Garlic, bay and thyme woven throughout with savory beef and bacon and the lushness of half a bottle of red wine. Best in the county for decades, and only he knew the secret. His gran had kept her recipes locked up tighter than a nun’s virtue. He’d never imagined she’d choose him to leave the old books to when she’d passed, but leave them she had. Go figure. Of course, she had made him promise to keep every last detail a secret. Not a hint of what seemed damned near alchemy jotted down in her margins was allowed to escape him on pain of death. And kept the secrets he had. Not even Nick got a look inside those old leather covers, and he’d tried. Maybe that was why she’d chosen him as her successor, Barrett thought, stirring the beef bourguignon with a shallow wooden spoon. Because she knew he could keep a secret. He and Nick hadn’t been living together as a bonded pair when the elder woman still lived, although they’d talked about it. Plenty. And maybe she’d known that, too.
