Read the book: «The Texan's Second Chance»

Chapter One

Jana Powers stared at the truck in front of her. “It’s blue.”

Her new boss, Witt Buckton, didn’t seem to especially mind. “Yes, it is.”

Jana pushed up her sleeves. She’d tried to dress professionally for this first meeting with her supervisor, wearing her chef’s coat, but even in October Austin was still too warm for it. Texas could still hit ninety degrees on a daily basis in the fall. “No, I mean it’s really blue.” The food truck was, in fact, an alarmingly bright turquoise. Brilliantly blue. One might accurately say “loud.” Uh-oh. Was Witt Buckton one of “those” kinds of restaurant owners—the kind who put public relations above everything and cared more about gimmicks than quality?

Keep an open mind. Ellie said this guy was smart and nice. Then again, this guy was Ellie’s cousin, and Ellie was really more colleague than friend.

She stared at the vividly hued truck again. From a marketing standpoint, the color might make sense—it certainly stood out, and was memorable—but who would want to eat in a glow that intense? She might have to don sunglasses just to work inside the thing. Please, don’t let it be that color on the inside.

“It’s a marketing thing.” Jana was glad to note a touch of apology in Witt’s voice that hinted maybe his priorities weren’t totally skewed toward PR. “The color is a trademark for the Blue Thorn Ranch.”

Jana looked at him. He was part of the Buckton family—the clan who had owned the Blue Thorn Ranch for several generations and to which her former coworker Ellie belonged—but he was a cousin, not one of the immediate family. Still, a long look allowed her to connect the dots almost instantly. Ellie was a Buckton, and her eyes were the same brilliant turquoise as Witt’s. If those eyes were a family trait, then she could understand why the ranch had adopted that shade as its trademark. “I get it,” she offered. “But—” here she applied her friendliest smile “—don’t you think you went a bit overboard on the paint job?”

Oops. Witt’s eyes went a touch cold, and Jana fought the urge to whack her own forehead. Not everyone needs to hear every opinion you’ve got. Especially not your new boss. Remember how much you want this job?

“I told you to meet me at the blue truck,” Witt said in a crisp, mildly annoyed tone. He tucked his hands in his pockets. “Tell me, did you have any trouble finding the blue truck?”

He had her there—she saw it from three blocks away. “No.”

“My point exactly. To patronize a food truck—a mobile enterprise by definition—you have to be able to find it, don’t you?

Jana swallowed her distaste for people who used business buzzwords like enterprise.

“True, but a color never sold a hamburger or a steak sandwich. Food is what attracts customers. Good, quality food.” Good, quality food was what Jana did best. Let all the fancy chefs have their fusion cuisines and trendy menus. Jana’s passion—why God put her on the earth, as far as she was concerned—was comfort food. The ordinary, memory-laden food people turned to when a day had gone bad or a boyfriend had split or life had kicked them in the teeth some other way. Supposedly, that was why the Bucktons had hired her. If it wasn’t, best to settle that right now. “You’re not expecting adventure-burgers out of me, are you?”

That popped his turquoise eyes wide. “Adventure-burgers?”

Jana started walking toward the truck, eager to confirm that her new workspace wasn’t screaming blue on the inside as well as the outside. “You know what I mean. Bison ranches like the Blue Thorn are pretty unusual, which means the bison meat from the ranch is unique enough on its own. I’m not going to invent crazy toppings or obscure ingredients just to draw attention. That’s not what I do.”

“And that’s not what we want,” Witt assured her. “Blue Thorn produces high-quality, delicious meat that we want to share with the community by way of this food truck. Nobody wants you to hide it under Ugandan spotted goat curd or anything like that.”

She eyed him, surprised he could name an ingredient she’d never heard of.

“Okay, I made that one up,” he admitted. “But you get the point.” He produced a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the back of the truck. Jana bit back a comment about the vehicle being even brighter at close range. I won’t need coffee to wake up—I’ll just stare at this for thirty seconds, she mused to herself. She braced herself as her new boss pulled open the doors...

To reveal a blessedly white interior, brand spanking new and immaculately clean. “Wow,” Jana gasped involuntarily, struck—in the best possible way—by the perfectness of it all. Her own kitchen. It didn’t matter one bit that it was small, mobile and wrapped in a neon aqua paint job. This would be her kitchen, where she finally got to call the shots. A fresh start she very much needed. The thrill of it sparkled all the way out to Jana’s fingertips as she touched the gleaming counter.

