The Matchstick Grill (The Feminine Mesquite Book 4)

Recipe for a hot new restaurant:1. A workaholic BBW with a hand on her hips and sass on her lips2. A know it all polar bear shifter who can't resist spicy food or spicy women3. A pinch of BDSM4. The best dang BBQ in the tricounty areaThe school year is over but it sure as heck ain't summer vacation...Herb and Alice are paying for their siblings' educations in exchange for them putting in the work to make The Feminine Mesquite, their hot sauce company, a success. They weren't joking. Their siblings come to Fallowedirt and are put to work, and that includes Cayenne 'Kai' Quincy and Basil Scoville. Their assignment: set up the first restaurant in the company's portfolio, as a way to feature their sauces. The only problem is, the only thing that Kai and Basil can agree on is that there is an undeniable attraction between them.Can Fate strike up a match between Kai and Basil? Or are they going to be left in the cold?Kai knows the people of Fallowedirt like she knows her curves, and if she knows one thing, it's that Texans love their BBQ and their BBWs, not scant plates food in weird bubbles and foam, or stick thin women. Kai shares that passion but the question is, does Basil? The Norwegian polar bear shifter doesn't know this town like she does, and his ideas are as awful as his body is alluring.He wants to give her his meat sword, literally...Nordic shifter Basil Scoville is the delta of his polar clan, but that doesn't mean he is any less of a Viking than his older siblings. After all, he is a Scoville, and he has traveled the reaches of the earth to sample its spices and its women...but he has never had anything as spicy as Kai or the cayenne garlic sauce their siblings are busy brewing. The sauce can be bottled, but can Basil bottle up his feelings for the curvy, sassy, charismatic BBW? Basil is in Texas to work, not play, but, you know what they say about all work and no play....Can they handle the heat, or do they need to get out of the kitchen?Worldly Basil can't understand how Cayenne can't appreciate his taste for the exotic. Cayenne can't get it into Basil's thick polar bear skull that the people of Bright Star County don't want wagyu beef and Iberian ham. The opening night of the restaurant seems to be a bust, but, can they salvage the company's reputation, as well as the chemistry between them? Will word of the restaurant spread like wildfire, or is it already on thin ice? Will the restaurant get a five star review, or is this relationship going to earn two big thumbs down?Please note that although this title is based on 'The Little Matchstick Girl' by Hans Christian Andersen, this fairy tale romance has a happy ending and is only related to that fairy tale thematically.