About Herbs de Provence
by Jenne Jones
86 pages / 19100 words
ISBN: 978-1-61040-031-2
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html, lit, Adobe and Sony optimized pdf, prc, epub
Chef Harry Whelan spends most of the year traveling from country to
country, learning new dishes. He always comes home to San Francisco, to his
friends and family, including Dix Alexander and the boy Dix raised,
Nicholas.
Harry returns from his latest wanderings to find that Nicholas, has gone
from shy and sullen teenager, to a confident, attractive young man. They
discover a mutual love of the dishes of Provence and the town where Nicholas
was born and Harry spent a very happy year, Saignon. Harry and Nicholas
begin a passionate affair, but Harry is convinced he can never compete with
Nicholas’s idolizing of Dix anymore than he can stop his own need to wander.
They’re both searching for home, whether Provence or San Francisco, but
maybe they just need to find it in each other.
Sample
"You want to get to know me better? It's pretty simple.
Come cook in my kitchen. You'll get to know me better than you ever wanted
to."
"I would love to cook in your kitchen, but Dix is right, I'm not much of a
cook." Nicholas leaned back against the pillows again. "I don't want to know
you just as a chef, anyway."
Harry folded his arms behind his head and smiled at the ceiling. "So what do
you want to know me as?"
"You're going to make me say it, aren't you?"
"Hell, yes. I'm enjoying this. You realize how long it's been since someone
has tried to seduce me? 'Cause that's what you're doing, Nicky."
Nicholas rolled on top of him and Harry held his shoulders, startled. "I
want to hear your stories. I want to taste your cooking. I want you to help
me impress Dix. I want to know who you are, Harry Whelan."
"You know who I am." He ran his fingers over Nicholas's shoulders, strong
under his striped t-shirt.
"Then I want to know more."
He smiled and moved off Harry's body, and looked at him with those big eyes
from under his dark chestnut brows as he plucked at a fold in Harry's jeans.
Harry said, "I'm not Dixon. I'm not rich or famous, I don't have famous
friends -- except Dix," he added with a slight smile, and Nicholas laughed.
"So now I know what you're not. You're also not a homebody. You're restless.
You like new things and new places and new people." He held out his hands.
"I'm new. Sort of. You don't know who I am, either."
"I know you better than you think," Harry said. "I remember seeing you doing
homework in the kitchen at Luberon, for instance. And I remember you at
Corinne and Dutch's wedding, all elbows and knees in that suit that didn't
fit you. Your wrists stuck out of your sleeves."
"I'd had a growth spurt since we bought that suit." They looked at each
other, neither of them moving, and Nicholas said, "Can I show you something?
You'll probably laugh."
"You can show me anything," Harry said. Nicholas smiled and reached behind
him to open a drawer on the white night table beside his bed. He handed
Nicholas a jar of herbs de Provence. Harry said slowly, "I don't get it."
"I sniff it like incense when I get homesick," Nicholas said, gaze
skittering off for a moment. "Ridiculous, isn't it? I've lived in the city
since I was tiny but I still think of Saignon as home."
"So why not move there? There may not be much work for someone with an MBA
in a small town like that, but if you love it --"
"I do love it," Nicholas said. "But … you know when you have a favorite dish
and then you eat it every day?"
Harry nodded. "It stops being your favorite dish."
"Exactly. I’ll live in Saignon someday, but not yet."