“Ellie made sure the basics were here, but we’re going to go to the restaurant supply place this afternoon so you can pick out whatever else you need.”

Free rein in the restaurant supply store? Jana could think of few things that would make her happier. “Absolutely fine by me.” Her hand went involuntarily to the messenger bag at her side, which not only held the usual purse contents, but her chef’s knife set—the pride, joy and personal treasure of anyone who cooked for a living. The knives seemed ready to climb out of her bag and spread themselves on the counter. She looked back at Witt, hoping the eagerness thumping in her chest showed in her eyes to make up for her earlier crack about the color. “You’re off to a good start. This is a really good setup.”

“I thought so.” Witt pulled open the refrigerator under the back counter to reveal several packets wrapped in brown paper. “Today we’ll get to try her out. I want to be the one to eat the first burger made in this truck.”

The demand bugged her. Did he expect her to audition for a job she already had? “I have cooked for Ellie and Gunner, you know.” Surely he knew Ellie’s brother Gunner—the current owner of the Blue Thorn Ranch, and the one who had made the decision a few years ago to switch the ranch from cattle to bison—had approved her as chef two weeks ago. Witt had been called out of town that night, which was why today was the first day she met her new immediate boss.

Witt walked around the truck, opening empty cabinets and drawers. “I know, and I’m sorry I missed that. There’s no question you’re already hired. This is more of an...indulgence.” His face tightened just the slightest bit. “You don’t have to do a ton of stuff to the kitchen before you can cook in it, right?”

As confident as he’d been before, defending the decision to paint the truck blue, that’s how uncertain he sounded now. He really didn’t have a clue about what was involved in running a kitchen, did he? Jana had worked for too many restaurant owners who thought they knew everything about cooking but were really only checkbooks. Lots of owners pretended at expertise and talent, getting in the way of good cooking when all they really needed to do was to play host. Management had its place, but so did cooking. Right now Jana still wasn’t sure Witt Buckton recognized the difference.

You don’t want to go back to Atlanta. Make this work. Jana pulled her knife kit from her bag and set it on the counter, the act feeling like a blessing of the space. “I won’t need too much at first.”

“You don’t think it’s weird that I want to give the truck a private inauguration?” His face softened from its “I’m in charge” expression that had dug under her skin. Now it showed just a bit of the anxiety she was already fighting.

He’s not like Ronnie. This business seemed to have heart, and heart was what Jana loved most in cooking. Maybe this gig wouldn’t be bad after all. “Nah. I think I’d do the same thing.”

“You will, technically. You didn’t think I was going to make you just sit there and feed me, did you?”

Actually, that’s exactly what she’d assumed.

“No,” he corrected, “We’re going to eat a meal together, you and I.”

Jana had to admit, she liked what his eyes did when he said that. He wasn’t wearing a suit—quite the contrary, Witt Buckton wore brown jeans and a light blue chambray shirt that did un-boss-like things to his eyes. His shirt was crisply ironed, but his jeans and boots were more down-home than corner office.

“Oh, wait,” he said as he reached into one of the upper cabinets and pulled out a package. “This first. Ellie said you ought to have one of these, and it couldn’t be just any old one.”

Jana pulled open the package he handed to her. What unfolded out of the wrappings was the nicest, most stylish chef’s coat Jana had ever seen. Made of a mercifully light fabric—perfect for the hot, tight confines of a food truck—the coat had three-quarter-length sleeves with a clever row of off-center buttons. Turquoise piping, shoulder panels, buttons and collar gave it just enough of what she now interpreted as the Blue Thorn signature color.

Best of all, the coat wasn’t the usual boxy cut, but fitted to a woman’s physique. It was, by all accounts, pretty. Feminine, yet serious, right down to the “Chef Jana” embroidered above the stylized “BT” that was the Blue Thorn logo.

“It’s fabulous,” she exclaimed, meaning it. “Really, you have no idea. Some of these things can be real sacks. I was expecting an apron or something, but this...” She touched it again, a little bit stunned. She hadn’t expected anything like this, especially from a setup as small as Blue Thorn seemed to be. “Wow.”

“Why would you expect an apron? Chefs don’t wear aprons. Chefs wear coats. You’re not just any old food server, Jana. You’re going to be the force behind Blue Thorn Burgers. You will be the only face most people ever associate with everything we’re trying to do.”

Jana had learned to be suspicious of guys who laid it on quite so thick. Still, it was better than being dismissed as just the hands holding the spatula. “I’m up for it. I’ll build you a following so loyal you’ll have to start buses running out to the ranch for tours.”

