Grace arrived at noon, adding to his already growing aggravated mood. He didn’t understand why he felt the way he did around her. He was over her lying about her age and she’d passed the drug screening and background with flying colors. Yet, being around her made him feel anxious.

Tired of going over numbers, Sal decided to walk out and check on things in the dining room. He saw Grace peeking into the kitchen. He smiled when he realized she appeared to be trying to be sneaky. He took slow, quiet footsteps so she wouldn’t hear him. She turned and saw him when he was only a few feet away and flinched. Sal had to stifle a laugh.

“I was just uh…”

“Checking out the kitchen?

“Well, yeah, I wanted to…”

“C’mon I’ll show you.” He settled for a big smile instead of laughing. She was already blushing. “You haven’t had a chance to acquaint yourself with the restaurant. There’s a lot you haven’t seen.”

She followed him through the busy kitchen. Her caught-with-a-hand-in-the-cookie-jar expression, was now replaced with a look of pure awe. Her eyes opened wider with everything he showed her. Seeing how excited she got over something as simple as a kitchen was more than amusing. Sal couldn’t wipe the smile off his own face.

The new stockroom had been added the previous year when they bought the place next door and expanded the restaurant. When they got to it, he stopped and his eyes met hers. “You ready for this?”

She nodded, reminding him of his younger brothers when they were kids and he showed them a new card trick or new stunt on his bike. They were always so easily impressed. He slid the door open and motioned for her to go in first.

Sal had a lot to do with the design. The old stock room was all over the place. To Sal, organization was key, but it also had to look good. Like the rest of the restaurant, it was designed to feel old like the Mexican homes in the old country. The wood used for the shelves was new but painted so that it gave them a weathered look, as were the containers of spices. They had every spice in there needed for Mexican cuisine. Even the floors had been painted with a texture that made if feel as if they were standing on dirt.

He also made sure there were sitting areas and an old collapsible wooden cot like the ones he and his brothers would sleep in when they visited their grandfather’s ranch in Mexico as kids. It was really meant to give the room an even more authentic look but Pablo, one of the older cooks that still came in a few times a week, was known to nap on it.

Grace walked around taking it all in—those eyes of hers practically twinkled. Her fingers caressed the antique looking barrels that contained rice, and beans as if she were touching a work of art. She turned back to him. “This is amazing.”

It was the strangest thing. Every time he looked at her, he noticed something new he hadn’t noticed about her before, like her perfectly manicured nails when she caressed the barrels. Instinctively, his eyes were on her ring finger. No engagement ring, but that didn’t mean anything. She could just take it off for fear of it falling off while she worked.

He frowned annoyed at himself that his thoughts would even go there. She caught him frowning which only irritated him further. “This is relatively new. We added this whole side of the restaurant last year.

“The whole restaurant is nice but this…” she glanced around, “this is special because it’s like a treat for the employees.”

“Everyone was real excited about it when it was unveiled. I wasn’t really expecting that. I just wanted something more organized then the one we had before and I don’t like employees feeling like this is just a place of work. My parents always made it a point to make the employees feel at home, like they were family. So I wanted even the stockroom to feel homey.” He looked around. “Something they’d enjoy every time they came to work.”

“I will.” She smiled at him, making him squeeze the doorway. “I heard you’re planning on opening more restaurants. How many?”

Sal hadn’t really thought of an exact number. He just always thought more. “I dunno. Maybe four, five more?”

“Really? Why so many?” She didn’t wait for him to respond; she was still taking in the old wooden canisters for the different spices. “Personally, I would want just one. I’d live to perfect it. It would be my baby.” She turned to look at him. “But then there are three of you and you have a sister right?”

“Yeah, but she’s a writer. She writes for a magazine and she’s working on a novel. She’ s content with just coming in and working a few days out of the week. She’s not looking to run her own restaurant.”

Grace tilted her head. “So then three restaurants for three brothers would seem like the perfect number to me.” She shrugged. “But that’s me. I don’t usually think on such a grand scale like a lot of people do. My desires out of life are far more simple than most.”

Sal thought about explaining that it wasn’t just about the number of restaurants. It was his way of paying homage to his parents and grandfather. He wanted the Moreno name to be respected and honored for the hard work his father had put in for so many years—pay him back and show him that his extended education had been worth it. But he didn’t think it was a good idea to get into all of that now.

“Is that what your plans are? To open your own restaurant?”

Her face tinged slightly with color and she nodded. “Someday. It doesn’t have to be all this. I just want my own little restaurant where I can do what I love best—cook like my grandmother taught me.”