Page 100 of The Nanny and the Hothead
He should have expected she’d bring up Holly’s passing.
He maintained a placid front as he went to the sink and washed his hands. “Why would you ask that?”
“Because you loved her. Because she’s the mother of your son. I’ll have you know that while you set off for greener pastures, Holly kept in touch. She sent me a birthday card every year. It’s okay to mourn her loss.”
His hardened heart wouldn’t have it.
“And Seth?” he asked, spitting out the bitter syllable.
She shrugged. “I know that he cut off all contact with Holly after he found out Oscar wasn’t his.”
“She chose him,” he mumbled, staring at the old spatula lined up with his other supplies.
“She felt terrible, Mitchell. She never wanted to hurt you,” Louise shared, lowering her voice.
He flipped on the cooktop. “I wouldn’t know. We didn’t get into that. We only talked about Oscar. That’s all I could manage, and she afforded me that courtesy.”
Louise touched the handle of the old spatula. “You bought her a cabin.”
He sighed as he finished prepping the ingredients, then started in on slicing a loaf of sourdough. The ridges of the knife’s blade might as well have been sawing into his chest. “I’m not that broke kid stealing cars and selling the parts anymore. I’ve got money, Louise. A lot of money. It was no hardship to buy a place in the mountains. For Christ’s sake, I have another cabin outside of Aspen!”
“Fair enough,” she tossed back, crossing her arms. “But I’ve got another question for you.”
“It was never like you to hold back,” he deadpanned over his shoulder as he tore into another loaf.
“Why this, Mitchell?” Louise prodded, gesturing around the truck. “Why resurrect Louise?”
He set down the knife and gripped the lip of the counter. “Because if I want to get back on TV, I need to rehab my image, and writing a book can do that.” He paused, remembering his last meltdown on set. “There was an issue with my anger management. I lost sponsors. My reputation tanked. Producers called me a loose cannon. At least, that’s what Ines tells me. I’m sure they’d called me worse things.”
Louise’s expression darkened, but it wasn’t anger or disappointment that graced her features. No, it was almost as if his fall from culinary grace had been a blow to her. “Ralph and I watched you on those shows. We saw the change in you. I understand your desire to stage a comeback. But you didn’t answer my question. Tell me, why did you choose to take Say Cheese, Louise out again? I know what it means to you, and I know what you lost.”
Agitation prickled through his veins. He took in the stainless-steel wall covered with a myriad of pictures when the shots of Oscar and Charlotte caught his eye. Instantly, the clawing ache subsided. “Charlotte suggested the food truck reboot in front of Ines and my publisher. It just happened. My publisher loved the idea, and there was no turning back,” he answered, feeling Louise’s hawkish gaze.
“Charlotte had the idea?” she replied.
He buttered two slices of sourdough. Then, with a robotic flick of his wrist, he applied apple butter and Dijon before cutting a thick slice of cheddar and sealing the sandwich with the other piece of bread. Using the old spatula, the Signature Louise hit the cooktop with a familiar pop and sizzle.
“Yeah, she and Oscar went exploring around my property and found the garage with the truck inside. Long story short, I’ll be making the Signature Louise all over town for the next couple of months.”
“I didn’t think you’d kept the old orange beast,” Louise remarked, straightening one of the containers of apple butter.
“Yeah, well, maybe I’m not as big of an ass as I appear.”
That earned him a bark of a laugh from his mentor.
“What if I told you that I didn’t think thisreinventing yourselfwas only about getting back on TV or signing deals to sell cheese graters? What if I told you I believe it has a lot to do with Holly and Seth?” Louise challenged.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. He stared out the window, remembering what he’d seen the day everything changed. “Holly is dead, Louise. And Seth fell off the face of the earth. I don’t have anything to prove to them.”
Louise shook her head. “It doesn’t matter if they were here with us or if they’d been gone a decade. This is about you showing them that you deserved your success—that your rise to fame was earned and not a fluke,” she shot back.
Jesus! That couldn’t be it, could it?
The muscles at the base of his neck tightened as he used the old spatula to flip the sandwich. The pop and sizzle of the cold butter hitting the hot surface filled the stretch of silence.
Louise took a step toward him. “I’m here to tell you that you did earn it. But you lost something along the way, Mitchell. I tasted it when Ralph and I ate at the Crystal Cricket.”
What the hell?