He laughed. “Ellie would probably love that. Gunner, not so much.” Witt had a nice laugh that made her laugh, as well. “By the way, Ellie said she will deck you out in knitted scarves, hats and fingerless mitts—whatever those are—to match if the weather gets too chilly in here.”

Hardly a surprise there—Ellie was known for her love of knitting. She’d even turned her hobby into a new career. When they’d first met, Ellie had been working in marketing for a restaurant chain in Atlanta, but it was well-known that she always had a knitting project in her bag. Now that she was settled back in Texas, she worked part time for the Austin Restaurateurs Association, and she also ran a newly developed yarn business for the ranch, branding and marketing knitting yarn made out of bison hair.

Witt fiddled with a stove knob. “Can’t really picture it getting cold enough to need a scarf in here. We’re more likely to have the opposite problem. It’s a good thing we’ve got almost a year to learn how to cope with how this place will swelter starting in May. What do you say we fire up the engine so we can turn on the air-conditioning?” Buckton held up the keys—on a little buffalo-shaped key chain, no less. “You got your commercial license so you’re cleared to drive this, right?”

Jana stowed her bag in a little compartment behind the driver’s seat and slipped behind the wheel. “Yes, Ellie told me to take care of that as soon as I moved here.” She looked at her boss. “How’d you get it here?”

He grinned. “I got a commercial license, too. I figured it was best if we had at least one person from the company brass who could drive this thing.”

So this “company brass” wasn’t afraid to get hands-on. She remembered Ellie saying his branch of the family were ranchers as well, so maybe that wasn’t so hard to believe.

Jana twisted the key in the ignition, the truck chugging to life with a solid sound. The wheel felt satisfying in her hands. From inside, she could almost forget the truck’s circus color and feel powerful at the helm. She noticed—gladly—that he hadn’t insisted on driving. When will you stop thinking all men behave the way Ronnie did? “I take it we’re going to Allen?” she called over her shoulder. The southern part of Austin had one of the best restaurant supply shops in the area. Anyone who cared enough to get that sharp a chef’s coat knew enough to be shopping at Allen Restaurant Supply. She’d been known to pore over their website for entertainment.

“Where else?”

Jana smiled, feeling the warmth of it spread right down her throat like a cup of the most excellent coffee on a chilly morning. “Well, then, let’s go shopping.”

* * *

What were you expecting?

Witt stared at the feisty brunette behind the wheel. Whatever he’d been expecting, Jana Powers wasn’t it. She was...feminine. He felt ashamed that his cowboy sensibilities had imagined that a burger-food-truck chef ought to be a bit rougher around the edges, and generally much less...what? He couldn’t produce the correct adjective, and maybe that was for the best. Witt got the distinct impression that voicing the thoughts currently buzzing in his head might earn him a swift kick in the shins from his new chef. Jana was what Gran would most definitely call a spitfire.

Jana was different, all right. Would that be good? Would the burger crowd—something he considered a decidedly male customer base—go for someone like her? Why not? Guys like burgers. Guys like girls. A girl—a woman—who could cook a great burger? He couldn’t have planned a better public relations platform if he’d tried.

In the restaurant supply store, Jana came positively alive with energy and purpose. “These,” she said, hoisting up a pair of frying pans with such a look of triumph that it was as if they were gold-medal trophies, “are the ones we need. They cost a bit more, but they’re worth it.” He could tell it was a test—would he spring for the good stuff or cut corners?

He nodded. “If that’s what you need.”

“You want simple food exquisitely done, right?”

He chose her term. “You got it. No adventure-burgers.”

Jana’s face broke into an electric smile. Honestly, she looked half kid in a candy store, half rock star spinning drumsticks as she gave the pair of pans a celebratory twirl before placing them in the cart he was pushing through the aisles. Her thick, curly brown hair bounced around her face as she selected implements, tubs of condiments and other supplies. Sure, he was watching funds fly out of the company checkbook, but he had to admit it was rather fun.

“I wonder if we can get those custom made,” Witt ventured as Jana placed a tall stack of paper serving baskets into the cart. “You know, in blue with our name on them?”

The disapproving nose-wrinkle that had accompanied her earlier crack about the truck’s paint job returned. “I wouldn’t.”

Well, points for honesty. “Too much?”

She sat back on one hip, eyeing boxes of plastic forks, knives and spoons. “It’s not bad idea in and of itself—the visual of someone enjoying their burger with your logo close by is a good tactic. But you need to be careful with the color. Studies have shown that blue serving ware can actually be an appetite suppressant.”

