Sullivan's Yard

By Chris Quinton

Cal Beaufontaine, the son of a Creole/Cajun restaurateur, has
graduated from The Culinary Institute of America, and is starting his
career as an apprentice chef in Modesto, California. He moves into
a small apartment in what once was a warehouse for a nearby
derelict peach farm, Sullivan's Yard. His first night in the apartment,
Cal dreams of making love in his backyard beneath a peach tree in
full bloom, but can't see his lover's features. There is no peach tree
in his backyard, just weeds.
He starts work at the Alhambra, a top restaurant owned and run by
the Alvarez de Silva family, and on his first day there, Cal meets
Luis Alvarez de Silva, the Andalusian cousin and one-night-stand
expert. Cal is immediately attracted but has no intention of
becoming a notch on Luis's bedpost. Luis is as taken with Cal, and
begins a determined seduction campaign.
Cal's driving ambition to learn all he can and run his own restaurant
could be knocked off-track by his growing desire for Luis.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Quinton
• Release date: Feb 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310500817

Chris Quinton

Chris Quinton  Chris started creating stories not long after she mastered joined-up writing, somewhat to the bemusement of her parents and her English teachers. But she received plenty of encouragement. Her dad gave her an already old Everest typewriter when she was ten, and it was probably the best gift she'd ever received – until the inventions of the home-computer and the worldwide web. Chris's reading and writing interests range from historical, mystery, and paranormal, to science-fiction and fantasy, writing mostly in the male/male genre. She also writes the occasional male/female novel in the name of Chris Power. She refuses to be pigeon-holed and intends to uphold the long and honourable tradition of the Eccentric Brit to the best of her ability. In her spare time [hah!] she reads, or listens to audio books while quilting or knitting. Over the years she has been a stable lad [briefly] in a local racing stable and stud, a part-time and unpaid amateur archaeologist, a civilian clerk at her local police station and a 15th century re-enactor. She lives in a small and ancient city not far from Stonehenge in the south-west of the United Kingdom, and shares her usually chaotic home with an extended family, three dogs, a Frilled Dragon [lizard], sundry goldfish and tropicals

Book preview

SULLIVAN'S YARD

by

Chris Quinton

Copyright - Chris Quinton 2012 - 2021

Cover Design - Meredith RussellEditor - Gayle C

With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from

the Author, Chris Quinton.

Piracy is Theft

The royalties from the sale of my books helps to support my family and pay essential bills. If you like this story, please spread the word and tell others about it,

but please don't share it.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

About the Author

Bibliography

Dedication

To the Usual Suspects – as always, thank you for your support, nags, kicks in the arse,

copious amounts of tea, beer, wine, and encouragement.

You make writing even more of a pleasure.

Special thanks to Eva for the inspiration to try the Kokkinisto recipe.

Next time, I'll try the Cypriot version, using chicken *g*.

Thanks, too, go to the online friends who helped out with the Louisiana French Creole.

Chapter One

Shit. Cal sighed. First impressions weren't always right, he told himself as he gazed through the windshield of his battered Ford pickup. He already knew this wasn't the classiest part of Modesto, but the rents were cheap. The long, single story building in front of him looked like it had started out as a warehouse of some kind. Now six doors, each one a different color, faced onto the cracked asphalt of the parking lot. Matching window frames flanked the doors, the dusty panes gazing blankly at the world. This was the fourth place he'd looked at so far, with five more to go. Like its predecessors, #1 Lincoln Apartments didn't impress him.

Okay, he said aloud and climbed out of the cab. The door to the first apartment had been newly painted if the brightness of its green surface was anything to go by. It swung open and a stocky, gray-haired man walked out, grinned and waved at him.

Mr Beaufontaine, he called. Glad you could make it, and right on time! I'm Burt Mackowski, the landlord. We spoke on the phone.

Yeah. Hi. Cal pasted on a smile, his thoughts already centered on the next address on his list.

Come on in, you won't be disappointed.

Yeah, Cal thought. Right.

The door opened straight into the living room. He noticed the whiteness of the walls and ceiling and the sense of space it created first. Then came the scent of peaches. The aroma couldn't entirely mask the smell of new paint and dust, but its layer of freshness on the air made a welcome contrast. He began to smile.

Mackowski had obviously been watching home makeover TV shows, and had used a load of paint to make the place seem more appealing on the inside. Otherwise, it was unremarkable. A floor-to-ceiling shelf unit partially divided the living room from the bedroom, and a half-screen partially fenced off the tiny kitchenette. Only the bathroom was a separate entity.

Old-fashioned and solid furniture promised comfort, and when Cal investigated the bedroom, the same held true. The mattress on the queen bed looked unstained and new. A pale green roman blind covered the wide single window and it didn't seem to have been there long. The sunlight filtered through it to wash the room in a forest-like glow.

You've done a lot of work on the place, Cal said.

Mackowski winced. Yeah, well, the previous tenant didn't leave it the way he found it, he admitted. I never had any trouble before. The guy was crazy. All the other people here are good folk.

Cool, Cal said absently. He lifted the blind and peered out, then blinked in surprise. At the rear of the property, a chain-link fence surrounded a south-facing sunlit yard full of prolific young weeds. Verdant now,