A Batter of Life and Death Read Online Free PDF

the Merry Windsor’s kitchen—it was bigger than ours, since Richard’s staff serves full meals in the hotel’s dining room in addition to serving coffee and pastries at the newly added espresso bar. Not that anyone actually bakes in that kitchen. Richard’s idea of morning treats are dry, store-bought muffins with little to no flavor. Not that I’m biased or anything.
    Linda would be working at OSF with Lance. That left us stuck with the inebriated Chef Marco. How was this guy in any shape to bake?
    Lance offered words of consolation as he looped arms with Linda and escorted her outside. Richard Lord snarled, “Good luck with the drunk, darling,” and left with Sebastian and Nina on his heels.
    Philip asked me to wait for a moment and went over to Marco’s table. I couldn’t hear what he said, but his body language made it evident that he was not happy with the chef.
    While I waited for Philip, I told the rest of the staff to call it an afternoon. They’d managed to clean all the trays and dishes, and the workspace in the back gleamed. Stephanie chatted with Elliot and offered to show him around town. Sterling zipped up his hoodie and took off with his skateboard under his arm.
    “Is everything okay with him?” I asked Andy as he positioned a Southern Oregon football cap on his head and plugged headphones into his phone.
    “He’s cool. Jealous, but cool.”
    “I didn’t know Stephanie had such a crush.”
    Andy tucked the headphones around his neck. “Maybe she doesn’t. You know what my mom says—absence makes the heart grow fonder.” He stuck the headphones into his ears. “Catch ya tomorrow, boss.”
    I thought about his words as I watched him walk across the plaza. His analogy didn’t quite work since Stephanie wasn’t actually absent.
    I knew something about absence. It had been almost four months since I’d last seen Carlos. In some ways it felt like yesterday. If I tried, I could smell his musky aftershave and the scent of garlic and onions on his skin and hear his Spanish accent whispering my name. Usually I don’t try. When I returned home, we made a deal that we wouldn’t talk until the new year. I was sticking to my end of that deal. He’d broken my heart, but I wasn’t broken anymore. I needed this time in Ashland to cocoon myself and figure out what was next. If I kept running the loop of our relationship in my head, I’d never be able to move on.
    Moving on was what I needed to do now. I hoped I hadn’t taken on too much by agreeing to be a contestant. Philip promised to return first thing in the morning with a new contract for me to sign. He dragged Marco to his hotel room at the Merry Windsor to sleep it off.
    Time for me to start baking.

 
    Chapter Four
    I may have taken on too much, I thought the next morning as I glanced around Torte. The dining room was packed with locals who had come in for news about Take the Cake . I’d spent most of the night working on my entry for the competition—a triple-layer Bavarian chocolate cake.
    Marco arrived looking disheveled sometime after noon. He looked like he’d slept in his chef’s coat. The little hair he had was matted to his forehead and he reeked of booze.
    Andy asked me if he was still drunk. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say yes. He kept taking swigs from a half-full bottle of absinthe that he unsuccessfully tried to disguise under a dish towel.
    We were due at the Black Swan Theater in two hours to start shooting the first segment of the show. Philip had explained that all of the judging would be done on the set, but since this was a “boutique” show part of the appeal was giving viewers at home an insider’s look into a busy professional kitchen. Opening Torte to Philip’s camera crew was fine with me, but having Marco share our space was a disaster. He’d been ordering my staff around, demanding they help him with his entry. That wasn’t part of the deal.
    Regardless of whether I was a contestant on the show or