Chapter 2

Little John nodded. To call him a gnome or leprechaun would be a mistake. Little John was a pinch over five feet—as tall as Danny DeVito and Prince, he’d told me. John Barton—Little John or LJ—was born with one of those timeless faces. He was in his early thirties, same as me, but depending on the day and his mood, he looked like he’d recently been released from either continuation school or a twenty-year stint in Folsom. We met in San Francisco when I desperately needed a sous. I had no idea about his past or his present outside the kitchen. He didn’t socialize. Never joined me for a couple of beers after hours. Just vanished until the next day. I didn’t even know where he lived. I had a phone number and a post office box to locate him.

The points he lost in a beauty pageant he made up in loyalty. He’d stuck by me when I’d stormed out of a well-known San Francisco kitchen after Jason was ripped from my life—or rather, after I’d finally grown the balls to dump him.

LJ had everything I required in a right-hand man—loyalty, punctuality, and dedication. He’d made a sacrifice to drop everything in the city and move to the sticks with me. What more could I ask?

“Oh yeah and, boss?” He turned to me before I got very far toward the front door. “Triple X called and said theytold him not to come up here this afternoon.” He was shaking his head and frowning.

“Don’t call him by his wannabe gang name. He’s Xavier.” LJ looked at me, giving me the evil eye since he and the teen were currently butting heads. LJ thought Xavier was a hoodlum in training. I thought the kid was a run-of-the-mill teenager. “Okay, I’ll handle it.”

Xavier was my latest do-gooder project, an at-risk freshman who’d told the counselor he wanted to become a chef someday. Les Walker, the personable and cute high school counselor whom I’d thought about asking out on a date, hadn’t been as sure about this kid as he had been about the other two he’d given me in the five years since I’d first volunteered.

“Xavier Ramos isn’t the, uh, easiest kid I’ve worked with.” Les had looked apologetic. “To his credit, the kid’s had a hard home life. He got kicked out and was scrabbling on his own for about a year before the school noticed he needed help. The intake people couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t starved to death after he ran away from his foster family. Personally, I think he’s bright and loyal. I figure if anyone can help him, you can.”

Shit. How could I turn the kid away? We were struggling through our third week together. I wasn’t convinced I was doing anything to help him.

As LJ donned his apron and scanned the knives and ingredients for tonight’s dinner, I trudged up the stairs to the front door. My three-story Sierra Bistro looks from the street like a cross between a two-story log cabin and a Swiss chalet, but in reality, it hangs dramatically down the mountainside.

Most diners think everything is on one floor, both kitchen and dining area. As my aching feet can tell them some days, the place has a kitchen on the bottom floor. Above the kitchen is an intimate dining room with a tiny serving area that most diners think is the kitchen, which would be a joke if it were true. A half-floor balcony overlooking the valley juts between the dining floor and my apartment on the top.

This place has it all. My food and the view from the dining room are what call everyone from miles around to make the trip. Or as one critic put it: Come for the food. Stay for the view. Both will enchant you.

The dining level was chilly as I came up from the kitchen. Summer was nearly a memory and fall had crowded in, with winter not far behind.

I had to decide what to do. Last spring I’d bought an abandoned building in Old Town Stone Acres, a foothills community nearby. I’d had architect Fredi Zimmer design an apartment above the restaurant space, and Abe Behr’s construction company had done the remodeling work on the restaurant and apartment. Last week Abe had called me to say the job was nearly finished.

Since the floor space was a bit bigger than my tiny Bistro in the mountains, almost as big as where I worked in San Francisco, was I ready to start pounding the larger treadmill again? Was I ready to create lunch and dinner for the groupies who’d been begging me to return? My head fucking hurt thinking about it.