The Chef's Cutie (The River Hill Series Book 5) Read online

  Still, she had a good feeling about this case. Well, as good a feeling as you could have when a young girl had just lost her only parent and had been sent to live with a bachelor uncle she barely knew. But a quick bit of Googling had showed Mr. Vergaras to be a man with deep ties to his community, something Mia had been lacking while living with her mother. He owned a popular local restaurant, and was frequently mentioned in various news articles for charitable giving and community event participation. On paper, he seemed like a good guy. For the girl’s sake, she hoped he was just as good in real life. It was her job to find out.

  She raised her hand to knock on the door, but before her knuckles could hit the wood, it swung open, revealing a wall of tall, dark masculinity. She’d seen a picture of Max Vergaras in her files, of course, but it had done nothing to highlight just how truly gorgeous the man actually was. With his tanned skin, lean muscles, and black hair that had a subtle wave—in other words, exactly her type—there was no denying he was one of the most handsome men she’d ever laid eyes on.

  Which is a completely inappropriate thought to be having about one of my clients, she inwardly chided herself—even as she fought to pull her gaze away from his full lower lip. Do your job, girl.

  “Oh, you’re here.” He glanced down at his watch and then raised his eyes back up, his brows pinched with annoyance. “Your office said you wouldn’t be by until later this afternoon. I wasn’t expecting you yet.”

  Lizzie stifled a frustrated sigh. She loved her job—really, she did. The office she worked out of was a different story, though. Her boss had severe control issues, which would have been fine if she wasn’t also a scatterbrain who often forgot to pass along important information to her caseworkers (or, as Lizzie sometimes speculated, kept it from them purposely). It seemed to her that more often than not—by design or accident, she couldn’t say—the right hand didn’t know what the left was doing. The families she worked with were already stressed out and fearful, and having their chains yanked by the people who were supposedly there to help them did nothing to inspire confidence.

  “I’m sorry, no.” She stood up straighter, hoping to project an air of authority. At just a smidge over five feet tall, it was an action she employed when interacting with big men who might attempt to intimidate her. Sometimes it helped, and sometimes it didn’t, but she wasn’t taking any chances. Especially not with Mr. Vergaras’s obvious irritation practically radiating off him in waves, a scowl pulling his handsome face into a stern frown.

  He blew out a long, slow breath and shook his head before stepping aside to let her enter. “Come on in, then. I have to warn you, though, the place is a mess. We were hoping to clean up a bit before you got here.”

  “We?” Lizzie asked as he led her through the slate-tiled foyer and into a wide open great room that was a combined living, dining, and kitchen space. “Is there a Mrs. Vergaras I wasn’t made aware of?” As her eyes continued to scan the room, she reached into the bag at her hip, worried that she’d accidentally overlooked that important detail. She didn’t often make that sort of mistake, but she also didn’t often get a new case with shoddy paperwork dumped in her lap with only a few hours notice the way this one had been.

  Mr. Vergaras leaned his hip against the leather sectional, gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder toward a long hallway that led in the opposite direction. “No, no wife. I was talking about Mia, but we seem to have very different ideas about what constitutes tidying up. According to her, this is clean.” He scanned the room briefly with flattened lips before his eyes found hers again.

  Lizzie held back a chuckle. It was wrong to laugh at the man, but if he honestly thought this was messy, he was in for a rude awakening. There was a throw blanket on the sofa that wasn’t folded, and a stack of young adult novels on the coffee table, but otherwise, the room was fairly tidy and well put together. For a bachelor pad. Something they’d have to discuss before she left. “Sir—”

  “Please, call me Max,” he interrupted. “I hate being called sir. It makes me feel so old.” For the first time since he’d opened his front door, he smiled.

  And Lizzie’s knees nearly buckled. Good lord. This man wasn’t just handsome. He was—

  NO.

  Inwardly, she shook her head to dislodge those thoughts. Max Vergaras was Mia’s guardian, not some guy she’d met … well, nowhere. Because she never went out. But that was neither here nor there. Regardless of how hot he was, she needed to keep things professional.

