Summer Desserts

cuisine, she hadn’t done so lightly, and she hadn’t done so without the goal of perfection in mind. Perfection was still what she sought whenever she lifted a spoon.
    She’d already spent the better part of her day in the kitchen of the governor’s mansion. Other chefs fussed with soups andsauces—or each other. All of Summer’s talent was focused on the creation of the finale, the exquisite mix of tastes and textures, the overall aesthetic beauty of the bombe.
    The mold was already lined with the moist cake she’d baked, then systematically sliced into a pattern. This had been done with templates as meticulously as when an engineer designs a bridge. The mousse, a paradise of chocolate and cream, was already inside the dessert’s dome. This deceptively simple element had been chilling since early morning. Between the preparations, the mixing, making and building, Summer had been on her feet essentially that long.
    Now, she had the beginnings of her bombe on a waist-high table, with a large stainless steel bowl of crushed berries at her elbow. At her firm instructions, Chopin drifted through the kitchen speakers. The first course was already being enjoyed in the dining room. She could ignore the confusion reigning around her. She could shrug off the pressure of having her part of the meal complete and perfect at precisely the right moment. That was all routine. But as she stood there, prepared to begin the next step, her concentration was scattered.
    LaPointe, she thought with gritted teeth. Naturally it was anger that had kept her attention from being fully focused all day, the idea of having Louis LaPointe tossed in her face. It hadn’t taken Summer long to realize that Blake Cocharan had used the name on purpose. Knowing it, however, didn’t make the least bit of difference to her reaction…except perhaps that her venom was spread over two men rather than one.
    Oh, he thinks he’s very clever, Summer decided, thinking of Blake—as she had too often that week. She took three cleansing breaths as she studied the golden dome in front of her. Asking me, me , to give LaPointe a reference. Despicable French swine, she muttered silently, referring to LaPointe. As she scooped up the first berries she decided that Blake must be an equal swine even to be considering dealing with the Frenchman.
    She could remember every frustrating, annoying contact she’d had with the beady-eyed, undersized LaPointe. As she carefully coated the outside of the cake with crushed berries, Summer considered giving him a glowing recommendation. It would teach that sneaky American a lesson to find himself stuck with a pompous ass like LaPointe. While her thoughts raged, her hands were delicately smoothing the berries, rounding out and firming the shape.
    Behind her one of the assistants dropped a pan with a clatter and a bang and suffered a torrent of abuse. Neither Summer’s thoughts nor her hands faltered.
    Smug, self-assured jerk, she thought grimly of Blake. In a steady flow, she began layering rich French cream over the berries. Her face, though set in concentration, betrayed anger in the flash in her eyes. A man like him delighted in maneuvering and outmaneuvering. It showed, she thought, in that oh-so-smooth delivery, in that gloss of sophistication. She gave a disdainful little snort as she began to smooth out the cream.
    She’d rather have a man with a few rough edges than one so polished that he gleamed. She’d rather have a man who knew how to sweat and bend his back than one with manicured nails and five-hundred-dollar suits. She’d rather have a man who…
    Summer stopped smoothing the cream while her thoughtscaught up with her consciousness. Since when had she considered having any man, and why, for God’s sake, was she using Blake for comparisons? Ridiculous.
    The bombe was now a smooth white dome waiting for its coating of rich chocolate. Summer frowned at it as an assistant whisked empty bowls out of her way. She began to blend the frosting in a large mixer as two cooks argued over the thickness of the sauce for the entree.
    For that matter, her thoughts ran on, it was ridiculous how often she’d thought of him the past few days, remembering foolish details…. His eyes were almost precisely the shade of the water in the lake on her grandfather’s estate in Devon. How pleasant his voice was, deep, with that faint but unmistakable inflection of the American Northeast. How his mouth curved in one fashion when