Page 4 of Recipe for Romance

Chapter Three

~Aiden~

Laughter filled the air over the back porch of Aiden’s family home as everyone gathered around the long table to share a meal as well as stories from the week prior. His parents’ focus was on the farm as usual, though more specifically about the upcoming harvest. The brothers would be expected to help wherever they could, and once Aiden confessed that he had been fired and intended on setting up shop in Applewood, he probably would as well. Though, perhaps when he mentioned the project of his own that he would be working on, they would cut him some slack.

Aiden had never loved helping at harvest time, preferring to be in the kitchen, cooking something with the literal fruits of everyone else’s labor. His brothers had bitched and moaned about it when they were younger, but once their mouths were full of pork chops with bourbon glazed apples, they were too busy chewing to complain. Making a note to add that to the list of potential menu items, Aiden tried to tune back into the conversation surrounding him.

Beckett spoke loudly about how difficult it had been for him to wash the fire engine with one arm still in a cast, that very arm slung over the shoulder of his fiancée Willa. They were only recently engaged and Aiden hadn’t had much of a chance to speak to her, but she seemed very nice and above all, very enamored of his brother. Beckett was a great guy and deserved a great girl, and while Aiden was the slightest bit envious, he was too happy for his younger brother to dwell on it. He would be too busy in the coming months planning and opening a new restaurant for a relationship anyway.

The excuse was an all too familiar refrain and the main reason Aiden hadn’t ever really had a serious relationship to begin with. All of his time and attention had been on his career, and he couldn’t see that stopping anytime soon. Even back in culinary school, he’d dated a few of his fellow students, but most of them had been just as focused as he was. After graduating, he’d moved around so much that he had never settled down with anyone. He’d see someone for a few nights and they would eventually part ways.

It wasn’t as if anyone was clamoring to lock Aiden down anyway. A woman would spend the night and inevitably they would discover his particular brand of crazy. He would grit his teeth when they didn’t clear their plates after dinner at his dining table, he would groan at the sight of their clothes on the floor instead of on the chair in his bedroom, and he would complain about something to the point where they would take off while the sheets were still warm.

It wasn’t that hewantedto be unpleasant, that was just the way he was, and he hadn’t really met anyone worth trying to improve himself for. At this point, Aiden doubted he ever would and resigned himself to living as a food-obsessed monk who barked and grumbled at anyone within shouting distance for the rest of his life.

“What’s got you thinking so hard, kiddo?” Aiden looked up to see his dad staring at him with a grin on his face. Seeing his father look happy would normally bolster Aiden’s mood, but as he’d yet to confess his firing, the look only served to make him feel guilty. “Thinking about your next job? I know you always have a lot of choices, but maybe you could pick one a little closer to home this time.”

Aiden tried not to laugh at the irony of that statement, seeing as how he’d planned to be a lot more than just closer to home. Hell, his parents thought the place he was staying in was a vacation rental and not the house he’d signed a one year lease on, so they were definitely in for a surprise. “Maybe,” he agreed. Wanting to get the attention on anyone other than himself, Aiden spotted Felix looking particularly pleased with himself and pounced on the opportunity before him. “What I want to know is what’s got that look on Felix’s face?”

Felix barked a laugh and grabbed a large jug from beside him. “This,” he revealed. After pouring some of the amber liquid into his glass, he passed it around the table. “I just came up with a cider for the fall menu. Have a taste.”

Aiden sniffed his glass, notes of apple, lemon, ginger, and bourbon wafting into his nose. After taking a small sip, he sat back and let the flavors subtly emerge onto his tongue before sitting there for a moment to contemplate the possibilities. The cider was delicious and would pair nicely with the pork chop dish he’d just been thinking about. Collaborating with his brother’s brewery was something he’d already pondered, but after tasting the cocktail, Aiden knew it was something that needed to happen.

“Not bad,” he told his brother. “Have you thought about adding a cinnamon stick to the glass when you serve it? I think it would help set off the flavors even more.”

Snorting, Beckett held his palm out in front of Travis. “Pay up, Trav.” Travis grunted as he reached into his back pocket with an irritated look on his face.

Aiden scowled as his head pinged back and forth between his two brothers. “What the hell is that about?”

Beckett waved him off with his casted arm as Travis slapped a twenty dollar bill in his good hand. “I bet Travis that you would find some way to try and improve something about the lunch today, and I was right.” His brother smirked, annoying Aiden immediately. The Kemp brothers betting on each other wasn’t unusual, but he hadn’t been around much lately to witness himself being the butt of the joke. It was a feeling he had not missed.

Aiden flipped both of his brothers the middle finger, earning him a disapproving look from his mom. At the sight of her raised brow, he cowered slightly and sunk in his chair. Even though he was almost halfway to thirty, his mom still had a way of making him feel like a guilty child. “Sorry, Mom.”

Cora Kemp simply rolled her eyes and shook her head, though a small smile played at the corners of her mouth. “I guess I should be happy you didn’t find fault with my barbeque chicken salad.”

Aiden kept the fact that he had thought the chicken just a touch dry to himself as she walked into the house with her empty plate. He wasn’t a complete idiot, knowing all too well after witnessing his dad get a talking to that opinions on his mother’s cooking were always best left unsaid, even if they were true. Not one minute later, she was rushing back out onto the porch, her phone clutched in her hand and her face aghast.

“Aiden Nolan Kemp. Please tell me why I am hearing that you were fired from your job in Chicago fromLocally Sourcedand not from your own mouth.” Aiden swallowed the shame at having kept his secret for so long while also wondering how she’d heard it from anywhere else. It had been big news in the culinary world, but his mom didn’t keep up with that sort of thing. “And something about you also opening up a restaurant in town? Why have you kept this from us?”

“What’sLocally Sourced?” he stalled. Scratching the back of his neck, Aiden tried to come up with a plausible lie about the restaurant only to realize that, while this wasn’t the way he had planned on revealing everything to his family, it was as good an opportunity as any.

His dad narrowed his eyes at Aiden. “It’s the local paper,” he informed him blankly.

Nate scoffed as he pulled out his phone. “It’s not a paper, it’s just another way for Lottie to spread gossip.” The look of annoyance on Nate’s face quickly disappeared at the sight of his mom’s censorious expression. Clearing his throat, Nate did the one thing Aiden should have seen coming a mile away which was throwing him right under the bus. “What’s that about a restaurant?”

Frowning, his mother turned her attention back to Aiden as she retook the seat next to his dad. His father automatically started rubbing her back soothingly and Aiden felt another pang of envy, but that took a backseat to the incredible guilt that washed over him when he saw the look of disappointment on his parents’ faces. “You told us you were just taking a break from Zoretti’s. Is that not true?” his father asked.

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