  But damn, his smile—when it happened—was like the clouds had parted, leaving the sun to beam down on her from the heavens. The traces of gray in his lush black hair only added to his attractiveness, and that dimple that popped in his right cheek? Whew! Max Vergaras was a staggeringly attractive specimen of manhood.

  And he is completely off limits, she reminded herself sternly. She needed to get her act together. Her job was far more important than her neglected lady parts, no matter what her libido was howling at her.

  She cleared her throat. “Do you mind if we sit, Max? I’d like to go over what you can expect from social services in the coming weeks, and the role I’ll be playing in finalizing your custody arrangement. And before I leave, I’d also like to speak with Mia in private, if you don’t mind.”

  “Of course not.” He gestured to the oversized leather sofa that took up a large portion of the living room area. “Is here good?”

  “Thank you,” Lizzie said, settling down into one of the couch’s surprisingly comfortable cushions before pulling a pad of paper and pen from her bag.

  “First, how close were you and Isabel?”

  Pain flashed in Max’s eyes as he rubbed his palm across his forehead. “Not as close as I would have wanted these past few years. Isabel was a rolling stone, while I like my roots to run a bit deeper, if you get my meaning.”

  Lizzie nodded. “You’ve lived in River Hill for nearly ten years, right? And from the look of things, you don’t have plans of going anywhere else anytime soon.”

  “That’s right,” he answered. “I rented an apartment near Frankie’s for the first couple of years I was here, but I bought this place five years ago. I figured … well, never mind what I figured.” He shrugged. “Anyhow, River Hill is my home now.” His tone was both wistful and proud. Almost like he’d hoped to have someone to share the house with, but his bachelorhood didn’t lessen the accomplishment of buying it any.

  In a way, Lizzie could commiserate. While she didn’t own a big, beautiful mid-century modern house like Max did, she remembered with pride the day her realtor had passed her the keys for her small townhome thirty minutes south of here. At the time, she’d thought of it as a starter home, something she’d build equity in until she got married and moved into their starter home. Seven years later, she was no closer to finding someone to marry, much less buy a house with.

  “Speaking of River Hill,” Lizzie said, shuffling the papers in her lap. “Have you decided which school Mia will attend? There’s the local public elementary school, of course, but the Catholic school down the road has an excellent reputation.”

  Max shoved his hands through his hair with a small groan and leaned back against the sofa back. “Mia wants to go to the Catholic school,” he said, dropping his palms onto his thick, muscled thighs.

  After a quick moment spent appreciating the way he filled out his jeans, Lizzie dragged her eyes back up to his face. “You seem … perturbed by that?”

  He shot her a look that she had trouble interpreting. A big part of what made her so good at her job was being able to read people. Understand what they weren’t saying. It was unusual for her not to be able to immediately place what he was thinking.

  “I’m an atheist.”

  “Ah,” she hummed.

  “Yeah. Ah.”

  In her line of work, she didn’t often come across adoptive guardians who so readily admitted their aversion to religion. If anything, they often exaggerated their devotion in an effort to impress
her—as if going to church was the only requirement to being a good, stable guardian or parent. Two years ago she’d been forced to remove two young kids from a home where their foster parent quoted from the bible while hitting them with a switch fashioned from a branch from the tree in their backyard.

  “Was your sister religious, then?” she asked, pushing that horrible memory to the side.

  Max laughed and shook his head. “Religious? Not in the least. Spiritual? Very much so. In fact, the last time I spoke with her—” he tripped over the word, his eyes falling closed as he swallowed deeply, his adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes back up, and the pure grief Lizzie saw in them reached straight into her chest and tugged at her heartstrings. “Last month, she told me about a chakra cleansing ritual she’d planned to undertake with a shaman who was visiting the commune where she lived.”

  And Mia wanted to go to Catholic school? That seemed … odd, Lizzie thought. But then she had another thought. “Would you call your niece’s upbringing unconventional?”

