well, I’m glad we sorted that out,” Helena said dryly. Served her right for askinga demon.

“Did he bring us the meal for the horse?” Rafferty asked, poking at his salad.

“I don’t know, but if you don’t want to taste it, I’d understand,” she said, using what little detective skills she had to determine what kind of dressing was in the dishes before them. She decided to go with the one that looked like a vinaigrette and ladled it over her portion oficeberg.

“No, I will taste it,” he said, choosing the samedressing.

As soon as they took a bite, Rafferty let go of her hand and took the fork out of her mouth, then slid the plate away from her. “Do not eat that. The dressing is rancid,” he reported. Helena was already grabbing her napkin to deposit what food remained in her mouth.

“I didn’t think we upset him that badly by not being Scarlet,” she coughed.

“If your boss had been here, she would have been poisoned already,” Rafferty said direly.

Chapter 28

Then It

Got Worse

The following courses did not improve. Whatever course plan the “Executive Chef” was following was not modeled off of anything Helena recognized. They were able to finish some of the simple salad with the other dressing, which proved to be a basic ranch, eating enough of a dent to make Helena not feel guilty about sending the plates back. The rancid salads were followed by a soup that was basically broth. Its only sin was it hadn’t been impressive, but its virtue was it helped wipe out the remaining taste of the bad salads.

Now she stared in horror at the main course.

“I don’t think I can eat that,”she said.

“Penne pasta, fried chicken breasts with a layer of cheese,” Rafferty reported, diagnosing the dish with a detached, clinical eye.

“It looks like a cat vomited it up,” she said. Holding her knife and fork before her on the table like weapons of war, she prayed that someone would come and intervene, whisk the plates away and present her with something that actually looked like food.

But Rafferty cut into his chicken fried penne pasta and even dabbed it into the marinara sauce in preparation for them eating it. She had no choice but to dothe same.

It tasted like metal.

“Oh God, this is awful,” she huffed under her breath as she tried to chew the lukewarm meatin mouth.

“Hmm-mmm,” Rafferty agreed, still chewing his food with the normal amountof gusto.

“I don’t suppose you could do the reverse thing where you can just make it taste like ash to me. Because honestly that would be an improvement right now.”

He shook his head to that request while continuing to chew, his eyes staring off in the middle distance, like he was trying to figure something out. Helena had no idea what there was to figure out. It was the blandest damn marinara she had ever tasted, and there was no way any of this was fresh. It all had to have come from a can. And the chicken had obviously been frozen.

Dropping her silverware onto her plate, she picked up her napkin and pressed it to her mouth. “I think I’m going tobe sick.”

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