He looked at her and winced. “Okay,” he said. “Well, I’m back doing my job, but I guess we still need to cover for them too, don’t we?”
She nodded. “That’s why I’m here. I’ll get the stock ready, and I have to prep the meat,” she said.
“Well, hopefully somebody else will be back in soon too,” he said.
“It would be lovely if they were all back today,” she said, “but there’s no telling when that’ll be.”
As she prepped the meat, piercing it with little slices and popping garlic cloves into each slit, she put four huge roasts into the oven, so that she had sandwich meat at lunch and also had some leftovers that she needed for other recipes.
With the roasts in the oven on low, she turned her attention to getting breakfast items ready. She had lots of bacon to be laid out, cheese to be sliced, and sausage to be cooked. As she turned around, Stefan walked in too.
She crowed. “Yes! It’ll almost seem like it’s normal again,” she said. “With three of you out, now two back, it’ll be like a holiday.”
They just laughed at her. “You could take the day off,” one of them said.
“Well, if all three of you were back on today,” she said, “I might do that, but I really don’t trust that just yet.”
“Trust what?” they asked, with feigned innocence.
She smiled at them. “Trust that it’ll all work out. I want to make sure we’ve got lots of staff here,” she said. “We’re behind on our desserts. We even had to cut back to two choices every day.”
“I bet nobody noticed either,” Stefan said.
“Maybe they didn’t,” she said, “but I did.”
They just nodded because nobody in that kitchen was anywhere near as fanatical as she was when it came to the quantity of what she needed. But that’s the way it was, and, with them back at work, she wanted to make sure that everything was ready and that the deliveries were on track. Then she made herself a pot of coffee and grabbed a cup. When she realized what time it was, she grabbed a second cup and walked to Keith’s room. His door was open, and his light was on, but he looked up at her in surprise.
“I wondered what was up with you,” he said. “I haven’t seen you in days.”
She nodded, walked over with two cups in her hands, and placed one for him on the nearby night stand. “I had three guys out sick at once,” she said, wiping her fluffy hair off her forehead. “I’ll drink this coffee, and then I’m heading back to my place for a couple hours.”
“Ouch. Three gone at once sounds pretty rough.”
“We all have to pitch in and do the job,” she said. “It can just make for a really tough time of it when it goes on that long.”
“Yeah, I would think so,” he said. “Are they all back now?”
“Well, two are for sure,” she said, “and I’m hoping the third one will too, but I haven’t seen him yet, since he doesn’t normally show up for another hour.”
“Perfect,” he said. “Sit down and rest a bit.”
She smiled with a nod. “That’s why I brought two cups with me.”
He laughed. “Well, I wondered if you were making up for having missed out on a couple days.”
“Well, I was hoping you’d understand that, if I was here, I was here, and, if I wasn’t here, it’s because I couldn’t make it.”
“Exactly,” he said with a smile.
She studied his face. “You looked pretty well rested.”
“I did a bit too much, and we backed off some of the workouts, so, if I’m looking a bit rested, it’s because I’m not doing as much now because I overdid it earlier,” he confessed.
“Hey, there’s worse ways to do something wrong,” she said. “It seems like you’re quite a bit happier right now though.” As a matter of fact, he looked more settled, calmer, and the pain didn’t appear to be twisting his insides up the way it was before. He just looked more at peace with himself all the way around.
“I’m feeling better,” he said, “and seeing progress that I hadn’t really expected to see. I’m not completely out of the weird moodiness, but I am feeling better as I look forward.”
“Look forward to what?”
“To whatever comes after this,” he said. “For the longest time I could only see this. And now I realize there’s so much more.”
“There is, indeed,” she said, “and I’m glad that you can finally see something after that. What about your sister?”
“Well, I went down to the vet’s office,” he said with a bright smile. “They had dogs and cats and a huge macaw that was just gorgeous.” He smiled and shook his head. “I hadn’t realized how colorful my sister’s life was.”
“Isn’t it nice to see what she created for herself?” Ilse said.
“It is, indeed. I’ve never seen her work, and it’s not what I thought. You know? When you think vet tech, I figured, surgery, helping the vet, taking temperatures and changing dressings and such, and she does that too, but she also bathes the animals, cleans their cages. It’s not what I thought she would be doing, yet she loves every minute of it.”
“Well, I think it’s a very unusual place here,” she said, “not just for the men and women whom we have working there but also because of the vet clinic being here as part of Hathaway House.”
“Agreed. I met Racer, and a cat named Thomas,” he said with a big smile. “It was just nice to grab a cat and hold it.”
“A cat would let you do that?” She shook her head. “I’m more of a dog person but that rabbit? Man, if I had room for him, I’d take him home in a heartbeat.”
“He’s pretty darn big,” Keith said. “If you had a fence, you’d probably be fine. But, if you have a dog around, you’ve got to make sure it’s one that gets along with the rabbit because I’m not sure, if they went toe to toe, who would win the fight.”
She chuckled. “You’d always assume the dog would, but those rabbits have pretty vicious back legs.”
“This guy’s back legs are huge paddles,” he said, “so I don’t know who would win.”
“Exactly.” When her coffee was gone, she looked at it regretfully. “I should have brought a flask with me.”
“That just makes you sound like a coffee addict,” he teased.
“Well, I’m definitely addicted to something,” she said. “I just don’t know if it’s good or bad yet.”
And, on that note, she stood, gave him a small wave, a smile, and walked out.
What did she mean, she was addicted to something? Keith racked his brain, with the usual addictions coming to mind. He’d never seen her with an alcoholic drink, but then she was on the clock here. He didn’t get the sense that she smoked—even cigarettes—so he doubted she used recreational drugs. She was addicted to coffee, of course, but then so was he. More than that, he was addicted to her visits.
The last few days he’d felt bereft, wondering what was going on with her, but then had heard from Dennis that the kitchen was under siege with so many people out sick, and Keith figured that either she was one of the sick or she was just working constantly, trying to keep up with her kitchen. And that had to be tough, since clearly she was already dedicated, arriving first thing in the morning, staying until everybody else was gone. The fact that she lived on the property and had access to go home and have a midday break helped too, but it said much about her life, that she was here cooking all the time. It appeared that she didn’t have a lot of time for a life outside of her work. And that was something he worried about. If he were to leave, how would he maintain a relationship with her if she was always working? Surely chefs typically had morning shifts or evening shifts, didn’t they?