  Max raised an eyebrow. “You heard the part about the shaman, right?”

  Lizzie fought a smile. And failed. “Yes, I did.” She forced her lips back into a flat, uninterested line. “And based on your knowledge of your sister and her lifestyle, would you say that extended to Mia’s schooling as well?”

  Max gripped the back of his neck. “I …” He blew out a breath. “I don’t know much about that, if I’m being honest. Isabel was always vague when I asked, and when I tried to talk to Mia about it the other day, she just stared at me. It was kind of unnerving, actually.”

  “Unnerving how?” Lizzie asked, making a note in her files.

  Max pitched forward, resting his elbows on his thighs, his fingers linked between his knees. He twisted his face around to stare at Lizzie, and she had to remind herself not to drool. “I don’t think it’s any surprise to anyone at your agency that I don’t have much experience with kids. I’m a thirty-five-year old single man, and none of my friends have kids. Isabel is my only sister, and she lived a plane ride away. All that said, I’ve always found kids … excitable. Hyperactive. At least, that’s how I was at her age. And Isabel was infinitely worse. But every time I try to talk with Mia, she just sits there staring at me. When I finish saying whatever it is I was saying, she answers politely, using as few words as possible. Honestly, she’s the chillest fucking person I’ve ever met—pardon my French.” He winced at his use of the expletive, and his eyes darted down to where Lizzie held her pen.

  She smiled at him placatingly. “Don’t worry, Mr. Ver—”

  “Max, please.”

  She set her pen and paper to the side. “I’m not going to report you for swearing, but it’s probably best if you don’t make a habit of it, especially around Mia. Children her age are highly impressionable.”

  He blew out a breath. “I’m not so sure about that one.”

  Lizzie tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean my sister was a handful. I loved her—adored her—but she was a force to be reckoned with. Our parents used to call her Hurricane Isabel. Mia looks like a miniature version of my sister, but in every other way, she’s the complete opposite. I highly doubt she’s going to take up cursing anytime soon. At this point, I might even welcome a well-timed fuck or two—at least then I’d know she was processing her grief.”

  Lizzie weighed her next words. Not all of the families she encountered were open to hearing about her personal experiences. “Can I be frank with you, Max?”

  “Please do,” he said, sounding almost relieved.

  “My parents died in a car accident when I was ten, and I went to live with my Uncle Jonathan and his partner Horatio. So I have some experience with being a young girl dealing with the traumatic loss of her parents. What’s more, I also know what it’s like to be thrust upon relatives who were not prepared to deal with my grief, let alone raising me. What Mia’s going through isn’t unusual, but she’ll need extra care.”

  Max let out a long gust of air. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  “We met an hour ago. There’s no way you would have.”

  He was rubbing his palms up and down his jean-clad thighs. “I’m going to screw this up, aren’t I?”

  Lizzie felt the right side of her lips lifting in a small smile. “Probably. All parents do, in one way or another.”

  “Fuck,” he breathed out, then winced again. “Sorry.”

  “It’s going to be okay, Max.” Without conscious thought, she leaned forward and set her hand on his forearm. When her palm connected with his skin, it tingled with a sort of buzzing, electric warmth. She sucked in a surprised gasp and pulled it quickly away.

  Max’s tongue darted out and he licked his bottom lip. “Ms. Teague …”

  “Please, call me Lizzie,” she said, gratified to hear her voice sounding much more steady than her rapidly beating heart.

  He swallowed. “I …” His gaze dropped down to where she’d touched him and then slowly back up. When he met her eyes, she couldn’t miss the unmistakable heat in his stare, but she could see him trying hard to restrain it, too. Which was what she should be doing, as well. A few beats passed in silence before Max suddenly pushed to his feet. “Come on. Let me introduce you to Mia.”

  Lizzie stood and hefted her bag over her shoulder and across her body. “Yeah, that’d be great.” And not just because she needed to put as much space between them as she could before she threw herself at him. Besides, she had some theories about Mia’s reaction to her uncle, and her request about school that she wanted to discuss with the girl.