She really did know her stuff. “Now there’s something they don’t teach you in business school.”

“The stuff next to the food?” she continued. “That ought to be white—or even yellow. Yellow makes food exciting and memorable.” With that, she picked up a case of lemon yellow napkins. “Have you got a business card?”

“What?”

“A Blue Thorn business card. They’re screaming blue, right?”

Screaming? Witt fished one—yes, definitely blue—business card out of his wallet and handed it to her. It occurred to him that he had not yet had any made for Jana. “Do chefs need business cards?”

“Not this chef. The coat’s a perfect touch, but I don’t need too many of the other bells and whistles. I don’t want them, actually. My food does my networking for me.” She eyed him. “Only I expect you’ve got an extensive marketing plan all laid out, don’t you?”

He did—three versions. Witt had run his family’s wholesale meat business—Star Beef—for years before his sister Mary’s new husband had come in and taken over. That branch of the family business may not need him anymore, but he was ready to show what he could do with this branch.

He’d done his research, and he knew the basics of how food trucks operated. A loyal customer base following the truck’s location was key to success. A surprisingly pretty chef wouldn’t hurt that effort, either. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

Jana held the business card up next to the yellow napkins. Even Witt could see that the blue and yellow went together well. The black and turquoise of the card popped against the yellow, while the yellow balanced out the bright hue of the blue card. “What do you think?” she said, squinting one eye in artistic consideration.

“I like it.”

She raised a dark eyebrow. “Do we need to get approval from the rest of the company brass?”

“Huh?”

“Can I choose yellow napkins on my own or is that a corporate culture decision?”

This felt like another test as to how much artistic freedom she would have with the truck. He’d best step with care.

He made his voice dramatically formal. “Speaking as one-third of the executive branch, I’d say we can grant you authority on paper products.”

Jana grunted as if she didn’t find the joke as amusing as he did. After a sideways glance, she gave the color combination one final assessment and then put three more cases of yellow napkins in the cart. She put her hands on her hips. “That’s it for basic supplies. Now let’s get some ingredients.”

Watching Jana browse through the grocery section of the store was just plain fun. She inspected every tomato and discarded two types of buns before choosing a third. “These are just for now, naturally. We’ll want to choose a bakery vendor and get most of our produce from the market, that sort of thing.”

“Of course,” he said, only half understanding what she meant. He hadn’t really thought about where cooks got their ingredients. While he had plenty of experience selling beef, it had always been in bulk quantities to major vendors, not smaller sales to individuals. But like other things, that was changing now that he was at Blue Thorn. Witt was already well underway firing up the Blue Thorn Ranch Store back in Martins Gap. While established in the wholesale business, Witt planned to have the Blue Thorn brand growing fast in local retail, and online, as well as expanding the wholesale market. His idea for a food truck presence selling bison burgers in downtown Austin was going to take everything to the next level. Sure, he was moving fast, but fast was his natural speed. Based on Jana’s passion for basic but exceptional food, she was definitely the right chef for the job.

Back on the truck, the tiny space seemed to come alive once the supplies and ingredients were stowed on board. “Up until now, it just looked like a vehicle,” he said as he tucked the aforementioned yellow napkins into the cabinet Jana selected. “All of a sudden, it looks like a restaurant.”

Jana pulled an apron out of her messenger bag and spread her knife kit on the counter. With gleaming eyes, she said, “Now let’s see if she acts like a restaurant. Regular burger or cheeseburger?”

Music to any hungry man’s ears. “I like them both. You pick.”

She leaned over to the below-counter fridge, pulling out the packets of ground bison meat and running her hands over the three different kinds of cheeses she’d purchased before settling on the sharp cheddar. “Cheese. With grilled onions. And a special fix or two of my very own. Delicious,” she added with something close to a wink, “but not adventurous.”

“No Ugandan spotted goat curd?”

“Not on your life.” She pulled out an onion and the monstrous brick of butter they’d purchased. With deft fingers, she turned the dial on the grill, changing the setting twice over the next two minutes. Then whatever she was waiting for seemed to arrive, and she tossed a spoonful of water on the grill.

The smile on her face at the sizzling sound matched the glow in his chest. It had begun.

Jana took a pair of burgers out of the packet, seasoned them with what could only be called a dramatic flourish, and set them on the grill. The scent that filled the truck was nothing short of sublime.

“Get ready, boss. I’m about to grill your socks off.”

Watching her work, watching her move and test and turn and putter around the tiny kitchen, Witt believed her.