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She entered the dining room. Passed the bar. Walked into the kitchen. She shook the hand of Jarrod Levi, Brown Butter's head chef. She tried not to notice his unruly dark curls tied back into a messy bun. The full sleeve of tattoos on his left arm. His angular jaw and dark eyes.

She tried not to notice the handful of sexist comments he dropped during her interview.

"So," Jarrod said as he led them back out to the dining room and motioned for her to sit on a barstool. "Why do you want to work here?"

Half an hour later, Jarrod offered her the role of Brown Butter's sous chef. His second-in-command. During their interview, he had asked why she'd been fired from her last job, and she gave him an appropriately self-deprecating answer. Told him she hadn't been ready for the responsibility of a head chef role. That she'd gotten in over her head. That to do that job—his job—you needed a skill set she simply didn't have. Jarrod had liked that answer. He hadn't said why the previous sous chef at Brown Butter had left, but that didn't matter to Effie. All she needed was a job for the summer. Despite an angry inner voice that shouted at her to run away immediately, run back to California, or France, or Bali, or literally anywhere else in the world, Effie accepted his offer. Because, despite telling Jarrod she was in it for the long haul, Effie Olsen had no plans to stick around. All she had to do was survive until September and save enough money to leave Alder Isle.

Again. For good.

Fifteen minutes after the interview (currently-in-a-strange-bed Effie cursed quietly at the memory), they were drinking at Son of a Wharf, a shack by Pine Cove that would never pass health code but that had cheap, cold beer and greasy burgers. He was telling her about leaving his job at Eleven Madison Park in Manhattan for Brown Butter a few years ago. She was drinking a beer so fast, she felt woozy.

An hour after that, Effie and Jarrod were taking shots of Jameson and he was laughing loudly. She couldn't seem to stop touching his arm.

An hour after that, his hand was on her bare knee.

Fifteen minutes later, she was shrieking, "MORTON IS TOO GODDAMN SALTY!" and he was slamming his fist on the table, shouting back, "FUUUUCKING THANK YOU! DIAMOND KOSHER SALT OR NOTHING AT ALL!"

It was a little thing, a chef thing. A thing nobody else would have gotten.

And it got Effie.

Effie had known from the start that she wanted nothing to do with Jarrod, but in her beer-and-whiskey haze she felt oddly comforted by him. By the fact he knew which kind of salt was the good stuff. By the fact that no one really understood line cooks...except other line cooks.

Five seconds later, he was kissing her. She was kissing him. It was hard and intense, and they both tasted like Pabst Blue Ribbon. She was twisting her fingers into his bun, yanking the elastic loose. She wanted her hands in his hair; wanted to get messy and feel wild. He was grabbing her rear, pulling her closer. He was throwing a wad of bills onto the table. She was searching her shoulder bag for an Altoid. He was reaching for her hand, she was squeezing his hand back, they were both stumbling through the dark, late-night streets to the restaurant.

Five minutes later, he was unlocking the back door and leading Effie up the stairs to his apartment above Brown Butter.

And four hours and fifty-nine minutes after that, Effie was waking up sweaty, with an aching skull and hollow heart, in his bed.

CHAPTER TWO

From the way the light pooled on the mattress and warmed her belly, Effie could tell she was facing the window, away from Jarrod. She cautiously opened her eyes, keeping the rest of her body still. Don't wake up, don't wake up, please don't wake up, she silently begged him. A digital clock on the sill read 5:02. The windows were clouded with pollen and dust, and there were no curtains. She felt exposed, and flushed hot with shame as she brought her gaze to the floor. There was an empty pizza box, a six-pack of IPA with three cans missing, and a mountain of wrinkled laundry overflowing from a white plastic bin.

Clothes. Where were hers? She was wearing her denim shorts and underpants, but she was shirtless, and her white cotton bra was in a tiny heap by the door.

This was not good. But was it bad?

She couldn't remember.

Effie turned over and faced Jarrod. He was sprawled on his back, and gave a soft snore. Shitballs. He was one hundred percent her type, starting with the tattoos and man bun, and ending with the man-child tendencies toward dirty jokes and inability to clean up after himself. Well, maybe that wasn't actually her type. Effie had standards; she was just able to conveniently ignore them. Not that there had been many men over the last sixteen years. Her arms and chest burned as a red blush crept up her neck. She'd slept with a handful of other chefs, but she had never, ever gotten involved with a coworker before. Why, after years working in professional kitchens, had she slipped last night?

Sure, he was sexy in that "dangerous man" sort of way, and sure, she'd been far from sober, but still...that cocktail of conditions had never triggered such a lapse in judgment before.

Alder Isle, she thought, and pulled the sheet up under her armpits, covering her breasts. Coming back had made her feel emotional and vulnerable. It was the stupid island's fault. She immediately felt itchy and wondered at the state of Jarrod's bedding. Or maybe her body was literally rejecting her hometown, in the form of an allergic reaction.