The Texan's Second Chance. Allie Pleiter
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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