Page 82 of Recipe for Rivals
“Oh, don’t worry, Dusty. I plan to,” I said, then closed the door behind him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
DUSTY
I was nota sophomore in high school, fresh off my first date to a homecoming dance and reeling from the awkward peck I’d gotten after dropping my date off. I had kissedloadsof girls and women since that night. But, somehow, two days after my puzzle night with Nova, I was sitting in the firehouse with Randy putting together lunch, and I still couldn’t stop thinking about that hug.
I was a grown man. It had only been a hug. It wasn’t even apeck. But man, my body had been on fire. It had taken everything in me not to toss Leia aside and wrap my arms around Nova. Cats always landed on their feet, right?
Well, I hadn’t done that. I should be inordinately proud of myself. Really, I just regretted letting the moment pass and was eager for it to happen again.
I finished grilling chicken with vegetables and had taken the rice off the stove when a call came in through the overhead speakers for a possible kitchen fire on Main Street.
“Isn’t that the diner?” Randy asked, suiting up beside me and jumping into the truck.
Jill was there a second after us. “I don’t think so,” she said. “But it’s probably close.”
The nearer the truck drew to the address on Main Street, the harder my heart pounded. Most of these buildings were places of business. The only kitchen I knew near the diner was Nova’s apartment building. But it couldn’t be her. There were three other apartments in her building, and she was at work since her kids were in school.
When we pulled up to the street, I swore.
Nova stood outside, frowning, in a white T-shirt with a yellow apron tied around her waist.
I hopped from the truck before it came to a complete stop and ran to her side.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said. “I started the oven to preheat and left to get something from my car. When I got back inside, smoke was pouring from the oven. Something was inside, but I couldn’t tell what it was. It smelled awful.”
“Did you turn off the oven?”
“Yes, and I opened the windows.”
“Stay outside while we investigate,” I told her. Randy joined me on the stairs. “Left something in the oven. Probably not food.”
“Got it.”
It only took a few minutes to discover that the item melting in her oven was plastic and no longer on fire, but definitely melted on the rack. We pulled the rack out and I bent over it, peering close enough to recognize the remains of what was once a toy. Jill set up a large fan while Randy opened another window to air out the smoke. It was going to cling to the apartment for at least a few days.
It could have been so much worse.
“You want to talk to Ms. Walker?” Randy asked, looking at me.
“Sure.” I let myself outside. Nova stood on the street withher arms folded, her thumbnail in her teeth while she chewed worriedly. Her hair was back in a ponytail that trailed down between her shoulder blades.
When she noticed me, she started up the stairs, her hand dropping from her mouth.
“It was a toy in the oven,” I told her. “Looks like it could have been a gorilla. About eight inches long.”
Nova stopped on the step below me, her eyes narrowing before realization hit her. “No, not a gorilla. That was probably Chewie.”
“Oh.”
She leaned back against the railing, her head in her hands. “Ben is going to be crushed.” She looked up at me. “Oh, gosh. Alice.”
“You think she put it in there?”
“She hides things when she’s mad at him, and he’s been missing Chewbacca for a while. I don’t know why she moved it to the oven, though. It wasn’t there yesterday when I made dinner.”
I grimaced. “We did our best to scrape the rack, but you’ll want to clean it fully before using it. Melted plastic can be dangerous. We have the fan airing out the place, so give us another twenty minutes and we’ll get out of your hair.”