Fearless Love by Meg Benjamin Page A

quite the same bite. MG didn’t look at her to see if she really was being kind—she’d just as soon not know.
    The lunch rush finally dwindled and stopped altogether. She emptied the bowls Darcy had been using and returned their contents to the cooler, all except for the chicken and steak, which were being moved on to other uses. She found herself hoping that was all she needed to do for the day, but it was a vain hope.
    “Lettuce.” Darcy nodded toward a plastic bag filled with leaves. “Take it to the sink and wash it. Cold water only. Then put it in the salad spinner. Then bring it to me. I’ll show you how to set up the salad plates for tomorrow.”
    By the time MG had finished, her biceps were screaming again. The salad spinner was around three times as big as the one she’d once had in her kitchen in Nashville, and it required two hands to use. Darcy had her lay out plate after plate, showed her how to arrange the greens, and bitched at her when the arrangement didn’t meet her standards.
    By three-thirty she was exhausted, crabby, and the proud creator of a cooler shelf’s-worth of salad bases, covered with plastic wrap and waiting for the whole process to begin all over again tomorrow.
    At least they’d fed her. The whole staff gathered for “family dinner,” including the waiters, waitresses, busboys and hostess. There’d been some muted grumbling when Fairley had put a plate of cold cuts and a couple of loaves of commercial bread out on the table. Apparently, they’d been used to better food before he’d taken over the sous chef job. Then Joe had arrived and replaced the cold cuts with some corn chowder and plates of heirloom tomatoes with fresh mozzarella, along with a couple of bowls of pasta. He’d given Fairley a cool look and explained that he wanted the waiters to taste the specials. Fairley had agreed quickly enough.
    When the meal was over, she’d waited for Darcy to assign her some other piece of backbreaking labor, but Darcy had headed for the staff room. MG skulked along behind her, wondering if she was supposed to wait outside or if she could be in the staff room at the same time as the cooks. It didn’t matter since Darcy emerged almost immediately, wearing a Blunt Force Trauma T-shirt and running a hand through her spiked hair. She caught sight of MG and shook her head.
    “Go home,” she said, making shooing motions with her hands. “You’re done. Breakfast staff doesn’t do dinner. We took care of all the prep already.”
    “Oh.” MG blew out a breath. “Thanks.”
    Darcy gave no sign that she’d heard. Instead, she headed out the door to the parking lot without looking back.
    Now MG stretched out on her grandfather’s lumpy couch, feeling her feet throb in time with her stress headache. She’d worked from six thirty in the morning until three thirty in the afternoon. Longer than Joe had said she would, but maybe he didn’t realize how clueless she really was about what went on in the kitchen. Then she’d filled out the paperwork that meant she was hired.
    She had no idea how long the job would last. She wasn’t sure she’d last that long herself. But god, she needed the money.
    She took a long pull on her beer, trying not to grimace at the taste. She could tolerate mediocre beer, but this was swill. Unfortunately, swill was in her price range.
    Okay, enough with the pity party. Nobody’s making you do this. You’re in it because you want to be.
    She took another swallow of beer, then rested the can against her forehead. Her choice. Her house. Her farm. Her grandfather could rest easy. Chew on that, Aunt Nedda.
    She’d managed to find an episode of Seinfeld on the ancient living room television when she heard an odd chirping sound. It took her a minute to realize it was her cell phone. It rang so seldom these days she’d almost forgotten what it sounded like.
    “Hello?”
    “MG, sugar? Is that you?”
    The voice was vaguely familiar but she couldn’t place it