Page 90 of Small Town Firsts
I held my hand out to her. “Call me Kira. Can we discuss a time to talk?”
“Yes.” She nodded quickly, her smile huge. “God, yes.”
“Perfect. We may have our chef already. If you have time, maybe you’d like to meet him? See if you two would mesh.”
“I’d love that.”
The next interview was waiting by the door. There were two of us. I forced myself to relax my fingers on my iPad. “Ronan, why don’t you talk to the next person? I’ll introduce Jess to Kain.”
“No problem.” He pushed off the bar and straightened. “Sure you’re all right with this?”
I met his gaze. The stubborn edge was still there under the layer of professionalism, but I appreciated that he asked. “I’ll catch up.”
“You got it.” He turned the charm to a twenty as he headed toward the front doors.
Even in stained shorts and a shirt that was a touch too small for him, he still had this aura to him that said leader and boss.
I wasn’t quite sure how he did it and I might have hated him a little right then.
I gave Jessica a tight smile. “Let’s go meet our possible chef.”
I said possible, but I had a feeling my careful plans would need to be rearranged—again.
TWENTY-TWO
RONAN
WILDCARDS
Unfortunately,the first interview was the only easy one of the day. Beckett had escaped on his horse after he’d filled his belly with Kain’s breakfast feast. Honestly, I was still a little surprised about the massive horse waiting in the trees when I’d chased after Kira.
The orchard was a whole new world from Chicago on a number of levels.
As I’d figured, Jess and Kain had hit it off. The two of them were going to meet up for drinks to talk over menu ideas later. I only hoped my friend would keep things platonic. He tended to get excited about a topic, and his charm was a dangerous thing.
Thank God for ride share apps. Evidently small town USA was just as up on them. Maybe even more so since public transportation wasn’t really a thing out here in the rural sectors.
I sent Kain back to my place to crash while I dealt with a chilly Kira for the rest of the day.
Between interviews, she trained our rapidly multiplying staff on the use of our sparkly new registers, which were essentially iPads on crack. We had the main one behind the bar and a smaller setup located at the hostess podium near the front ofthe taproom. As usual, Kira was always thinking about efficiency during busy times.
Unfortunately, the rest of the afternoon’s interviews were a bust.
Two of them thought they were the next social media sensation.
News flash, they were not.
Where Jess was thoughtful and clever, they were more interested in posing for the cameras than actual cooking and creating. We needed staffers to feed our patrons, not build their clout during taproom hours.
A handful of chefs came in, but they were just too set in their ways to be creative with an ever changing menu. They were actually built more like Kira. Organized and brutally efficient at the numbers game, but even my partner in crime saw they weren’t what we needed in the kitchen.
She was still fighting it, but we’d literally tripped over exactly what we needed twice today. Kain, who opened the fridge and just clicked with an idea in his staggering brain, then somehow made everyone in the kitchen want it too. The problem was—Kain wouldn’t be a permanent fixture, no matter how he was feeling right now. Eventually his empire would require his attention for more than a few satellite calls and whatever else he couldn’t unload on his second-in-command. While the kitchen was a good distraction for him right now, Kain wouldn’t be happy being a chef in a small town for very long.
And that was trouble for the taproom.
It might be great for the first season…
Hmm. Maybe that was the answer. Seasons and more importantly, changes.