  “Follow me.”

  Lizzie did as requested, telling herself the entire walk down the long hallway not to stare at his hard, firm ass. She managed to only look twice.

  3

  The first disaster came far more quickly than Max had expected. He sat frowning over the registration forms for St. Aloysius, wondering just how he’d been talked into sending his free-spirited sister’s child to Catholic school. He blamed the caseworker from CPS.

  She’d been nothing like what he’d expected. For one thing, she’d been fucking gorgeous. And there had been an unmistakable flare of heat in her eyes when she’d looked him up and down. He’d found himself wanting to drag her inside the house and push her up against the wall and discover just how those lush lips of hers tasted.

  Surprising, since he hadn’t felt that way about a woman since Vanessa.

  Possibly not even about Vanessa, if he thought about it. She’d been great in bed and he’d genuinely adored her—the ring buried in his safe deposit box for the last five years showed just how much he’d been ready to be with her forever—but when she’d left him for her ex-husband’s former best friend, he hadn’t tried to get her back. Later, Noah had told him he wasn’t surprised when she’d left. Max had tried to make a real effort to act offended, because the truth was that deep down, he wasn’t all that surprised, either. Honestly, he suspected he wasn’t really cut out for relationships.

  Sex, though, that he was cut out for. And Lizzie Teague’s lithe body on his front step had reminded him just how little of it he’d been having lately. Pretty much since business at Frankie’s had picked up and the franchise offers had started coming in.

  Of all the people for his sleeping libido to wake up for, the caseworker who could take Mia away from him with a snap of her manicured fingers was the worst possible choice.

  He shook his head and stared down at the forms. He had to stop thinking about her. Or rather, he had to stop thinking about her naked. Keeping her fully-clothed form in mind as he tried to balance all of this new stuff was probably a good idea. His legal status as Mia’s sole guardian wasn’t final yet, and Lizzie Teague had a lot to do with whether it would be. He had to do this right.

  Except he had no idea what the answers to most of these school registration questions were. He didn’t know Mia’s social security number. Had she ever
been hospitalized or had surgery? What were her medication allergies? Dental history? Why did they need to know that? Did he need to know that? He made his way down the form, filling in what he could as panic slowly churned in his belly.

  His pen hovered over the lines earmarked for Mia’s emergency contacts. They probably meant people other than him, right? His information was all over the top of the form. And underneath ‘Emergency Contacts’ was another line for ‘Authorized to Pick Up.’ What did that mean? Were they different? Not having the faintest clue if he was doing this right, he scribbled the names of several friends in each section, and, as an afterthought, added Ms. Teague as well. That was probably a responsible thing to do, right? Then he set to hunting through the paperwork the lawyer had given him to find Mia’s social security number, at the very least.

  “I’ve got this, Uncle Max.” Mia tugged the backpack out of his hands, the new material crinkling as she swung it over her shoulder.

  He’d taken her to Target at his friend Angelica’s suggestion—the former actress had a serious love affair with the store—and bought everything on the list of supplies the school had sent over, plus everything Mia even hinted at liking. When they’d come home and he’d texted Angelica a picture of the pile of bags on the living room floor, she’d sent back an eyeroll emoji and a comment about how throwing money at things wasn’t always the right answer. But Mia had given him a shy smile as she’d hung up the cardigan with a sequined owl on it in her closet, and he’d become overwhelmed with confidence again.

  Now, though, he watched the bus roll to a stop in front of the house and bit the inside of his lip to keep from babbling reassurances at Mia. She gave him a one-armed hug, then took a deep breath and went utterly still for a few moments as the bus doors opened. Before he could say anything, though, she was moving, walking up the steps quietly, nodding hello to the driver’s cheerful greeting and disappearing behind the tinted windows as she took a seat. The doors closed, the bus moved, and she was gone, away from him for the first time since she’d arrived.