His salt-and-pepper hair was tied back in a stubby pony tail, and his face, usually scowling, was as big as the rest of him, scored with lines around his light green eyes.

His nose, broken several times in the brawls he seemed so proud of, was mashed and crooked. His skin was brown, and leathery as an old saddle.

And his language... Well, Coco didn't consider herself a prude, but she was, after all, a lady.

But the man could cook. It was his only redeeming quality.

As Dutch worked at the stove, she supervised the two line chefs. The specials tonight were her New England fish stew and stuffed trout a la frangaise.

Everything

appeared to be in order.

Mr. Van Horne,

she began, in a tone that never failed to put his back up.

You will

be in charge while I'm downstairs. I don't foresee any problems, but should any arise, I'll be in the family dining room.

He cast one of his sneering looks over his shoulder. Woman was all slicked up tonight, like she was going to some opera or something, he thought. All red silk and pearls. He wanted to snort, but knew her damned perfume would interfere with the pleasure he gained from the smell of his curried rice.

I cooked for three hundred men,

he said in his raspy, sandpaper-edged voice, I

can deal with a cou-.ple dozen pasty-faced tourists.

Our guests,

she said between her teeth,

may be slightly more discriminating than sailors trapped on some rusty boat.

One of the busboys swung through, carrying plates. Dutch's eyes zeroed in on one that still held half an entree. On his